CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHA CHA
My ruined latex pants lie in a puddle under my top in the bathroom.
A trail of oil droplets and who knows what else follows my path to the shower.
Steam fills the space as I shampoo my hair and lather my skin.
The room is obscured by puffy clouds that block out everything—the walls, the mirror—leaving me in a dreamscape space where I can pretend I’m alone, just for a moment.
I know Drake waits for me outside, keeping an eye on the door.
He always does. There’s security in that, but right now, I need to be clean.
Close to scalding water cascades over my skin. I need it, just to wash the oil from the latex off me, though I don’t want to clean away Drake’s touch. I ache in so many ways, all of them good. My body has never felt so used, so thrashed.
Despite the lovers I’ve taken from my previous bodyguards, I have never, not once, been with a man anything like Drake.
I’ve never been kissed by anyone like Drake. I’ve never been loved by anyone like Drake.
I’ve never fallen in love with a man like Drake.
I close my eyes, letting the water block out the world. I’ve fallen in love with the most unyielding, relentless man I’ve ever met. The man who stalked me. The man who, I suspect, might just love me back.
It’s impossible and everything I want all at once. But I have no idea if what I want is the same thing that he’s chasing. The man who draws away from everything, all the way out here in the mountains, and only comes out to play, taking security contracts and changing careers as it suits him.
“You’re fucking mine, princess. I’ll give you what you need. Everything. I promise.”
The thought that he might, just might, want me like I do him leaves me hot all over again.
Facing him on that front is a different matter.
I want to hide away from him and never bring it up but…
also I can’t hide here forever. We have to go back.
Even Shayne hasn’t emailed me, which either means he’s scared of me, Drake or a bit of both.
If he’s scared of Drake, I don’t blame him. I am too, sometimes, but in a good way.
He’s still intimidating as all hell, though.
I let the spray wash the soapy lather away once I’m satisfied that I’m oil residue free, relieved that the hot water lasts long enough and I’m not left in an icy deluge scrubbing away instead.
Reaching blindly for the taps through a fresh plume of steam, I miss the mark and hit a solid, hard surface instead.
A quick feel around reveals abs and a chest. Not bare, but I can work with that.
A smile quirks the corners of my lips as I tilt my head back, hoping for one of those kisses that floored me before—literally.
“You can’t join me if you’re clothed.” I pluck at his shirt. The damp material pulls away from his body and springs back with a wet slapping sound when I let go. “Though I’m a bit sore after two rounds so fast, Mister bodyguard.”
“I don’t remember you having nicknames for me.” The deep voice so close to me is one I recognize.
But it’s not Drake’s.
“Major.” My eyes fly open. “What are you—” I back up a step, straight into the shower wall. Mistake.
Major Barret crowds the space with his bulk that looks twice as big as he did when he was my security detail. Heat that has nothing to do with the shower creeps up my body from my legs to my neck, my skin prickling.
You left. You can’t be here. You aren’t—
The letters.
But Drake said you were his friend. Visiting?
He’s in your space. You’re freaking naked.
There’s a connection.
It’s you.
Don’t let it be him.
But it is.
My mind gets it, even as I’m still trying to find a logical reason for my ex-lover and bodyguard to be in Drake’s house, standing here with me while I’m showering. Naked.
Unprotected.
My mouth opens, my shriek ready, but nothing expels from my throat over the hand that grips it.
My voice.
My breath.
Major smiles, his face partially obscured from the steam that blooms around us. Water pounds over his head as he shoves me backward. He closes his hand tighter around my neck, cinching every fragment of breathable space from my oesophagus.
“I thought it would be hard, entering Drake’s space to take you. But maybe I don’t need to take you after all. Because he’s got you, so you’re…not fucking mine anymore, are you, Cha Cha?”
I scrabble at his hands, trying to remember what Drake told me to do, but I’m not sure we ever covered being choked in a shower cubicle.
Sure, he showed me how to throw a punch and how to knee someone in the balls—to his detriment several times—but never to free myself from someone nearly twice my height, with an arm’s reach that means that even if I do kick him, I’m unlikely to strike anything useful.
I try anyway, and Major laughs. “Cute, sweetie. Almost as cute as the tantrums you used to throw. Remember those? All the times you ruined dressing rooms and I’d clean them up for you.
All the times you used to sit and cry and I’d wait til you were done then pick you up and take you home.
Fuck you when we got there. Leave you covered in filth because no one else was there to see.
” His voice bounces off the walls, echoing back at us. The fragments of our pasts haunt me.
“Drake,” I cry, only it comes out as a splintered whisper at best. At worst, he’ll never hear me. Us. Not over the running water.
Drake, where are you?
Probably cooking in the kitchen. I thought he was watching for me, but the man seemed intent on feeding me up. And here…he thinks he’s untouchable. I thought so too. With Drake…
I’m safe.
Tears fill my eyes and tumble over, the salty drops washed into my mouth, diluted by the constant stream of water cascading over both of us.
Major’s fingers flex on my throat. “Little slut, shacking up with every security guard you hire. What’s that been now, Cha Cha. Four, five? How many will there be after Drake?”
“No one,” I managed to croak.
Major glares at me. “Damn right there won’t be anyone. No me, not another single man will touch this body. Fuck, for the year I put into guarding you, all you ever did was fucking mope around, sing and throw fucking tantrums and cry. You do that for Drake, too? He put up with you?”
Clarity slams me at the same time that major cuts my air off entirely. Two answers I can’t give him that my ex bodyguard doesn't want, but I do.
First, that I haven’t had a tantrum in the entire time that I’ve been with Drake. With him, I don't need to. Nothing about him leaves me bereft of emotion, unloved.
Second, I have my answer. Drake doesn’t put up with me. We work quietly side by side, sharing space together. He’s let me into his home, his life. He’s shown me a part of him and shared stories that I doubt he’s told anyone else for a long time, if ever. I treasure those moments, and now I know.
In the minute before I die.
“I love him.”
My confession makes no sound. I have no idea if Major understands me or not. I don’t care. The heat in the bathroom intensifies. I swing weakly at him, clawing his un-covered arm. Major snarls, arching over me. One twist of the hand clenched around my throat, and he'll snap my neck.
I force my eyes open, intent on focusing on the man before me until the moment I can’t any more. The man I once thought I might love who turned out to be little more than a pretty facade, filled with trophy photos and brag comments shared to his friends across the industry.
“You are nothing next to Drake,” I wheezed, smiling into Major’s shocked face. Red suffuses his features, rage and hatred written in the lines of his face.
Once I thought you were beautiful.
Once I wished you were mine.
The hand on my neck draws me forward, then shifts me back. My head thunks the shower wall twice before he’s done.
Who’s having the tantrum now, Major?
My eyes close after that, and I let my body slide down the wall. He seems to be happy. My head splits with the sort of pain that heralds a migraine, and gravity is ten times heavier than it should be. My body shakes, and the water is cold.
“Drake finally ran out of hot water, huh?”
But I don’t know if the words come out of my mouth, if I imagine them, or if the water is hot or cold anymore.
I don't know anything at all.
Certainly I don’t understand when a heavy weight slams over me, knocking what little air is left in my lungs straight from my body.
I cough, and someone swears.
“Christ, princess. I’m sorry. That wasn’t the way I meant for him to fall.
Come on. Up with me.” Broad arms I know intimately wrap around me, I rest my cheek on Drake’s shoulder, letting him slide me out from beneath the world’s heaviest weight.
“Fuck, Cha Cha. You’re covered in— Jesus.
I’m sorry. I wasn’t here in time. I was—” Drake swears again, easing me in his arms.
Bright light leaves my eyes watering. I wince. “Ow,” I croak, and flinch at the hideous sound that comes out.
Drake’s horrified face comes into view. “Come on, princess. I got you. Let’s wash you off over here.
” He takes a cloth and pats at my face. I try to turn my head but my neck hurts.
And my shoulders, and my back. “Don’t try,” he murmurs.
“Everything's gonna be sore for a really long time. I’m sorry.” Regret lines his face.
“Fuck, little queen. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.
" He places a gun on the bench top and rinses out the cloth, nestling me against his shoulder.
I try to twist to look over at the shower, but he turns me away.
“Don’t look,” Drake says in a low voice. “He can’t hurt you. Not anymore.”
“He knew—”
“He did. He wrote them. The letters. I found one on your bed.” A muscle works in his jaw as he washes my face and then, with the sort of tenderness I’ve never experienced in my adult life, Drake touches my throat. “I’m sorry, princess. Let’s get you some ice.”
I swallow as he wraps me in a dry towel and carries me from the bathroom. The pain consumes me for a full minute as I struggle between the action, choking on my own saliva, and breathing. “L–l–”
“I’ll get you water.” Drake wraps an icepack around me and pulls a blanket from a chair, wrapping me in that too. He refuses to put me down, and I nestle deeper into his chest.
“L–l–”
“Don’t talk,” he murmurs. “Save it, princess.”
I glare at him, and inhale through my nose the best I can. “I fucking love you,” I rasp out. Something aches, like I tore something in my throat, but I get the words to him.
Drake stills for a fraction of a second, then his mouth descends on mine in a sweet kiss that leaves me more than breathless.
“Love you too,” he whispers back. “But right now, I have to fuss over you and fix this mess that should never have happened in my home. Here, you should have been safe. I know,” he strokes my cheek, and adjusts my ice pack— "I know that he knew us both. I know you were with him.”
The conversation from our first day together sits between us. A shadow flickers across his eyes.
I hate that, and tap his chest. “No,” I mouth. “I only love you.” I poke his chest with one finger to make my point, doing my best to conserve my voice but get it through his head at the same time.
Drake watches me carefully. “Same, princess. Are there any other ex-lovers I have to take out in this quest to be your one and only? Because I’ll do it.” He kisses the corner of my mouth with extreme care. “Promise.”
That last word is said so softly I barely hear him even though it's only us here, but that makes it all the more solemn.
“I believe you.” I make sure he’s looking at me so he sees my mouth move.
Drake follows the words with his eyes, and smiles. “That’s good, princess. You keep believing in me, and we’re good.” His smile fades after a moment and I know he’s hurting too.
Hurt that someone got past him in his own place, when he thinks he should know better.
I frown, gripping his shirt and pull.
Drake doesn't budge. His eyebrows rise. “Got a problem, Cha Cha?”
I wrinkle my noise, lever my way up and press my mouth to his.
The sound he makes is feral, brutal and everything that I love about him and that scares me at the same time. Everything. I sink back into his embrace as he makes a blanket puff of us both on the floor.
And that’s how they find us: his security friends and my management team, a few hours later. My icepack has melted, but Drake’s arms never let me go.
And in that time he’s told me everything I need to know about him.
Where he grew up, all the missions he was never supposed to talk about.
His seafood allergy, the pets he had as a child.
What toppings he hates on a pizza. His front door is broken down by a guy he calls Hendrick, who actually kicks it off its hinges.
He has a woman in tow, a tiny birdlike musician who talks to me for the next hour while the mountain house is invaded by more people than I’ve seen in weeks.
Before they arrive, my bodyguard even whispers his last name to me, giving me the secret I’ve craved for so long.
It’s Drake.