by Anna Brooks
God, I like being in his arms. It’s surreal that he’s even here, and I know I should be mad, but I love him. I love that he’s close enough to touch, regardless of the reason he’s here.
Eye lids hooded and jaw locked tight, he glances away from me before letting me go and following me out of the elevator.
Erik glances past at us, but Royce has already let me go. “Polly’s gonna be here in two minutes. Let’s get you guys inside, and then I’ll go back down and meet her.”
We walk down the hall on the second floor, and when we stop at 2B, the confusion surely shows on my face. Royce reaches in his pocket and sticks a key in the lock. “Are you serious right now?” I screech.
He shrugs. “Welcome home, Paisley.”
Royce
Her body stiffens, and I give her a gentle shove into my apartment, not liking being out in the open. As soon as I breach the threshold, I type the code in my alarm system.
“Polly’s here. Be right back.” Erik pushes his phone in his pocket and closes the door behind him.
“Are you serious right now?” she asks me again.
Instead of answering her, I toss my keys on the marble countertop and cell on the wooden table and then walk to the kitchen to get a bottle of water out of the stainless steel fridge. “You want one?”
“Are you serious?” This time she yells and clenches her hands into little fists. “You’ve lived next door to me this whole time?”
“Yup.”
“This is unreal. I can’t… I didn’t…”
I really do feel like shit. This wasn’t what I wanted, and I know damn well she didn’t want it either. But Erik thought he knew best even though he was wrong. He didn’t need the melodramatics of threatening me if anything happened to her, but nonetheless, I walked out of his office knowing things would change when she found out he’d assigned me to her.
Not that I view Paisley as a job. She’s not my client; she’s my everything.
I think he knew I had a soft spot for his daughter because we were friends. Well, as close as a teenager and a twenty-one-year-old could be. From the first time I met her as a scared fourteen-year-old girl who never asked for pity and always smiled, I took her under my wing.
We just clicked. I enjoyed spending time with her, and she laughed a lot when she was with me, so I assumed she felt the same way.
For the first couple of years, we were just friends. I had fun scaring off the boys from high school and teaching her how to drive. We rode go-karts and went to those stupid carnivals together. But when Erik sent me to keep an eye on her at that stupid fucking dance, and I saw her wearing that goddamn dress… that was it.
I was done.
She’d always been pretty—no doubt about that—but something about that night made me look at her through a different lens. Suddenly, her hair, normally in a ponytail, was long and shiny and flowing in waves down her back. Her cheeks, always flushed from laughing, were highlighted to showcase the symmetry of her angelic face. The legs that wrapped around me when we played chicken in the pool were miles long, and all I could picture was them over my shoulders while I buried my head between her thighs. Her stomach that I discovered was super ticklish when I was showing her some self-defense moves was on display, and all I wanted to do was lick my way across it.
What really messed me up, though, was her lips. Normally a soft pink, they were a bold red that night; daring, challenging me. I’d never been so weak in my life as I was in the car alone with her. It was wrong, but I had to have a taste… just a little one to hold me over. And God, I can still taste her. But the nail in the coffin was when I could picture her, on her knees, peering up at me through her long lashes as she swallowed my cock, wrapped around those red lips, down her delicate throat. I knew I had to get the fuck away from her. It messed me up in the head because I knew it wasn’t right.
So I left. I grabbed the first assignment that would take me away for a long time and keep me distracted enough to forget about her and how fucked up my sudden desire to kill anyone who even looked at her was. All along, I’d been protective of her, but it quickly moved to an obsession that wasn’t fair to her.
Needless to say, being surrounded by screaming tweens distracted me. I was security for a boy band that blew up overnight after being on one of those talent shows, and they kept me busy. Still, I missed her.
After eighteen months with the boy band, my next assignment was another twelve with a mayoral candidate’s family. Paisley and I texted over the years occasionally, birthdays, holidays… stuff like that, but the conversations were stilted because I knew she was pissed that I up and left without a goodbye. It really was better that way. I knew it’d only be a matter of time.
I only had a couple of weeks off before I started doing recon for Paisley. I had to find a safe location for her to live, get the wiring done, then memorize the area, her campus, and a bunch of other stuff.
I didn’t agree with Erik’s assignment; she deserved to know I was there, but I figured it was for her own good because if she did know and I was that close to her every day and expected not to touch her, yeah… that wouldn’t have happened. It’s been torture, watching, biding my time… but she’s worth the wait.
“I’m not staying with you.” Her attitude snaps me back to the now and the fact that she’s in my space. She’s within touching distance. I can look into her eyes and see so much more than her irises.
“Yes, you are.” I walk to my bedroom to toss her bag in it.
She storms off down the small hallway, following me. “I’m not sleeping in here with you.”
“Never said you were. I’ll take the couch, but you are in my bed.”
She glares at me and then walks to the window. Her arms cross, and I can see the movement from her deep breaths. But she suddenly freezes. I didn’t expect her to realize it so soon, but when she drops her hand and digs her fingernails into her palms, I know exactly what she’s thinking.
“Oh, my God,” she whispers.
I move behind her because I don’t want her to be embarrassed, but she jerks away from me. “Oh my God, you heard me.” Her good hand flies to her mouth.
“It’s okay.”
She looks at my bed, then the headboard, then the wall, realizing she shared the thin barrier with me. And late at night, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d pleasure herself… God, what that would do to me. Hearing her moan, the soft vibration from her toy, my name slipping through her lips.
“Oh, my God.”
“Paisley.”
Her feet move her backward, and she shakes her head. “I can’t… oh my God.”
“Baby, what do you think I was doing when you were fuckin’ yourself?” My longer strides catch up to her, and I grab her shoulders, leaning down so my face is level with hers. “Whenever you were makin’ yourself come, I was doing the same damn thing, thinkin’ about you and how beautiful you are, how fuckin’ hot you’d be when you come… how I wanted to tear down that wall and sink inside you more than I wanted to breathe.”
Her eyes flash. “What?”
“I know you heard me.”
“But you… me. I… you left. You’ve been watching me, lying.” She puts her fingertips to her temples and rubs a circle. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“Of course, I do.” Giving her a second to come to terms with that, I rub my thumb over her cheek. I understand why she’s confused. “How could I not? Have you looked in a mirror?”
Her eyes get watery, and I step back. “You’ve had a lot happen. We’ll talk about us later; for now, you need to visit with your parents. Reassure them you’re okay because as much as I like them, I don’t want them staying here when I finally got you where I want you.”
Just as she’s about to open her mouth, Polly calls her name, and she shrugs her shoulder a little bit. “We’re not done talking about this,” I promise her.
She ducks out of my grip and shakes her head. “I can’t talk about this”—she throws her arm out o
ver the bed—“ever again.”
“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. But if it makes you uncomfortable we won’t broach that subject again. There is a lot of other stuff we need to discuss, though.”
She fights back tears from falling, and it kills me she’s so upset. I didn’t want Erik here, and definitely not Polly when she discovered that I’d been tailing her for almost a year and how I really, truly felt about her. She would have done so much better with this if it was just us because then I could explain everything. “I’m telling my dad I don’t want you to stay.”
“That won’t help you, precious. He knows I’d die before I let anything happen to you.”
She holds up her bandaged arm, and I release a breath of frustration. She’s such a sweetheart, so I know this anger is misplaced. “That’s exactly where I’m headed now… to take care of whoever fucked up your security system.”
“Paisley,” Erik calls impatiently from the other room.
“She’ll be right there,” I answer for her.
“What does that mean?”
I run my hands through my hair. “That’s another thing we need to talk about. But for now, hang out with your parents, get some rest, and I’ll be back in a little while. When they leave, we’re having a talk that’s been years in the making.” Then I pull her to me and kiss the top of her head before I grab my keys and take off to kick the ass of whoever fucked up her system.
Chapter 3
Royce
My phone rings just as I step out of my vehicle, and I glance down to see Carter’s name flash. “Hey.”
“Dude, what the fuck?” he yells. “She got hurt?”
“Yeah.”
“How the hell did that happen?”
Carter is my best friend, and the only guy who suspects my fucked-up feelings for Paisley. He’s back in Cali, and I’ve avoided his calls until now, not quite able to take the anger and disappointment about the fact she got hurt from anyone else, especially him. I feel like shit enough on my own; it’ll haunt me every day of my life… seeing her in that hospital bed and knowing it was my fault her beautiful face was scraped from some motherfucker pressing her against a brick wall.
“I just left Wroughton Security.”
“Shit.”
“They didn’t update a recalled wire.”
He whistles. “Do you need me to come out there?” Not only would he help with Paisley, but he’d lay anyone out for putting her in danger, and that would start with the jackasses who have ensured we never do business with them again. Anyone at Ace would, honestly.
She didn’t know it at first, but when she got adopted she inherited a dozen big brothers, and me. A man who can’t picture his life without her in it. Who’d do absolutely anything to see her smile.
“Nah, I took care of it.”
“How is she?”
Perfect. “She’s okay. Just a little bit pissed that I’ve been following her since she’s been here, but otherwise, she’s doing good.”
“We all knew she’d be livid; anyone would be if they found out someone they trusted had essentially been lying to them, but she’s tough. She’ll get over it.”
“Yeah.”
We all know her story and admire her strength through everything. She was just a little girl at nine years old when her parents died in a plane crash. And since they had no other blood family, she went to foster home after foster home until Erik and Polly adopted her when she was fourteen.
One of the things I find so amazing about her is that she never acts like she’s had a rough life. She’s shy but generally happy and somehow still sees the world through rose-colored glasses. I admire that. I only lost one parent, but the parent who’s still alive is dead to me anyway, and I’m cynical as hell because of just that.
Carter curses. “I’ve gotta go but hit me up if you need anything.”
“All right, man. Later.”
I walk into my apartment, and before I can shut the door, Erik motions for me to follow him back into the hallway. “What do you got for me?”
I give him the lowdown on the recalled wire. Erik is very respected in our field, and if he puts out word about a company doing what this one did, or rather didn’t, they’ll feel it in their pocketbooks. “Are you shittin’ me?” He practically growls.
“Nope.”
“Jesus.” He runs a hand angrily through his hair. “They just got themselves blacklisted.”
“I’ve got her with me now, so I’m not that concerned. Plus, she’s only here for a few more weeks, and then it’s summer vacation, so we’ll have time to figure out what we’re gonna do next semester.”
He nods. “Polly’s still feeling like shit, so I think we’re going to head out tonight instead of in the morning.” He didn’t want her to come out at all because she’d been sick, but once Erik deemed it safe enough for her to be here—after he arrived and knew the exact circumstances surrounding Paisley’s attack—she took some cold meds and got on a plane to see her daughter.
“Sounds good.”
With his hand on the knob, he stops and turns. “I was a jackass.”
“It’s all good.”
“I was, but it’s Paisley, ya know?”
“Fuck yeah, I know.” Shit. I didn’t mean it to come out that way.
He angles his head and narrows his eyes, squaring his shoulders at me in warning. “She’s my daughter, Royce. I love her. And I trust you.” He pointedly stares at me. “I want her to have protection because I would hate for someone to try to take advantage of her.”
“Right.”
After a tense moment—the warning, verbal and physical—he nods and goes inside. Both Polly and Paisley are sleeping on the couch, and Erik takes in the scene. “They crashed almost as soon as you left.”
“Been a rough couple of days.”
“Polly was beside herself. I had to have Wes go over and stay with her while I hopped on the charter.”
I’m thankful I wasn’t the one assigned to keep Polly reined in. She’s crazy fierce when she needs to be, and her daughter getting hurt and not being able to see her is definitely something she’d fight tooth and nail for until she got to see her. “I get why you didn’t want her out here right away.” We didn’t know what we were dealing with, and since Paisley was already in the hospital, he didn’t want to risk bringing his wife into an unknown situation.
“Glad you do. She’s still pissed I made her wait.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“You sure you don’t want to crash here tonight?” I ask strictly to be polite. I don’t want him here. He needs to leave and take his wife with him, so I can be with my girl.
He shakes his head. “Yeah, I want to get her home even though it’s a lot of flying in one day. Plus, I know you’ve got this.”
Those words hold a lot of weight and also punch me in the gut. If he only knew…
He and I catch up on things that have been happening back at Ace, and after a little while, he gets the text that their chartered plane is ready; the perks of owning your own security company, I guess. He gently pushes some hair off Polly’s face and kisses her forehead. When she opens her eyes, a soft smile plays on her lips. Despite her red nose and the dark circles beneath her eyes, she’s still a beautiful woman. It’s easy to forget sometimes that she’s not related to Paisley by blood because they look so much alike. And plus, Erik and Polly were in their early thirties when they adopted Paisley at fourteen years old, so they look more like sisters than mother and daughter.
While they’re talking, I grab some canned soup and put it on the stove. If Paisley crashed as soon as I left, that means she hasn’t eaten in hours.
“How you doin’, Royce?” Polly wraps her arms around me, and I hug her back. She made such a difference in Erik’s life that everyone looks at her like some kind of miracle worker.
“I’m good. You?”
“Eh.” She waves her hand in the air and ends up coughing. “Been better. This stupid cold
won’t go away, but I was really worried about her. And you. I needed to at least see you guys.”
I cross my ankles as I lean on the fridge. “Why me?”
She raises a brow. “Because you’re taking all the blame when we both know—”
“Regardless of the reason, keeping her safe was my job, and I failed,” I interrupt her. “I can promise you, though, it won’t happen again.”
“I believe that. You need to make sure you’re taking care of yourself, too.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m a big boy, Polly. I have no problem taking care of myself.”
“I know, but a reminder every now and then doesn’t hurt.” When she hugs me goodbye, I get the overwhelming sense of loss that consumes me whenever I think about my own mother. Even though Polly isn’t as old as my mom, she still has that motherly quality about her. My mom was the type who would assure me everything was gonna be okay. Always worrying about her boy. “You take care of my girl and tell her to call me tomorrow. I don’t want to wake her.”
“I’ll be in touch.” Erik bumps fists with me, and I follow them, locking the door and setting the alarm.
We’d talked earlier in the day, and after he was in touch with the detective on the case, we’re waiting on the DNA results from the blood that splattered on her hair from when she head-butted him. Other than that, from a legal standpoint, there’s not much else we can do but be cautious. Plus Erik told me he has a really big business thing happening right now and needs to be back in Cali to negotiate. I didn’t bother taking the time to ask what it was since that side of the business doesn’t affect me.
I grab a bowl from the cabinet and fill half of it with the chicken broth and noodles. Setting it on my coffee table, I sit in front of Paisley and do just as Erik did. It’s crazy how tough ass guys become so weak and gentle around their women.
