Orla’s home was the tits. High ceilings and ornate light fittings. Hardwood floors everywhere except the bedrooms. Dark walls and gothic furnishings.
My favourite thing was the huge velvet couch in the living room. I’d never sat on it, but I didn’t need to park my arse to know it would make for a banging nap spot. It was half the reason I rarely came inside for more than a security check. That I’d fall asleep and miss out on the way she was looking at me right now.
Not that she’d spent the last however long since I’d been her bodyguard looking at me like that.
If she had...
Fuckin’ hell, I’d never felt more human. I watched her bend and pluck a bottle from the stash beneath the giant TV. Rum this time. She waved it at me. “There’s an army outside and you’re staying the night.”
“Facts. None of them give me hollow legs, though. Last time I tried to keep up with you I passed out at four in the afternoon.”
True story. I was a six-foot-five, four-pint wonder. Also, hangovers killed me. Like throw-up in my shoes killed me, and who had the time for that shit?
Not bodyguards to the queen.
I accepted a measure of rum half the size of hers and moved to the window, scanning the street below.
There were bikes everywhere. Enough that the coppers would probably start a round of drive-bys soon enough, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it paid to be visible.
I felt her behind me, her slim arms circling my waist, her touch a world away from Nash’s and yet the reaction in my body was exactly the same.
Heat.
Affection.
That sliver of apprehension that didn’t seem to matter so much now I’d seen real fear in Nash’s sweet gaze.
I forced myself to relax. If I couldn’t handle this, whatever it was, I had no business fuckin’ being here.
Not anymore.
You kissed them both.
Another truth, and despite my brother’s Pandora’s box prophecy coming true, I had no regrets, just a brain-melting craving formore.
I turned away from the window, keeping Orla’s arms around me. “Are you worried about him?”
“In what sense?”
“Any sense.”
Orla was close enough that she could lay her chin on my chest and gaze up at me. For a woman as fierce as her, it was cute. “I always worry about him when he’s on the road.”
Fair. But as I absorbed the answer, I realised it wasn’t really what I was asking. “He said something about his family earlier—when we were, uh, in the bunkhouse.”
Orla caught the slip. “What were you doing in the bunkhouse, Mr Halliwell?”
“Washing my hands. Nash came to find me.”
“And...?”
“Andhe’s adorable when he’s worried. I couldn’t help myself.”
“You kissed him?”
“I did. And I think he liked it, then... I don’t know. He kinda froze and freaked out a bit. Said some shit about his parents.”
Orla’s dark brows ticked up. “He talked about his parents?”
