by Abigail Owen
Twenty more minutes of back roads, and they’d be there. She’d be home.
Home. The word was starting to sound foreign to her now. Uncomfortable. Like she didn’t quite know what or where home was. She hadn’t found where she fit in her new life yet, but she didn’t fit with her family. Not anymore. Not really.
Drake had a point there.
“What’s our story?”
Cami jumped a little at the sudden growling sound of Drake’s voice inside the small confines of the car. She turned her head from the view of golds and greens of rolling California mountains to frown at him. “Story?”
“Our story?” he prompted.
When she just stared at him, he made an impatient gesture with his hands without taking them from the wheel. “Why are you home early from whatever excuse you gave your family to be away? And why am I with you?”
Right. Good questions. Ones her family would ask. “They thought I was in Texas for a semester course on animal husbandry for goats.”
“Oh gods. The goats,” he muttered under his breath.
Or at least that’s what she thought he said. “Sorry?”
“Nothing.”
Except now she had a new worry. “Dragons don’t eat goats. Right?”
He side-eyed her for a second. “You’re only wondering this now?”
Stupid to feel defensive. “I had other things I was dealing with earlier. Like getting out undetected, and then getting here.” And exploring your body.
“The goats are safe from me,” he said in a dry voice.
Phew. One less thing. “Good. So, the home from school thing. I was going to tell them that this course, since it’s an unofficial course for professionals, is getting an extra week off for Thanksgiving.”
“Which gives us two weeks?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. That explains the timing.”
“Maybe you can be a friend from the course who doesn’t have family in the States, and so I invited you to share Thanksgiving with mine?” That would work, right?
“To stay with your family when they’re in the middle of rebuilding the ranch?”
Cami dropped her head back against the headrest. “You’re right. That would be weird.”
“Say I’m your boyfriend.”
She sat up straight at that. “I don’t see—”
“I wanted to come help out and meet your family.”
Cami stared at Drake, but couldn’t discern his expression from only one side of his face. “No way. They’ll have us married off in a heartbeat.”
No way would her mother miss the tension that strung between them like rubber bands stretched too far.
“So? They won’t meet your future mate.”
“Maybe they will.”
He shot her a look that put all his doubts about that happening in one glance and had her pulling against her seatbelt as she tried to straighten. “You won’t be able to pull it off,” she said. “The boyfriend thing, I mean.”
“Wrong.”
Cami rolled her eyes. Telling him he couldn’t do anything had been a stupid approach to take. Now she’d offended his manhood, or dragon badassness, or whatever. “As a friend they will already be pushy, asking you all sorts of questions. As my boyfriend…” She shook her head.
Actually, she’d never brought a boyfriend home to meet her family. She had no idea what they would be like. Except her dad. He’d probably go glare for glare with Drake.
“Consider me warned.”
He shook that off way too easily. “You can’t be…”
Only she couldn’t make herself say it. That he couldn’t be himself around her family. Having grown up in a world where the harsh reality meant often she wasn’t deemed enough—not Mexican enough and not American enough, depending on the side of the border—she understood that kind of judgment. Her parents had taught her to never be who she wasn’t, to be proud of who and what she was no matter what. Everyone else could deal with it or fuck off, not that her parents would use those words, but she’d got the point.
No way could she ask Drake, who’d come here to protect her, who’d saved her life, to be anything but who he was.
“Can’t be what?” he prodded.
Cami sighed. “Just…try not to glare at them all the time. You might even have to talk…and stuff.”
Drake grunted, and she figured that was the best she was going to get.
They fell into a silence that was somehow both easy and uneasy at the same time. The silence wasn’t the problem. Maybe the fact that she couldn’t be around him without wanting to stick her tongue down his throat was.
“I’m not a social butterfly,” Drake said, cracking the thin layer of glass that had held sound at bay.
“I know.” Even the words coming from his lips was laughable. “It’s not that.”
“Okay.” That one word dripped with disgruntled confusion.
Cami smiled. “It’s just… My family are good people. I want them to think I’m with a guy who actually…likes me.”
She grimaced and waited for him to point out that he’d just been fucking her less than five hours ago.
Total silence. Except this definitely wasn’t an easy quiet between them. Tension rolled over her, like a thick San Francisco fog, with all sorts of unspoken words.
Cami glanced out the window, the passing countryside as familiar as the lines and freckles on the backs of her hands. Not too much farther.
“I do.”
It took her a second to absorb what he said and what it meant. Did he say that? She shifted in her seat to look at him and got a half face of his usual glower as he stared at the road.
“You do what?” She definitely needed clarification.
“Like you.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach with more force than a roller coaster. “But…” She wasn’t even sure where to start. “You yell at me.”
“I do that to everyone.”
She snorted. “A sign of your affection, huh?”
“No. You annoy me, too.”
“Then why not be more…” Friendly wasn’t the word.
“I’m dying.” He slipped in while she was searching for the right one.
“I guess that would make anyone grumpy,” she said slowly.
“No. I’m always an asshole. Ask my team.” His lips twitched. She hadn’t been lying in the parking lot. That smile of his had shot through her like a mule kick to the solar plexus. Maybe because of how rarely it appeared, or how it transformed his face from harsh and broken to something almost boyish and charming, but also still broken. Compelling and damn sexy because of the stark difference.
“Was that a joke?” she teased.
“Just stating facts.”
“I see.”
He was quiet a moment. “I can’t have more with you.”
She didn’t follow. “More what?”
“Than this bodyguard thing, and maybe fucking. Nothing more.”
Suddenly Rune’s words and her insight last night—about how he’d sacrificed himself for his team, walking away even though he didn’t want to—settled heavily over her. The weight of it threatened to drag her under. Drake couldn’t have more—a relationship with her or anyone else—because it meant more people he’d hurt or have to walk away from. He’d probably rather die than do that.
“That sounds…lonely.” To cut himself off from everyone like that. But she got it. Maybe having to leave her family, to choose to hurt them both like that, made his pain all the more real to her. She wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand, except she doubted he’d let her.
He said nothing.
“I understand,” she said instead.
He cast her a long glance and she looked steadily back.
“I believe you do,” he said.
/>
Only he didn’t look away. In a burgeoning silence, they stared at each other. Some small part of her mind insisted that he should keep his eyes on the road, but she didn’t feel in any danger. Instead, anticipation buzzed through her like a heady alcohol while at the same time peace folded around her with a subtle, deft touch.
She offered him a hesitant smile and he jerked his gaze back to the road.
Unprompted, he turned left off the paved road onto the long gravel drive that led to her home. The trees on both sides of the road had been decimated until only blackened spikes that used to be tree trunks remained. The drive used to be cast in permanent shadow with trees and vegetation towering overhead, meeting high up to make a canopy. Not anymore. Now the sun beat down mercilessly even in the chill of oncoming winter.
I should have died here.
Rune’s revelation that Drake had saved her struck her with the blunt force of an axe splitting a log. Again, she thought about saying something. Thanking him at the very least. But held back. He wouldn’t like the attention. No matter how well deserved.
“Just so you know…” She glanced at her hands clenched in her lap and forced her fingers to relax. “The feeling is mutual.”
Raising her gaze, she caught how he raised his eyebrows, not taking his attention from navigating the potholes all over the drive.
“I like you, too,” she clarified.
His hands flexed on the wheel, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have time, because they were here.
He pulled around a bend and Cami sucked in a sharp breath. She’d seen the damage right after the fire, walked around the still smoldering pile of ashes that had made up the spaces of her childhood and the working and living memories of her adult years. Hell, she’d ruined a new pair of boots because the soles melted as she’d walked.
A lot had been done since she’d left—the worst of the damage cleared. But not enough. New foundations for the two houses her uncles and their families lived in should’ve been poured by now. Instead, the wooden molds were up, but nothing else.
Drake pulled up to the side of the main house and turned off the car. “You okay?”
She slowly turned her head to find Drake watching her closely.
“Yeah.” The word came out all choked off. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
She turned her head to look back out the window, except Drake put a hand over hers, clenched up in her lap again, and she returned her gaze to him. Warmth spread from his touch through her, loosening tense muscles and unraveling the knot of worries that lodged in her chest.
“You can rebuild, and all your family is alive,” he said. “Focus on that.”
Just when she’d lumped him in the permanent asshole column, he went and said kind things like that.
Not only that. They were alive because Drake saved them.
Nothing could have stopped her from at least showing her gratitude, even if she didn’t voice it. Without thinking it through, she leaned across the small center console separating them and laid her lips over his in a sweet, soft kiss.
Drake tensed under the touch, but she lingered there, willing him to relax, accept this for what it was. An offering of thanks.
For a brief second, she almost thought he was going to pull away, and the sharp pang of disappointment surprised her. But instead, he gave a low groan and took over.
He snaked an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. She didn’t even care about the console digging into her hip as her body leaped to tumultuous life under the softest kisses. She’d imagined hard and demanding, like last night, but instead he soothed, persuaded.
Kisses that she inherently knew were for her, like a lovely, unexpected gift, but still made her body shudder with the violence of need scorching through her like wildfire.
Cami nipped at his lower lip, begging for more, and Drake groaned again, his hold becoming fierce, possessive, digging into her flesh in the most delicious way. Their tongues tangled, and she lost herself in him. In them.
All she knew was that she wanted more. All of him. She wanted his hands, his lips, to explore every inch of her, and the fantasy of doing the same to him had her gasping against his lips. She wanted to crawl into his lap and unzip his pants so she could sink her body over his hard shaft. She wanted to drive him to the brink and revel in his loss of that total control, how he’d shout when he came.
He nipped at her lower lip, like she’d done to him, sucking it into his mouth, and she whimpered with need, the small sound piercing through the sounds of their heavy breathing inside the otherwise silent car.
They both froze, reality rudely smacking her between the eyes.
We shouldn’t be doing this.
She shouldn’t be doing this. Sex complicated everything. She had to stay safe while they helped rebuild her ranch, then she had some tough decisions to make about her family. After that, somewhere along the line, she had a mate to find and a new life to start.
And Drake was dying.
The sudden onslaught of pain at the very thought made her suck in a sharp breath and sit back, eyeing him with a growing revelation.
She gave a mental shake of her head. She shouldn’t let herself get close to him. She couldn’t believe the fates would give her a mate only to rip him from her, possibly taking her with him when he died. Her mate—her true, destined mate—was out there somewhere, and Drake was only a bodyguard. A confusing, grumpy, compelling bodyguard who didn’t want anyone to mourn when he left this earth.
Which meant she needed to shut this down now.
Cami cleared her throat. “Don’t look now, but this isn’t what most bodyguards do.”
Drake went from staring at her with a wariness she hated to scowling. Just like she’d intended. Only she hated that even more. She could practically see him building those walls back up between them brick by brick—higher and stronger than before. Maybe with some barbed wire rolled at the top, like a prison.
He’d be impossible after this. No doubt.
But Drake was right. Friends wasn’t a good idea. Lovers even worse.
Cami moved to face forward and adjusted her clothes, trying to erase the memory of his hands slipping under her shirt, heating her skin. Not looking at him, she cracked open the door, then paused. Perhaps she should drive a nail into the coffin to be sure.
With deliberation, she turned her head and grinned at him, forcing a lightness she was far from feeling. “As fun as last night was…it was a mistake. One that can’t happen again.”
…
Drake stared at the woman in front of him, trying to shake out of a sexual fog and comprehend what she’d just said. What the hell just happened?
“Cami?” a female voice called from the direction of the house.
Then a woman who looked like a slightly older, and shorter, version of Cami stepped outside, her smile growing as she confirmed that her visitor was who she thought.
Without a second glance at him, Cami was out the car and across to her mother in a heartbeat.
“What are you doing here?” her mother asked, as they wrapped each other in a tight hug. From this vantage point, he could see the way Cami closed her eyes as she held onto her mother, even breathed her in.
Making a memory, he’d bet. Had she listened to him about the kind of love that sacrificed? The world stopped on its axis. Was that why she’d just ended things before they started? Which was what he should have done, dammit.
“I have two weeks for Thanksgiving break,” Cami murmured. “And wanted to surprise you.”
He could practically see when the time limit hit Cami—only two weeks with her family and then maybe never again—because her arms tightened around her mother’s neck convulsively.
Then Cami took a deep breath and stepped back. “Where’s Papá?”
“In the southern
field. We’ve had to buy extra feed since most of the acres are burned, and he’s putting it out.”
Drake gripped the wheel tighter as Cami’s mother cast furtive glances toward him. He should get out, but first he needed to calm the raging hard-on that damn kiss had ignited. He should run from her, hard and fast, call Finn to watch her and walk away.
No. She was his to guard. Drake would see that through and return her to Rune.
A few deep breaths and thoughts of ice-cold showers didn’t help much, but enough to finally exit the vehicle.
Automatically he used his senses to scour the area nearest them, but hearing, smell, and sight picked up nothing. The land still smelled of fire, and the slightly pungent aroma of the goats lingered, but they were a few miles away. He’d prefer to take to the skies and do a sweep from above, but he’d have to wait for the cover of night to do that.
Instead, he approached the two women watching him—one with open curiosity, the other with a hint of concern.
Cami’s mother was a tinier version of her daughter, but her eyes smiled at him as he approached, even as her lips remained firm. “Who is this?” She directed the question at Cami.
“Mama, this is my…friend…Drake Chandali. Drake, this is my mother, Christina Carrillo.”
Drake held out a hand and felt like a fucking child as he did his best to recall etiquette. Charm was never his thing, a fact that his own mother had lamented when she still lived. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Carrillo.”
“None of that formality.” She bypassed his hand and stepped closer to hug him. Drake had to stoop to allow her to reach him. “Welcome to our home.”
Cami shot him a thumbs-up from behind her mother’s back, and Drake made a face at the laughter lurking in her dark eyes. She knew how uncomfortable this would be for him. He was not the hugging type.
Mrs. Carrillo pulled back and took his face in her hands, practically inspecting him like cattle. “You have a strong heart. I can tell. But maybe not enough happiness.”
He glanced over her shoulder at Cami who shrugged but couldn’t hide a smile.
“Come inside out of the chill and tell me all about yourself.”
Cami choked back a laugh. “Mama, please don’t interrogate my friend. He’ll never want to come back.”
