Page 45 of The Forbidden Bodyguard

You don’t know that’s what Dad would’ve done, Mom. He might have wanted to leave the Teams one day.

The Navy was his life. I guess we will never know.

It was also your life, too, Mom. I can’t live mine constantly worried about whether it makes her happy. As if his death were my fault. As if I were left behind to make up for his absence.

“I’m sorry.”

I spin around and find Stella in bare feet and a pair of short pajama pants and a Coldplay sweatshirt. Christ, she looks sexy as hell, and my dick reacts appropriately.

I don’t try to hide it.

I think the time for hiding how we feel is over.

Our eyes never leave each other’s as I close the gap, stopping a foot away.

“Did he touch you?” I ask the question that’s been grating at me since I dived into the room and caught her.

“No.” Her eyes dip.

“Stella.”

She lifts her hand to her face. “He grabbed me here; that was all.”

I thought the dark smudge on her jaw was makeup, as she’d cried on the way home, but as I gently angle her face, I see it’s a bruise the size of a thumb.

“That motherfucker,” I growl.

Stella crumples against my chest, and I pull her into my arms. “I don’t know what to do.”

Jesus.

I hold her tightly, threading my fingers through her hair as my mouth presses against her forehead.

“Shh, shh it’s okay.” I try to calm her.

She sobs, clutching my shirt, and cements herself further inside my chest. To the place I keep for those I care about. How she got there, I don’t know, but if I were a romantic, I’d say it happened the first moment I met her.

That won’t keep her safe, nor change what is going on, though.

I can’t force her to stop this wedding.

She has to choose that herself.

“Hey.” I brush my hand over her forehead, encouraging her to look at me. I had every intention of telling her that we should talk. Of guiding her back into the living room and making her a drink, then talking some more.

Don’t I?

No.

Instead, her watery, vulnerable, and beautiful eyes meet mine, and I do the one thing I shouldn’t do. My mouth lowers to hers, and the dam breaks open.

Stella’s arms slide up my chest and around my neck as I force my tongue inside her hot mouth. Hungrily, we kiss as if starved for a lifetime of one another.

She’s everything I imagined as I lift her into my arms, and her legs wrap around me. I feel the heat of her against my abdomen and my cock surges, wanting inside her. I need more of her mouth and the peppermint taste of her toothpaste first.

She came to me, and I’m taking everything she’s offering.

Tomorrow we can talk and work out this mess.