Chapter Nine
Kayne was unreasonably large. That was the problem.
He’d laid out a folded comforter on the floor beside her bed, using one of her throw blankets as a pillow because he refused the real one “on principle.” Chloe wasn’t sure if that principle was chivalry, machismo, or a pathological need to suffer, but he’d kicked off his boots, stretched out on his back, and somehow managed to take up nearly all the available floor space.
He looked like a very handsome, very dangerous giant who’d claimed his territory.
She climbed into her bed and lay stiff as a board on the edge, trying to pretend there wasn’t a warm, broad, unfairly magnetic former SEAL within arm’s reach.
It was very hard to ignore. Impossible, actually.
The room felt warmer. Apparently, the air had gotten the memo that Kayne was in it and decided to tighten the ambiance.
Despite her attempts to forget, her mind replayed both near-accidents on loop until her heart raced all over again. She exhaled slowly, trying to force her pulse back to something normal. Kayne must’ve sensed the shift, because he spoke into the dark.
“You’re safe, cher.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound as if you do.”
All right, honesty. “I’m trying.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “Want me to talk you down?”
She swallowed. “What would you say?”
“That you survived. You’re a hell of a lot tougher than you think. You didn’t freeze, not even for a second.” His voice settled under her skin. “That you’re allowed to be scared after somethin’ like that.”
Her eyes stung. “Kayne?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you . . . move closer?”
She heard his breath hitch. Barely. But she heard it.
He shifted, floorboards creaking, blanket rustling, until the back of his hand brushed the blanket near her arm. Just enough contact to ground her. Not enough to set off fireworks.
Her body set them off anyway.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Better,” she whispered.
A long beat stretched out in the dark. Then with a rough, gravelly voice, he confessed, “Gave me a heart attack, you know. That car comin’ at you.”
Her chest squeezed in a whole new, inconvenient way. “You’re not responsible for me,” she murmured. “I can handle myself.”
“I know you can.” A pause. “Doesn’t stop me from wantin’ to protect you.”
There it was again, that low, devastating punch of sincerity she wasn’t prepared for, wrapped in a sexy Cajun drawl that was more pronounced than usual.
She reached down, letting her fingers hang over the edge of the mattress.
Kayne hesitated a second—just long enough to kill her—before his hand lifted and his fingertips brushed hers in a feather-light pass. Not holding. Just touching.
It was accidental intimacy that wasn’t remotely accidental. Sparks zipped up her arm as if someone had plugged her into a wall socket.
“Go to sleep, cher,” he murmured.
“Trying.”
“Try harder.”
She huffed a tiny laugh. “Bossy.”
“Only with you.”
Heat settled deep in her stomach, so suddenly she had to swallow hard. “Goodnight, Kayne.”
“Night, Chloe.”
Their hands stayed close, never fully entwined, but brushing every few breaths. Tiny jolts of comfort. Or longing. Or trouble. Probably all three.
Chloe finally drifted to sleep with courage settling quietly in her body, and Kayne on her floor, close enough to catch her if she fell.
Not that either of them was getting much actual rest.
Not with all that electricity sparking through the air.
#
The first thing Kayne registered was pain. A long, grinding twinge down the entire left side of his spine, as if he’d slept folded inside an overhead compartment with a brick for a pillow. The second thing he registered was warmth radiating from somewhere above him.
He cracked one eye open.
Chloe.
She was curled on her side at the exact edge of the mattress, one arm dangling down as if she’d fallen asleep mid-reach for him. Her fingers were inches from his shoulder, close enough that if he breathed too deeply, they might actually touch.
That warm rush in his torso?
Yeah. There it was again. The thing he kept pretending wasn’t happening. The thing getting harder to ignore now that she was sleeping as if she trusted him with her whole damn world.
Kayne let his eyes close briefly. He shouldn’t be on this floor.
He knew that. She probably did too, but she was too polite to say anything.
Too sweet. Too damn trusting. She would’ve slept on the floor herself if he’d let her, probably making some overly reasonable argument about “fairness” while he herniated three discs watching her do it.
A faint sigh escaped her. She shifted under the blankets, the movement soft and sleepy. He felt every inch of it across the small, treacherous space between them.
Fantastic. Now his pain had company.
He pushed himself upright slowly, bracing a hand on the mattress. His palm sank into the warmth she’d left there. Big mistake. It was as if someone had cinched a strap across his midsection and winched it tight
He’d woken up a thousand times in worse places.
Sand. Metal. Concrete. A helicopter floor that smelled of fear and diesel.
He’d never woken up like this, with a woman he was dangerously attracted to breathing quietly within arm’s reach.
It tugged at something he’d spent years barricading behind titanium doors.
Don’t get attached. Don’t get stupid.
But she’d reached for him in her sleep. She’d asked him to stay close. And he’d said yes faster than he’d reached for a weapon.
Kayne scrubbed a hand down his face. “Pull yourself together, Serruto,” he muttered. “You are not fourteen. Get a grip.”
But then she made another sound, this one low and very close to a contented hum, and he felt his dignity exit the building without so much as a “see ya.” He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted his next breath.
Chloe blinked awake. When her eyes found him, her expression softened with unguarded relief.
“Hey,” she whispered.
That voice. That face. That bedhead.
Yep. He was absolutely, one hundred percent screwed.
“Hey, cher.” His voice came out rougher than intended, as if he’d gargled gravel. “You sleep okay?”
She nodded, sitting up and tugging the blanket around her shoulders until she resembled a sleepy burrito. “Better than I expected after, well, everything.”
He saw when the memory of the car hit her, and his body tensed automatically, ready for a fight with demons. “No dreams?”
“Not after you talked me down.” She offered a tiny, real smile. “You were really good at that.”
“Yeah, well.” He rubbed the back of his neck, trying for casual. “You didn’t exactly give me a choice. Couldn’t listen to you breathing all shaky like that.”
“You heard me?”
“I hear everything.” He winked to hide the truth. “SEAL superpower.”
Her cheeks flushed, alarmingly adorable. He glanced away before he did something stupid, like beg her to look at him like that again.
She stretched, then froze, staring at him. “Wait. Did you sleep on the floor the whole night?”
“Yes.”
“Kayne, your neck and back must be killing you. Why did you let me take the bed?”
“Because you’re you.” He said it plainly. No bravado or teasing. Just truth. “You needed to rest.”
She looked at him then. Really looked. Warmth suffused his blood that he hadn’t expected.
“You make me feel safe,” she said quietly.
Oh, hell no. That tone should’ve been illegal. His pulse kicked hard enough to bruise ribs.
“That’s the job,” he managed.
“That’s not why,” she murmured.
Silence dropped between them, charged, alive with things neither of them were allowed to say out loud.
Kayne exhaled slowly. If he didn’t move soon, he was going to do something disastrously stupid, like crawl onto that mattress and pretend he didn’t know better.
“I need to eat,” he announced abruptly, turning toward the door before he could talk himself out of it. His muscles protested, but the distance helped. A little. “You hungry? I can throw something together.”
She smiled sleepily, devastatingly. “Breakfast sounds perfect.”
Of course it did, because she trusted him. Chloe didn’t know what she did to him when she looked at him like that. She had absolutely no idea she was the most dangerous woman he’d ever guarded.
Kayne headed for her tiny kitchen, rolling his shoulders until something popped ominously. He needed caffeine. And air. And possibly a cold shower. Definitely a tactical debrief on how to keep his hands and thoughts to himself.
Because Chloe had slept inches away from him last night and this morning, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to the floor ever again.
#
Chloe closed her office door behind her and sagged against it for half a breath. She’d meant to get paperwork done. Instead, every time she spotted one of the construction crew members, she kept replaying the moment from yesterday. The one that had her skin prickling half a day later.
Kayne was leaning against the reception counter, arms crossed, looking like a delectable warning label with an attitude problem. He straightened when he saw her.
“You okay, Chloe?”
Sheesh, he was entirely too perceptive. She aimed for cheerful. “Yep! Totally fine.” Her cracking voice belied that statement.
Kayne’s brow rose. That was all it took, one skeptical arch, and her flimsy facade collapsed like a house of cards.
“Okay,” she groaned. “Not fine. Something weird happened yesterday.”
The switch flipped instantly. Relaxed Kayne evaporated. Protective, dangerous, razor-focused, oh-God-he’s-hot Kayne locked into place. “Tell me.”
Chloe crossed to him, hugging her arms tight. “When I was checking the back loading area upstairs, one of the construction guys cornered me. He was new, I think. I hadn’t seen him before.”
Kayne’s stance sharpened so quickly she almost heard it. “Cornered you how?”
“Not aggressively,” she quantified. “Just odd. Intense.” She swallowed. “He stepped into my space and told me I should be more careful walking around alone.”
“You’re just now telling me this?”