We know this townhouse is safe. We just wish it could be safer.
Farrow wouldn’t let Maximoff spend the night here if he believed the threats were critical. I wouldn’t let Jane. We’d already pack their shit up and drive them to a hotel.
But it hasn’t come to that.
Hopefully it never will.
“Thank you,” Connor says. “I’ll keep in touch.” He hangs up. Brief. To have longer conversations with Connor Cobalt, you have to be important to him.
I pocket my phone.
Floorboards creak.
I turn my head a few seconds before Jane appears. Already dressed in a long-sleeved, collared pajama top and matching pants. What some bodyguards and family call her grannie jammies —and this blue pair has images of kittens and yarn balls.
She’s cute in them.
Jane twists a towel around her wet hair, and I watch as her blue eyes dart around the bedroom.
“It’s safe,” I assure.
“Thank you.” She shuts the door behind her. “I know it’s overkill to have you check again, but…I’m…” She lets out a tight breath and wafts her cotton top away from her chest. “Do you think it’s hot in here?”
Unsaid serious things are cranking up the fucking temperature. I go to the middle of the room and tug the cord to her ceiling fan. It whirls and circulates some cool air.
“It’s not overkill to check again,” I tell her deeply. “I wanted to.”
She starts to smile. “Do you think…could you check my closet, just once more while I’m here? I think seeing you do so…it makes me feel less apprehensive.”
I’m already there. Opening the mirrored closet door, I push through some of her skirts, and I use my phone’s flashlight to examine the darker spaces and clutter.
I sense Jane crawling onto the four-poster bed. Mattress squeaking. “Can I talk or will I distract you?” she questions.
“You won’t.” It’s not the first time she’s asked me this. I glance back at Jane. “I’d rather you talk.” I’m trained to listen to comms chatter and my client and scope out a room all at the same time.
She’s quiet for a full minute. Trying to figure out what question to ask or what to say first, and I squat and check the bottom of her closet.
“I’ve noticed that you mostly wear black and your brother is often in white. Is that a stylistic choice or so other people can tell you apart?”
I open some of her old shoeboxes. “Stylistic.” I adjust my earpiece as someone on Alpha yells at another bodyguard. Nailing my eardrum. My jaw hardens, and I continue without much falter, “But when we were young, our mom dressed us in certain colors so she wouldn’t confuse us.”
I explain briefly how Banks was blue.
I was red.
Now it’s harder to wear blue without feeling like I look like my brother. Same with white, which he gravitates towards as an adult. It’s not like I never wear those colors. I have plenty of white button-downs, but most of my clothes are black and red.
“I see.” Jane has a smile to her voice. “It’s not for other people. It’s for you.”
My chest rises in a stronger breath, but I don’t falter as I search her shoeboxes. My face is still stoic. Eyes still narrowed in focus. I like how I never have to say much for her to understand, I recognize.
I nod in reply and stand up. Shutting the closet door, I turn to face her. “It’s clear.” I skim Jane, who rests against the headboard, elbow on her bent knee and chin perched on her fist. She’s gorgeous. It’d be a sin to think she’s anything short of that.
And I’ve captured most of her attention. More importantly, she’s not as uneasy. This is good.
I let go of my radio. “Want me to check anything else?”
Her curious eyes brush over my biceps, carved against my black button-down, and then trace the gold horns against my chest. “The window, possibly?”
Her bed is tucked up against the only window. I come closer, and I watch her take a shallow breath. I cradle her gaze, then rest a knee on the pink comforter and stretch over to the window. Pushing aside the cheetah-print drapes and resetting the alarm.
I’ve done this before.
I’ve also been deep inside Jane every night on this bed.
But it’s too early for that routine. This isn’t the usual hour that I sneak into her room and fuck her senseless. We have to be careful with Farrow and Maximoff awake in this townhouse, and until I take off my radio, I’m still on-duty.
Her safety comes first.
I never forget that.
Jane relaxes more. “What was your favorite class in high school?”
“P.E.”
“No hesitation,” she notes like she’s still constructing a PowerPoint about me. It’s one of the cutest things she does. “You’re scoring very high on the jock charts.” She already knows I played football all four years at a Catholic high school. The church gave Banks and me financial assistance so we could afford tuition, and in return we had to do community service hours.
I catch her staring at my ripped biceps again, and then I push up on the window. Testing the latch.
Secure.
She keeps talking. “I have a hard time picturing you as a beat-your-chest, beer-crushing jock.”
My mouth almost curves upward. “That’s because I was more like a stiff-stone-wall, beer-drinking jock.” I fix the drapes. Concealing the window, blinds already shut.
“So you were very similar to how you are now?”
“Probably close.” I briefly mention how there’d be a good chance of me becoming that chest-thumping, beer-crushing jackass if I weren’t an identical twin. Being that self-involved isn’t an option when I’m being mistaken as my brother or seen as a unit.
I lean back and drop my boot on the ground. Standing strictly next to the wooden bedpost, I ask Jane, “Were you friends with the jocks at your school?”
She untwists the towel from her hair, wavy brown strands cascading over her shoulders. “Not particularly…” Her voice tapers off, and I zone in on the way her eyes glaze in a rare faraway expression.
Which strains the air and my muscles.
My gaze strengthens on her, and my nose flares.
Something happened. In the past. When she was younger.
I don’t like getting into raw places with anyone, but I keep finding myself wanting to dig there with Jane.
How do I?
Pull the fucking trigger, Thatcher. “Did you have problems with guys on the football team?” I ask straight out.
“Hmm?” She seeks more solace in my hard gaze, her bedroom a million degrees in the silence. “Not football…I had some issues with the boy’s lacrosse team at Dalton Academy.” She pauses.
I make sure to never look away.
Her eyes glide over my strict features while she talks. “The boys were signing up for my after-school math tutoring sessions. But they had no real interest in learning derivatives.”
This isn’t public knowledge.
Or security knowledge.
We share a deeper look knowing she’s revealing something extremely personal and private.
“They’d spend the whole time asking rude questions,” she tells me. “Are you like your mom? Do you like to be held down and tied up? ”
I rake a tense hand across my jaw and mouth. My blood is boiling. They ragged on her like that because they knew her parents prefer BDSM and the public compares Jane to her mom every day.
And because they’re immature shit-fucks. Who probably feel entitled to girls. To women. To her. Like they’re toys to fuck with.
Jane continues. “Is your leather collar in your backpack? How many times have you watched your parent’s sex tape? Zero—by the way,” she says quickly. “Not even my morbid curiosity could tempt me.” Her cheeks are reddened, more angered at the memory. “The questions weren’t the worst, really.”
My gaze narrows. “Did they touch you?”
“No, no . I always told them I had a fleet of bodyguards and police on speed-dial and they’d arrive in a minute flat if anyone laid a hand on me. I think my confidence sold the lie well enough.”