Page 93 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“When you wiped the sauce off my chin,” I said, “and you put your thumb in your mouth? I almost lost my mind.”

“You did?”

“I wanted you to kiss me. I was standing there, willing you to kiss me. And when you didn’t, I moved in, and you did, too, and I… I wasn’t sure who started it, but I thought maybe since you left, I had.”

He pushed off the wall. Not toward me. Sideways, as if the cramped room left him nowhere to go. “Gwen, I’m your⁠—”

“If you say bodyguard, I will throw this first aid kit at you.”

He stopped retreating.

“You’re exhausted,” I said. “You’re hurt. You said you care about me, and in the same breath, you apologized for kissing me. So let me be clear: I wanted that kiss.”

His jaw loosened. “But you hesitated. You knew it was a bad idea.”

“No.” I closed the rest of the distance and touched his chest. He was so solid I wanted to press my whole body against him. “I was surprised. Confused. I got too deep into my head. I was checking myself to be certain what I wanted.”

He put his hand over mine. “And?”

And? And that was the right question. The last time I let myself fall for a man I shouldn’t have, he took my heart and ran. My work, my judgment, my reputation. Me. He took me.

I swallowed hard. “I handed everything over to Lionel because I couldn’t tell the difference between red flags and green. And when we kissed, for one awful second, I worried I hadn’t learned the difference after all.”

I waited for Arthur to wrap his arms around me, to reassure me, to talk me into hopping into bed, where we could both forget the chaos around us. That was what Lionel would have done.

But Arthur didn’t.

He let me go and stepped away, giving me all the space the tiny room had to offer. “Then we stop here. You’re tired, you’ve had a horrible day, and I refuse to be another bad thing that happens to you, Gwen.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, Arthur.”

A man who would stop right there, with a desperate woman all but begging him to take her to bed? Where had he been hiding all my life?

“I forgot who I was after everything blew up with Lionel. I was trained to recognize the truth and put words to it.” Sure, it was usually for armor and weapons, but I’d screwed up so badly at authenticating the real Lionel that I doubted myself in my job, too.

“Which is exactly what you did at the archive. One mistake doesn’t change how brilliant you are.”

“And one article in a defense magazine doesn’t change how kind and generous you are.”

His brows drew down as though he meant to argue the point.

But I cut him off and kept talking. “The real you is the man with stories about a winery owner. The man who walks in the rain to keep someone else dry. The man who stands between a woman and people who want to hurt her.”

“It’s my job,” he muttered, as though it had nothing to do with who he was as a man.

That was the difference. Lionel would have used my words to get what he wanted. But Arthur? He took all the power I’d handed him and gave it straight back.

So I closed the distance myself. “Honestly, Arthur, I have wanted you since I saw you tasting your sauce at your cottage.”

He cupped my cheek tenderly, as though I were precious to him.

If you’re going to be honest, be honest, Gwen. “Actually, since The Train Station. Or maybe at Ferraro’s, but that makes me sound a little desperate, so let’s go with the restaurant.”

He caught me around the waist and brought me flush against him. “Same.”

Really? “You mean if we’d just talked like adults, we⁠—”

“Might have wound up at your hotel or my place after dinner?” He gripped my ass and drew me tighter, pressing the unmistakable evidence of the memory against me.