chapter twenty
Wren
I’ve been back at Dad’s place for an hour and a half before I get restless. I’m in my old, mostly empty bedroom and the little clock reads two thirty-three in the morning. My second cup of chamomile tea is cold on my nightstand. I am without Jay and Angelica. A Crow is staying at my house to watch over the investigation and take care of her. It isn’t good to keep moving a bird like Angelica, especially just after a move and her finally coming out of hiding. She is safest at home.
I didn’t see Jay after he went to talk to the police, and Dad and Hawk whisked me away from my house. But as I flip and flop on my bed restlessly, I find myself wanting to see him and figure out what happened. I pick up my phone and text him.
Me: Hey are you up?
Jay: yeah, I finished with the police like an hour ago.
Me: you okay? What happened? Who even were they?
Jay: here, I’ll just come to your room.
I sit up just as there is a quiet knock on my door. My heart leaps in my chest as the door opens.
“Hi,” I say and bunch my blankets on my lap.
“Hey,” he says and shuts the door behind him.
I set my phone on the bedside table and scoot over so he can sit next to me. He slides into the bed, though he doesn’t cover up with my blankets. We both lean back against the headboard, and I watch him settle in. In the dim, rosy light of my bedside lamp, his eyelashes look almost gold.
“So, tell me what happened?” I nudge him with my knee.
He yawns. “Well, first you need to know some back story. My mom unfortunately had gambling problems and was involved with some bookies. She owes them a lot of money. It’s half the reason I took this job, actually.”
“Where were you when she got involved with them? Why didn’t you stop her?”
“I was deployed overseas. I didn’t know it was happening,” he defends.
“Oh sorry, I didn’t know.”
He sighs and closes his eyes. “I know. I probably shouldn’t have said that even now, but I think I’m getting fired.”
“Dad and I will talk to Bradley and maybe you won’t. But go on with the story,” I say.
“She got involved with some bookies and I’ve been slowly paying them off with each paycheck. Well, I didn’t see them today when I dropped her at home. But they saw me in your fancy ass car. They followed me back home later and were hoping to steal the car and some other things. They had no clue I was working security or who you are. According to their statements, they only saw me coming and then Crow leaving. They didn’t know you were there or even noticed the masks on me and Crow.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “This is so dumb! The one night I forget to lock the back door and someone breaks in. Not because of my dad and his money, but because of you and your money!”
“Yeah, hilarious,” Jay grouses.
He’s wearing a new pair of pajamas and smells freshly showered. The scent of him is calming, grounding, and I feel the anxiety of the evening finally dissipate from my chest. I take in a slow breath.
“You alright?” he asks just above a whisper.
“Totally,” I say. “Though, can you maybe stay here?”
“I’m staying down the hall. I have a meeting with Safe House in the morning.”
“No, I mean, like, in my room?” I pick at a thread on my blanket and don’t look at him.
I hear him swallow, but he says nothing.
“I got really scared when they broke in and, well, you’re my bodyguard. I feel safer with you around.”
“Wren,” he exhales.
“Please?” I whisper, still not looking at him.
He doesn’t move or speak. I’m not entirely sure he’s even breathing. Finally, looking up at him, I find him staring at me with a furrow in his brow.
I scoot over even further on the bed so he has more room. “See, I’ll give you the bigger side of the bed.”
“Fine, only because I’m exhausted,” Jay says and reclines down next to me.
We wiggle and move as we settle into bed next to each other until we’re both under the covers and decidedly not touching. Jay moves to turn off the bedside lamp when my phone chimes. He glances at it.
“What’s Gemma texting you about so late?” he asks as he switches off the lamp.
“Give the phone to me. I told her some of what happened. She’s probably worried,” I say and hold out my hand.
“No, go to bed. She knows you’re safe.”
“Jay, she’s probably curious.”
Jay imitates a high-pitched voice with the Transatlantic accent Gemma and I love to use in our dramatic playing. “Oh darling, I’m ever so worried you chipped a nail while hiding in a closet with your handsome devil of a bodyguard!”
“Stop it,” I giggle and sit up.
“Were the intruders eligible bachelors? Did you ask them— oof —darling, did you ask them if they had any single friends?” Jay continues even after I scramble to grab my phone and elbow him in the stomach.
He knocks my phone out of my hand and I jump to straddle him to reach it now on the far end of the bedside table. He grunts in effort and lifts me by my hips so I’m hovering over his body and I can’t reach the phone.
“Stop,” he says, his voice strained with the effort of holding me in the air.
“Fine-uh, I’ll text her in the morning,” I groan. “Let me down.”
“Um,” he says, but doesn’t let me go. His eyes look calculating, like he’s thinking really hard about something.
“What’s wrong? Put me down,” I pout.
He doesn’t let go of me, even though I wiggle.
“Stop,” he says again.
He’s not letting me go, so I reach down and pinch his nipples. Hard. He yelps and drops me.
Directly onto his fully hard, pajama covered cock.
We both shout. Him in pain and me in shock.
I fly off of him and back onto my side of the bed. I don’t know what to say. It was the exact opposite of what I was expecting to happen.
“What the fuck ? Why are you hard?” I whisper shout as he scrambles to sit up and get out of my bed.
His eyes are wild and wide as he holds his hands out, palms to me, as if I were attacking him. “I didn’t mean to! I couldn’t help it!”
“What was it? Pretending to be Gemma or…?”
“Your-your boobs.”
I look down. They’re covered and well behaved. “What about them?”
“I remembered how they looked… in the safe room when they almost came out of your shirt,” he grumbles.
“ My boobs? You got turned on by your bosses boobs?”
He makes an indignant sound. “I wouldn’t say that you’re my boss.”
“Oh?” I say lightly and lift my top so I’m flashing him my tits. I don’t know why I did it, but they are out now. On full display for my bodyguard.
His bright blue eyes drop to my chest for a second before he closes them and tips his head back to the ceiling. A low groan of annoyance and desire emanates from his chest. The sound sends a thrum of arousal to my core. The attraction I feel for him isn’t entirely one sided and that knowledge had me wet.
“Sit back down,” I demand in a soft voice.
He does exactly what I tell him. He sits on the edge of my bed, his eyes still closed. His hands rest on his knees and he curls them into fists, gripping the cotton of his pajamas. I can see the bulge in his soft pants, and I know he’s still turned on. He could leave right now. He could decide this is inappropriate, that he isn’t interested in me. But he obeyed my command. He didn’t leave.
He wants this.
For a moment, we aren’t Wren and Jay, bodyguard and heiress. We are just a man and a woman with some insane chemistry in a dimly lit room in the middle of the night. Does he actually want this? Is he feeling the same way I am? Maybe it’s the tension reduction after our close call today. Maybe it’s some sort of trauma bond. But I don’t care. I want….
“I want you to open your eyes… if you want to,” I whisper as I stand in front of him and pull my light blue sleep camisole over my head. I give him the out, the option to deny his consent.
He opens his eyes, and I watch as his pupils dilate in reaction to the low light. Then he looks down at my breasts and the black of his pupils almost entirely overtakes the blue. My whole body feels feverish under his gaze. It’s forbidden, naughty. I feel myself trembling as I step closer to him. My thighs brush against his knees and he looks back up into my eyes. He tilts his head just the slightest bit, making me think he’s curious. Curious about what I’m going to ask him to do next. Curious about what I’m about to do to him.
“I want you to touch them,” I breathe.
His hands clench so tightly in his lap that I hear at least three knuckles crack. His brow creases and his eyes look like he’s… begging me. That warmth I had felt all over my body is now resting damply between my thighs. I am uncomfortably wet. So much so I am sure he’d be able to see it soaking through my thin cotton shorts if he looks.
Finally, his hands uncurl and he ghosts the lightest of touches over my skin on my arms and sides. He touches me so lightly it feels like a breath, a shadow. Not his large hands. I shiver and let out a little choked whimper.
I can’t see his mouth because of the mask, but I can tell it’s open as he gasps and brushes his fingertips over my nipples. His breath is loud and ragged in the room and I can feel warmth through the mask. I moan high in my throat and shiver again. It’s a pathetic, needy sound.
His hands, when they finally grab me, are hot and strong. After the light, ghosting touches, his skin feels like a scorching brand. He cups my breasts and squeezes. We both moan at the touch and my hands go to his mask. I want it gone. I want it off.
“No,” he rasps and twists his neck so my hands break their hold on the black fabric.
“Jay,” I whisper.
“Please,” he says with a shaking exhale.
“I need—”
“Wren, we can’t.” His hands drop from my breasts and land on his thighs.
Tears of frustration well up in my eyes and I whine, “Please, one kiss.”
“Fuck! Just one. It has to be only one,” he growls and reaches over for the little lamp. He switches it off so we’re entirely in the dark.
My heart is racing as he straightens back up. I can hear his uneven breathing as he struggles to maintain control. I appreciate his control, but I want him unchained. In fact, I want to be the one that unchains him.
But he’s right.
It has to be only one kiss. If I’m championing for him to keep his job tomorrow, I have to make sure we both survive tonight. He pulls me by my ass so I’m straddling him and we’re hip to hip. I can feel that hard length of him in his soft pants and I can tell it’s as big as the rest of him. I moan at the contact and I feel his cock twitch.
“Kiss me,” I whisper, and lift his mask up to his eyes.
His breath is hot on my face, and his hands are shaking on my hips. If I didn’t know him better, I’d say he was shaking in fear. But I’ve seen him ready to take on intruders to protect me. He isn’t scared. This is restraint.
When our lips touch, we both moan. It doesn’t remain a closed mouth kiss for more than a second. His tongue plunges in to touch mine in slow, deliberate strokes. Like he’s showing me how he’d fuck me. I grip the back of his neck with both of my hands and roll my hips against his. His deep, rumbling moan echoes in my mouth and I smile.
Just one kiss, he said. So I don’t unlatch from him as I writhe on his lap. My clit is swollen and when I rub against his hardness, it sends zings of pleasure through my entire body. I could come just like this.
Our lips and tongues never stop their sucking, licking, savoring war. His hands on my ass grip me so tight it almost hurts as he helps me dry hump him. And “dry” is a stretch of the definition as I am so wet the cotton of both of our pajamas is rubbing together in a sopping, sliding mess.
“Fuck, you’re so wet for me,” he whimpers low in his throat against my lips.
“Shut up and come in your pants,” I growl, but my voice cracks, showing my desperation.
He exhales on every downward thrusting movement of my hips and every one of those exhales comes with a guttural sound. I can tell he’s getting so close to coming just by his sounds. I want to drink in the noises he makes, so I pull away from his lips. His voice is naturally deep, but as he reaches his orgasm, it cracks and strains and I fucking love it.
He’s thrusting from below and feeling his muscles move and quiver has me seeing stars. I cry out, my body curling in on itself, and the only thing keeping me moving is his hands on me. He directs the movement and the speed now as I grip his neck. I rest my mouth on his jaw and let him whimper and moan in my ear.
“Fuck,” he moans. “I’m gonna—”
“Come for me,” I whisper. “Give it to me.”
He gives two more thrusts before I feel a bloom of warm wetness between my legs, and he shudders out a long, choked moan. I catch the sound with another kiss. We said only one, but this one is to muffle the sound of his orgasm.
His chest heaves and his hands leave my body. I feel him lean over to turn the light back on. His mask is back in place, but I can see pink on his cheeks and his eyes are hooded and lust drunk. I commit the sight to memory.
With a smirk, I reach down and touch the combined wetness where we’re still touching. Lifting my fingers to my mouth, I suck them clean. His eyes flutter shut and he shudders in aftershocks of pleasure.
“You did so good for me,” I praise him.
His eyes flash with a lusty intensity.
“Mmhm,” I say and lick more come from my fingers. “You were made to come in your pants for me like a teenager. You’re delicious.”
“Fuck,” he says and rests his forehead against mine. Our breath mingles together even through his mask.
His mask.
He’s my bodyguard .
“I think it would be best if you went and slept in your room,” I resign and pull back.
He blinks some awareness back into existence. “Yeah, uh, yeah definitely. Wouldn’t want to accidentally wake up inside you or something.”
“That would be very detrimental to your job.”
He squints and makes a humming sound like he doesn’t agree. “You know, I have to disagree. Since you’re my boss and all that. Judging by how you soaked me just with some light touch, I’d say you’d enjoy it.”
I hop off his lap and go to my door. I open it with a flourish and gesture for him to leave.
He stands and pulls at his wet and sticky pajamas a little. “Are you feeling better now, Wren?”
I consider his question. “You know what? I am. Guess I just needed a good ride.”
He stops in the doorway to drop a masked kiss to the top of my head. “Glad to be of service.”