by SR Jones
“Thank you.”
My face is hot, and I bet my cheeks are red. I turn and race out of his room, and back to my own.
I close the door and get my breath back.
Oh. My. God.
I tell myself to get a grip. I cannot and will not develop a schoolgirl crush on the man who saved me. I’m a psychologist damn it, I know the mechanisms behind all this. Big strong man saves the scared female, and she falls at his feet. It’s a tale as old as time, and I will not become some simpering idiot over a man simply doing his job.
I tell myself all this, but my cheeks still burn, my heart still races, and my fresh new panties are distinctly damp.
I’m in trouble.
Chapter 6
Her hero worship, I can try to ignore. That look? That blatant, hungry, look she gave me when I exited the bathroom. Not so much.
What was that about?
Possibly the same trauma that has her looking at me like I’m Superman, Batman, and Spiderman all rolled into one. She thinks she wants me. She doesn’t.
I want her, which is something of a problem.
She’s a goddamn young woman, only just turning twenty. I’m in my early thirties but might as well be in my fifties for how old I feel most days. Maybe not physically, but emotionally. I’m also her paid protector. To do anything about those looks she’s shooting me would be to cross an ethical line. I don’t cross lines. I abide by lines. My dick doesn’t, though, and he’s hard as nails under the towel.
Not wanting to dwell on scorching hot looks from girls too young to know better, or to indulge my dick and his lack of morals, I dry myself off and get dressed. Then I head down into the kitchen, grab my bags, take out my oil and cloth, and sit at the kitchen table with my guns. Methodically, losing myself in the task, I clean them.
This sort of shit is what keeps me sane. Focus. Control.
It all comes back to control.
Why don’t I drink? Control.
Why don’t I do drugs? Control.
The reason I don’t fuck around? Control.
Wipe, breathe. Breathe, wipe. It’s all good. Calming. Soothing.
Repetitive actions quiet the mind. Losing oneself in the flow of a task done well provides as much comfort as a glass of bourbon without the downside.
I used to drink. Before.
Used to fuck too. Hard and often.
Drugs, I didn’t do.
These days the only time I live wild is when I’m on my bike, and even then, it comes down to control. Me controlling the machine. The bike underneath me, the road up in front, and nothing but concentration and skill to stop me from being wiped out at the speeds I go.
My phone beeps, and I glance at it. Text from Cole.
Damen has picked up some chatter. Seems word of Jan’s demise has got out, and there’s talk between various factions. So has word of the kills you made to his men.
I called Gezim. It seems so far the men are buying Gezim’s claim of this. He’s taking over, sending warnings to all the various people involved that you mess with him, and he’ll take you out. Trouble is, there’s three of Jan’s guys unaccounted for. Not answered Gezim’s demands to check in. You might have trouble still. Stay low for now.
Sighing, I go back to cleaning my weapon. What did he think I was going to do? Take out an ad in the local paper? Go for a long walk on an open beach? We’re staying right here for as long as it takes for Gezim to make it safe for his daughter to return to her world.
Footsteps on the stairs alert me to her presence a moment later in the doorway. She stares at what I’m doing.
“Can I help?” she asks.
“No.” I shake my head.
Thinking she’ll go sit in the living room and watch something on TV, I stiffen when she instead comes and sits at the table and folds her hands in front of her. “I used to like cleaning my aunt’s silverware. It’s soothing.”
“That it is.” If you have peace and quiet, I want to add.
“She had a whole box of stuff. Silver cleaner, cloths, little brushes. I loved it. She’d get it out and lay all her things on the table, after she put newspaper down, of course.” She laughs. “She got free labor out of me, and I loved it. Used to love sorting out her sewing box and tidying it too.”
I glance up at her, but don’t answer. She doesn’t stop.
“Even now, at home, if I’m anxious, I like to sort things. Clean them. It makes me feel better.”
She can’t clean a gun because she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing. I recognize a call for help when I hear one, though. She needs something to do.
I’m thinking what I can give her to clean, when she brightens. “You know, I might just bake a cake.”
I stare. Blink. Stare some more. “Excuse me?”
“Bake a cake. I bet there’s enough here for me to do that if the place is fully stocked. I’ll take a look. It won’t disturb you, will it? I can listen to some music while I do it. I’m stressed. Need something to do. Need to take the edge off. Can I use your phone?”
She looks at me, and her eyes are guileless but her words, they make me think of ways I could take the edge off for her.
For a moment, a flash of seeing her naked under me, writhing and panting, flits across my mind before I shut it down. Christ. I do not need this shit.
I take out my phone and pull up the music application.
“Yeah, go ahead, bake a cake. Listen to some music.” I pass her the phone, and she smiles.
I also grab the earbuds because I want quiet, not music, and I pass her those too. “Use these.”
She nods. “Okay. Great.” She pops the earbuds in, taps the screen twice, and starts opening cupboards, looking for various things. When she finds something she needs, she takes it out. Soon she’s got various ingredients and implements lining the work surface.
I shake my head and go back to focusing on my task. For a long time, I work in silence as she clatters around doing her baking thing. Then the sound of a motor has me looking up.
She’s holding a handheld mixer and using it to stir something in a glass bowl. The bowl is tipped at an angle, and she holds it with one hand, while she wields the mixer with the other. Her hips are swaying, obviously in time to the music she’s listening to.
With her hair hanging down her back in thick waves, and the sexy sway of her hips, she makes my mouth water. The girl is wearing a loose t-shirt, and sweatpants. She shouldn’t be the sexiest thing I’ve seen in years. She is.
Maybe, I need to re-think the no fucking thing. There’s no point controlling every aspect of your life if that very control leads to…this. Me lusting after a woman a good thirteen years younger than me. A woman who seems innocent in many ways. A traumatized woman, no less, I remind myself for what seems like the thirtieth time.
If not fucking means the moment I’m shacked up with some hot, nubile, girl, I get all horny, I might need to partake more often. Maybe I could get a fuck buddy? Someone as closed off and messed up as me. A woman who doesn’t want a relationship but does want sex.
Of course, she’d have to be into my brand of sex. Like everything else in my life, I need control in the bedroom. Nothing crazy or kinky. I like to be in charge though. Big time.
Dragging my gaze from Roze and her mesmerizing hips, I focus on cleaning my gun.
Normally I do this totally alone. Now, though, there’s someone else in the room, and she’s not bugging me, not talking to me. Instead, she’s simply doing her thing, and it’s kind of nice having someone in my space.
Softly she starts to sing, and I have to smile. Her voice is not good. She’s out of tune, but she is enjoying it, and it’s nice to hear after seeing her so distressed earlier. Whatever song she’s singing along to obviously stops, and she’s quiet and still for a moment, but then something else starts. I can just make out a tinny beat from her earbuds aaaaand, she’s moving again.
Damn, she can’t sing, but the girl can move.
Target, so-called be
cause he never targeted a woman he didn’t close, used to say: if a girl can dance well, she can fuck well.
One time we were in a bar, drinking, knowing in two days we moved out. There were two girls nearby, dancing. One was stunning. Supermodel levels of gorgeous. The other was pretty enough but nothing like her knockout friend. Target turned to me and the guys, said he was moving in. Going for the blonde, he said. We all raised our eyebrows. The brunette was objectively way hotter.
“Losing your mojo?” Legend had asked. He was a shit hot sniper who liked to tell a tall tale or two, hence his name.
“Nah.” Target pointed to the blonde. “She can move; the brunette can’t. Not marrying them; just fucking them. So I’m going for the one I know will be good in the sack.”
Movement out of the corner of my eye has me looking back at Roze. Yeah, this girl can dance.
She pulls her earbuds out, turns to me, and grins. It’s a full-on smile, the first I’ve seen her give. “Done. Now to bake it, then the frosting.”
I don’t reply. Not because I’m trying to send her keep quiet vibes, but because her smile has taken my breath away. If I thought she was beautiful with her sad face, she’s fucking epic when she smiles. Beyond stunning.
She grabs a wooden spoon from a rack holding various utensils, dips it into the cake mix, and pulls it out all, covered in gloopy goodness. She licks it.
Fuck me. She licks it, like a hungry cat, her small tongue lapping up the mixture. Eyes rolling back, she gives a small moan. “That’s good.”
Then she turns to me, holds out the spoon, and cocks her head to one side. “Do you want some?”
This girl is playing with fire. I almost push my chair back, stalk to her, throw her over my shoulder, slap her ass for riling me, and carry her upstairs. Instead, I simply shake my head.
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
“You better have some cake with me tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” She’s not eating it tonight?
“Yeah, it’s my birthday.” She shrugs. “As I keep reminding you.”
She had mentioned that earlier, and I’d filed it away.
“If I can’t go out with my friends, then I’ll have to settle for cake. Be nice to have company eating cake on my birthday,” she cajoles.
I sigh. “I may be persuaded to have a slice of your birthday cake.”
“I feel kind of high,” she observes.
She’s hardly had any sugar, so it’s not that.
“No, not high. Like, hyper-aware. As if everything is too much. The light in here is so bright. You’re so big. The sugar is so sweet. You know? It’s all too much.”
“You’ve had a shock,” I tell her. “Been through a trauma. It will take time. You might feel weird for a while.”
“Yeah, like I’m not in my own skin.”
Okay, not good. I do not want her disassociating on me. “What do you do to chill out, normally?” I ask her.
“I watch terrible movies. I love chick flicks,” she says.
Of course, she does.
“Okay, why don’t we put this cake in the oven, and watch a movie?”
“For real? You’ll watch it with me? I don’t want to be alone. I feel strange.”
“I’ll watch it with you,” I confirm.
“Great.” She scoops the batter into two separate tins and puts them into the oven. She sets the timer and then opens the fridge. She takes out a bottle of wine, and I’m about to tell her she can’t drink when I remember that here, she can.
“You don’t mind, do you?” She gestures to the bottle.
“Not at all.”
“Want some?”
“I don’t drink,” I tell her.
“Me either, most of the time,” she says. “I’m only going to have a small glass. I really need to take the edge off.”
She pours a glass of the wine, and it is small.
“I thought you said you’d have been out clubbing for your birthday normally,” I say to her.
She frowns. “When?”
“We were talking in the car.”
“Oh, yeah. I didn’t say I’d be drinking, did I? I said I could, legally. Mostly, I don’t. Hate the taste, and really hate being sick. A tiny glass of wine, very rarely, is my limit.” She takes a sip and smiles. “Nice. How come you don’t drink?”
“I don’t like the taste,” I lie smoothly.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Hhmm.”
I don’t know what that means, and I don’t push. “Let’s go find you some God-awful movie to watch,” I say.
Smiling, Roze hands me my phone and earbuds, and I pocket them before leading the way.
She follows me into the living room, and I take a seat on the sofa, at one end, expecting her to take the other side. She doesn’t. She sips her wine, places it on the table, and then sits right next to me on the middle cushion, curling her legs up under her.
I’m not used to people in my space. Most certainly not used to girls who smell like lavender in my space. She flicks her hair over one shoulder, and the strands tickle my arm as they sweep by.
Fuck. I want to take that hair and wrap it around my fist and kiss her. I want to kiss her until she’s not on edge anymore.
She shuffles and nibbles on her thumb.
Yeah, she needs distracting.
Not about to cross every ethical line I have; I pick up the remote and turn on the massive TV.
I find the movies, and she picks something called Legally Blonde.
“You’ll love it,” she says.
I hate it.
She, however, does love it. She also seems to know it well and says some of the lines in time with their appearance in the movie, cracking up at the lame comedy.
My usual Zen is being shattered. She’s too close. Too vibrant. She smells too damn good.
I itch to reach out and trail my finger down her slim wrist and over her upturned palm. I want to lean into her and nuzzle the soft skin of her throat.
“I’m cold,” she says with a little shiver.
“I’ll go get your sweater.” I’m glad for an excuse to get off the sofa for a while.
I take my time fetching her sweater, and when I get back downstairs, she’s biting her nails again.
“Here, put this on.” I hand her the sweater; glad she’ll be covering herself with more layers. I’d put her in a sack given half the chance.
“Thanks.”
I climb back onto the sofa, wishing she’d move up. Instead, she shuffles closer. What the hell?
I turn to her, only to find her huge brown eyes staring at me. There’s something she wants, but damn if I know what it is.
She bites her lip, parts them as if to speak, then snaps her mouth shut. Turning back to the TV with a sigh, she focuses on the film. I relax a notch.
A few minutes later she moves nearer again. It’s a small movement, a mere shuffle, but it brings her closer. She glances at me, and I swear she flutters her lashes at me.
Her mouth twitches a little, and my anger builds.
She’s a brat. Christ, if she were a few years older, a few years wiser, and not under my protection, I’d take her in hand. She needs boundaries.
On the one hand, she’s lost, anchorless, but on the other spoiled. From the intel I’ve been given, her father barely sees her, but he does give her everything materially she could want. She’s lived in some of the most beautiful places in the world. Has an expensive education. Speaks a lot of languages. She’s beautiful. The girl screams privilege, and yet, she has no one. Not really.
I could be her someone. I like control, and she needs it if my early reading of her is correct. She’s not mine to deal with, though. She’s not mine to take over my knee and spank until she’s either begging for me to stop…or begging for more. She’s not mine at all, andso I turn back to the crappy film and try to focus on the flimsy plot.
The sofa dips, and another shuffle brings Roze so close I can smell her. Damn, I can
practically taste her.
I don’t play games. I don’t mess about being all polite and shit if someone is acting out. She is acting out. Getting all up in my personal space this way is not okay. Since I can’t deal with her in the way I might want to, I turn and fix her with an angry stare.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“What?” She turns to me and affects an innocent glance my way.
Yep, such a brat.
“This game you’re playing. What the hell are you doing, Roze?”
“Erm, nothing. I… Forget it.”
She loses the false bravado and fake flirtatiousness, and there it is, that lost girl who is so rudderless. The person she really is beneath it all, I think.
She’s fucking riling me. Pushing and teasing. The licking the mix from the spoon. The sexy dancing. This.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” I state, voice low. “You only just got rescued from a nasty situation. I’d think you’d have more sense than to be coming onto a man old enough to be your father.”
I’m being shitty with her because of how she’s making me feel, not really because of her actions. It’s a crappy move, but I swear I’m staying the right side of the line with her, even if it takes making her hate me.
I’m not old enough to be her father, but I say it anyway, thinking it might douse her libido.
“What game am I playing?” she demands. “I only wanted a cuddle. What do you think? I was trying to get sex?”
Her lips purse into a tight line, her cheeks flush, and she blinks at me three times before tears shimmer in her gorgeous dark eyes.
Great. I’ve gone and made her cry again. In fact, this is worse because she steadfastly refuses to let the tears fall.
“I’m going to bed,” she says. Then she fixes me with an arch glance. “That’s not an invite, by the way, or a come-on, Mr. Up-Himself. I’m sorry that I stupidly thought I could lean into you. I’ve felt scared and alone for days, and you came and rescued me. You saved me, and you make me feel safe. Sorry if that bothers you.”
She stands and marches out of the room, her hair swinging as she does so.
Upstairs a few moments later I hear her door close.
No slam. No temper tantrum. Not brattish now.