Chapter 9
Stella
Sleep refused to come.
I’d been lying in my childhood bed for hours, staring at the ceiling I’d memorized decades ago—the same hairline crack near the window, the same crown molding that had always reminded me of frosting on a cake. The sheets were expensive, the mattress was perfect, and I was absolutely, utterly awake.
My mind wouldn’t stop racing, thinking about the photos that had been sent to my father.
The threat that was still there despite nothing else happening.
My parents’ suffocating concern that felt less like love and more like a leash.
And underneath all of it, running like a current I couldn’t shut off, was Tate.
The way he’d looked in those clothes today. How his dark eyes had tracked my movements while I positioned him for photos. The way his voice had dropped a few days ago when he’d told me that rolling my eyes would have earned me a spanking if we’d been at the club…
I pressed my thighs together and groaned into my pillow.
This was impossible. He was my bodyguard.
An employee, technically, since my father was paying his firm.
There were approximately a dozen reasons why I should not be lying here thinking about the way his hands had felt on my body that night at the club, or the way his cologne had wrapped around me in the close confines of his SUV when he’d driven me to my apartment to pick up my things.
My stomach growled, and I seized on the distraction like a lifeline.
Food. I needed something to eat. Specifically, I needed the chocolate cake Rita had made yesterday—three layers of dark chocolate ganache with raspberry filling that I’d been thinking about since dinner.
My mother had made a pointed comment about portion sizes, so I’d limited myself to a sliver so thin it barely qualified as a taste.
But it was after two in the morning and my mother was asleep. And what she didn’t know couldn’t inspire a lecture.
I slipped out of bed and padded down the hallway in my pajamas—a silk camisole and matching shorts that were soft and comfortable.
The house was dark and silent as I made my way downstairs, the only light coming from the moon through the tall windows.
I knew this route by heart, had snuck down to the kitchen a thousand times as a teenager, raiding the refrigerator after my mother’s latest diet decree.
Some things never changed.
The kitchen was a massive space, all marble countertops and professional-grade appliances that Rita used to create meals my mother barely ate, and my father wasn’t usually around to enjoy.
I pulled open the refrigerator, and there it was, the cake, sitting on the middle shelf like a chocolate miracle, covered in plastic wrap.
I set it on the island, retrieved a plate from the cabinet and cut myself a proper slice this time. None of that polite sliver nonsense. I’d just taken my first bite—closing my eyes in bliss as the chocolate melted on my tongue—when a voice came from the doorway.
“Caught you.”
I nearly choked, spinning around to find Tate standing in the kitchen entrance, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.
He was wearing gray sweatpants that hung low on his hips and a black t-shirt that stretched across his chest in ways that should be illegal.
His hair was slightly disheveled, like he’d been running his hands through it, and there was a hint of amusement in his eyes that made my stomach flip.
“Jesus,” I managed after swallowing. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound contrite at all. “I couldn’t sleep and heard movement downstairs. Had to check it out.”
“It’s just me.” I gestured unnecessarily at myself, at the cake, at the general scene of my midnight crime. “Committing dessert-related felonies.”
His mouth twitched, enough to expose that dimple in his cheek that I hadn’t seen since our night at the club. “I can see that.”
I felt heat creep up my neck, whether from embarrassment or the way his gaze traveled over my pajamas, I couldn’t say. The camisole suddenly felt very thin, the shorts very short. I resisted the urge to cross my arms over my chest.
“Please don’t tell my mother,” I said, aiming for dignity and probably missing by a mile. “She’ll give me a thirty-minute lecture about sugar intake and how I’m already too curvy in the hips and how no man wants a woman who can’t control herself around dessert.”
The words came out more bitter than I’d intended. I shoved another bite of cake into my mouth to stop myself from saying anything else.
Tate’s expression shifted. The amusement faded, replaced by something that looked a lot like annoyance. He pushed off the doorframe and walked into the kitchen.
“Your mother,” he said slowly, “doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
I swallowed hard. “She means well. She just has... strong opinions about appearances.” And everything else about my life.
“She’s wrong.” He stopped on the other side of the island and sat on one of the stools, but still close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. “I like a woman with curves.”
The words landed somewhere low in my belly and stayed there, pulsing with heat. “You’re just saying that because you caught me stress-eating chocolate cake after midnight like a gremlin.”
“I’m saying it because it’s true.” His gaze dropped, traveling over my body with a slowness that made my skin prickle.
The camisole. The shorts. The hips my mother was always criticizing.
When his eyes met mine again, they were darker than before.
“Curves are sexy, Stella. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. ”
I forgot how to breathe. We stood there for a long moment, the kitchen island between us like a barrier neither of us was willing to cross. The refrigerator hummed. The clock on the wall ticked. And the air felt thick enough to taste.
“Do you want some cake?” I finally asked, because I had to say something before I did something incredibly stupid like climb across the counter and settle onto his lap and begged him to fuck me again.
His mouth curved into a half-smile. “Sure.”
I cut him a generous slice because he didn’t seem like the type for polite slivers either, and slid the plate across the island. He picked up the fork and took a bite, and I watched his expression shift into appreciation.
“Damn. That’s good.”
“Rita’s a genius. My mother hired her for her ‘healthy cooking expertise,’ but the woman makes desserts like she sold her soul for the recipes.”
Tate laughed—a real laugh, low and warm—and I felt something loosen in my chest. This was nice. Easy. Just two people sharing cake in the middle of the night, pretending they didn’t want to tear each other’s clothes off.
But even as I thought it, my eyes betrayed me. They dropped to his chest, tracing the outline of muscle beneath his t-shirt. His shoulders. His toned arms. The way the fabric clung to those washboard abs I remembered running my hands over at the club.
God, this man’s body should come with a warning label.
“You’re staring,” he said.
My eyes snapped back to his face. He was smirking. Of course he was.
“I was looking at the... cake.”
“The cake is on the counter.”
“I was looking at the counter, then. Nice marble. Very... marbled.”
Humor flickered in his gaze. “Smooth.”
I laughed lightly. “Shut up and eat your cake.”
He took another bite, still watching me with those knowing eyes, and I shoved a forkful of chocolate into my own mouth to keep from saying anything else incriminating.
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the sexual tension and awareness unmistakable. Every now and then our eyes would meet, and something would spark in the air between us, but then one of us would look away, and the moment would pass.
It was torture. Exquisite, chocolate-flavored torture.
“So,” I said eventually, setting down my fork. “I realize I don’t actually know that much about you.”
Tate shrugged. “It’s not necessary to know the hired help.”
I huffed out a breath, not liking the way he diminished his role. “You’re more than the hired help. Clearly, you’re good at your job and Noble and Associates trusts you with high-profile clients. But that doesn’t tell me anything about you, personally.”
He was quiet for a moment, considering. “What do you want to know?”
“What made you become a bodyguard?”
It was a safe question, or so I thought. But something flickered across his face, there and gone so fast I almost missed it.
“I spent eight years in the Marines,” he said, his voice even. “After I got out, security work was a natural fit. Same skill set, better pay, less sand in uncomfortable places.”
I smiled at that, but I could tell there was more beneath the surface. “And what made you join the military? Was it a family thing?”
The silence that followed was different from before. Heavier. I saw his jaw tighten, watched his fingers still on the fork, and realized I’d stumbled onto something he didn’t want to discuss.
“You don’t have to—” I started, but he interrupted me.
“It wasn’t a family thing.” His voice was flat now, stripped of its earlier warmth. “I signed up right out of high school. Eighteen years old, no plan, no money, and no reason to stay where I was.”
I stayed quiet, sensing that pushing would only make him close off further.
He set down his fork and stared at the counter for a long moment before shifting his gaze back to me. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. Rougher.
“I didn’t have a great family life, Stella. My father—” He stopped, his jaw working. “He was an angry man. Violent. He hit my mother. He hit me. For years, that was just my normal and how things were.”
My chest ached. I thought about my own parents—their control, their expectations, their suffocating ways—and recognized how small those complaints suddenly seemed in comparison.