Chapter 17
17
Davis
Sunlight is peeking through the metal blinds on the small windows in the bedroom of my camper when I pull myself out of a deep slumber.
There’s cold, wet drool on my arm and the scent of cinnamon tickling my nose.
Cinnamon.
Sloane smells like cinnamon, but more.
Like a chai latte.
And she’s clinging to my arm, her mouth gaping open as she snores softly, her copper red hair curled in every direction but tame.
She snorts once, opens her eyes, and stares at me, but doesn’t seem to see me, and blurts, “The map is a lie.”
Her eyes close, she lets out the heaviest of heavy sighs, and burrows harder against my arm.
She’s fucking gorgeous, and I have a boner the size of a hundred-year-old blue spruce.
It’s been with me since I fucked up and touched her last night, then couldn’t stop touching her.
My balls feel like they’ve been used as a punching bag. If my cock doesn’t cool it, I’m gonna have to call a doctor.
Not good.
I close my eyes and breathe deeply. I can control this.
I can work through this.
I’ve done it before. I will do it again.
Yep.
I’ll feast on her pussy without getting any relief of my own again if that’s what it takes to put her to sleep.
No.
No .
I’ll get over the boner. That’s what I meant.
This is a false situation that’s making me feel attracted to her because I’m still a biological, heterosexual male whose body doesn’t always agree that the best course for my life is being single forever.
And I like to take care of people.
She needs care right now.
I orgasmed her to sleep because she needed it.
This isn’t actual attraction.
It’s a disconnect between my body and my brain.
My boner isn’t going away.
Wait.
Goddammit.
She said the map is a lie .
Is she dreaming about Thorny Rock?
The question can wait.
It can effing wait.
She needs her sleep, and she’s getting it, and that’s enough for right now.
For this moment.
For all morning, if need be.
The cat’s snoozing between my thighs. Sloane’s snoring softly again with her face plastered to me.
And I feel…peace.
Fuck .
Not peace.
I’m having a reaction to properly using my hero complex to help a woman in need.
I’m mistaking pride in a job well done for peace.
I inhale another deep breath, ordering the boner to remember we’re a loner, and that’s when I smell something else.
Coffee.
I sniff again.
The coffee scent gets stronger.
I sniff Sloane’s hair again—definitely cinnamon.
But then—then I hear it.
The sound of my tea kettle getting hot enough to shake.
Someone’s inside my trailer . Using my kitchen.
When I double-triple-checked that the door was locked.
I bolt upright.
The cat yowls and goes flying, thumps weird on the ground, and yowls again.
Fuck .
Three-legged cat.
Shit shit shit .
But I see a shadow move beyond the door, and the cat doesn’t matter.
Neither does Sloane, who’s gasping, “Who saved the chicken?” as I spin out of my bedroom in a crouch, ready to take on whoever’s?—
Mother.
Fucking.
Fucker.
In less than a heartbeat, I identify my intruder.
She’s about five six. Brown hair. Approaching fifty, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her.
And she’s smirking at me as she holds a to-go coffee cup of her own that she must’ve brought, which explains the coffee smell before the tea kettle’s hot. “Oh, doesn’t feel so good when the shoe’s on the other foot, does it?”
Levi will die.
“ Oh my god, is this your girlfriend? ” Sloane shrieks behind me.
She’s in one of my RYDE T-shirts—Beck’s clothing line, fabric’s soft as hell—but nothing else.
Just a T-shirt hanging down to her upper thighs.
Hiding that sweet pussy that I devoured last night like a starving man.
Been ten years.
I probably am starving. And I have fucked myself over much harder than my dick will ever be.
My intruder turns her smirk to Sloane. “He wishes,” she says dryly.
Sloane’s copper hair is a swirly mass of chaos and her eyes have thick bags beneath them. She’s gripping the lamp from beside my bed, holding it like a bat.
And then I jerk my thumb toward the intruder. “Levi sent security. This is Giselle. She’ll follow you to work and hang out keeping an eye on things for a few days. You said the map is a lie a minute ago. What were you dreaming about?”
She blinks at me, then winces.
Dammit .
No good morning, beautiful, hope you slept well .
And we’ve both noticed.
Welcome to awkward land.
I fucking hate awkward, and I don’t do awkward.
Until today.
“If I was dreaming, I don’t remember it.” She slides a gaze back to Giselle, lamp still clutched like a weapon in her hand. “Why does she look scary?”
“Because she is. But she’s on your side.”
“How do I know that?”
Giselle helps herself to one of the three mugs in my camper cabinets. “First cup black, second two cups cut with almond milk and one of those stevia packets, but it has to be organic since those are the ones without any artificial sweeteners added.”
“That’s not creepier than anything else that’s happened in the past few days,” Sloane mutters, and I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not, but it makes me want to smile.
“I work for people who have people who do research so that we, as security, can be as seamless of an addition to their lives as possible,” Giselle replies. “I can tell you how half of the pop stars in the industry took their coffee three years ago.”
Sloane creeps behind me, still watching Giselle. “You work for Levi Wilson.”
“Yes.”
“You’re familiar. But why am I picturing you in my head next to Waverly? And not like, in a wedding dress last weekend. Something longer ago.”
“Levi and Waverly are friends.”
“Giselle was called in when Waverly ditched her own security detail to come see Cooper when they were first dating,” I tell her. “She came out here to Shipwreck with them.”
Sloane blinks at me. “That was a long time ago. Do you have one of those brains that are magic with details and recall?”
“No.” Mostly. “Was at the top of my head because a few people mentioned it at the wedding. Locals. Excited to see Cooper get married to a woman who ditched her security detail for him.”
“Oh.” She glances at Giselle again. “Okay. Okay. I think this will be okay. I mean, clearly not okay, but as okayish as okay can be in the given circumstances.”
“You can trust her.”
“Will she actually answer my questions?”
“Depends on the question,” Giselle says. “I stopped by the sheriff’s office on my way here. They can’t locate Patrick Dixon and they’re looking closer at the evidence from the museum break-in on Saturday night.”
Sloane shivers, and it takes everything in me to not turn around and hug her.
Tell her we’ll move the camper somewhere more remote.
Hide from him—well, hide her from him while I go hunt the fucker—and keep her safe and her cat safe with all of the popcorn and tequila and coffee she needs.
Take care of her.
Guard her.
Smell her hair again.
Cinnamon. That’s a new one.
Fucking hell.
I’m falling for her.
These are situational emotions, I remind myself. Not real.
And I need to not touch her again.
If I touch her, I won’t stop touching her.
As evidenced by last night.
She eyes me, and her cheeks pinken, like she’s thinking about last night too.
Thank fuck, someone bangs on the door before I have to say anything, making Sloane jump and lift the lamp again like she’s ready to swing.
“Open up, Davis,” Cash calls. “We need proof of life. And Aspen wrote you a song about getting a new job. You’re gonna love it.”
I take the lamp. “You don’t need this. They’re friendly.”
“Are they?”
“Yes.”
“If you don’t open the door, I’m sending a squirrel in through the window to unlock the door. Pretty sure Levi’s old pet is one of these guys staring at us,” Cash yells.
“These are the people you actually trust?” Sloane says to me.
Fuck me.
My dick’s still half hard, I’m pissed at Levi for sending Giselle, Cash is being an intentional asshole, I haven’t meditated or worked out or had breakfast or my own coffee, there are undoubtedly four hundred more messages waiting for me on the group chat that I abandoned last night when I heard Sloane scream, and I’m smiling.
At a woman.
Who made a joke and might just understand exactly how funny it really is.
Not a crush. Not a crush. Not a crush .
“They’re consistent,” I tell her.
She eyes the door again. “Huh. I can almost appreciate that.”
“Do me a favor,” Giselle says as she heads to the door to let them in without consulting me first. “Freak out about how much you love Aspen and make Cash think you’re going to attack her while I stand by and do nothing. Bonus points if you attack-hug her. Levi’s wife is the only reason I’m still around, and I like these men to remember to not take me for granted.”
“I think I love her,” Sloane whispers to me.
“Most of us do.”
Giselle swings the door open, and Aspen steps through first.
She has a new hairdo—dark brown and short today—and she’s dressed down in casual jeans and a purplish sweater.
Cash follows. His light brown hair is flopping all over, his nose is big as ever, and he’s wearing the look of a lumberjack still on his honeymoon between the flannel and the happy love glow.
He held out a long time, but now the last one of our group has fallen.
Except me.
“ Ooh , are you Sloane?” Aspen squeals and beelines around me before Sloane can utter a word, throwing her arms around the redhead who just climbed out of my bed. “Ellie told me how you publicly dumped the shitwaffle who lied to both of you, and Sarah said they might have to move to Shipwreck because Ava loves you more than any of the nurses she’s had in Copper Valley or LA. You’re a freaking rockstar.”
“You have to the count of three to release my client before you find out why I was nicknamed head cheer bitch in high school,” Giselle says.
Cash snorts. “It’s a hug, G.”
Giselle looks him up and down, and then she does the most Giselle thing ever.
She hugs him.
There’s no warning. No notice. One minute, she’s looking at him, and the next, she has her arms around him.
But she’s not just hugging him.
She’s so fast, her hug also has his arms trapped right at the elbows, so he can only flap his hands at the wrist as his eyes bulge out and he makes a strangled gulping sound and tries to escape her grasp.
“Is this just a hug?” she asks him.
“Uncle,” he gasps. “ Uncle .”
“Call your girlfriend off my client.”
“She let go.”
“ No one touches my client without permission, or I will touch you without permission. Is that understood?”
“Fuck. I didn’t need to know your hair smells like— ulp .”
Aspen’s jaw has unhinged and her eyes are comically wide. “I’m not touching her! I’m not touching her! ”
Giselle gives one more very obvious squeeze to her hug, then releases Cash.
Then she makes a tongue-out face like she’s gagging. “The things I do for you people… I’m getting too old for this.”
“If you ever need funding so you can retire from bodyguarding and go do vigilante shit instead, I’ve been poor most of my life, and I’d be happy to be poor again in the name of supporting a badass real-life superhero because you seem like the type who could pull that off,” Aspen says. “Totally worth it. Can we hire you to take out all of the terrible ex-boyfriends?”
Cash visibly swallows. “Babe? We okay?”
“You took a bodyguard hug for me. We’re good. But thank you for remembering that’s a good question to keep asking.”
“Yes. Good. Okay. Always. Also, you won’t be poor for the rest of your life,” Cash says. “You’re too talented. Also, you can have as much of my money as you want. Not that my money’s why you love me. I know that. I do. I’m just saying, no price is too—I’m shutting up now.”
“Get gross, and I’ll hug you again,” Giselle says to Cash.
Sloane keeps looking from me to my friends to Levi’s bodyguard.
“You’re awake,” I tell her, sensing the question that’s most likely about to come out of her mouth. “They’re always like this.”
She starts to nod, then sucks in a breath. “ Oh my god , what time is it? I have to go to work.”
She turns back toward the bedroom, then freezes.
You can just feel what’s coming next.
I don’t have clean clothes.
They’re all in my house, which is a crime scene.
My fingers curl into fists, not because my temper’s been lit once more, but because that’s what it takes to keep from touching her again.
To keep from hugging her.
To keep from shielding her from the bad in the world.
She’s strong. She’s got this. She doesn’t need me.
And that fucking sucks.
Even though it shouldn’t.
“Tillie Jean sent a care package with clothes that should fit you, and a fresh pair of scrubs on top of it,” Giselle says. “She also said she’ll never speak to you again if you don’t come use her very large bathroom instead of a shithole the size of a grape to get ready today, but in case you want to use a shithole the size of a grape, I do have what you need. Tillie Jean can’t tell you what to do.”
Sloane turns very, very slowly, straightening and pulling her shoulders back as she does.
Summoning her strength, if I had to guess.
Pisses me off that she needs it today.
Wherever Patrick Dixon is hiding, I will make sure he has the day he deserves.
When I’m not battling the boner from hell over how fucking attractive it is to watch Sloane put on her I’ve got this face.
“Tillie Jean is the best,” Sloane says to Giselle. “Are you driving me today? Let me get Peggy and figure out who’s watching her today. And thank you. I don’t usually—thank you.”
“The cat can stay,” I say.
Cash smiles out loud.
Aspen does too.
Sloane squints at me. “Are you sure?”
“You calling your family back today and telling them to fuck off so you don’t have to fake-marry me on Saturday?”
She grimaces. “That’s a little too much for this morning.”
Good. “Won’t be able to keep pulling this off when the god-complex fucker drops by again if your pet doesn’t know me.”
Those blue eyes hold my gaze, and they’re saying far more than I want them to.
You are my lifeline right now.
I will forever owe you a debt of gratitude.
We need to talk about last night, and I’m not ready for that either.
Or possibly I’m reading entirely too much into that look.
Probably am, considering all she says is a quiet, “Thank you.”
She looks down, seems to realize she’s just in a T-shirt, and then looks wide-eyed at Cash and Aspen. “Mother trucker,” she mutters. And then she disappears into the bedroom, shutting the door softly behind her.
I listen, and—yep.
“Way to be naked in front of everyone, Sloane,” she mutters to herself.
There it is.
“Coffee’s ready,” Giselle calls to her. “Rivers. Go get the bag out of my car, and do not touch anything else, or you’ll lose a finger.”
“She’s more dangerous than the bears,” Aspen whispers.
“I’m really pissed Levi has the better protection agents,” Cash mutters back.
“Aspen, get out too.” Giselle turns her don’t-try-me look on me. “Remington. Go pretend you’re tent camping outside and let the woman have some privacy.”
I hold her gaze while I step around her to shuffle through my cabinets, looking for a few things.
“I’ll be outside making breakfast, Sloane,” I call through the door.
“Thank you,” she calls back.
I almost add Yell if Giselle makes you uncomfortable because I can take her out if I need to, but I won’t need to.
She’s good.
She’ll make sure Sloane stays safe as long as necessary.
And while she’s watching Sloane, I’ll be out in the world looking for the reason Sloane feels unsafe.
And I’ll take care of it.
For good.