Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Brie stood frozen in her apartment doorway, keys biting into her palm from gripping them too tight. Hunter brushed past her, his shoulder grazing hers. She stepped inside, locked the door behind her, and sank into a chair at the kitchen table.
He disappeared down the hall without waiting for an invitation. The sound of her closet sliding open felt like a violation of her private space. A moment later, shower curtain rings scraped against the rod.
Each noise made her chest tighten. He was treating her home like those men could be hiding behind her winter coats or crouched in her bathtub. He emerged from her bathroom, his eyes scanning the main living area.
“How long have you been watching me?” she asked.
“Since the morning after I came to your office.”
The words hit her like cold water. He’d been out there for a week while she’d checked her phone every night before bed, wondering why he hadn’t contacted her again.
“You’ve been following me for a week?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
“Not following. Protecting.” He set his duffle bag by her couch. “There’s been surveillance on your bakery. A black SUV with Nevada plates.”
Her head spun. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You refused protection.”
Brie stood and walked into the kitchen, her hands finding the familiar edge of the counter. The smooth granite under her palms helped steady her racing thoughts.
“How long are you going to stay here?”
“Until we neutralize the threat. I’ll take the couch.”
“I have to be at the bakery at four.”
“Then we go in at four.”
We. Like they were a unit, like they were together. Except they weren’t. They were a bodyguard and his assignment, a wolf and the bear he’d never wanted to find.
“You should get some sleep,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”
A long day. Like she’d had a tough shift at the bakery, not nearly been zip-tied and thrown in a van. She wanted to laugh at the understatement, but she was afraid if she started, she might not stop.
She turned back toward him, legs unsteady. The apartment felt too small with Hunter in it, his presence filling every corner even from his position by the couch.
“Bathroom’s yours if you need it,” she managed, not quite meeting his eyes.
“I’m good. Already checked the window locks in there.”
She nodded and moved down the hallway, hyperaware of his gaze on her back. Her bedroom door had never felt more significant as she closed it between them, the soft click of the latch a relief.
She undressed with shaking hands, her body still processing the adrenaline crash from the attack. The familiar softness of her worn pajamas helped ground her, but she could still smell him through the door. Pine and leather and that indefinable scent that screamed ‘mate’ to her bear.
Brie climbed into bed and pulled her covers up to her chin.
Through the thin walls of her apartment, she could feel Hunter like gravity, the mate bond humming between them.
She turned toward the wall, trying to ignore the pull, but her bear wouldn’t let her rest. After a few minutes, she turned back toward the door.
She heard his weight shift on her couch. This was wrong. All of it. Her mate sleeping in the living room like hired security. Like she was a job. Like the mate bond meant nothing. His scent had already started seeping under her door. It made her chest tight with want and frustration.
The clock read 1:47 AM when she gave up pretending to sleep. Every sound from the living room had kept her on edge. The creak of the couch when he shifted. The soft pad of his feet when he’d gotten up at midnight.
She’d dozed fitfully between two and three thirty, dreams full of hands grabbing at her and Hunter always just out of reach. When her alarm went off at three forty-five, she was already awake, staring at the ceiling, and preparing herself for the strange new reality of her life.
Brie opened her bedroom door to find Hunter in her kitchen, fully dressed and alert like he’d been awake for hours. Steam rose from a coffee mug, her favorite one with tiny bears dancing around the rim. The sight of him using her things made her freeze in the doorway.
“You’re awake.”
“Coffee’s fresh.” He gestured to the pot.
She poured her own coffee and took a long sip. Hunter drained his mug in three long swallows and set it in her sink. After she got ready for work, she met him back in the living room.
“Ready?” His keys were already in his hand.
“Yeah…” She grabbed her purse and bakery keys, following him out the door.
His truck smelled like him, and she pressed against the passenger door as he drove the eight blocks to the bakery.
The streets were empty at four in the morning, just the occasional delivery truck and the streetlights creating pools of yellow against the dark.
He parked directly in front of the bakery’s main entrance.
When they walked inside, he was close enough that she could have leaned back into him. Her bear wanted to do exactly that, to sink into his strength and let him hold her up. But her human mind wouldn’t let her.
The bakery felt different with him in it. She moved through her startup routine, muscle memory taking over as she fired up ovens and pulled ingredients from the walk-in cooler. He positioned himself strategically, checking both exits before settling where he could see everything.
“You can sit out front if you want,” she offered, tying her apron. “Or in my office.”
“I’m good here.”
“Here” was a stool near the back door. Every move she made, she felt his eyes tracking her. The familiar routine of morning baking helped take her mind off things. Measuring flour didn’t require emotional processing, and kneading dough didn’t ask questions about mate bonds.
When Sophie arrived at six, her eyes went wide at the sight of Hunter. He’d moved to a front table by the window, coffee and newspaper creating an illusion of normal customer behavior. Except normal customers didn’t scan the street every thirty seconds or tense when cars slowed outside.
“Morning,” Sophie said carefully, looking between them. “Everything okay?”
“We had an incident last night,” Brie said, keeping her voice level. “Hunter’s providing security for a while.”
“An incident?” Sophie’s voice pitched higher. “What kind of incident?”
“The kind that means I’ll be around for the foreseeable future,” Hunter said without looking up from his paper.
Sophie’s eyes went even wider, but she read the room and didn’t push. She tied on her apron and got to work, though Brie caught her sneaking glances at Hunter throughout her opening routine.
The morning rush came and went. Regular customers greeted Brie normally, though several did double-takes at Hunter’s dark presence. He looked like a storm cloud that had wandered into a harvest garden, all hard edges and intensity among her carefully curated cozy atmosphere.
Mrs. Whitaker ordered her usual cranberry scone and asked about Winter Festival preparations. Tommy from the hardware store complained about the November cold while waiting for his black coffee and bear claw. Life continued despite the fact that Brie’s mate sat ten feet away.
Her bear whined. The pull between them was a constant ache, like gravity trying to draw them together while Hunter’s professional walls held them apart. This was her reality now. Protected but not cherished. Guarded but not wanted. Her mate in her space but not in her life.
Brie forced herself to focus on the Winter Festival. She measured ingredients for gingerbread, and she lost count of how many eggs she’d cracked. This arrangement with Hunter was going to drive her insane.
But at least she was alive to be driven insane. The memory of those hands grabbing her, the van door opening like a mouth ready to swallow her whole, made her hands shake. Hunter had saved her. Whatever his reasons, whatever his emotional distance, he’d been there when she needed him.