Student Bodyguard for Hire

by Callie James

  I couldn’t allow myself to picture someone hitting him. If I did, I’d start crying, and I promised myself I’d stop getting emotional in front of Sam. “Your mother didn’t do anything?”

  “She didn’t know. The mornings after, he’d blame the bruises on street fights. Half the time he wasn’t lying.”

  “And you never told her.”

  He shook his head. “I worried she’d get sick again, the way she’d been before my uncle moved in. The idea of losing my dad and her was worse than taking a beating every other week. When the poundings became more frequent, more…severe, I learned to disappear. Spent less time at the house. Avoided him when I could. That’s when he went after Vanna.”

  “Savanna?”

  His mouth slanted down. “I’d left one night, out walking, when he found Vanna’s flat iron plugged in. He accused her of leaving it on all day. I’d seen him go ballistic over less, but that night he was in rare form. He hit her twice, close fisted. She almost lost consciousness. Then he dragged her into the bathroom where he held the flat iron to her throat. You know, to teach her a lesson.”

  “He burned her?” I put my hands to my throat, trying to process the information when my mind refused to accept it. I imagined the large flower design tattooed on her neck, understanding now the reason behind it.

  “She’d been covering for me with our mom,” he said. “About my uncle’s violent side. So when he hurt her, she didn’t call our mom. She called me. It must have taken me less than a minute to run twelve blocks but it wasn’t fast enough. He was gone when I got there. All I could think about was how often I’d left her alone, vulnerable to that psycho’s mood swings. How I’d fucked up and couldn’t take it back. I didn’t leave her alone for a long time after that.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “Don’t go easy on me, Peyton. The sociopath once heated a zippo lighter and held it to my arm for leaving the kitchen light on. I should have known he was capable of doing something just as demented to my sister.”

  I’d burned my finger playing with a metal flip-top lighter as a child. I knew how hot those things could get. My watery gaze shifted to the tattoo on his left arm, then his right. Wondering which one.

  “I found her doubled-over in the bathroom,” he said. “Her right eye had already swollen shut and her throat … I’d never seen anything like it. I cried just to look at it. She was so little at the time, smaller than other eleven-year-olds. I’d never seen anyone in that much pain. She was looking to me to help her, and all I could do was cry.”

  “You were young, too.”

  His unflinching scowl told me he didn’t care about excuses. “Eventually, I pulled myself together and called two of my dad’s friends from the old neighborhood—both police officers. They arrived within minutes, bringing the local police and an ambulance. They picked up my mom and drove her to the hospital where they’d taken Savanna and me. I finally had to explain what my uncle had been doing. Smacking me around, I mean. They put out a warrant for his arrest, but he was an out-of-work construction worker. It’s easy to drop off the grid when you answer to no one.”

  “So he got away with it.”

  He nodded. “Someone in the family was always with us after that. For the first few months anyway, until they thought it was safe to leave us alone. We thought he was gone for good. Then one day he showed up after my mother had gone to work. He’d already talked himself into a drunken rage. Demanded I let him in. Said he wanted to get his things. Threatened to kill me if I didn’t open the door.

  “God, you didn’t.”

  “No way was I letting him near Vanna. I told her to lock herself in my mom’s room and call the police. Which she did while I tried to keep him out. But the lock didn’t hold. He broke the doorknob on the third kick. The next thing I knew, I was face down on the driveway, trying to get up as he kept kicking me back down.”

  I held my hand to my mouth, knowing I didn’t want to hear this.

  “Eventually I blacked out and…” he shifted uneasily, “when I woke, the pain had been… more than I could stand. I could hardly breathe. I didn’t know it at the time, but he’d taken the broken end of a car antenna and struck it across—”

  I sagged against the wall, unable to hide my difficulty with this. Had I not locked my knees, I would have slid right to the floor.

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Sorry. You get the picture now.”

  “It’s okay.” I held my stomach, steadying the queasiness before speaking again. “I want you to finish. I have to know.”

  “There’s no pretty way to say it.”

  “I don’t need pretty. I need the truth, even if it’s difficult to hear.”

  His mouth compressed into a doubtful line. “I hadn’t been wearing a shirt at the time. My skin had no protection when he hit me. The first strike happened when I was unconscious. I was still half out of it when he struck me a second time. I’d been awake enough to watch. To feel it cut through but I couldn’t—”

  I clutched my midsection, trying not to get sick. I seriously needed to sit but didn’t want him to see me so weak. “I’m okay,” I said, looking to the floor and focusing on a piece of lint. “Please finish.”

  He sighed. “I rolled and the third strike hit my shoulder, cutting through my upper arm,” he said, speaking faster. “I managed to get to my feet, but I had three broken ribs and collapsed after a few feet. This time he shoved his boot against my neck to hold me down while hitting me six more times across the back. I guess he was finally satisfied when it looked as though I might bleed out right there on the pavement.”

  “Okay …stop.” Intense nausea made me cover my mouth and I sagged a little further against the wall, unable to forget the image of that smiling nine-year-old. “I can’t take anymore.”

  “Sorry.”

  I swallowed bile and took several deep breaths. “I … I don’t know what to say.”

  He shrugged. “There isn’t anything to say.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said into my hand. “I keep telling you I won’t get emotional and then I do. You must think I’m a weakling.”

  “Or very compassionate,” he said. “Which you are. Besides, I know how it feels. It’s worse to see it happening to someone else. Going through Vanna’s ordeal had been far worse than spending several days in the hospital after what he’d done to me. I can’t imagine what my mother must have felt. I know her guilt was tremendous. Her feelings of helplessness. And when my uncle continued to elude the police, she lost all sense of safety. She could barely eat or sleep, much less work. Worrying about us made the migraines more frequent. Her panic attacks worsened. Family and friends helped us when they could. It took months to get her somewhat right again, only to suffer another setback when the bastard showed up two years later, claiming sobriety and wanting forgiveness.”

  “But you didn’t believe him.”

  “Hell no, I didn’t believe him. I wouldn’t let him through the door. When he shoved his way past me and I caught a whiff of alcohol on him, I … lost it. Vanna said I hit him from behind.”

  “That was when you were sixteen.”

  He nodded.

  “You hospitalized him and you don’t remember doing it?”

  “Not well. Little pieces. I remember the surprise on his face after he went down. I remember the point I’d broken my hand hitting him and had to switch to my left. I remember hearing my mother shouting into her phone. My sister screaming. The neighbor who pulled me off him …his shirt smelled of a wood fire. Like he’d returned from camping. I remember useless things like that.”

  “You had to have been scared. No one would blame you.”

  “That’s just it.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t scared, even though my mother later told the police that. I think something snapped in me that first time with Vanna. When I saw what he did to her. It’s why I can’t remember much. All I could picture the entire time was the bastard holding her head to the counter as he shoved t
he iron against her throat. Exactly how she’d described it to me. Nothing could have stopped me that night. Not until he stopped moving. And even then, I wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t fear or revenge, Peyton. It was rage.”

  “Sam…” I whispered.

  “But don’t tell Vanna. She doesn’t need to know that. She thinks I was protecting them.”

  “You were.”

  “But now you know it wasn’t just about protecting them. Look…Peyton. I don’t want anyone else knowing, okay? Vanna already lives with enough guilt. She doesn’t need this added to it.” His gaze dropped to the floor. “I only told you because I don't want any more misunderstandings between us. I did what I did. I can’t go back and undo it. I wouldn’t even if I could. I have no regrets about that night.” His gaze lifted to mine. “Does that make me a terrible person to you? A monster?”

  I shook my head, thinking of Sam’s dad. What he would have felt to know his children endured that horror at the hands of his own brother. “When I think about what he did to you, I want him to suffer. I hope he hurt for weeks afterward. I hope he stays in prison until the end of time.”

  “Don’t.”

  The softly worded command startled me and I looked at him. “What?”

  “Don’t sound like the rest of us,” he said. He smiled and reached out, brushing his thumb across my cheek. “It’s not you. You inspire.”

  I blinked back tears. “A wall is the only thing holding me up right now. I’m hardly inspiring.”

  The storm thrashed the door as he stepped closer to me. “You asked me once what word I’d use to describe you,” he said. “It’s that. Inspiring. You inspire every person you meet. Even me, and I didn’t think I could be inspired again. Not after what happened.”

  I shook my head when words wouldn’t form.

  “It’s not very romantic, I know.”

  I sniffled. “Actually, it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Peyton.” His gaze searched mine. “I have to know …is it just the fighting? Is that the only thing keeping us apart? Because right now—”

  “I don’t care about the fighting.”

  His eyebrows arched. “You don’t?”

  I shook my head once. “I get it now. Why it’s so important to you. Why you can’t give it up. The memory of your dad. Making a success out of something you love to do. It’s the entire reason I’m still laboring over this project night and day when everyone, including my mom now, is pressuring me to quit. After what you told me that night, and tonight, I think I finally understand you. I get that you need this in your life to be happy, and I want that for you. I want you to be happy.”

  “I’m confused,” he said, those intense eyes searching mine. “Did we break up?”

  I looked down. “I don’t know.”

  He shifted, pressing his hand to the wall and brushing his fingertips over my cheek. “You don’t?”

  “I know I should stay away from you. That I shouldn’t be here.” Goose bumps traveled down my neck where he touched. “But I want to be with you. I’m selfish.”

  “Selfish?” His thumb stroked my cheekbone. “You’re the least selfish person I know. God, how long have you felt like this?”

  “Since that night I walked away. I just didn’t know how to get around the fighting thing.”

  “What fighting thing? I thought we just settled that.”

  “We did, but everyone else who wants to crucify me over this website hasn’t had a chance to weigh in yet. And they will. Happily. I can’t think about just me. I have to consider the people who email me every day asking me to be careful. To keep doing what I’m doing. Sam, the people who are against what I’m doing … they can’t know about you.”

  His mouth flattened into a line. “So you’re saying you want to see me, but not in public?”

  I cringed. “In secret sounds so much better. That’s the way Ryan said it. The way you worded it sounds like …like …”

  “Like shit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s because it is. Listen, Peyton. If we want to be together, then we will. I’m not going to hide from the world because a bunch of parents are losing their damn minds over a website, alright?”

  “You say this now and then one day a camera crew will follow you here. They’ll make a camp outside and ask your friends questions until they know enough to print a twisted version of you and it’ll be my fault. When I think of what they might find out, what they might make public… I couldn’t do that to you.”

  His thumb brushed my lower lip. “But you want to be with me.”

  “Sam, people are writing horrible things about me online. They’re prying into my personal life. They’re crazy enough to threaten me. To threaten my brother and my parents. They’ll do those things to you, too. Are you listening to me?”

  He leaned closer, slowly, and kissed my cheek, soft and lingering. “I’m listening to you. And it only proves what I already know.” He pulled back. “You belong with me. The sooner everyone knows you are with me, the safer you’ll be. People will think twice before threatening you.”

  “What about your privacy? Those things that happened to your family…”

  “Peyton. Quit protecting me. I’m not a student in your database. I can handle myself. Besides, I’m supposed to protect you.”

  “Oh wow. Sexist alert.”

  A smile curled his mouth as it hovered above mine. “Yeah, and maybe this once you can just deal with it.”

  “Okay.” His hand lowered to my hip, pulling me against him. “Maybe I will.”

  And then he kissed me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Peyton

  The storm thrashed the building with loud wind gusts and relentless waves of rain. We kissed and kissed, until my purse dropped to the floor and he yanked the coat from my shoulders, pulling me to the wall again.

  His mouth dropped to my neck as he wrapped me in his arms. His breath felt warm, his lips hot, and I clung to him, my hands brushing over the raised scarring of tattoos along his biceps. “Where should we go?”

  “You feel good right here,” he said, kissing my throat.

  “No, I mean—” I couldn’t say it aloud. “My parents think I’m staying somewhere else tonight. We could stay here. Or drive somewhere private.”

  He stiffened and lifted his head to look at me. “You want to stay here?”

  I nodded. “You’d have to miss your party.”

  A slow smile curved his mouth. “Screw the party.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me we’d be doing this. I had nothing for birth control and my nerves tightened at the notion of bringing it up. But someone had to. “Do you have something? Protection?”

  He nodded and pressed me to the wall, his mouth lowering to mine, except this time he kissed me slow. Gentle.

  We eventually landed back in Jonas’ office, still kissing as we made our way to Sam’s room. When he turned to lock the door, I stepped out of my shoes and pulled off my sweater, letting it drop behind me just as he turned to me. “There’s not much furniture,” I explained.

  His gaze dropped to my bra and all that skin it didn’t cover. He’d never seen this much of me, although he’d felt plenty when we’d made out. “Sorry,” he said, a sheepish smile curling his mouth as he crossed the small room. “It also smells like a gym. This isn’t the best place for this.”

  “That’s okay.” I became oddly aware of my dangling, gold earrings, knowing that within the hour I wouldn’t be wearing much else. “Have you … been here with anyone else?”

  He shook his head and brushed my hair back. “No, and you’re about to ruin this place for me forever. I’ll never sleep in this bed again without wanting you here.”

  “I thought you preferred being alone.”

  “Not now. When I’m with you.” He took his time kissing me, no longer experiencing the same anxiety, apparently, that made my hands shake when I pressed them over his chest. His fingertips threaded through my ha
ir and it fell across my left shoulder in a mass of curls.

  “Have you always been safe?” I whispered, plagued by practicality and logic when I didn’t want to be.

  He smiled against my lips. “Yes.” He didn’t pause as he undid the top button of my jeans and slid his hands inside to push them down my hips. His touch wasn’t new to me, but my stomach cramped with nerves as his fingers brushed my skin. Probably because I knew for sure we wouldn’t be stopping this time.

  I stepped from the material, feeling much too naked compared to him. He suddenly seemed so tall and massive. I hadn’t noticed or felt this nervous since we first met, and it took all of my courage to reach out and pull the hem of his shirt from his jeans.

  “Wait,” he said, grabbing my wrist.

  I froze at the panic in his voice. “What?”

  Glancing at my startled expression, he lowered his gaze and slid his hand gently over mine, pulling in a breath. “Sorry. Habit.”

  “Sam …other girls have seen you,” I whispered, hyper aware of his thumb stroking my hand. “Why am I different?”

  “Because you are,” he said, kissing me once. “And they haven’t seen me. It was never …personal. Nothing like this. I can’t explain.”

  He didn’t need to. I’d gone to parties. Knew what he meant. I’d seen couples meander into a bathroom or bedroom together, only to return to the party again five or ten minutes later for more drinking, their clothes slightly rumpled. The notion of it seemed sordid. Not personal at all, as Sam had said. I’d always thought everyone’s first time was special. Clearly, that wasn’t the case, at least for Sam. “Oh.”

  His gaze drifted down. “Yeah.”

  I didn’t want to focus on his past. “You fight without a shirt.”

  “It’s required.” His eyes lifted to mine. “Jonas and Bobby are the only two who know the truth. Everyone else thinks a car accident caused …this. What I don’t want you to see. I don’t think you get how bad it is, Peyton. My own mother cringes to see me without a shirt.”