CHAPTER EIGHT
CHA CHA
I’m exhausted after my first full day with Drake.
He worked me hard, taking me through self defense after shooting lessons, and driving tips after that.
I sway on my feet, drinking the green smoothie he made me when I can’t stomach more than part of the steak that sits on my plate, alongside a vegetable salad well after the sun has set over the mountains beyond the house.
“Fuel,” he murmurs from his place at the breakfast bar next to me.
We never made it to the formal table, his house too big, it seems tonight, for two people. Instead, we eat in the kitchen, our plates lined up next to each other’s.
“I can’t.” I try not to sound petulant and fail. “This is good.” I sip my smoothie through the glass straw he’s provided.
“Good? A roaring compliment from you, princess.” Drake doesn’t use my first name, taking the sting out of his sarcasm.
I sink into my stool, struggling to keep the room in focus. “I can keep going,” I manage, stifling a yawn beyond my hand.
“Shower. Crash. Let’s go again in the morning,” he directs me.
I blink at the scattered seeds swimming in a sea of green goop that tastes remarkably good for the amount of kale, pear and cucumber that my bodyguard stuffed into his blender. “You might be able to. I need to sleep. And…sing.” I shrug. “Do something else.”
Drake pauses beside me, his fork poised an inch above his nearly finished steak. Mine appears almost untouched in comparison. “I can show you the mountains tomorrow,” he offers after a moment. “Take you a little deeper in. Inspiration? It’s quiet,” he adds. “But not silent.”
I swallow a long gulp of smoothie to hide my shock. “Mind reader,” I mutter.
His laugh echoes around the kitchen. “I’ll plan it out.”
“Your plans try to kill me, Drake Bodyguard.” I push my plate away after nibbling at my vegetables. “I don’t even know your last name. Why you became a bodyguard. Or who you were in the military.”
Drake spears his last piece of steak, emptying his plate and chews slowly.
He finishes his meal, and collects my plate without a word, taking them away.
After he’s cleaned up, and I’ve slipped on my stool, ready to fall asleep at the bench, he catches me, turns me in his arms, and leads me along the hall toward the bedroom I used the night before.
“What happened to the shower suggestion?” I swipe a hand across my eyes, but the hallway stays blurry. “Why am I so tired?”
“Because you barely slept, then I worked you like a special ops trainee, princess. You held up pretty well. Got a little dirty, didn’t complain half as much as expected." Approval coats his voice.
I hate that I crave what he offers me.
“I’m storing it up for tomorrow,” I sass him. “Watch out for that hike, Mister Tough Guy.”
“Yeah? Think you’ll take me?” He sounds amused as he opens my door.
“I might surprise you.” I’m lying to no one. The only thing I’ll take right now is the first pillow in sight and a blacked out room.
“I’d like to see that.” The humor dissipates from Drake’s voice as he leads me into my room by my hand and turns my covers back. “You pack pajamas, princess?”
I snort. “I didn’t get a choice on what went in my suitcase, and unless you consider latex or leather pants sleepwear, then the answer is no.”
His lips twitch. “Maybe another time, then,” he says softly. “Hop in.”
“I’m filthy.” The innuendo in my words hits me way too late.
Drake ignores the option to snark at me for one. “Probably, princess. But this bed has seen far worse. Crawl in. I’ll fix your sheets tomorrow.”
“Story?” Kiss? I want to batt my eyelashes, but my body refuses to work the way I want it to behave. I crawl in as Drake suggests, and he tucks me in.
The light flicks off, and he leans over me. “I thought you wanted something else.”
He doesn’t pose it as a question, so I don’t answer it.
“Tell me what you did in the military.”
Drake’s hands still on the blanket over my shoulders. “I was a medic.”
I focus on his silhouette, unable to see his face. “Were you good?”
“Always.”
The lack of ego in his easy response tells me he probably was good.
“Why did you leave?” I find his hand over the blanket with mine underneath and work my fingers under his.
He lets me and gives mine a squeeze. “Story time, huh?” he mutters.
“The kiss would have been easier.” A heavy breath leaves his chest. “We were in—” Drake coughs.
“A shithole. I patched our team up more times than I should have, but they were still breathing. We were four hours from extraction. From sending us all home. Safe ground. Then two. One.” His hand tightens on mine.
“Drake,” I whisper, wishing I hadn’t asked.
His head tips down, his face obscured by shadows.
I’m not sure if he’s looking at me or seeing the scene play out before him.
“We had a young soldier. Redman. I don’t remember his first name.
He took a shot to the thigh. I patched him up, too.
The plane arrived. Never powered down. We ran, fucking pink dust everywhere, kicked up by bullets pinging the ground and the turbines.
I can taste the dirt mixed with metal and blood when I close my eyes. ” His hand closes on mine.
I don’t break into his story, don’t interrupt. I asked for this, and he’s telling me. Listening is the least I can do. I wonder how many times he’s told the story about the soldier Redman, or ever.
“Everyone got on the plane. It was a fucking miracle. We couldn’t believe it.
Statistically, someone should have been shot, but…
no one was. So we cheered as the plane took off.
It was a small incursion. They had no ground to air missiles and we launched safely.
Got into the air. I talked to Redman the entire time.
Took me three fucking minutes to realize he wasn’t talking back. ”
“He was gone.” I squeeze his hand through the blankets, unable to free myself from the knots.
Drake jerks, finding reality, maybe. “Yeah. He fucking bled out sometime after we got on board, or maybe as we were running. I don’t know.
I’ve played it over and over in my head a million times.
I carried him, because it was my job. I lifted him in and fucking cheered while he died and I didn’t know, princess.
“I watched a lot of men I loved die in circumstances that they couldn’t control, princess.” He squeezes my hand again, his voice smoothing out. A kick in it, like he’s granting me permission to sass him. Begging, almost. Anything to ease the tension.
I wish I didn’t ask for a story, but I’m glad that I know his. And now it’s my turn to bring him back. I search for words to lighten his mood, but everything seems pithy after that.
“And now you choose to offer security to divas who throw stuffie tantrums in dressing rooms. That’s a new sort of war zone,” I offer, cringing internally at my choice of distraction.
Drake barks a harsh laugh. “I’ll take the stuffie war and raise you a stalker, K-pop queen,” he murmurs, dispelling the mood in a second.
His talent, taking panic, fear and dissipating it. I can imagine what he would be like amidst the chaos and madness of what he’s described.
The hand gripping mine releases, flexing. “Working in independent security means I get to pick what jobs I want to do, who I’m working with. People I can trust. Clients I like.”
“How do you know you like me? We just met.” It seems a reasonable thing to ask, but I’m already fading. Maybe I should have asked for a kiss, not a story. Tonight, I think he might have capitulated after all.
“I watched you,” he says simply. “The moment that I knew you were mine, I learned everything I could about you. Who you were, what you wanted the world to see. What you didn’t.
I learned everything, Cha Cha.” My breath stalls when he uses my name.
“And the woman I saw on that stage, when I listened to every song you’ve ever written?
I think—” Drake cuts himself off, reaching up to swipe hair back from my face.
I lie frozen beneath my blankets, trapped there under their combined weight and his leaning over me. “I haven’t released all my songs,” I whisper. “You don’t know everything. I promise.”
Light from his phone illuminates his face. “I do, princess. I found those songs, too.” the fingers seep through my hair. I read every one of them. Listened to the recordings that you haven’t released yet. Everything about you is beautiful.”
My breath shatters in my throat. I’m not sure if I want to scream or cry. “Those songs and recordings are at my house. My home.”
Drake’s hand cups my cheek. “They are.”
Breath leaves me empty. Airless. “I wasn’t there—”
“You were on tour. The first weeks.” He says it so evenly. So normal.
“Drake.” My heart pounds as I try to free my hands from the blanket, and only succeed in tangling myself into a knot. I struggle as he strokes my hair back from my face so gently.
“Breath, princess,” he murmurs. “With me.”
“But you– you—” I can’t get the words out.
“In with me. Out,” he encourages, until my chest loosens and the panic attack passes. “That’s it. Now, say it.”
He knows. He knows what I'm going to ask and he’s asking me to say it.
I can’t.
I have to.
Darkness shrouds Drake’s face. His touch is so light as he trails his fingertips through my hair. I want to lean into his palm, the hands that, until moments before, I thought were safe.
“Why?”
Why did you break into my house? Why did you invade my life?
“That’s not the question that you want to ask, Cha Cha,” he berates me softly. Even though he uses a gentle tone, there’s no denoting that I’m in trouble.
I choke up again. “I—”
“You can ask me,” Drake murmurs. “It’s okay, princess.”
“Didyouwritetheletters?” I blurt it all out at once, my question unintelligible and rushed.
But it’s out there.
Drake’s touch stops. His hand retracts.
I wait.
“No,” he says softly.
I close my eyes. A sob escapes. “Why were you in my house?”
“Because I wanted to see how easy it was to break in. It was easy as hell, princess. We have a lot to talk about your security measures. Whatever the other bodyguards put in place, it’s not worth shit.
And because it was far too easy to become obsessed with you.
” he leans down and presses his lips to my temple.
“I’m in the room across the hall. If you need me tonight, if you’re too scared to close your eyes, I’ll sit in the doorway.
No closer. I promise,” he whispers against my temple.
Breath shudders from me. “I was safe with you,” I whimper.
“Was, princess?” He cups the back of my head tilting me back, exposing me. “We’re gonna go over every entrance point in your home tomorrow. Together. Then the dressing room situation, then the sasaeng, maybe your staff on your management team as well.”
“I thought we were hiking?” I shiver as he leans over me, caging me in though there are blankets between us and our bodies never touch.
“We can do that too. First?” He massages my nape as I nod. “I promise, princess. We can get through this.”
Some part of me believes him, because I want to. Some part of me is as addicted to this man who slid into my life by both effort and design.
And some part of me wants to trust him because I can, despite how dangerous I know he is. Because even though he’s known me for far longer than I have known him, I can't help but crave Drake.
And that’s a dangerous feeling that sinks deeper under my skin.
“Sleep with me?” I whisper, knowing it’s not what he offered at all, but it is what I need tonight.
I sense his smile, his victory before he speaks.
“Not tonight, princess. But I’m real close. I promise. For now, close your eyes.”
He settles on the floor beside the bed, the carpet muffling his movements.
My eyes shutter, but the scent of him, something earthy and metallic, is a constant reminder that he’s there.
I fight with the blankets again, pushing my hands free of the knot until I achieve success.
Shoving them aside, I reach out blindly and clip his shoulder.
“Sorry,” I whisper, reaching for him again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” His tone is reassuring, his grip as he laces our fingers together firm and warm. “Sleep, Cha Cha. I won't go anywhere.”
I stare at the ceiling I can't define in the darkness for a moment longer before my eyelids are too heavy and droop.
Then only darkness and warmth are my company, warding away night wraiths dressed in hoods and masks with faces so horrific that I wake up with my scream still stuck in my throat more than once.
And every time, I find Drake still leaning against my bed, his hand wrapped firmly in mine.
I never pull away, and neither does he.