Chapter 3
Sierra
The truck smells like warm leather and something rugged I can’t name. Clean in a sharp, masculine way. Even with the AC blasting, the heat still clings, Texas summer pressing at the windows like it refuses to mind its business.
Knox drives like he belongs on the road. One hand on the wheel, the other resting loose, ready. His forearms flex when he turns, and I hate myself a little for noticing.
No. That’s a lie.
I don’t hate myself.
I hate that I can’t stop.
Because my brain should be screaming about the flash drive buried in my bag. About the fact that someone was in my apartment tearing through my drawers like they owned the place. About how my father is dead and now a stranger with tattoos and eyes like ice is driving me away from everything I know.
Instead, my mind keeps replaying one moment in a loop like it’s the only thing it can hold onto without snapping.
THE KISS.
His mouth on mine.
His body pressed close, heat and strength and control, blocking me from the world like he was built for one purpose and one purpose only.
Protect.
And my mouth had… responded.
I swallow hard and stare out the windshield, like the road is interesting and not just an endless ribbon of asphalt I’m barely registering.
It was supposed to be cover.
That’s what he said.
Cover.
But my lips are still swollen, I think. My skin still tingles where his hand landed on my waist. My pulse keeps fluttering in weird places.
I’m twenty-three years old and I have never been kissed like that.
Not once.
Not even close.
My ex kissed like he was checking off a task.
Like he was doing me a favor.
Like my mouth existed to serve his ego.
His name is Cole, and I wish I could toss the memory of him the way Knox took control in that stairwell, no hesitation.
Cole had opinions about everything.
My clothes. Too tight, too loose, too loud, too plain.
My body. Too much. Too soft. Too… curvy, like that was a flaw instead of just the way I was made.
He said he liked curves, but only the “right” kind. The kind that looked good in the mirror. The kind that didn’t demand space.
And when he realized I wasn’t going to fall into bed just because he wanted me to, he made it my fault.
He made everything my fault.
We lasted long enough for me to feel stupid, and then I walked in on him making out with my roommate, hands everywhere, mouths everywhere, and he had the audacity to look at me like I was the problem.
“If you’d just stop being weird about sex,” he said, like loyalty was something you earned with your body.
Like love came with conditions.
I didn’t sleep with him.
Not because I’m a saint, not because I’m saving myself for anything, but because every time he touched me, I felt like I was being measured.
And I never measured up.
My throat tightens and I shove the memory away before it can ruin what little air I have left.
I shift in the passenger seat, bag wedged against my hip. The flash drive is in there, a weight I can’t stop thinking about.
That has to be the real reason someone broke into my apartment.
Not me.
Not my laptop.
Not my sad crackers.
The drive.
My stomach twists and I press my palm against it, like I can hold the panic down.
Knox glances at me, quick. His eyes go to my face and then back to the road.
“You alright?” he asks.
His voice is low. Calm. Like he expects the world to be dangerous, and he knows exactly what to do about it.
I force a breath. “Yes. Of course.”
The lie tastes bitter.
He doesn’t call me on it. He doesn’t push. He just nods once like he’s filing the information away for later.
Which makes me even more aware of him.
Of how composed he is.
Of how easily he took control in that stairwell.
Like he does it all the time.
Like kissing women is a tool in his belt, right next to whatever weapons he keeps hidden and the instincts that let him move through danger like it’s an old friend.
The thought stings.
Because a man like him definitely does not kiss a girl like me and feel anything.
Why would he?
He’s… him.
Tall. Rugged. Scarred and confident in the way men are when they’ve survived things that would break most people. He takes up space like he was born knowing he deserves it.
And I’m Sierra Hayes Quinn, marketing degree, tiny rental apartment, curvy body I’ve spent years trying to hide under “flattering” clothes that always feel like a compromise.
Even now, I can hear Cole’s voice like it’s carved into my brain.
You’d be so pretty if you just…
I rub my thumb over the strap of my bag until it hurts.
Knox’s jaw works once, like he’s thinking.
His hand tightens on the wheel.
“What’s in the bag?” he asks, and his tone shifts just enough that my heart kicks.
I blink. “What?”
He keeps his eyes on the road. “You’ve been holding it like it’s the last thing you own.”
My mouth goes dry.
I should tell him.
Shouldn’t I?
But the flash drive feels like a secret now. Like the second I say it out loud, it becomes real in a way I’m not ready for.
And it’s my father’s. It’s his life. His world. A world he never brought home.
“I…” My thoughts scatter. I can’t find a clean explanation that doesn’t sound insane.
Knox’s gaze flicks toward me, sharp. “Sierra.”
Just my name, but it lands like a warning.
I swallow. “It’s… nothing. Just my stuff. Keys. Wallet.”
A lie layered on a lie.
He watches me for half a second longer than comfortable. Then he looks back at the road.
“Alright,” he says, like he doesn’t believe me but he’s letting it go for now.
My phone vibrates in my lap.
The sound is loud, like the universe is laughing at my attempt at control.
I stare at the screen.
Uncle Dave.
I haven’t talked to him since the funeral. Not really. Not beyond a few stiff texts that said nothing because I didn’t know how to say anything.
My thumb hovers over the green button.
Knox glances over. His eyes narrow slightly.
“Who is it?” he asks.
“Dave,” I say, and my voice cracks. “My… uncle.”
I answer.
“Hey,” I whisper, like I’m afraid the sound will break me.
“Sierra,” Dave says. His voice is warm and tired at the same time, like he’s carrying too much and still making room for me anyway. “Hey, kiddo.”
My throat tightens at the word.
Kiddo.
My dad used to call me that.
“I was thinking about you,” Dave continues. “Wanted to check in. Are you at the apartment? How’re you holding up?”
I stare at the road. My eyes blur.
“I’m… okay,” I say, because that’s what people want to hear. “Just… doing the day-to-day.”
There’s a pause, like he’s not buying it.
“Grief doesn’t do day-to-day,” he says. “It does whatever it wants. Are you home right now? You eating?”
My stomach growls on cue, traitorous. I was on my way to grab a hot dog when everything went to hell.
I clamp my lips together. Knox’s eyes flick to me.
“I’m trying,” I say.
Dave exhales. “I hate being away. If I wasn’t deployed, I’d be on your doorstep right now. You know that, right?” Another beat. “You’re at your place alone?”
“I’m… out right now,” I whisper. “Not home.”
My chest aches.
“Where are you?”
I swallow. “I'm...”
I want to tell him everything.
I want to say: Someone broke into my apartment. I found something in Dad’s things. I’m in a stranger’s truck heading to a town I’ve never heard of. I’m scared.
I open my mouth.
Knox’s hand shoots out.
It happens so fast I barely process it. He reaches across, takes the phone right out of my hands, and taps the screen.
The call ends.
“What the hell?” I gasp, grabbing the phone back.
Knox doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t even flinch. He just pulls the truck onto the shoulder, tires crunching over gravel.
“Hey,” I snap, voice shaking with anger and adrenaline. “That was my uncle Dave.”
His jaw tightens. “I heard you.”
He shifts into park, then turns toward me, and the calm on his face makes my anger flare hotter.
“Give me the phone,” he says.
“No,” I fire back instantly, holding it tight. “What are you doing?”
His eyes hold mine. Steel-blue, unyielding.
“Keeping you alive,” he says.
“By stealing my phone?”
His jaw tightens. “Hand it over.”
“Why?” I hiss.
He doesn’t raise his voice. That’s the worst part. “Because whoever’s hunting you doesn’t need much. A ping. A call. A few seconds.”
I’m still breathing hard when he holds his hand out again, palm up.
Patient. Deadly.
“Phone,” he says.
I glare at him. “You can’t just…”
“Your life is more important than a phone,” he cuts in, voice low and final. “I’m not arguing with you about this.”
My breath comes sharp.
He reaches, not rough but not gentle either, and he gets it. His fingers brush mine and heat crawls up my arm like my nerves are wired wrong.
I’m ready to fight him.
Then he flips the phone over. It’s an older model, the kind with a case that actually comes off. He pops it free with practiced ease, and pauses.
He slides the memory card out and holds it toward me between two fingers, like it matters.
“Take it,” he says.
I blink, thrown. “What?”
“Your photos,” he says, eyes on mine. “Your videos. Whatever you’ve got on there.” His voice stays hard, but something in it shifts. “I’m not taking that from you.”
My throat tightens.
I take it with shaking fingers, like it might shatter.
Only then does he crack the window and toss the phone out into the grass.
The thud is soft. Final.
I stare at the spot where it disappears, rage and relief tangling in my chest until I can’t tell which one hurts more.
“You threw my phone!” I shout, lungs burning. “Are you insane?”
Knox closes the window like my outburst is just noise. “Yeah.”
I clutch the tiny card in my fist, my whole life reduced to something the size of a fingernail.
He looks at me, expression carved from stone.
“You can hate me,” he says. “But you’re breathing.”
A beat hangs between us.
“I don’t know why you’re in danger,” he says, voice flat. “Not yet. But I know it’s connected to your father.” His eyes don’t leave mine. “And whoever broke into your apartment has the kind of resources that make phones a liability.”
My anger stutters, tripping over the cold logic.
He leans in slightly, eyes hard. “You trust no one right now. Not your neighbor, not your uncle, not a coworker, not a friend. No one. Until we know what we’re dealing with.”
My throat tightens.
“Dave is family,” I snap, but the words don’t have the same heat they did a second ago.
His gaze doesn’t soften. “Family gets used. Family gets watched. Family gets hurt.”
I flinch.
Knox exhales, slow, like he’s forcing himself to stay controlled.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and the words sound like they cost him. “But I’m not sorry enough to risk you.”
I stare at him, chest heaving.
Part of me wants to claw his eyes out.
Another part of me wants to lean into him like he’s something solid in a world that keeps cracking open.
I hate that part.
I hate that it exists.
Knox turns back to the road, starts the truck, and pulls back into traffic like nothing happened.
I turn my face toward the window and focus on the blur of trees and highway signs and the fact that my life is now a moving vehicle with no exit.
He breaks the silence first.
“You're hungry, right?” he asks.
My stomach answers with a loud, humiliating growl.
Heat crawls up my neck.
I glare at my own body like it’s betrayed me again.
Knox’s mouth twitches. Not a smile. Not really. Something close.
“When’s the last time you ate?” he asks.
I swallow. “I can’t remember. I was heading out to eat before everything unfolded. Kind of got… interrupted.”
He nods once, eyes on the road. “We’ll fix that.”
My throat tightens again, and not from fear this time.
My brain tries to slide into the kiss again, to replay the way his mouth felt, the way his body shielded mine, the way my hand fisted in his shirt like he belonged to me for one heartbeat.
I force myself to think about something else.
Dad.
The drive.
I press my fingers into the bag strap.
I could tell Knox.
I should tell Knox.
But what happens after I tell him?
What if he looks at me and sees “problem” instead of “asset”?
What if he decides I’m too much trouble?
The thought is ridiculous. He’s literally hired to protect me.
And yet my chest still tightens like my worth is always up for debate.
Cole’s voice echoes in my head, smug and sharp.
No one is going to want all that.
I grit my teeth.
Is he expensive? The thought hits out of nowhere, stupid and practical. Dad probably left me something, but I haven’t even had the brain space to think about inheritance.
Knox clears his throat.
“We’re close,” he says.
I blink. “Close to what?”
His eyes stay on the road. “Valor Springs.”
My pulse jumps. “We’re almost there?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Ten minutes or so.”
My stomach flips, anxiety sliding in under everything else. “And then what?”
He glances at me, and for a second I see something in his expression that isn’t just professionalism.
Something like responsibility.
Something like a promise he’s already decided to keep.
“Then we get you fed,” he says. “And we get you somewhere secure.”
I swallow.
Secure sounds like another life.
Secure sounds like I might finally exhale.
My phone is gone. My apartment has been torn through. My father is dead. My world has narrowed to a flash drive I can’t open and a man I can’t stop thinking about.
A man who kissed me like he meant it, even if he didn’t.
I stare out at the road, the sun sinking low enough to turn the world gold at the edges, and I try to remind myself of what matters.
Survive.
Get answers.
Don’t fall for the bodyguard.
Except my lips still tingle.
And my heart is already keeping time wrong.