“You couldn’t look less thrilled if you tried,” I murmur, snuggling back against his shoulder, returning to my crocheting. He stiffens, holding his breath, but he doesn’t pull away. “Need I remind you, people pay thousands of dollars just to meet and snap a selfie with me?”
“Doesn’t make any of this right.”
I chuckle. “Maverick Holt. The newbie. The man who puts duty above all else. The man who gives gifts he maybe shouldn’t.”
He clears his throat, face tight. “That a threat?”
“No, just an observation. An acknowledgment that there’s more to you than you’re willing to let on.”
“Maybe.” His face looks torn.
“Never sat like this with a man before,” I confess—this close, this quiet.
He balks, eyes zinging electricity.
“I somehow have trouble believing that, Ms. Love. But if you’re feeling uncomfortable?—”
He starts to rise. But I reach out, resting a hand on his muscular shoulder. “Please. Not yet. You make me feel safe. Safer than anybody ever has.”
He shifts away, but not so far that we stop touching. “That’s exactly why this shouldn’t be happening. I’m not here to take advantage of you.”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear.” My voice sounds raw, and my eyes sting again. “I’d ask for a hug, but something tells me you wouldn’t give it.”
“No.”
Cold. Resolved.
“So, I’ll take what youcangive me. Off the clock, of course.”
His hands fist, and his face tightens. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but?—”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I swear.”
His sigh comes out like a low hum, brows furrowing, eyes trying to read me.
“I need to feel safe. Just for a moment.”
“But I’m sweaty and hot. Probably smell terrible.”
“Your smell? That’s what you’re worried about?” I ask with a giggle.
“No,” he answers morosely, looking away. “I’m worried about my job. My future. Crossing a line I shouldn’t.”
The words take more from him than he’s willing to admit. His honesty, his vulnerability, make me want him even more. His shoulder is firm against my back, steady, like it could anchor me through any storm. My mind devolves, wondering what the rest of him would feel like against me.
“Just for the record, you smell like pine sap and something else … something darker, very masculine.”
He crosses his arms, grimacing. “Glad my deodorant’s to your liking.”
I snort. “If that’s what it is, then, yes.”
He inhales sharply. “We about done here?”
The words sting like rejection. But his eyes burn with something he won’t name, body stiff with restraint, not disinterest.
“Almost,” I say, smiling at the flare of his nostrils, the hunger in his gaze. I loop the soft wool around the hook, pulling it through for another dainty stitch. “Just thinking about another life and different circumstances. Maybe a man who’s not a bodyguard and a woman who’s free to choose. They have a farm together somewhere. Land stretches in all directions as far as the eye can see. Maybe toward snow-capped mountains on one side, an ancient fence line on another…”
“A creek on the other,” he adds, face brooding. “And a forest.”
