I wrapped my arms around my waist. “No problem.You got cut helping me, after all.”
He stopped and looked me over. “I’d do it anytime.” He walked to the door between our adjoining rooms and stepped through it. He left it open like I’d asked him to. It was such aHayesthing to do. I started cleaning up the bandages, wondering if what had just happened would lead to a wound worse than the one on his arm.
Chapter Ten
Hayes
Iknocked on Luna’s door the following morning.
I hadn’t kept an eye on her to see what time she’d gone to sleep. For once, I’d forced myself not to.
Instead, I’d spent half the night staring at the ceiling, replaying everything that had just happened. I’d told her about the incident from when I’d first started in security. It was the first time I’d talked about it in awhile, except to Gray. I didn’t know what made me say it. Maybe the way she looked at me, like she actually saw me. Perhaps the way she cared about a scratch on my arm. Or maybe I needed her to understand why I couldn’t just pull her into my lap and lose myself in her touch the way I wanted to.
It had been too easy to talk to her. Too easy to let her in.
And then the kiss. Hell, that kiss had crossed every line I’d drawn in my head. I’d spent years teaching myself how to separate feelings from work. How to be the guard, not the man.One second of her lips against mine, and that had cracked wide open.
There was something about her that got to me.
The scattered way her brain worked was so different from mine. Her complete lack of a filter. The way her curly hair seemed to dance around her face. All these unique things about her that I shouldn’t be noticing but was.
And that scared the hell out of me.
Because wanting Luna meant losing control. And I’d retained rigid control ever since my client was shot a few years ago.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to push all of it down before I knocked again. “Morning, sunshine,” I said, cracking the door open.
“Go away,” she mumbled into her pillow.
I scanned the room for safety concerns out of habit. The biggest danger to Luna seemed to be Luna herself. She looked like she’d barely slept. Her comforter was half off the bed, and her laptop was discarded in the middle of the floor.
“Another late night?”
“Let me sleep for another half hour, and I’ll tell you all about it,” she deadpanned. Even half asleep, she was funny.
I glanced at my watch. I could be a good book boyfriend and let her sleep a little longer. She could get ready with remarkable speed when she wanted to.
I could see a red light blinking on the side of her laptop. It probably needed to be charged. I grabbed it and brought it to the little desk area to plug it in, shutting Luna’s door behind me.
As soon as I plugged the machine in, the screen came to life. No password, because Luna.
The wordbodyguardcaught my eye. I knew shewas supposed to write a bodyguard series, which was part of why her publishing team was pushing to keep our hashtag going.
Now I was curious, though, so I let my eyes scan the screen.
I only read for a few minutes, but it might have cost me a year of my life. The woman who choked on her coffee when an influencer even hinted that she was dating her bodyguard wrote this? The scene was sensual and hot, hinting at underlying sexual tension between a woman and her guard. Thehypotheticalway he talked about manhandling her…fuck. I just knew if I kept reading, there would be a scene of frantic animal sex.
How much had her feelings for me influenced this story?
My cock hardened at the idea. It was a fairly well-understood rule that you don’t sleep with your asset. It was unprofessional, not to mention distracting as hell. That didn’t mean I didn’t dream about it, especially after last night.
I closed the laptop before I did something stupid, like keep reading.
******
We rolled into my hometown of Valor Springs a few hours later. The publishing company had generously scheduled today off, and Valor Springs was small enough that Luna shouldn’t be mobbed if we went out in public.
I pulled up in front of Pepper’s Pie and Coffee, my favorite place to eat in town. Luna seemed to have an affinity for coffee that was 90 percent whipped cream, and I knew this place would fill her request.
