by Molly Joseph
Grace leaned forward and arranged her pawns into a heart shape. “Have you ever been in love, Zeke?”
“Oh, numerous times.” His laugh turned into a cough, and then a sigh. “I’m a little in love with Mrs. Ferlander right now. She makes my oatmeal just the right temperature, and no lumps.”
“That’s hot.”
“But not too hot.” Now his laugh was more like a wheeze. “I fell in love many times, but my greatest joy in life has come from you. I hope you know that. I’m so proud of you.”
Grace jabbed fingers into the corners of her eyes so she wouldn’t start crying over the phone. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too. Stay warm, will you?”
“I’ll try. It’s been snowing for days now.” She looked out the window at the hazy snowfall obscuring the view.
“Ask Renzo to make you some hot chocolate, the kind with the peppers in it. Kisses, my girl. Enjoy your day.”
Grace hung up with the usual sense of loss. Zeke sounded fine, in good spirits, but his awkward, fatherly advice made her long to curl up in one of his awkward, fatherly hugs, and he was way too far away to do that. She was on her own for the moment. She’d have to be strong to succeed, and to make Zeke even prouder of her.
You’re not totally on your own. You have a bodyguard.
She went to the big window and looked out at the harbor. The water was frozen, a great sheet of ice stretching toward the ocean. She wondered if everyone would come now, all the media and reporters who had badgered her in New York, or if Helsinki was too far flung to go for a story. It wasn’t too far flung for spies. Al Raji’s people would definitely come, and figure out the identity of her seconds. Maybe they would try to hurt her.
May courage bloom in your heart, and vanquish the souls of thine enemies.
She repeated Sam’s words to herself all the time now, but she still felt stupid and scared.
*** *** ***
Sam piled his laundry in the basket, turning his sweaters inside out with a little more force than necessary. Three days. It had been three days since their illicit makeout session, and his cock was still waiting for him to seal the goddamned deal.
Things felt unfinished, suspended in time. When he lay in bed at night, it seemed that Grace ought to be beside him, but she wasn’t—and she couldn’t be. He watched her throughout each day, trying to figure out what it was about her that compelled him. Why did he want her so badly? She wasn’t his type. She was a client.
She was a virgin, for fuck’s sake.
He lifted the basket with a muttered curse and headed up the stairs to the third floor, otherwise known as the chamber of torture, because he had to live with her there and not touch her. He had to look at her and yearn for her and think about quitting his job so he could stick his fucking cock inside her.
It wasn’t only sex, though. He didn’t just want his cock inside her. He wanted to live inside her, possessing her, protecting her.
But no. They stayed at least an arm’s length away from each other. They were cordial and friendly during the day, and kept busy at their various pursuits. At night she went in her room, and left the door cracked so she could see him. It’s not an invitation, he had to remind himself. Client. Bodyguard. Professionalism. Integrity. Don’t be an asshole.
He pushed open the door and found Grace looking out the window, her fingers against the glass. “What are you doing?” he asked.
She glanced back at him. “I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“About how cold it is here.”
“It’s definitely cold. There’s a blizzard blowing in.”
They had these stupid, pointless conversations twenty times a day, so they wouldn’t start tearing off each other’s clothes.
Clothes. Laundry. He turned his attention from Grace, placed his laundry basket on the desk, and dug into the pile. He shook out the sweater on top and hung it from the clothes rack in the corner. Their rental house had “spinners” but not dryers. Spinners worked kind of like a centrifuge, extracting most, but not all, of the water out of your clothes. The dry Arctic air did the rest, but it took time. All of them had clothes hanging up everywhere.
“How’d things go today?” he asked.
“They went okay. Fredrik and Renzo had an argument while you were in the shower.”
Sam paused in the middle of hanging up a shirt. “About what?”
“I don’t know. Stupid stuff. Fredrik says Renzo’s cooking isn’t healthy enough. He wants him to cook more fish instead of beef and barbeque.”
“And what did Renzo say to that?” Just hearing Fredrik’s name set Sam’s teeth on edge. He’d become even more obnoxious since he’d found them in bed together.
Grace shrugged. “He said something in Spanish that sounded pretty rude, and he told Fredrik he could cook for his damn self if he wasn’t happy with the food. Then Fredrik said he didn’t have time to cook because he was the only one who was really doing any work to prepare for the match.”
“I bet that went over like a box of concrete.”
“Even Krishna looked murder-y. And he never looks murder-y.”
Tempers were running high. It would probably get worse before it got better. He hung up another shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. “How are you feeling?” he asked Grace.
“I love Renzo’s cooking.”
“No, I mean, in general, how are you feeling? Fredrik bothering you at all?”
“No more than usual.”
She crossed to him in her owl-printed sleep pants and her Allergic to Mornings shirt, and started to help. How...domestic. He pawed through the pile to be sure he’d hung up all his boxers already. She was paying him too much to have to handle his underwear. She fixated on his socks, turning each one right side out with delicate attention, and matching up the muted patterns.
“You have really big feet,” she said.
Not a hint of innuendo, just innocent Grace matching his socks in little groups on the adjustable rack. Owls and faded tee shirts weren’t supposed to seem sexy. Hanging up slightly damp laundry wasn’t sexy, so why did he want to sweep the basket off the desk and push her down and fuck her to oblivion?
No. He couldn’t fuck Grace on a desk. It would be crass and unprofessional, and wrong. She was a virgin who could say things like, “You have really big feet,” and not mean anything by it.
“I can do my own laundry,” he said a little sharply. “You don’t have to help.”
“I don’t mind.”
The owls taunted him. Her cute little ass taunted him. “We leave for Dubai in a couple weeks,” he said, glancing at her chess board. “Do you feel ready?”
She turned from the socks and covered her eyes with her hands. “Don’t ask me that. I’ll never feel ready. Do you feel ready?”
“I’m always ready.” In more ways than one.
No. No, he wasn’t going to think about her that way, not until after Dubai.
“People know where I am now,” she pointed out. “Your job’s about to get harder.”
My cock’s about to get harder. No. Pull it together, Sam. Be a goddamned professional. “Don’t worry about people, or the media, or Al Raji’s spies,” he said aloud. “I’ve got you covered, Grace. I’m prepared for anything that might happen. Not that anything’s going to happen.”
She looked up at him from under her lashes. “I bet you were a really good soldier.”
“I try to be good at everything I do.” He set the now-empty basket on the floor in the corner. “Thanks for helping me.”
“All I did was sort your socks.”
“Thanks for sorting my socks. And everything’s going to be fine.” He looked right into her eyes when he said it. “You trust me, don’t you? You trust me to keep you safe?”
Her gaze wavered after a moment, flicked down to his shoulders and chest. “I trust you. I’m still a little nervous. I wish I was big and threatening like you. Then no one would ever mess with me.”
; There was something devastatingly sexy about the way she sized him up with her glances, but something sad about it too. He knew she was thinking about Russia again.
“You’re fine just the way you are,” he said. “But if you like, I can teach you some moves. Some self-defense techniques. It might help you feel safer.”
“What kind of techniques? Like, martial arts?”
“Stuff I learned in the Army. Nothing too complex. Come here, I’ll show you.” He led her to the open floor in the middle of the room. He wondered if she realized this was all a ruse to touch her, an excuse to put his hands on her after three days of longing. She pushed up her glasses and faced him.
“When it comes to self-defense,” he said, “strength doesn’t matter that much. It’s about knowing the most vulnerable areas of the body: the eyes, the groin, the shins, the neck, the temples, the throat.” He reached for her neck, intending to demonstrate a basic deflection maneuver. A moment later he found himself on his back, blinking up at the ceiling. He arrested her foot before it connected with his nuts.
“What the everloving fuck, Grace?”
She blinked down at him with an apologetic look. “I studied Jiu-jitsu for a few years, in between geology and Greek philosophy. I wasn’t going to kick you there.”
“That’s good to know.” He unwound his fingers from her ankle. “And I’m sure my back will be fine once I have surgery.”
“I’m sorry.” She knelt beside him. “Did I really hurt your back?”
“No, but I’m not going to get up for a minute.” She’d knocked the wind out of him, and delivered a pretty hefty blow to his pride. “So, forget about the self-defense stuff. I think you’ve got a handle on it. They need people like you in the Army, by the way. Ever think of enlisting?”
She stared at the floor with a troubled expression.
“I’m joking, Grace.”
“No, it’s just...” She shook her head. “The Jiu-jitsu didn’t work, not when I needed it. That night they attacked me in Russia...” Her eyes had gone wet and hazy. “I couldn’t do anything. I think I’d be terrible in the Army.”
She stood and started toward her room. He hauled himself off the floor and went after her.
“I wish I was badass, but I’m not,” she said when he grabbed her hand. “I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Of course you didn’t.” He turned her to face him, touched her cheek and brushed back her hair.
“I couldn’t fight them. They laughed when I tried to fight back. They laughed at me.”
Her voice almost broke him. The pain in her eyes made him want to set things on fire.
“There were three of them, and one of you,” he reminded her gently. He embraced her, trying to still her trembling. “You can only do so much. But God, I wish I had been there. I’d have murdered all three of them to protect you. To save you from that pain.”
This was the first time they’d really talked about what happened to her in Russia. He’d known the details, agonized over them, but seeing her relive it in her mind was ten times worse.
“I wish I could forget,” she said. “I hate that I’ll never be able to forget about it.”
“Gracie.”
She grasped the sides of her head. “I wish I could pull out the part of my brain where those memories are stored and just—”
“Shhh.” He held her tighter. “You’re safe now. No one’s ever going to hurt you like that again. A lot of folks are watching out for you so that never happens again.”
“It doesn’t matter if it happens again. Once was enough. Everything has looked different to me since that night. I never felt like the world was a dangerous place, like anyone might hurt me, but now I feel that way all the time.” She gazed up at him, her eyes full of pain. “I never knew what it felt like to be punched or kicked. It hurt so much worse than I imagined. The sounds and the fear, and the...the pain.”
Damn it, he wished he knew how to help her, how to make those memories go away.
“I’m sorry you don't feel safe anymore,” he said. “I wish you didn’t know what it feels like to be attacked.”
She rested her cheek against his chest. “I miss you.” She said it quietly, in the same broken voice.
Sam drew in a breath. She couldn’t do this to him now, when he would give her anything, do anything on earth to make her sadness go away.
She ran her hands over his back, up to his tensing shoulders. “I wish you would kiss me again, Sam. I know you’re not supposed to, but I wish you would make love to me. I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Grace—”
“Just once.”
“Baby, please. We talked about this.”
She drew back, her features tense with emotion. “But it’s not fair. It’s not fair to know how it feels to be attacked, but not know how it feels to sleep with someone. And I like you, and I think you like me, and we have this attraction. Maybe, just once…”
Every word out of her mouth was killing him. She shouldn’t have to plead. Jesus Christ, he wanted her like crazy, but she was having a needy moment, a breakdown on top of her perpetual stress. Anything that happened in this house was his responsibility. If she regretted it later, it would be his responsibility. He needed to tell her no. He was her bodyguard, her employee.
But he wanted her.
He stared into her eyes, too conflicted to come up with any answers. Yes. No. Please.
When he didn’t speak for long seconds, she finally pulled back and turned away. “Oh, God. I’m being an idiot again. I’m sorry. Forget it.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“It’s just that…ever since you kissed me…and touched me…I can’t think about anything else. I can’t get past it, even though I know you’re right. I know you’re right.” She balled her hands into fists. “You must think I’m so pathetic and stupid and pitiful—”
“Stop it, Grace. Don’t call yourself any more names.” He gave her a hard look. “You know I have the same attraction to you, but I can’t act on it. I can’t. I’m supposed to protect you, not sleep with you.”
She glared back at him. “You could protect me either way. But I understand. I mean, look at me.” She gestured down at her body, her loveliness, at everything that made Sam ache. “I’m too weird and inexperienced, and not sexy like all the other women you’ve undoubtedly slept wi—”
Some last shred of control within him snapped. He could withstand her pleading, he could stand strong against her tears, he could even resist her owl-print pajamas, but he couldn’t bear to have her believe there was some fault in her, some reason he didn’t want her.
It was the opposite. He wanted her beyond reason.
He took her head between his hands and kissed her hard, cutting short her self-deprecating diatribe. No, Grace Ann Frasier. You don’t get to convince yourself I don’t want you. Because nothing could be further from the truth.
She made a sound against his lips, some breathless sigh of relief. Three days. It had taken three measly days for his iron will to break. Her body pressed against his, small and shivery. He held her tight and ravaged her mouth, as if to say, Is this really what you want? Because this is what you do to me. She kissed him back with clumsy fervor, too reckless, too willing to bend to his demands.
“Grace,” he whispered. But that was it, the extent of his protest. He didn’t say We shouldn’t, or I’m not allowed to do this, or even It’s against my principles to do this, because the clinging woman in his arms had chipped away at his principles until there was only longing and protectiveness, and a desire to make her happy. She was right. It wasn’t fair to know what it felt like to be assaulted, and not know what it felt like to shudder in ecstasy.
When she trailed her fingers down his chest and teased the skin just above his waistline, he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. Before Dubai, after Dubai. Who cared? This was always going to happen. At least, that was the excuse he was going with as he pushed her back on the bed.
*** *** ***
In her fantasies, Sam had ripped off her clothes and thrown her down on the bed, and grasped her with his big, strong hands. Real life was a bit more nuanced. There was a violence to his need, but also feelings and sensations she hadn’t expected: the heat of his palms, the rasp of his deep voice. The heaviness of his body as he lay beside her, and the searing intensity of his gaze.
She couldn’t get enough of it. She wanted all of it. Her fantasies were one-dimensional, fueled only by her very limited imagination. The reality overwhelmed her senses, bringing excitement and fear in equal measure.
“One time,” he growled as he pulled her shirt over her head. “One time. Do you understand me?”
He’d gone into the other room and brought back condoms, and tossed them on the nightstand beside her glasses. She turned and pointed to the pile. “There are four there.”
“Once,” he repeated.
She didn’t argue as he pulled off his sweater and tossed it in the corner. If once was all he would give her, then she had to soak up every minute of it. She lifted her hips so he could yank down her sleep pants and fling them into the corner with his sweater. He paused then, kneading her hip, tracing fingers across the lace waistline of her panties with a considering expression.
“Don’t change your mind,” she said. “Not now.”
“I’m not changing my mind. I’m just thinking how to do this without...”
“Without what?”
He grimaced. “Without losing control.” He lay beside her, half on top of her. She could feel his rock-hard erection through the front of his pants. “Are you sure you want this?” he asked.
“More than anything in the world.”
He drew in a breath and slid his fingers downward. His palm curved over her pussy, exerting perfect, delicious pressure against her clit.
“You only get a first time once.” He spread his fingers more, stroking her through the material. She closed her eyes, shocked by the pleasure he could impart with that simple, light touch.
