Protect Me

by Selma Wolfe

  “I…” she struggled for a moment with her own blurry thoughts and then shook her head. “There’s something about these attackers. It’s in my head but I can’t…”

  “Sleep,” Rick advised, at the very moment their feet began to approach the door. Hope wondered if he’d timed it like that or if he just had the luck of the devil naturally.

  “That’s the plan,” she agreed. She reached out to open her door when Rick caught her arm.

  “If you…” Rick didn’t look nervous precisely. More wary. His dark eyes were soft and smoldering under his tousled hair, and when had that happened? She couldn’t remember. Had he been looking at her like that all the time? “You could sleep in my bed. It’s - uh - well, it’s got me in it.”

  Hope had to crack a smile at that; Rick winced good-naturedly and rubbed at the back of his neck. She assumed that exhaustion must be hitting him hard too.

  His fingers spanned out to brush against the soft skin at the underside of her arm. It felt good, and her feet almost took that step to cross the small space between her door and his. She could stretch out, pull close, let Rick’s warmth and easy smile lull her to sleep.

  But she didn’t move. Because Rick wasn’t just some guy she’d met at a bar. He was Rick Stone, richer than God and intimately acquainted with the kind of women that didn’t need Photoshop. And what was she? Compared to the kind of cut-glass perfection of his usual type of woman, Hope knew that she was at best a curiosity.

  If he was just a pretty face, it might not have mattered. But she didn’t just like Rick’s front page looks. She liked the way he scruffed his fingers through his hair, and the way he listened to her with the whole of his attention, and his casual kindness.

  No need to make things worse than they were, Hope told herself.

  She extricated her arm from his grasp and wrapped her fingers firmly around the doorknob to her room.

  “See you in the morning, Rick,” she said, the words as soft as the dawn light just starting to seep in around the curtains. Ignoring the frustration and confusion on his face - ignoring the way his mouth had opened to ask questions she no doubt couldn’t answer - Hope shoved the door open and slipped inside.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hope woke up at 8:00 in a tangle of bed sheets and ruined dress.

  She wearily pulled herself out of bed, suppressed a groan out of habit rather than any real need to do so, and went about the routine of getting ready for the day.

  When she was decent she stared at the connecting door between her room and Rick’s for a long moment. She still had the key; he’d never taken that away, not even when she’d broken his trust. And even though she’d walked away last night, Hope was pretty sure she would be welcome this morning. She could…

  No. Hope shook her head at herself and padded quietly out the door and into the silent hallway.

  Although she had done a sweep last night, Hope stretched out her tired muscles in a long, loping stride and scanned the mansion for any suspicious irregularities. The halls were all silent; the various maids that worked for Rick were all still in bed, presumably shaken after last night. It was only inside the ballroom that she found remnants of chaos: tablecloths, furniture, cutlery spilled haphazardly across the floor. Evidence of human life, Hope thought to herself with dark humor.

  The familiar routine of the work wasn’t enough to keep Hope’s mind from turning over the events of last night.

  She should have been thinking about the people coming for Rick. But she was a bodyguard, not a detective, after all. And her mind kept slipping away to recall the feel of Rick’s fingers on her skin, and the way his eyes had burned into her outside the door. The way he hadn’t tried to protest, but had taken Hope at her word and let her go.

  Did she really want to keep running? she wondered.

  “You look like you’re having thinky thoughts,” a voice interrupted her inner monologue. Hope blinked and looked through a familiar doorframe at Trinity, clad in an apron and still sporting eye makeup from last night.

  She glanced over at the table. It was still empty, so she took a seat, restraining a shake of the head at her own feet. When had she started to see breakfast in here as a routine?

  Hope sat down and frowned at the table. “No, I just… Maybe. Too many thoughts.”

  Trinity gave her a slightly shaky smile and Hope could’ve kicked herself.

  “Sorry, are you alright? I know that must’ve been a shock, last night. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen, but - whoever’s after Rick is pretty persistent.” She wondered if she was supposed to get up or maybe give Trinity a hug or something.

  Fortunately, Trinity didn’t appear in need of any assistance. The other woman shot Hope a smile and went back to whisking things.

  “Thanks honey, but I’m just fine. We all are, thanks to you.” Fairly inaccurate, but Hope didn’t have time to interrupt. “You’re not thinking about work though. I can tell. You’re thinking about our sainted Mr. Stone. The eye twitch and look of despair are a dead giveaway.” Trinity winked and Hope burst out laughing in spite of herself.

  Maybe she was taking this too hard. Just because she was used to life and death, didn’t mean that everything she dealt with was life and death. Not even when it felt as important as this was. Hope had a vague feeling like she was doing this wrong - like she should be happy, not worried enough to put a permanent frown line across her own forehead.

  “It’s just…” Hope wasn’t sure if she was relieved or horrified to be talking about this. Her feelings, out loud. Giving them space in the room. “It seems so unreal. Why me?”

  Then she realized that Trinity probably didn’t have a clue what her self-absorbed butt was talking about. After all, it’s not like Rick had been particularly overt in his attentions, and she’d been around him so much by necessity. Hope opened her mouth to explain.

  But then, maybe Rick’s attentions were more overt than she thought, because Trinity grinned at her with complete comprehension in her brown eyes.

  “Himself has a lot of faults, but disloyalty isn’t one of them. Neither’s lying. If he only wanted a casual thing, he’d tell you.” Trinity paused and a contemplative look crossed her face. “Course, I’m assuming that’s not what you want. But you don’t seem the type somehow. You look too steady for that.”

  “I am,” Hope said, all the while wondering what the hell Trinity meant. But she’d go with it; the fact was, she wasn’t interested in anything casual. Not with Rick.

  Trinity nodded, satisfied. “Well, there you go then.” She flipped over something eggy in a pan and hummed. Trauma sat well on her, Hope thought with some amusement.

  Hope wasn’t as easily convinced as her friend. She grabbed a cup of coffee and sat back down at the table to stare into its rippling surface. It was so hard to think about love - with Rick, no less - as something she could have. Every time they got close it was sweet and steadying and perfect, and Hope couldn’t trust that it could last. Or that Rick would want it to. People didn’t want to be grounded by love, did they? People wanted screaming, violent passion.

  She just wanted Rick, hands in his pockets, smiling that easy smile at her like Hope was the only person he ever wanted to see.

  “I hope you were talking about me,” Rick interrupted her thoughts from the doorway.

  “We weren’t,” Hope and Trinity chorused, and then grinned at each other.

  Rick heaved the sigh of a greatly misunderstood man and sat down at the table.

  “I ruined your dress,” Hope informed him.

  “Not a problem, darling. Like they say, dresses are made to be ruined.”

  Hope and Trinity exchanged raised eyebrows. “Do they really say that?”

  Rick grinned. “No. I’m hoping it’ll catch on, though.”

  There was a sheaf of papers in his hand and when Hope stole a glance at him, he quirked a small smile at her. He didn’t look upset, just… cautious. Hope didn’t regret turning him down (mostly) at the door last nig
ht, but the fact that Rick wouldn’t hold it against her was another in the series of invisible strings tying her to him. At the beginning there had been just a few bare threads of affection. It would have been easy to break their hold. But now there were hundreds and Hope wasn’t sure she could break away even if she wanted to.

  Lost in her thoughts, she ate breakfast mostly in silence while Trinity scolded Rick in the background.

  At some point the liquid gold in her cup disappeared. Hope supposed she must have drunk it. Then a hand appeared in her vision and she glanced up to see Rick standing over her.

  “If I might escort my lady?” he grinned.

  Her hand was in his before she could think the better of it.

  “I don’t really have anywhere to go,” Hope noted as they walked out of the kitchen. Trinity waved a cheery goodbye behind them, and Hope thought she saw another wink thrown her way.

  “Then we’ll go to the library,” Rick said decisively. His fingers threaded through hers without bothering to ask for permission. “It’s hard to go wrong in a library.”

  “You just want me to finish that damnable book,” Hope grumbled, and he laughed.

  “Watching you read is definitely worth watching,” Rick teased. He flashed her a heated look and she looked at her feet. She still wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Everything seemed so difficult when she tried to put it all together in her head: desire, companionship, love. Could you have everything at once and still have it all be good?

  They reached the tall wooden doors. Practically before they were inside Rick was shoving the doors closed again and crowding Hope against the wall, his hands cupping her face and his eyes serious. Oh, Hope thought. I really should have seen that coming.

  “Listen, I would love to take my time with this, do things right. But frankly I have no idea what’s going in that head of yours and I’m half-scared you’re going to quit and just disappear off the map. So I need to talk to you now, before any other stupid thing happens.” His dark eyes seemed to pierce straight through her. Hope couldn’t imagine how Rick found it hard to read her, unless it was because there was nothing there at all to see.

  She brought her hands up without any clear idea what to do with them; ended up resting them halfway between his shoulders and neck, her thumbs grazing his collarbone.

  “I don’t see how this can work,” she found herself saying, at odds with her body. Hope had always trusted her body more than her mind.

  Rick, however, hadn’t. He took her words at face value; his shoulders slumped under her fingers.

  “Look,” Rick said, sounding uncharacteristically frustrated, his eyebrows pulled down into a dark frown, “I don’t know why you think this way. Why can’t you just accept that I - Look. Everybody, including you, has a God-given right to be loved.”

  And he probably believed that. It would be very easy for a gorgeous billionaire to believe that.

  Hope allowed herself a brief low laugh. “God isn’t in the habit of giving me rights,” she said dryly.

  “I wasn’t done,” Rick countered. His hands slid down her throat - remarkably, she let him. He would probably never realize how much trust it took for Hope to let his hands linger around the slim column of her neck. There were a thousand different ways to kill a person with that kind of trust. And here she was, offering herself up to someone like this, someone with the power to make her drop everything and forget her training.

  All the arguments for and against were getting mixed up in her head. Hope couldn’t remember exactly what she was protesting anymore.

  "You see a thousand gorgeous women every day," Hope said, throwing pride to the wind and hoping that honesty would be enough. "Why me?"

  Rich sighed. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. For someone who spoke like he breathed, it was strange seeing him struggle for the right words.

  "You're right," he said finally. "I do."

  Hope glared at him a little, just a tiny bit that she couldn't hide. Her heart sunk. Those weren't the right words at all, she thought.

  For some reason the corner of Rick's mouth quirked up in a smile.

  "And I've dated hundreds of them," he added.

  Hope dodged to the side and took two steps backward. The back of her mouth tasted sick. She wished she could be anywhere but this room right now but she couldn't leave; she had a responsibility. Don't mix business and pleasure, she swore savagely at herself in her own head.

  "But here's the thing," Rick said. Hope looked at him out of the corner of her eye; he stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, shoulders wide open, staring at her earnestly. "You know how they say talent is cheap? It's the same with beauty. A gorgeous woman is a wonderful thing, but pretty doesn't keep you warm at night, you know?"

  He took three steps toward her. Hope felt frozen in place even as the automatic parts of her brain continued to scan the room. She felt split in two; capably analyzing the security situation and helpless to move away from Rick.

  A hand touched her cheek and Hope bit back a gasp. Rick stared straight into her eyes, all of his usual levity gone for a brief second.

  "So yes, Hope, you are beautiful. But it doesn't matter. I'm not looking at you because you were gifted with perfect angles or ideal symmetry. When I say you're beautiful, it's because I know your character, and when I look at you I see it all over your face."

  Hope stared into his earnest green eyes for several moments, mesmerized. When she spoke, she was surprised at the hoarseness of her own voice.

  "Is that all a roundabout way of saying you just think I'm pretty because you know me?" There was a joking lilt to her words, but all she could think was touch me, please. She would have reached out to him but she felt fragile for some reason; like glass about to break.

  Rick reached up with his other hand to cradle her face. His touched snapped her back and Hope realized she wasn't going to break. Rick's skin warmed her face and suddenly she didn't feel weak anymore, she felt strong. The feel of Rick touching her like this, tenderly, spent sparks flying through her body.

  "I don't know. Maybe," Rick said, his eyes still staring unwaveringly into hers. "Does it matter?"

  Tick tock. Some things didn’t change out of context. Hope still recognized the sound of a cocked gun; the point of no return.

  "No," Hope whispered. "Kiss me."

  Rick’s mouth was hot on hers; wet and a little dirty, very experienced. For a second Hope thought about resenting the way he threatened to sweep all her senses away with something so small as his lips brushing against hers, but then Rick’s hand came up and brushed her jaw right where it joined her throat. The feather light touch stroked up her cheek and down her neck, as if to make sure that she was really here.

  Then Hope stopped worrying and just kissed him back.

  Kissing Rick is frightening because he might not mean it, terrifying because she knows he does.

  But Hope has never been one to run from danger. She’s more the type to hunt it down and throw herself at it.

  So she surged forward and threw herself into Rick; let herself really participate in the kiss for the first time since he’d started trying. His lips slid against hers and Hope pushed up into it, the tantalizing contact turning into something wet and deep that seared right down into to her bones.

  “Oh,” Rick said, sounding shocked and pleased in such a smooth combination of the two that Hope knew only he could pull it off. She was barely listening, busy pushing the jacket off his shoulders and fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. The library probably wasn’t bugged, but it still wasn’t smart to do anything in here. Hope knew rationally that they should move, but she wondered…

  “Yes,” Rick said quietly. He reached up to brush a strand of hair out of Hope’s eyes, his touch feather-light in a way Hope herself left behind a long time ago. She felt eager and clumsy, like she was pressing her fingerprints into his skin, bruising the curve of his clever mouth with her kisses. “Yes to whatever you’re th
inking, to whatever you want.”

  And God, how was she supposed to cope with that?

  Hope tried to breathe and kiss Rick all at once; it didn’t go well. As Rick laughed and pulled away slightly to give her space, the spine of a book on the shelves caught her eye.

  “Oh,” Hope breathed, just like Rick had a minute ago, but not the same at all.

  “What is it?” His eyes followed hers and snagged on the same bright colors she’d spotted. A frown creased over his forehead. “Tribes of Africa?”

  She took a step back, breathing still ragged, trying to force her brain to work in ways it had never been accustomed to in the first place. One hand was still bunched in Rick’s half-unbuttoned shirt. It didn’t want to let go.

  “I… yes. I just had a thought. Those men - the ones from the other night, but the first break in as well. I know them.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rick’s eyebrows flew up.

  “No, I mean, not know them, but I know what they are. They’re Afrikaners. The accents; they were trying to hide it, but that’s what it was. That’s - that’s strange, isn’t it?” Mostly she wanted Rick to tell her it wasn’t so they could go back to what they’d been doing before - but. Hope didn’t have a lot of personal beliefs or morals or whatever you wanted to call them, but even she knew this was something bigger than either of them.

  Unfortunately, Rick nodded slowly. His hands released their holds on her and Hope watched as his expression turned calculating. She sighed.

  Just a minute for herself was too good to be true, she thought sourly before pulling herself up short. There will be time for this again. If I’m lucky.

  Rick was dragging his fingers through his hair and muttering snippets of words that never made it into sentences. “That doesn’t - but if - maybe we could - Africa, big place - still…” He turned to her with an inquisitive expression. “You were there for three years. Do you have any contacts we could reach?”