8. Chapter Eight
8
Mia
It’s been a couple of hours since Evan disappeared through the door when a tall and lanky guy, who looks to be in his early twenties, walks down the long hallway straight toward me. Even though Carmen has been calling me, I haven’t told anyone about where Evan and I are going to be for the night.
The image of Evan’s shaken-up form comes rushing back, and I shiver from the memory. The stranger comes to a stop in front of me, a bag dangling from his hand, and he holds it out to me lazily.
I reluctantly take it and frown. “Who are you?”
It’s my fault for thinking the front desk of this rundown place would actually listen to my request about people not being allowed on this floor with us for the night.
“Hendrix Mart delivery service,” he says with his chest puffed out.
He’s trying to look as though he’s tough, but I could knock him out without even having to try. I arch a brow, then glance down at the bag. “And what’s the delivery?”
I’m one more step away from calling the police and having him put into the back of their car. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, though, and allow him to explain things to me.
The boy hasn’t lunged for me, or given any bad vibes, and that’s the only reason he’s getting a reprieve.
“Uh… shower stuff and clothes,” he mumbles, then looks down the hallway before sighing dramatically. “Listen, ma’am, I’ve had a long night. Is that all with the questions?”
I nod curtly, but keep my eyes on him as he saunters back down the hall toward the elevators. I’m digging through the bag, double checking that what he said checks out, when the hotel room door is pulled open.
When I look up, more than prepared to hand the contents out to Evan, I nearly choke on the air I’ve got in my lungs. He’s no longer wearing a shirt, with a towel flung over his shoulder, and a lazy smile pointed my way.
Even though I know I shouldn’t, I can’t help but track my gaze down his frame and take in the way his jeans hang low on his hips. If he turned around right now, I’m sure his ass would look magnificent.
He clears his throat, pulling me from my wandering thoughts, and chuckles. “Do I get my items, or you gonna hold them hostage, darlin’?”
I’ve lost all sense.
Without uttering a word, I shove the bag into his chest and shiver when my fingers graze over his bare skin. My pussy responds almost immediately, pulsing with need, but I shake my head and give Evan the most professional smile I can manage.
“Please tell me you weren’t an idiot and used your real name for the delivery?”
He places a hand over his heart, mouth dropped open dramatically, and he shakes his head with a frown. “Do you have no faith in me?”
I roll my eyes and press my back flat against the wall, forcing my gaze away from him and onto the wall across from me. There’s stains covering the length of it, showing that the owner can’t bother to clean up the place, and I can smell the faint scent of cigarette smoke hanging in the air – even though it says this is a smoke-free establishment.
Looking at the carpet I’m standing on, I can see crumbs nearly everywhere and wonder how long it’s been since someone actually cleaned the place. If I had to guess, I’d say weeks – maybe even months. The thought of Evan staying in one of their rooms has me frowning, but I know this is the best place for him to be.
“Don’t get upset, I was only joking,” Evan says, interrupting my perusal of our surroundings.
“I’m not upset,” I mutter, then jerk my head to the room. “Go rest before Carmen gets on my ass.”
He places his hand against his forehead in a salute, then says, “Aye aye, Captain,” before disappearing back into the room.
Even though I’m used to being on my feet for hours on end, I’m exhausted from the situation that happened outside the stadium and in desperate need of sleep. I’d love nothing more than to curl up on one of these beds, regardless of how clean the linens are, and pass out.
That’s not my job, though.
Instead of resting my head back, I keep away from the wall and dart my gaze down each end of the hallway to make sure no one gets any funny ideas.
The hours crawl by, each minute stretching like an eternity. My mind keeps replaying the attack, the wild look in the man's eyes, the way Evan's body trembled afterward. I should be focused solely on security, but I can't shake the memory of Evan's warmth when I pushed him down, the scent of his cologne mixed with sweat. I shake my head, trying to clear these unprofessional thoughts.
The last thing Evan’s needs is for another incident to happen so soon after another.
One thing’s for sure… the stalker is escalating things and I’m worried I’ll be too late on figuring out who the hell it is.
***
I close my eyes, needing relief for a few moments, when a knocking next to my head snaps them right back open. Before I can think, I’m putting my hand at my hip where my gun rests and more than prepared to take it out.
“Woah, woah,” Evan says breathlessly. “It’s just me, Mia.”
He might be famous, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give him the stink eye. “Are you insane? I could’ve hurt you, you’re lucky I didn’t throw a punch!”
He frowns and runs a hand through his hair. It’s sticking up, almost as if he’s been doing nothing but running those large hands through it most of the night. I glance at the watch clasped around my wrist, noting that it’s past three in the morning, and I arch a brow.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Evan clears his throat, glancing down each end of the hallway like I’ve been doing for hours, and say, “Look, we’ve been here for hours and no one has even stepped foot in this hallway.”
“Okay…”
What is he getting at?
This time he’s the one who jerks his head toward the room. “Come on, you deserve rest just as much as I do.”
My mouth pops open, then I frown. “There’s only one bed.”
He smirks. “Don’t act too excited.”
I roll my eyes and chew on the inside of my cheek. “I should really stand watch, you never know what could happen.”
“You’re exhausted and I’ll only worry if you end up falling asleep out here in the open.” We’re silent for a few moments, staring at each other, then he flashes me a cocky grin when I slump my shoulders in defeat. “Good girl.”
Instead of halting my movements and going right back to my position out the door, I push past his large frame. I’m heating up in ways I haven’t felt since we first met, and now I’m going to be closer to him than I’d like. He shuts the door, and then I listen as he clicks the lock into place and fastens the chain at the top before his heavy footsteps fall behind me.
It’s all good.
He walks around my frozen form, stopping right in front of me. I’m a ball of nerves, which is obvious by the way I keep shifting on my feet, and I can’t look anywhere but at the floor. Evan places his finger at the tip of my chin, forcing me to look at him, then cocks his head to the side.
“Am I making you nervous, darlin’?”
I scoff. “Please, I don’t get nervous. That’s ridiculous.”
“Can I be honest with you?”
“Of course.”
He scrubs a hand down his face and sighs, his gaze darting away from mine like he’s ashamed of what he’s about to tell me. “There’s a different reason I wanted you in the room,” he says quietly, almost a whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m scared,” he says. “I can’t admit that to the guys. I’m the level-headed one of the group, always thinking with a clear head, and they can’t know that I’m all over the place right now.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Evan doesn’t say anything, just goes over to the single bed sitting in the middle of the room and sits at the edge of it while looking down at his hands clasped together in his lap. I study him for a moment, trailing my gaze over every inch of his body for any tells.
He’s tapping his foot, but not as though he’s nervous – most people do it frantically when the nerves hit, but he’s tapping every three seconds or so. It’s more like he’s thinking too hard and can’t seem to figure out what he wants to do, so he taps his foot.
I bring my gaze back up the length of his body, catching the way his muscles strain through the sleeves from the tension in his body. There’s tattoos covering the length of his arm, his shirt covering what’s missing, and, although it’s the worst possible time to have the thought, I want to pull off him to admire the artwork more closely.
“I’ve been keeping it all inside,” he whispers, still looking at his hands. “I don’t know how to be open about it.”
As much as I don’t want to recall my past, maybe if I do, it will help him be more open about the things happening in the present. I walk over and sit next to him on the bed, then let out a heavy sigh.
This is going to be a lot.
“You’re not the only one who acts tough even though they’re terrified, you know?”
He doesn’t answer, so I take it as my cue to continue with my truth. “It was when I was overseas, during one of my tours. Things happen there that you would never want to see that would make you sick.”
Images flash through my mind at warp speed, but I focus only on one – he doesn’t need all my gory encounters. “I’d gotten kidnapped, taken hostage to a building in the middle of nowhere. It was falling apart, but I could hear gunshots in the distance and knew we were close to people.”
Evan’s hand falls onto my thigh, giving it a squeeze and the strength I need to keep moving forward with my experience. I rub a hand over my throat and swallow thickly, still remembering how the rope felt.
“When days turned into weeks, I knew it was only a matter of time before they came back and killed me. They’d left me begging for food and water, depriving me of it.”
My eyes sting with tears and I take in a shaky breath, curling my finger around the neckline of my shirt. “Eventually, one of the men who kidnapped me came to finish me off. Although I didn’t want to die, I was prepared. It was when the rope tightened around my neck that I began to panic, finally letting that fear out I’d been holding in.”
“Hey,” Evan says when I choke on a sob, and he wraps his arms around me tightly. “You don’t have to keep talking, Mia.”
I push back enough to look into his eyes. “I’m just saying everyone has fear in them, and it’s okay if you do as well.”
He brushes the pad of his thumb over my cheek, wiping away a tear, and stares into my eyes with sadness swirling inside of them. “Is that why you left the army?”
“It was the only thing I could do. I was paranoid after that, took years of counseling to finally feel normal after what I went through. Everyone understood why I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“How did you escape?”
“My squad finally found me after searching high and low. I knew there was someone watching over me after that, and I didn’t want to take it for granted. Protecting people is how I get through it, knowing that I’m saving someone from the same situation I was in.”
This is the most I’ve talked about since taking this job, and I don’t want to cower back. There’s something in Evan’s gaze, a brightness in them that wasn’t there before, and he places his hand against my cheek.
“You’re the strongest woman I know,” he rasps before starting to lean forward.
I’m so lost in the color of his eyes that I don’t realize what’s happening until he’s a breath away from his lips, touching mine.
For a moment, I want nothing more than to close that gap, to feel his lips on mine. But then Liam's face flashes in my mind, his green eyes—so like Evan's—looking at me with confusion and hurt. The guilt hits me like a physical blow.
How can I even think about kissing Evan when I'm keeping such a massive secret?
I throw my hand open against his chest, pausing him, then slowly back away from his body. “We should, uh, get to sleep.”
Evan blinks, then nods and runs his hands down his thighs. “Right.”
He looks around the space for a brief moment, then rises from his bed and walks over to a closet at one corner of the room. Inside of it is an extra blanket, which surprises me, and another pillow. Evan holds them in the air and spreads them out on the floor before looking at me. “I’ll take the floor; you can have the bed.”
My eyes bug out, and I shake my head. “No way, Goldie. Carmen would kill me if you complained about your back tomorrow before rehearsals.”
“If my mother were here, she’d smack me upside the head if I let you sleep on the floor.” He sighs heavily and looks at the empty space next to me. “Unless we both sleep on it?”
I feel the flush igniting on my cheeks, and I chew on my fingernail. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“I know how to keep my hands to myself, darlin’.”
Maybe he’s right… but do I? The bed is big, a king it looks like, and I know it’s possible for him to be in with me while also giving me my space. Yet, the idea of him giving me exactly that makes me frown.
What is up with my emotions lately?
I’m his bodyguard.
He’s the bass guitarist for Raising Havoc.
Liam is his son.
Each of these things does a good job of setting my head straight, and I nod curtly. “As long as you’re professional,” I choke out before lifting the large blanket and climbing beneath it.
“Are you sure I’m the one we need to be worried about?” He asks, amusement laced in his tone.
He might be joking, but he has no idea how right he is… and he won’t find out.