by W. Winters
With my lips parted in protest, I meet Zander’s gaze and I’m silenced by it. The intensity. The ownership.
It steals everything from me.
“You’ll be cold without it,” is the only explanation he offers me. As he steps away from the sofa, I wish I had the courage to tell him I’m cold with it as well, but I’m silent.
He’s donned a faded pair of jeans he wears often, I absently wonder if they’re his favorite, and a white, long-sleeved polo. Simple yet still seemingly refined on a rugged man like him. Especially when paired with his five o’clock shadow.
The moment I prepare to ask for privacy, already feeling the disappointment growing in my chest, Zander stands, leaving the long chair on the side of the room and instead taking a seat at the end of the sofa I’m occupying. The sofa groans, the sound swallowing the protest that’s caught at the back of my throat. He’s so very close, I nearly have to bend my legs even further so my feet won’t be in the way. As it is, I don’t have to, nor do I dare move at all.
Although I do have the urge to stretch out my legs and place my feet in his lap. I resist it successfully, though, waiting instead for Zander to speak.
I haven’t wanted to see anyone else, let alone talk all morning and evening, but right now the only thing screaming to be heard from my lips is speak.
I want an explanation. The men typically stay several feet away, but Zander seems to have forgotten that. He stretches out casually, although his stiffness tells me he’s anything but.
Leaning back, he exhales in an exaggerated huff and then peers down at me.
I don’t have the willpower for silence any longer, so I ask the first thing that comes to mind, “Did you give in to curiosity and read my file?”
“Almost …” he admits and my stomach churns. I used to pride myself on how few fucks I gave over anyone’s opinion. Right now, though, it’s as if we’re surrounded by these fucks like wildflowers in a field. Flowers that could be easily plucked if only he wanted.
“Can you promise me something?” I question and then clear my throat, taking a moment to sip the now lukewarm tea.
“Depends on what it is.”
“Don’t read it.” I speak without daring to look at him.
“Don’t read the file, or don’t look into your past?”
“Both?” I say, with more hope in my tone than I’d like.
“What if I already know some things?”
I fret under his scrutiny, and place the teacup back down on the table rather than answering.
“I promise I won’t read the file, and I’ll come to you if I have questions about … well, you.”
“No FBI digging?”
“Does the FBI have a file too?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” Although my comment is dry, Zander laughs. It’s that genuine, rough laugh that’s deep and soothing in ways it shouldn’t be.
I chew on the inside of my cheek to keep from asking him what he knows. Shifting under the blanket, I realize how cold I was before. It’s already warmer, already promising me sleep.
After a moment of only silence, Zander says, “I could read, or I could talk … Or I could listen.”
“I’d rather not talk today.”
“Mmm,” he hums in a deep rumble, “and of course today was the day I chose to bombard you with questions.”
I give him a small laugh, part of it genuine.
“You have questions, don’t you? Questions for me?” he asks and the opening he’s given me grabs my attention.
“You and Cade are brothers?”
“That’s an easy one. And yes, we are.”
“You look alike but your last name is what gave it away.”
“That’ll do it,” he comments.
“Have you always been close?”
His brow pinches and he quickly exhales. “No. Not at all.”
I don’t have to pry further. He freely offers me his story, which includes another brother I didn’t know about—William.
“He was six years older than me and from that alone you’d think he’d have been the responsible one. There was him, then Cade and then three years later, me, the baby brother.”
It’s hard to imagine a man like Zander as the baby.
“Our mom passed away while I was a freshman in college. Our dad had cancer and Cade and William were arguing over a few things.”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him and his hand falls onto my calf where he gives me a gentle squeeze. The blanket separates us, but still, his touch ignites me. It doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. As if touching me were the natural thing to do.
His swallow is audible and when he doesn’t continue, instead staring ahead at the same logo flitting across the television that’s kept me company for hours, I nearly push for more, but I don’t have to. He leans forward with a huff, grabbing the remote and turning the TV off altogether while telling me the rest of it.
“William wanted my father to live with him during chemo treatments. Cade refused to let it happen. William owed him money and had a gambling addiction. He accused William of trying to take our father’s income.”
Shock widens my eyes. “That … couldn’t have gone over well.”
Shaking his head, Zander agrees. “They were fighting on the front porch, screaming at each other. I jumped in the middle of it to tell them both off. The three of us were yelling like crazy and that’s when my father got pissed off and told us all to go home.” Zander licks his lower lip, then offers me a sad smile. “He died later that night.”
The tears prick again, but I can’t hold them back this time. “I’m so sorry,” I tell him and wipe under my eyes.
“It happened eight years ago now. But I didn’t speak to either of my brothers for years after, other than the occasional text on holidays and birthdays. We were close. Then one day … we weren’t.”
“What changed?”
“I went through some things two years ago and Cade was there.”
“What about William?”
“I was never close with William. He and Cade have their history, but it’s the same with William as it’s always been. I hear from him when he needs something.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You’re awfully sorry for me tonight,” Zander says as if it’s a joke. “Want to know the dirt on Cade from when we were in high school?” he offers with a smirk. “You can’t tell him I told you, though.”
“You’re awful,” I say and gently brush my foot against his thigh as if it’s an admonishment, although a smile is clearly seen on my face. “And of course I do. Spill it.”
The next stories are far more entertaining, although I find myself comparing his childhood experiences to mine. His are … so much more innocent than my own. Even with things like sneaking out at night and replacing his father’s bourbon with colored water being his examples of why they were bad children, they weren’t at all compared to the horrific shit I got into. My father was long gone by then, though. If Kam hadn’t been there for me, I’d have gone off the deep end ages ago.
I don’t tell Zander that. I simply listen to his tales as if they were sweet lullabies. The soothing cadence of his deep voice distracts me from my previous plans.
Time slips by much faster than it did before.
My eyes are heavy as my head sinks deeply into the soft down feather pillow. As I shrug my shoulder in an attempt to pull the soft fleece higher, Zander aids me, tugging the blanket up and tucking it under my chin.
With a simper gracing my lips, I peek up at him and he offers me the kind of smile that threatens to break me. A kind one. Sincere and hopeful.
My own vanishes and I close my eyes tighter, feigning exhaustion as I rub my eyes and destroy his efforts to keep the blanket tucked over me securely. I nearly ask him to go, but I don’t. As the tears come, I pull the blanket up higher, hiding and wanting to bury myself in it. Maybe I’ll regret it, but right now, I’d regret not leaning into him more than anything if I d
on’t do it this second.
I crawl closer to him, turning around so I’m able to push my body into his. His left arm raises, giving me room and I put the pillow on his thigh. At least I give him that to separate us. My breathing struggles as I bury my head there, pretending the dams haven’t broken. His arm lays easily against my body, the weight of it hugging my curves. His warmth is instant. He doesn’t shush me, but he does hum lightly; it’s a soothing rumble.
The overwhelming sadness came from nothing and it feels like everything. I swear I was okay. I was.
With heat rising to my face as tears pool under my eyes, I focus on his strong hand splayed over my hip, his thumb rubbing soothing motions.
The sobs take over; I can’t control them. I wish I could hide my face better, but Zander refuses to let me, brushing the hair out of my face. In an attempt to swat away his hand so I can hide beneath my dark locks, I lift my arm, but his grip is faster. Catching my wrist in his hand.
Inhaling deeply, I peer up at him through my thick lashes, tainted with beads of tears. My vision is still blurry when the rough pad of his thumb runs under my eyes. One at a time, ever so gently, and at odds with the calluses he’s earned over the years.
The distraction pulls me from my outburst and a moment passes and then another before my breathing has steadied again, and I’m able to fully recollect what happened.
Neither of us speaks for a long moment as I calm myself, taking in long inhales and blowing out even longer exhales.
He’s the first to speak and although I dread it, I’m grateful he takes the lead in the conversation.
“Do you know what brought it on?” he questions me just as I’m replaying the scene in my mind. Shaking my head I whisper no and consider moving, but he’s still running those soothing circles through the thin fabric of my nightgown. More importantly, the pillow shifted at some point behind me, and now my cheek rests firmly against his thigh. The jeans aren’t nearly as comfortable pressed against my skin, but they smell like him.
And he’s so damn warm. Everything about him is comforting. Almost familiar in some strange way.
“I don’t know,” I add and note that my throat feels like it’s on fire. I barely even spoke today. Just as I’m reaching up to my throat, Zander reaches across me, one hand holding me in place, the other picking up the cup and handing it to me.
“Drink and tell me if you need it warm,” he commands. I obey, the peppermint soothing even though the tea is now cold.
“Sometimes it’ll come from nowhere,” he says as if justifying my outburst but then he adds, “Are you familiar with the ‘ball in a box’ analogy?”
I shake my head, never having heard of it. He explains, “The ball is large, filling the box when grief first appears. There’s a small button on one side of the box but the ball is so big it constantly bumps against it, triggering the emotional response. As time goes on, the ball shrinks in size, moving and colliding into the walls and occasionally, the button. There’s no stopping it and no matter how small the ball gets, there’s always a chance it will hit the button. There’s no preventing it.”
“I think my ball might be very big,” is all I can comment.
Zander nods and says, “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
A long moment passes of comfortable silence before Zander seems to take note of our proximity.
“You’re tired—”
Before he’s even said it, I know he’s going to tell me I need to go to bed. So I cut him off and say, “I don’t want to sleep.”
A moment passes, with the click of the heater coming on ensuring we’re both aware of just how silent it is between us. For the second time tonight, I feel insecure wondering what his response will be. Whether he’ll respect my desire to stay up or not. Or if he’ll push me to go to bed. “Please don’t make me,” I plead with him in a whisper. It’s a foolish request.
“I won’t ever make you do anything you don’t want to. Unless it’s for your own good.”
I raise a brow in question, unable to help myself from saying, “And sleeping in bed?”
Staring at me, he takes a moment longer before ignoring my question altogether and asking me, “I just remembered another time Cade got in trouble and blamed it on me. Do you want to hear it?”
There’s a pull at the corners of my lips and I nod before lying back down where I was, pulling the gray fleece up and setting the pillow back down. I’m more than aware of how inappropriate it is, and how little I care.
And this is how I drift off to sleep. Listening to stories told in the soothing cadence of a man I consider confessing all my stories to.
Zander
Partners of The Firm will maintain appropriate professional conduct with clients at all times.
Ella drifts to sleep on my lap.
But I’ve never been more awake in my life. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. I keep talking long after she’s out, until my throat goes so dry I can’t say another word. Every heartbeat feels like an electric shock. What we’re doing is technically within the bounds of her contract with The Firm. That’s what I tell myself, at least. Professional conduct can include physical touch. It’s impossible to avoid sometimes when you’re providing security for a client. You take their arm and shield them from prying eyes as they exit a vehicle, or a building. You tuck them into your side when moving through an unruly crowd.
My hands have been on both male and female clients before. Not once has it been an issue. Not once has it been … like this.
There are provisions for physical touch in Ella’s contract too. I know there are. I know because we had a team meeting about it when Cade pitched the case to the rest of us. There was no way around it. We’re here twenty-four hours a day and we are required, required, to provide emotional support.
But this …
Does not feel like providing emotional support.
It feels like knocking down brick walls with a sledgehammer, for the both of us. Her walls are obvious and where my attention should be, yet I can’t help but to notice my own. The one I’ve kept in place for years now. It feels like giving something to myself just as much as it feels like giving something to her.
There aren’t any provisions for that in the contract. I don’t get anything out of this but a salary. That’s the rule, and them’s the breaks.
Too fucking bad.
I stretch out my free arm—the one not running softly up and down the bare skin exposed by the sleeve of Ella’s robe riding up slightly. My hand splays out under the throw pillow on the sofa in my effort to stretch.
And meets glass.
A tiny glass bottle.
I pull it out and examine it in the light. It’s one of those miniature bottles of alcohol.
Are you fucking kidding me? The disbelief is as palpable as the discontent.
No wonder she looked like she was going to pass out. She’d been drinking. Not much, given the size of the bottle, and it shouldn’t react badly with the meds she’s on. Assuming she only had one.
But she shouldn’t be drinking at all. We were supposed to clear the house of all alcohol before she moved in. I thought we’d gotten rid of it all. How the hell did this get past Damon?
Irritation wars with concern inside of me. This could have gone so very wrong.
Ella’s shoulders rise and fall with a whimper, almost as if she can feel my disappointment with her. And there’s that wall again, destroyed and leaving me wanting nothing more than to refuse any backsteps after the moment I had with her tonight.
My thumbnail taps against the glass and I know it’s something to look into, but not something I can do a damn thing about right now.
It’s a problem for later. After deciding what to do about the matter, I tuck the bottle back under the pillow.
“Ella.”
She doesn’t wake. Doesn’t so much as stir. Her breathing has gone slow and even. I imagine she needs a deep sleep, but even so I monitor her breathing and when she stirs, fighting the
urge to wake up, I let her fall back under, rather than rousing her to consciousness.
She can’t sleep here. I’m quiet as I stand, preparing to take her upstairs and put her in her bed. The idea of putting her to bed is met with thoughts that shouldn’t be anywhere on my mind. Specifically: reddening her ass with my itching palm for hiding alcohol.
Even that small thought has my cock hardening.
Fuck.
Calm focus. Four-count breaths. Four times over. There are eyes everywhere in this house. Cameras. Every move I make needs to be carefully considered, because even if I alter some of the footage, there can be nothing suspicious about the rest, nothing to indicate that my heart is beating out of my chest and I want to kiss her awake. Run roughshod over her boundaries. And punish her ass so she won’t sneak alcohol again.
So damn badly.
More than I’ve wanted anything since Quincy.
But I don’t kiss her. I’m a goddamn professional, and I don’t kiss her. I maneuver Ella into my arms in a chaste carry, her warm body curled against my chest. Her head rests easily against my shoulder. She’s so deeply asleep I have to cradle her tighter than I otherwise would. Far tighter than would be considered professional.
The herringbone stairs leading up to the second floor are dark, but I trust them to be empty in this barren, spotless house. They are. A nightlight in the upstairs hall casts enough of a glow for me to see that Ella’s bedroom door is ajar. I nudge it open the rest of the way with my shoulder and carry her to the bed.
This part takes more planning. I don’t think she’ll stand, so I keep her in my arms and nudge the covers down as best I can, then lower her to the sheets.
Ella’s almost there when she startles, a tiny jerk of her body against mine. Her arms come up and around my neck and holy shit, she can hold tight. Her grip is solid and strong and her forehead presses into the side of my neck, her breath warm on my skin. I feel that all the way down to my erection. It only takes a moment for her to loosen her grasp, falling back into a deep sleep.
I take a ragged breath and force myself to it again. She is sleeping. She’s not aware of what she’s doing, let alone what she does to me. I move to lower her the rest of the way, but even when Ella’s body makes contact with the mattress, she doesn’t let go completely.
