by Susan Hayes
Even if she didn’t need him, he was coming to realize that he needed her. And that thought looped a whole new set of knots tightening around his insides. He didn’t do need. He had buddies sure, lots of them, but his real friends could be counted on one hand. He had lovers, but he didn’t do love either. He liked his life simple, uncomplicated, and unattached.
Alone, lonely, empty, some part of his brain added, and he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw. “Great, one day of fantastic sex and I start turning into an angst-filled idiot. Next thing you know I’ll be spouting poetry.” He moved the eggs off the burner and slammed the frying pan down on the counter harder than he’d intended.
“What did the pan do to deserve such treatment?” Her voice was rich with laughter, and he spun around, spotting her leaning against the wall, watching him with an amused expression.
Part of him was stunned she’d managed to sneak up on him, while other parts were busy blaming her for distracting him in the first place. Deciding he had done more than enough thinking for the time being, he crossed the small kitchen and picked her up. He carried her over to the small kitchen table that was wedged into one corner of the cabin and deposited her into one of the old wooden chairs, ignoring her protests.
“No laughing at the man cooking you breakfast, that’s a rule,” he informed her, glad to see the sparkle back in her eyes. “And might I say, my shirt has never looked that good on me.”
“Oh, I bet it does.” She leaned back enough to be able to meet his gaze, her jaw set in a stubborn line. “I can walk you know. Not quickly, but I am not an invalid.”
“Maybe I like carrying you,” he muttered and turned back to finish making breakfast.
“Well in that case, you’re welcome to carry me wherever you want, just so long as we’re clear on why.”
He couldn’t help glancing back to shoot her a grin as he waved the spatula at her. “Keep up the sass Miss No-knickers, and I’ll be using this to paddle your cute ass later on.”
Her cheeks went bright red, and he couldn’t help but notice the interest that flared ever so briefly in her eyes. Well, well, Michelle, who would have guessed? He made a mental note to explore that particular avenue another time and went back to organizing their meal. “Coffee or juice?”
“I’ll have coffee please. Straight up black is fine, and thank you again for making breakfast, this all smells delicious.”
“My pleasure.” He loaded up two plates and carried them over, setting one down in front of her as she goggled at the heap of food.
“Good grief. That’s enough to feed a small army. I really can’t eat that much.”
“Your body needs the food to heal. Gotta feed the machine, marine.” He grinned her. “So eat up and don’t make me go all drill-instructor on you. Boot camp was a long time ago, but it really left an impression.” He settled into the other chair and started eating, his eyes on her fork as she bit into the first mouthful. The moan of approval she made a second later nearly made him black out as most of the blood in his body flowed to his cock.
“Oh god, this is good.”
He managed to swallow without choking on the eggs, grateful he was wearing a loose pair of track pants. “Glad you’re enjoying it. I like cooking. Don’t often have someone to critique it for me.”
She speared a bite of bacon and let it slide past her lips with a soft sigh. “It’s wonderful.”
How the hell is she making eating breakfast sexy? He swore she was doing this on purpose. His cock didn’t care if it was intentional or not, it just liked what she was doing, a lot.
“So, you were a marine? For how long?”
Huh? It took him a moment to drag his brain out of the gutter it had dived into. Visions of Michelle, spread out on the table and drizzled with maple syrup, had suddenly sprung up in his mind. “I was in for five years. Geoff Remington recruited me before I’d even finished my stint, helped me adjust back to civilian life. Well, a semi-civilian life. I don’t exactly have a nine-to-five type job.”
“No, I guessed that much.” She tipped her head up and stared at him intently, and he wondered what she was thinking. “Do you like it? What you do now?”
“I did.” He paused and then decided to come clean with her. She deserved to know the truth about the guy she was trusting to protect her. “I’m not so sure anymore. Those scars you were wondering about? I got them on a protection detail that went wrong. Way wrong. The client was killed, along with some of the people with him. I was lucky and was thrown free of the car as it exploded. Or I jumped. I don’t remember, and no one is sure exactly what the hell happened.”
“Someone you were protecting, they died?” He heard the fear in her voice, and he dropped his eyes to the plate of food in front of him. How could he have expected her to react any differently? He had let someone in his care die.
He caught a flicker of movement and looked up as she rose and started to come around the table. Then she stumbled, her arms wind-milling for balance, and he reached out to catch her by the waist as she tumbled into his lap.
“Stupid bruises,” she muttered, and then she was kissing him, her arms fastening tight around his neck. “I’m so sorry, Sinjin. That must have been hard for you.”
He just hugged her close, too grateful and amazed she hadn’t rejected him to say anything at first. When he did speak, he could hear the guilt in his voice and hoped she wouldn’t notice. “I should have made him follow protocols, but he didn’t want to listen to me. I let him get himself killed.”
“No, you didn’t,” she argued. Her soft curves pressed into him, her voice in his ear. “If you did your job as best you could and he ignored your advice, then he got himself killed. I’m currently an expert on survivor’s guilt. So trust me when I tell you, this wasn’t your fault.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Bullshit.” The vehemence in her tone surprised him and he leaned back to stare at her.
“It’s not the same, Michelle. Your ex offed himself because he wanted to hurt you, and apparently he thought he could keep you for himself if he was dead. I don’t get the reasoning, but since he’s still around, I’d say he knew something we don’t. That wasn’t your fault. But, baby, I was the security expert. I was the one who knew the risks and let him do it anyway.”
“Does your boss think that? Does your company?”
“No. Their investigation determined the client disregarded all advice and determined his own course of action after being informed of the risks.”
“So, they don’t hold you responsible? And I don’t think you did anything wrong, so…” She laid her cheek next to his and hugged him. “The only person who thinks you’re guilty is you. I’d say you need to check your facts and maybe, just maybe consider the possibility that you’re wrong this time.”
A glimmer of light shone from a corner of his mind that had been full of darkness and guilt since he’d woken up in that hospital bed. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh.” She moved her head back to kiss him, a grin on her lips. “I do.”
It all seemed so simple when she had said it to Sinjin. Like him, she’d been fighting her feelings of guilt. She had always known Robert had made his own choices, but she hadn’t truly accepted what that meant. Michelle stared into the dark eyes of the man holding her and realized that she didn’t feel guilty anymore. A weight was lifting off her soul, and it felt good. Sinjin was still holding her tightly, and she had no inclination to move out of his arms. Instead, she settled herself more comfortably and leaned in to kiss him. “This is nice.”
“If you think sitting in my lap is going to get you out of eating your breakfast, you’re mistaken.” Her heart beat a little faster as she registered the seductive undertone to his words.
“Am I?”
“Oh yeah, you are.” He picked up his fork and slid a portion of the eggs he’d cooked onto the tines. “Open your mouth for me.”
She giggled and parte
d her lips obediently. She felt strangely wicked as he delicately dropped the morsel of food onto her tongue. “Yummy,” she sighed. Then she felt the ridge of his cock shift between them as she savored her eggs and swallowed them before licking her lips. “Are you seriously going to feed me breakfast?”
“If you keep making those soft little noises every mouthful, I am not going to stop feeding you until every bit of food is gone. I’ve never known anyone who could turn bacon and eggs into foreplay.”
Laughter bubbled up from the depths of her soul, and she slowly licked her lips again and then squirmed against his hard length as she let her gaze fall back to the plate. “I’d like some bacon this time.”
His breath caught for a moment, and his eyes narrowed as desire began to glow deep in their dark depths. “As the lady wishes.”
She watched him select a portion, lifting it to her mouth slowly, teasing them both with the anticipation. She wrapped her lips around the succulent morsel and drew it off the fork with an intentional moan of pleasure, while her eyes closed as she let herself enjoy the moment. He groaned, and she opened her eyes to see him staring at her lips.
“I shouldn’t be the only one eating,” she declared and reached across the small table to draw the other plate closer, along with the fork she’d been using. “Your turn, handsome.” She returned the favor, feeding him a small bit of the eggs. It felt so intimate. She was curled in his lap, the two of them feeding each other. She lost track of time as mouthful by mouthful they fed each other until she couldn’t eat another bite. Her stomach was full, but now her body ached with a very different kind of hunger. She set her fork down and leaned in, running her tongue over his lower lip.
“That was the best meal I’ve ever had.”
He grinned back at her. “Me, too. Next time though, I’m going to feed you dessert instead of breakfast.”
She shivered with pleasure at the images those words conjured. His body sticky and sweet with strawberries and whipped cream as their tongues tasted each other. “Yes, please.”
“Soon, baby,” he promised with a tender, lingering kiss. “But for now, you and I need to talk about your ex.”
“You mean my dead ex, the ghost of relationships past?” She tried to make a joke of it, but it was impossible to really laugh when the truth was so much darker and more terrifying than that.
Sinjin’s arms wrapped a little tighter around her. “Why do you think he’s still here? Does he want to hurt you, or just haunt you?”
“I don’t think he wants to kill me. Otherwise why would he have changed his will and given me everything?” She found herself thinking aloud as she puzzled through everything she knew, or suspected. “I think I can remember him saying something about being able to find me anywhere, whenever he wants.” A chill washed over her as an inkling of understanding dawned. “Oh god, that’s it. He was always telling me he’d never let me go, that I was his forever. I think maybe this is his twisted idea of forever. His money taking care of me all my days, and him being with me in whatever sick way he can manage.”
“Well he can’t have you.” Sinjin’s voice was full of resolve. “But if he wants to be with you, then that means he won’t hurt you. That’s a good thing.”
“He hurt me when he was alive. I’m not sure he won’t do it again now. Especially if I don’t give him what he wants.” Memories of an invisible hand caressing her while she couldn’t move filled her mind, and she bit back the sob that threatened to choke her.
“Michelle, I promise you that I won’t let that happen. I’m not exactly a ghost expert, but I am supposed to be a professional bodyguard, and I can’t think of any body in the world I want to guard more than yours. If it’s all right with you, I’m going to call in a favor from my boss and see if we can’t find someone who knows how to deal with this sort of weirdness, okay?”
“Okay.” Relief warred with worry that no one else would believe them. That they’d end up laughed at or worse, that someone would decide she was mentally unstable.
“I’m not going to let you out of my sight, I promise. It’s going to be all right.” He leaned in and sealed his promise with a kiss that made her insides quiver and her toes curl until her bruised feet gave a twinge in protest.
“I trust you,” she breathed into his mouth as she kissed him back.
“Let’s get you settled on the couch, and then I’ll tackle the dishes. After that we’ll head over to your place and see if we can’t find you something to wear that doesn’t make me keep thinking of dragging you back off to bed for the rest of the day.”
Chapter 7
By midafternoon, the summer sun had draped the entire valley in a cocoon of heat. There wasn’t even the faintest of breezes to stir the sweltering air. They lay in the shade, sprawled comfortably on top of her family’s ancient picnic blanket, and watched the sunlight dance and shimmer across the mirror-flat surface of the lake.
“I vote we go for a swim.” Sinjin’s suggestion caught Michelle by surprise, her mind immediately flashing back to the previous night’s attack.
“I’m not sure that’s safe.”
His handsome face moved into her field of vision, a reassuring smile curving over his lips. “We haven’t seen a single sign of him all day. Maybe he can only manifest at night. Or maybe whatever he did last night took so much energy he isn’t strong enough to do anything. You can’t live your life scared of him. If you do, he wins.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one getting haunted here,” she grumbled back at him. But her eyes went back to the cool promise of the lake, and she knew he was right. She could sit here and bake in the heat, afraid of something that may not even happen. Or she could go cool off with a swim. “Shallow water only. If anything happens, I want to be nice and close to the shore, and to you.” She stuck her tongue out at him as his expression turned smug.
“I have no intention of letting you get that far away from me.”
She caught the undertones of desire in his voice and shook her head, laughing. “You’re insatiable.”
“Only for you.” Sinjin rose to his knees and picked her up, tucking her head under his chin as he stood up carefully. “I’m going to miss getting to do this when your feet are all healed.”
“Yeah, me, too.” She waved airily toward her cabin. “Let’s go find us both swimsuits.”
As they floated in the sun-warmed shallows, Michelle was glad she’d agreed to Sinjin’s suggestion to go swimming. The water was the perfect temperature, and there was something almost Zen-like about just drifting in companionable silence. The sky overhead was a flawless summer blue, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Sinjin’s fingers were lightly interwoven with hers, keeping her close to him. She liked the feeling of having someone looking out for her. It wasn’t something she was used to, but it might just be something she could come to enjoy. Especially if the person protecting me is a smoking-hot bodyguard named Sinjin.
Thoughts of Sinjin made her blood heat and filled her head with other things they could be doing to each other as they lounged in the water of their own private beach. Inspired, she shifted her grip to his wrist and sat up slowly, bracing her free hand on the rounded stones beneath her as she tugged him in closer. She wanted to feel his body under her fingers again, the need to touch him flaring to life like gasoline thrown on slow-burning embers. He was only a foot away from her when she saw something moving out on the lake. A dark shape was forming near the lake’s center, and she glanced up at the sky to see what had cast so large a shadow. The sky was clear. Weird.
Michelle let go of Sinjin’s wrist and propped herself up higher in the water, trying to get a better look. It looked as if the shadow was moving closer. Her passion of a moment ago was doused in a wash of ice-cold terror as the distinctive sound of howling wind reached her ears and she realized what she was looking at. An impossible storm was racing across the surface of the lake, turning the water from blue to slate gray as it churned nearer. The millpond tranquility
of a moment ago was transforming into a foam-crested chop, and there were waves cresting and rolling toward them beneath the perfect summer sky.
“Sinjin!” She screamed his name and grabbed his hand with desperate strength, struggling to drag his big body with her as she lunged toward the beach. He turned toward her and sat up, bracing himself against the stony beach and stopping their movement toward the shore. He stared at her in confusion as she tugged on him again, clearly concerned by her frantic behavior.
She gestured wildly to the gathering storm. “We have to get out of the water!”
He turned back to the lake just as the full fury of the storm hit, and she lost sight of him as the waves rose up and swamped them both. A wall of water struck her and knocked her backward, pushing her under. The lake closed over her head, and she went tumbling head over heels. She was tossed into a cold and confusing whirl of darkness while a deafening roar that filled her ears. Pain lanced through her as she was cruelly slammed into the rocky bottom. Her lungs burned, and her abused body ached, but she managed to cling to consciousness and realized that if she was touching the ground, then she knew which direction the surface was. She planted her hands against the only solid thing in her universe and shoved hard, pushing herself up and out of the water.
She sucked in a lungful of air the moment she cleared the surface. Her hands frantically rubbing at her eyes, still filled with the silt and grit of the churned up lake bottom. The moment she could see again, she shielded her gaze from the glare of the sun as it struck the water, desperately looking around her for Sinjin. Fear escalated to terror as she realized he wasn’t beside her, and she staggered to her feet, ignoring the pain as she reopened yesterday’s cuts and added fresh bruises to ones barely beginning to heal. With her heart in her throat, she scanned the area, looking for him. Around her the water was calm again, but further out the strange wind and chop still lingered.