Chapter 4 #2
"Protecting people who need it. On our terms. Without the bureaucratic bullshit that got my team killed.
" He looks at me, and the intensity in his eyes makes my breath catch.
"That's why I agreed to this assignment.
Because you deserve protection that actually works.
Not federal half-measures and compromised safe houses. "
"Is that the only reason?"
He holds my gaze for a beat too long before looking away.
"We should get back to training."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you're getting."
He stands and offers me his hand again. I take it knowing I shouldn't. Knowing that every touch makes it harder to maintain the boundaries we both keep insisting exist.
His fingers wrap around mine, warm and solid. For a moment neither of us moves. We just stand there in the clearing, hands clasped, the forest holding its breath around us.
"Vivian." My name sounds different in his voice. Rougher. More intimate.
"Yes?"
"We can't do this."
"Do what?"
"Whatever you're thinking about right now. Whatever I'm thinking about." He releases my hand and takes a deliberate step back. "You're a job. A responsibility. Nothing else can happen."
"I know." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "You've made that very clear."
"Have I? Because the way you look at me sometimes makes me think the message isn't getting through."
Heat floods my cheeks. "The way I look at you?"
"Like you're trying to figure me out. Like I'm a puzzle you need to solve."
"You are a puzzle. A frustrating, contradictory, grumpy puzzle." I lift my chin, refusing to be embarrassed. "Is it a crime to be curious about the man who's keeping me alive?"
"Curiosity is fine. But what's happening between us is more than curiosity."
He's right. I know he's right. Every training session that requires him to touch me, every meal we share, every moment of unexpected vulnerability makes it harder to remember why maintaining distance matters.
"Then we'll be professional." I force myself to step back, matching his retreat. "You train me. You protect me. I testify when the time comes. Then I go back to my life and you go back to yours. Simple."
"Simple." He repeats the word like he doesn't believe it. "Right."
We make our way back to the cabin in loaded silence. I'm hyperaware of his presence beside me, the way he moves, the sound of his breathing.
This is insane. I've known this man for five days. Five days of forced proximity and trauma bonding and physical training that requires his hands on my body. Of course I'm attracted to him. It's practically a textbook case of situational attachment.
But it feels like more than that. It feels like something I haven't experienced in years. Maybe ever.
At the cabin, he excuses himself to check the perimeter sensors, and I use the time to shower and change. The hot water helps unknot my muscles but does nothing for the tangle of my thoughts.
I keep thinking about what he said. The way you look at me sometimes. Like he's been noticing me the way I've been noticing him. Like this impossible attraction isn't as one-sided as I assumed.
That should make things better. Instead, it makes everything worse.
When I emerge from the bathroom, he's in the kitchen starting dinner. Something with vegetables and rice, simple and nutritious. He's shed his jacket and pushed up the sleeves of his henley, revealing forearms corded with muscle and marked with scars.
"Knife skills tomorrow." He doesn't look up from the cutting board. "You should know how to handle a blade."
"Should I be worried that you keep finding new ways to arm me?"
"You should be grateful. The more options you have, the better your chances of survival."
I lean against the counter, watching him work. His hands are sure and efficient, the knife moving through vegetables with precise strokes. There's something almost meditative about the way he cooks, a focus that seems to quiet whatever demons usually haunt him.
"You're good at that."
"I've had practice."
"Not just the cooking. Everything we’ve been doing so far." I choose my next words carefully. "You said you were responsible for people dying. But from what I've seen, you're also responsible for keeping people alive. Your team. Whoever you've protected through Guardian Peak. Me."
He stops cutting but doesn't look up. "What's your point?"
"My point is that maybe you're not the failure you think you are. Maybe one terrible night doesn't erase everything else you've done."
"You've known me five days. You don't know what I've done."
"Then tell me. Tell me something that makes you the monster you clearly think you are."
He sets down the knife and finally meets my eyes. What I see there makes my chest ache.
"After the ambush, after we got the survivors out, I went back.
Alone. Found one of the insurgents who set the trap hiding in a building three blocks away.
" His voice is flat, emotionless. "I spent two hours with him before he told me everything I wanted to know.
By the end, he was begging me to kill him. "
My stomach turns, but I don't look away. "Did you?"
"No. I left him for the local authorities. Last I heard, he's still in a detention facility somewhere." He picks up the knife again, resuming his chopping with slightly more force than before. "That's who I am, Vivian. That's what I'm capable of. Still think I'm not a monster?"
"I think you're a man who watched his people die and wanted answers. I think you did something terrible because you were in terrible pain." I push off the counter and move closer, close enough to touch if I dared. "I don't condone torture. But I also don't think one act defines an entire person."
"You're very forgiving for someone in your profession."
"I'm very good at seeing context. Nuance. The gray areas between black and white." I reach out and put my hand over his, stilling the knife. "You told me that story to push me away. To make me afraid of you. But I prosecute monsters, Deck. I know what they look like. And you're not one."
He stares at our hands, mine small and soft over his large and scarred. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.
"You should be afraid of me."
"Probably, but I'm not." I squeeze his hand once, then force myself to let go. "Now finish making dinner. I'm starving and emotional conversations make me hungry."
His expression shifts. Not quite a smile, but close. The tension in his shoulders eases slightly.
"You're impossible."
"I'm a prosecutor. Impossible is in the job description."
He shakes his head but returns to cooking. I retreat to the couch with a book I won't actually read. There is still a crackling between us, but it's different now. Less like a bomb about to detonate and more like something slowly warming.
After dinner, we sit on opposite ends of the couch reviewing security protocols. His thigh is inches from mine. If I shifted slightly, we'd be touching.
I don't shift. Neither does he.
But when our eyes meet over the emergency evacuation maps, something passes between us that feels like a promise. Or a warning.
Maybe both.
"You should get some sleep." He stands abruptly, gathering the papers. "Tomorrow's training is going to be intense."
"More intense than today?"
"We're doing a full scenario drill. Simulated breach. I want to see how you perform under pressure."
"Sounds fun." I stand too, and we're suddenly very close in the narrow space between couch and coffee table. "What time should I be ready?"
"Oh-five-hundred. Earlier than usual."
"You really enjoy torturing me, don't you?"
"I enjoy keeping you alive." His eyes drop to my mouth for just a second before snapping back up. "Everything else is secondary."
"Is it?"
The question comes out breathier than I intended. He's so close I can see the individual threads of silver in his beard, count the shades of green in his eyes.
"It has to be." For the second time today he steps back, breaking the spell. "Goodnight, Vivian."
"Goodnight, Deck."
He disappears into his room, and I stand in the middle of the cabin wondering how I'm supposed to sleep when every nerve in my body is still humming from that almost-moment.
The answer, as it turns out, is that I don't.