Chapter Ten
Hayes
Iknocked on Luna’s door the following morning.
I hadn’t kept an eye on her to see what time she’d gone to sleep. For once, I’d forced myself not to.
Instead, I’d spent half the night staring at the ceiling, replaying everything that had just happened.
I’d told her about the incident from when I’d first started in security.
It was the first time I’d talked about it in awhile, except to Gray.
I didn’t know what made me say it. Maybe the way she looked at me, like she actually saw me.
Perhaps the way she cared about a scratch on my arm.
Or maybe I needed her to understand why I couldn’t just pull her into my lap and lose myself in her touch the way I wanted to.
It had been too easy to talk to her. Too easy to let her in.
And then the kiss. Hell, that kiss had crossed every line I’d drawn in my head. I’d spent years teaching myself how to separate feelings from work. How to be the guard, not the man. One second of her lips against mine, and that had cracked wide open.
There was something about her that got to me.
The scattered way her brain worked was so different from mine. Her complete lack of a filter. The way her curly hair seemed to dance around her face. All these unique things about her that I shouldn’t be noticing but was.
And that scared the hell out of me.
Because wanting Luna meant losing control. And I’d retained rigid control ever since my client was shot a few years ago.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to push all of it down before I knocked again. “Morning, sunshine,” I said, cracking the door open.
“Go away,” she mumbled into her pillow.
I scanned the room for safety concerns out of habit. The biggest danger to Luna seemed to be Luna herself. She looked like she’d barely slept. Her comforter was half off the bed, and her laptop was discarded in the middle of the floor.
“Another late night?”
“Let me sleep for another half hour, and I’ll tell you all about it,” she deadpanned. Even half asleep, she was funny.
I glanced at my watch. I could be a good book boyfriend and let her sleep a little longer. She could get ready with remarkable speed when she wanted to.
I could see a red light blinking on the side of her laptop. It probably needed to be charged. I grabbed it and brought it to the little desk area to plug it in, shutting Luna’s door behind me.
As soon as I plugged the machine in, the screen came to life. No password, because Luna.
The word bodyguard caught my eye. I knew she was supposed to write a bodyguard series, which was part of why her publishing team was pushing to keep our hashtag going.
Now I was curious, though, so I let my eyes scan the screen.
I only read for a few minutes, but it might have cost me a year of my life.
The woman who choked on her coffee when an influencer even hinted that she was dating her bodyguard wrote this?
The scene was sensual and hot, hinting at underlying sexual tension between a woman and her guard.
The hypothetical way he talked about manhandling her…
fuck. I just knew if I kept reading, there would be a scene of frantic animal sex.
How much had her feelings for me influenced this story?
My cock hardened at the idea. It was a fairly well-understood rule that you don’t sleep with your asset. It was unprofessional, not to mention distracting as hell. That didn’t mean I didn’t dream about it, especially after last night.
I closed the laptop before I did something stupid, like keep reading.
******
We rolled into my hometown of Valor Springs a few hours later. The publishing company had generously scheduled today off, and Valor Springs was small enough that Luna shouldn’t be mobbed if we went out in public.
I pulled up in front of Pepper’s Pie and Coffee, my favorite place to eat in town. Luna seemed to have an affinity for coffee that was 90 percent whipped cream, and I knew this place would fill her request.
“Twenty-four hours with no screaming fans. Let’s get something to eat, then you can catch up on some sleep.”
She jumped down from my truck, and I met her around the front. “You really know how to show a girl a good time.”
I scoffed as I opened the café door. “It’s not my job to entertain you, Darling.”
“So you do it for free? How thoughtful.” She slid her sunglasses onto the top of her head and batted her eyes at me.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. This migraine in human form was funny. I was still smiling as we slid into a booth. “Oh, the man actually knows how to smile. I’ll have to add that to my character notes.”
I changed my smile to a scowl. “No character notes today. You need to take a break. Rule six.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Hayes, how are you?” Rose, who had been waiting tables at Pepper’s since I was a kid, stepped up to our table with a pot of coffee in one hand. “What can I get you, hunny?”
I let her fill my cup with hot black coffee and ordered the special.
“And who’s your pretty little friend?”
“Rose, this is my client and current headache, Luna.”
Rose bumped my shoulder with her hip. “Be nice to the lady. You aren’t too old to be taken over my knee, you know?”
Luna placed her order before bursting out laughing.
I waited for her to finish, which took longer than I’d imagined. When she finally settled down, she was taking deep cleansing breaths and wiping tears from her eyes.
“Are you done?”
“For now, the idea of that woman, who looks like everyone’s grandmother, kicking your ass for being rude is just hilarious.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah, keep laughing, and I’ll take you over my knee.”
She froze with her drink halfway to her mouth and set it down without taking a sip.
I smirked at her expression. “Don’t act like you don’t love the idea of being manhandled a little.”
“You read some of my story, I take it,” she said, not a hint of embarrassment on her face.
I sipped my coffee, but that was enough of an answer.
“What did you think?”
“I think I shouldn’t have read it.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“Because it’s giving me ideas that I can’t act on.”
She blushed now. “Oh.” She looked down at her hands. “I have those ideas too, you know, obviously. The inspiration for that scene is exactly what you think it is.”
My nostrils flared, and I set my cup down. “You shouldn’t write about me, Luna.”
“Kind of too late for that, don’t you think?”
“Nothing can happen. Putting it out there and thinking about it, it’s just torturing us both. When this week is over, you’ll go back to Canada or Vegas or wherever your next book is set, and I’ll move on to my next assignment.”
“What if my next book is set in Texas? Cowboy bodyguard series, remember?”
My heart stopped in my chest, and I fumbled for a reply.
“Here we are, hungry people.” Rose appeared with our breakfasts and set them down in front of us with a flourish. The tension while she was there was thick. I gave her a polite smile, then turned back to Luna.
“I can’t think about what could be until the job’s done. If I start now, I’ll lose focus, and I can’t risk that. Not when your safety depends on me.”
She chewed the side of her lip but ultimately nodded. I was positive she had more to say, but was grateful that she dropped it for now.
“Eat. You need your strength to finish your book and the tour.”
We finished our breakfast in companionable silence, both lost in our own thoughts. After we had paid and I’d given Rose a hug, we went back out to my truck. “It’s too early to check into the hotel. Do you need anything while we have time?”
“Oh, yes, I need handcuffs.”
I stared, wondering if I needed to get my hearing checked.
“Please,” she added.
“What…? Do I really want to know?” I turned my eyes back to the road with some difficulty.
She sighed, like I was the one out of line here. “I’m just trying something new with the story I’m writing. I want it to be accurate. I need the real thing to make the scenes authentic.”
“So this is research material?” The part of my brain that had recovered from the shock of her request was picturing her handcuffed to my headboard. “I’d rather get you a ball-gag, but the reason isn’t very romantic.”
She smacked my arm. “That’s not funny…although…”
“No, Luna. When I asked if you needed anything, I was thinking like toothpaste or something, not fetish gear.”
“Prude.” She scoffed, then pulled out her notebook and made a note.
“What did you just write down?”
The side of her mouth kicked up, but she didn’t answer.
“You know what? Never mind. I’ll teach you how to make your own handcuffs later if that will make you happy.”
Her eyes lit. “Really?”
“Sure.” Whatever got me through this assignment. “But seriously, we have some time to kill. What do you want to do?”
She shrugged. “This is your town, so you tell me.”
I wasn’t really in the mood to be around crowds. For a moment, I thought about taking her back to my place so we could rest, but I wasn’t sure I could handle having her in my space. An idea came to me, and I pulled an illegal U-turn before heading out toward The Ranch.