by Naima Simone
“Now who’s making assumptions?” she shot back. “I never said that. And for the record, slick, I’m pretty decent. There’s a big difference between aiming for a hippo’s intestines and hitting a shot across a green.”
“Point taken.” He paused. “Aaand yet, I’m winning.”
“Bite me.”
He arched an eyebrow and leisurely surveyed her from her dark brown ponytail, over the green one-piece jumpsuit that cupped her gorgeous breasts, slid over her hips, and flowed around her long, lovely legs. “Is that an invitation?” he teased, but the rough note in his voice—all too damn real.
“Oh no you don’t.” She scowled. “Sexual innuendoes are hereby banned from this course.”
He inclined his head, grinning. “Understood.” Waving his hand to the next stop, which included a big-ass bunny with disturbingly huge eyes and teeth, he said, “After you.” Pause. “Which is my motto in most things.”
Throwing him a glare, she marched ahead of him, and he didn’t bother holding back his laughter this time. An hour and a half and two more games later, they turned in their golf clubs and multi-colored balls.
Fun.
He’d had more fun in the last two hours than he’d enjoyed in… God, he couldn’t remember the last time. She’d done that—given him pleasure that didn’t include a bed, sweaty and straining bodies, and orgasms. The usual ways he found pleasure with a woman. For four years, he’d avoided relationships, attachments. Which included allowing a woman close enough to make him feel anything more than physically satisfied. But Sloane… Since the moment he’d met her she’d been eliciting emotions from him: curiosity, hunger, fear, this increasingly alien joy. Her ability to do so only made him want her more.
And scared the shit out of him.
He longed to draw her close…and shove her far, far away.
But right now, with the early afternoon sun highlighting the scattering of gold freckles over the bridge of her nose and along her cheekbones, he ignored the warning blaring like a foghorn inside his head. Instead, he decided to bask in the moment.
Too shortly they would return to her parents’ home and resume their charade and their boundaries. But not here, with eight-feet-tall grinning animals and the shouts and laughter of children and adults surrounding them, he was going to…enjoy himself.
Enjoy Sloane.
“How about a hot dog and ice cream?” He extended his hand and couldn’t contain the swirl of delight in his chest when she slid hers in his. “Loser pays.”
“I’m already paying an astronomical bill for your services,” she protested. “And now I have to pay for your lunch? Aren’t expenses included in that fee?”
“A: You were the one who insisted on paying said bill.” Of which they weren’t accepting a dime, but pointing that out right now might ruin the mood. “And B: This is completely separate from the job. Loser always pays. It’s a universal rule.”
“A man must’ve invented that so-called rule.”
He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Probably.”
She snorted. “Definitely.”
Ten minutes later, they sat on one of the bench-table combos outside the clubhouse, Nathan’s hotdogs in hands. Sloane bit into hers, and eyes closed, moaned. Ciaran averted his gaze, jaw clenched. Wicked, pleasure-drenched sounds like that should be reserved for sex, not a hotdog. He should know since the same groan had reverberated in his ears last night while he’d stroked her to orgasm. Damn good thing he was sitting down and the picnic table hid his lap—and the erection tenting his pants.
“I haven’t had a Nathan’s in years,” she murmured, plucking up an onion and popping it into her mouth.
“You don’t say,” he said, voice dry. “When I was in New York, I had one at least three times a week.”
“I didn’t know you lived in New York.” She sipped from her soda, and again he found himself needing to adjust the fit of his pants and averting his stare away from the sight of her pretty lips wrapped around her straw. Hell. He needed to smack a leash on his mind. “You’re from Boston, though, right? I thought you and Shane grew up together.”
“I am, and we did. I joined the DEA straight out of college and worked in New York City for four years before returning home.” Please don’t ask why. Please don’t spoil this day by making me remember…
As if she’d heard his silent plea, she didn’t continue down the path of what had brought him home. Instead, she sighed, set her half-eaten food on the table. “Straight out of college?” She shook her head, a small wistful smile barely curving her lips. “I can see you knowing what you wanted and going for it. I envy that.”
He released a short bark of laughter, not entirely devoid of humor, but tinged with a hell of a lot of self-deprecation, earning him a look of surprise from Sloane. “Being an agent wasn’t my first choice for my career. Since I was in grade school, all I wanted to be was a football player. The dream of most boys, right? But I was damn good. So good I went to school on a scholarship and had coaches—college and NFL—scouting me by my junior year in high school.” Memories of those days filled with grueling practices, Friday night games, and the incomparable high of knowing you left everything you had on the field and it paid off in a win filled him, warmed him. “But my sophomore year in college I blew my knee. There I was, no scholarship, no NFL career, and no idea what I was going to do with my life. I had to reevaluate everything, and turned out I loved my criminal justice classes. And when the opportunity came to apply to the DEA, I took it.”
Now, the disappointment of seeing his dreams of playing professional football didn’t carve out a hole in his chest like it used to. As his mother had been so fond of telling him, “Everything happens for a reason.” And now, with years’ distance from that bleak time, he could agree with her. But not everything. Just some things. Because he still couldn’t reconcile why God would allow a woman as loving and beautiful as Sam die in such a violent manner. Why she died and pieces of shit like he used to arrest still lived and breathed.
“And the rest is history,” she murmured.
Not quite. “Something like that.” He dipped his chin in her direction. “I got the feeling you loved teaching,” he said, veering the discussion away from him. “Education wasn’t your first love?”
She didn’t answer right away, and though her face had adopted that shuttered expression he was growing to detest, he didn’t push her. Finally, she glanced down, fidgeting with the paper boat her food rested in.
“No,” she replied softly. “I’ve always wanted to teach. Even when my parents ‘urged’”—she curled her fingers in air quotes—“me to major in something I could use like communications or business, I didn’t back down. For once.”
“But,” he gently pressed when she paused.
“But, I’m not happy. Doesn’t that sound so ungrateful?” She scoffed, shaking her head.
She lifted her head, meeting his gaze, and he bet if she realized how much of her heart resided in those emerald green eyes, she would duck her head once more. As it was, he fought the need to reach across the table, and smooth away the wrinkle between her eyebrows. Stroke her jaw, mouth. Comfort her. But instead, he maintained his stranglehold on his empty hotdog container, crushing the paper until the edges pricked his palm and fingers.
“Ungrateful because you’ve changed your mind?” he asked.
“No. Even though Dad didn’t agree with my decision, he arranged the teaching position for me at Kennedy-Lewis, which is a prep school for the wealthy. But I’ve been so”—she straightened and curled her fingers as if attempting to grab the answer out of the air—“unfulfilled. Not because of the kids, although there are those like Drake Morriston—except maybe not as destined to be on America’s Most Wanted. Most of the kids are great, but they don’t need me. Not really. They have the best education and resources money can buy, including teachers. I want more. I want to feel like I’m making a difference. Instead I’m making everyone else happy but myself. No,” she o
bjected, frowning. “That’s not exactly right. I feel like I’m failing myself.”
Shock ricocheted through him. When a person first glanced at Sloane, they would see a statuesque, reserved, beautiful woman—never guessing the passion that smoldered beneath the aloof exterior. He’d been burned by that fire last night and witnessed it today. It was intoxicating to be on the receiving end of it, and exhilarating to see. “It’s hard to believe you could fail at anything, duchess.”
Surprise flared in her eyes, and moments later, a smile quirked the corner of her mouth. Small and wry, but it was a start. “There is an opportunity…”
“It stays here,” he promised when she trailed off. He sensed she hadn’t told anyone of this opportunity yet. While she might not be able to trust his increasingly ragged self-control when it came to her, she could believe he would protect her with his life and anything she said to him didn’t go any further. He needed her to believe it. “Me and you.”
“I have a chance to teach at a new charter school in Roxbury.”
He whistled. “That’s a big difference from your prep school.”
“I know,” she agreed, leaning forward, eagerness brightening her gaze, fairly vibrating in her body. “But to be in on the ground floor of structuring and planning the curriculum? Being a part of something important and lasting? This is what I’ve always dreamed of doing.”
The excitement and the joy shining in her eyes struck him hard in the chest. This was the true Sloane. Passionate, animated, confident.
“What’s holding you back, then?”
The light in her expression dimmed the slightest bit. Her smile faltered. “Me,” she murmured. “I can say I’m afraid of disappointing my parents. Or I could say that after years of being the flawed Barrett, I cringe when I think of adding one more black mark against my name. But those are the simple answers.” She shook her head. “The truth is I’m scared to screw this up. Being the perfect daughter, the perfect socialite, an engagement—I’ve failed at those, and yes, they hurt. But this—teaching, working with children—is my heart. It’s my passion. I’m terrified of failing at my passion.”
Silence pulsed between them like a heartbeat. He, more than anyone, understood fear of not being enough, of letting others down, of fucking up when it meant the most. His cost had been horrific. Because of him the woman he’d loved was gone. The price of losing her was his to bear, to suffer, to always remember like a penance that could never be absolved.
But Sloane didn’t have to pay that same price.
She deserved happiness, peace, and her dreams. And it was his job to protect her, keep her safe so she could have that future at the school.
“Sloane.” He waited until he had her undivided attention before continuing. “We conducted a background search on you when we took your case. Mainly to discover if maybe you’d encountered disgruntled employers or acquaintances that you might’ve forgotten to tell us about.” At least on the surface, that had been the purpose. If he were truly, I’ll-only-admit-it-in-the-darkest-hours-of-midnight honest, he’d wanted to know more about her. The need had only intensified in the days since. “All your co-workers, your reviews, and reports had certain words in common. Dedicated. Hard-working. Cares for her students. Kind. Need more like her. Sweetheart…”
Even as his mind blared a “back the hell up” warning, he submitted to the desire to touch her. Even as his brain taunted him with what happened the last time he crossed the line with a woman he should’ve been guarding, he reached across the table, clasped her hand in his, and trailed the backs of his fingers of the other down her soft cheek. “You won’t be great, because you already are great. I can think of no greater crime than to see you lose the light you have when you talk about doing what you love. Don’t let fear hold you back.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, cupping her hand over his.
Turning, she placed a gentle kiss to his palm. And the sweet gesture bolted through him like lightning, throbbing in his veins. Shutting down the shudder that tried to work its way down his spine, he withdrew from her. He couldn’t afford to forget how dangerous she was to his self-control.
“That’s becoming a habit with you,” she murmured.
“What is?” He met her steady, too incisive observation.
“Pulling away. I could be offended,” she said, her lips twisting into a faint, wry smile. “But something tells me it has more to do with whatever makes you zone out sometimes. Whatever—or whoever—causes your eyes to darken with pain.”
Ice spread through him, and he allowed it to infiltrate his voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” No way in hell he was going there with her. He could barely think of Sam and her death—and his part in it—without curling in on himself. Damn if he would have a kumbaya moment about it. Especially with Sloane.
“You do that often, too. Shut me down.” Her gaze roamed over his face as if searching for answers that he refused to give her. Couldn’t give her. “Control is that important to you, isn’t it, Ciaran?” she whispered. “What happened that made you crave it so badly?”
Flashes of a dirty back room, of a blank stare, of blood flashed before his eyes. Death, pain, fear—they all made him desperate for control. They were ruthless masters that demanded it. And he was their bitch.
He rose from the table on the pretext of gathering their trash and crossing the few feet to toss it away. The task granted him physical and emotional space and time to still the whirlwind her questions had stirred.
“You know what I just realized,” he said, returning to her and infusing a teasing note in his voice. “Not once today have you recited one of your weird facts.”
Red stained the curves of her cheekbones, but she chuckled. “Weird to you, but they work.”
“Work how? And how in the hell do you know all that anyway?”
She shrugged, slipping her half-eaten hotdog into its bag. “Being the chubby, shy kid provided me with a lot of time to read. And besides reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, learning things I figured no one else would know made me feel smart.”
He absorbed what she said—and what she hadn’t said. Since she felt she wasn’t the pretty sister, she could be the smart one. He could only imagine the pain of feeling being constantly compared to a popular, thin, beautiful, younger sibling. And always coming up short.
He picked up his drink and sipped from it, studying her. “Snails can sleep for three years without eating.”
A slow grin spread over her face. “Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.”
“The average human eats eight spiders in their lifetime while sleeping.”
She scrunched her face up in disgust, but shot out, “An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.”
“Turtles can breathe through their asses.”
“Snakes—” She straightened. Blinked. “You made that up,” she accused.
He folded his arms on the table, arching a brow. “Google it.”
“Hold on.” She pulled her cell from her pocket. Tapped the screen. Tapped some more. She lifted her head, eyes narrowed. “Damn. They really do breathe through their asses.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sloane stood outside her bedroom door, her hand grasping the knob.
For the second time in a day, she found herself staring at a closed door, wary of facing the man on the other side. Unlike this morning, it wasn’t embarrassment about stolen, erotic moments in front of a fire that had her heart imitating a drum line. No, the honor belonged to a day of miniature golf, smack talk, hotdogs, and sharing dreams and hopes she’d never revealed to anyone.
The honor belonged to stripping away one layer of the man guarding her—because she didn’t fool herself into believing there weren’t many more.
The honor belonged to discovering that man had secrets, pains, and wounds hidden under his hard exterior, and she wanted to mine those depths.
And therein lay the reason she hovered outside her room.
&
nbsp; She wanted.
His softly whispered confidences in the middle of the night. His trust. Hell, him. She wanted him.
A line had been crossed today. Last night could be relegated to high stress and nerves after a traumatic event, and him offering her comfort and relief through physical release. Happened all the time. Especially in romance novels.
But today… Those moments on the miniature golf range and afterward had been more intimate than the pleasure he’d brought her. More vulnerable.
Part of her craved being completely honest with someone, the freedom to let her walls down and be seen. But another part—the more cynical, experienced part—shied away from that need. The past had taught her nothing good came from lying physically and emotionally naked before someone.
Not that any of this mattered. Not the hunger to touch and taste and be taken by Ciaran. Not the need to know the man and not just the security specialist.
Because Ciaran was here with her for one reason—to catch her stalker and would-be kidnapper and determine who and why someone wanted to hurt her. As soon as those tasks were accomplished, they would go their separate ways, maybe occasionally seeing one another at parties like Shane and Fallon’s wedding.
She inhaled a deep breath. Exhaled it slowly, deliberately. Turned the door knob. And it was better that way. She didn’t confuse a passing attraction with feelings. Didn’t complicate business with sex—
Jesus Christ, the man was trying to kill her.
Ciaran turned to face the door, his cell phone pressed to his ear, an arm raised and fingers buried in his black tumble of hair. He must’ve answered the phone while in the middle of undressing because the sides of his dress shirt flapped around his bare, hard chest. His blue eyes locked on her, but she couldn’t tear hers away from the sight of his bare chest…again. This was the third time she’d seen his inked skin, so she should be used to the size and beauty of him.
But then again, after visiting the Louvre three times, one didn’t say, “Oh, you’ve seen one Leonardo da Vinci, you’ve seen them all.”