7. Gia
Gia
Itoss and turn in the unfamiliar bed, dreaming of camera flashes and the red carpet. Behind every camera is a faceless man, pressing closer and closer and closer.
My throat tightens. The crowd closes in.
They shout for me, over and over.
Gia, Gia, Gia.
But it doesn’t sound like praise. It sounds like a taunt. Amid the too-hot lights, blinding flashes, and the eyeless teddies being thrust at me alongside bundles of dead flowers, I can’t breathe. There’s no runway, no space for me to bolt, as the red carpet shrinks under their stampeding feet.
I look left. I look right.
Help, I want to scream. Someone, help.
But there’s no one around to keep them off me.
Soon, they’re all around me. On top of me. Wrapping their hands and their incessant demands around my neck and squeezing—
“Wake up! Gia, wake up.”
I come to with a gasp, disoriented in the darkness and flailing around in the thin cotton sheets. The room is cool, but the unfamiliar shadows dance around it in a way that has me turning away from them and toward the warm body that’s gripping me tight.
“Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe.”
“Hayden? Hayden?” I gulp in air and taste ocean salt. He hauls me to him and sits me on his lap.
“I’m here, baby. Just breathe.”
Once I’m awake enough to focus on his face and read the concern etched there, I crumple with relief against the rock-solid feel of his body and fight to keep the tears at bay.
“You were having a bad dream, sweetheart, but I’m here now. I got you, and there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“They were coming for me. There wasn’t any space. I just couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t find you.”
Wet tracks run down my cheeks, and Hayden tilts my face up with one hand and guides my other to the hard plane of his smooth, hairless chest. Beneath my fingertips, I can feel his heartbeat.
“Hey, I told you. I’m all yours. I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”
Then he smooths a thumb over my cheek, wipes away a tear, and leans in to kiss away the other one.
My shuddering cries quiet down as I grow more aware of the heat of his body.
Of the slide of his hands up and down my back.
Of the kindling need firing low in my belly and the way my legs straddle his.
“Hayden?” I whisper.
“What is it, baby?”
“I lied to you.”
“Did you? About what?”
“I told you I needed time to form an opinion.” I draw a shuddering breath. “But I wanted you the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“I know.” He laughs a little and presses little kisses along my jawline. “I wanted you the second I saw you, too.”
“But I know I’m not supposed to get involved, romantically, with someone in my employ.” I shift in his lap, groaning when I feel his rigid flesh press against my heat through the layers of our clothing.
“So, fire me, sweetheart.” He nibbles at my earlobe, sending sparks of heat trickling down my spine. “I don’t need your money, and I already told you. I’m not going anywhere. You’re the one calling all the shots.”
I press closer, ride the ridge of his cock and gasp as heat gathers between my legs.
“This. You. I want all of you,” I breathe, pulling the borrowed T-shirt off and letting it drop to the floor. “On me. Inside me. All over me. Touch me, Hayden. Make me yours.”
Hayden’s eyes glow with desire as his fingers dig into my hips. “You’re the boss.” Then I yelp as he flips me onto my back.
“Not anymore,” I gasp. “You’re fired.”
He growls and bends his head, taking my peaked nipple into his mouth and flicking his tongue against it. Heat shoots down my body, arrowing between my legs as he fills his palm with my other breast, rolling the tip between his calloused fingers and drawing a moan from my throat.
“Oh my god, yes.”
“Your body was made for me, Gia. Every single inch of you is fucking beautiful. So goddamn perfect.” He nuzzles the underside of my breast, kisses along the scar below my rib cage with such gentle tenderness that it somehow becomes erotic.
He moves lower, dragging my shorts off with his teeth.
I plunge my hands into his thick, glossy black hair, sighing as he mouths over my dragon tattoo.
More murmured praise is lost against my skin, and every part of me he touches is set aflame, scalded, and marked. It’s as if he’s claiming every part of me, proclaiming mine, mine, mine as he passes over it.
And when his hands slide over my thighs, I’m arching. Aching. Needy.
“You’re so hot for me, Gia. Look at this pretty pussy.” Pulling back, Hayden spreads me open and exposes my wet center to his greedy gaze. “It’s been driving me crazy all day, wondering where this dragon’s tongue disappeared to under your panties. Now, I can finally find out.”
He drags his tongue along the curving path inked into my skin. I feel him move over my bare mound, past the point where the dragon’s tongue leads and lower, lower still, until he finds my clit. Then he dips his head and devours me whole.
“Oh, fuck.” I lift my hips, chasing more of his sweet, sweet torture. “More, Hayden. I want more.” Desperation makes me grind against his face, whimpering as he laps at my heat and slips a finger along my seam. “Give. Me. More.”
“Come for me first, sweetheart, and then I’ll give you everything you need.”
“All I need is you.”
But he doesn’t stop his plunging fingers, never rests his clever, wicked mouth. Not until my fists tangle in the sheets and my thighs quiver around his head.
“Hayden,” I breathe. “Please.”
And then I come so hard, I have to cover my mouth to keep from screaming.
“God, Gia, even your cum tastes decadent.”
“That’s the filthiest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I say, laughing a little as he grabs a condom and rolls it down his thick shaft.
A second later, he’s kissing me, letting me taste myself on his tongue, and lining up our bodies so I can feel the insistent, hot press of his sheathed cock slide along my dripping slit.
“Tell me you want me. That you want this.”
I run my hands over his chest and cup his cheek in the darkness. “Hayden, darling, you are all I want. All I need.”
To prove it, I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him to me. I shift my hips at the same time, taking in his broad tip and splitting myself open on his cock.
He curses, then breaks, and sinks all the way into me, filling me so completely I have to wrap my arms around him and hold tight.
“And now, you’re all mine.” He fuses his mouth to mine, and I feel it. Something fragile and tender and new unlocks inside me. Something I dare not name, but I can feel in every thrust of his hips, in every tender caress, in every single kiss.
“I’m going to keep you, Hayden,” I whisper, “as long as you’ll let me.”
In answer, he groans my name and grabs hold of my hips. And together, we move until our bodies, our breaths, our moans build into a steady crescendo that’s music to my ears.
And when I finally break apart and he shudders out his release, all I can think is this is what it feels like to be home.
In the aftermath of our lovemaking, we’re cuddled up together, heedless of the sweaty mess we’ve made. I don’t ever want to let him go, so I lace my fingers with his and tell him everything I want him to know about me.
How lonely it is being on the road, even though I’m surrounded by people all the time. How I’ve ached for a family like his—one that supports one another, talks to one another, and actually spends time together.
He listens. Really listens. And then he opens up, too.
“I tried to resist you. Stay indifferent and unaffected. I was trying so hard to be a professional, but if I’m honest, I threw all that out the window the second I accepted those tickets you offered me.”
I laugh, snuggling in closer as the rising sun cuts through the blinds and dapples his skin with slashes of light. “I didn’t offer them to you for this…”
“I know. You did it because you’re kind. You’re generous. You’re so goddamn genuine that I can hardly believe it.”
“I’m also impulsive and trusting, and I… never do this.” I wave a hand in the space between us, indicating that our shared intimacy isn’t something I take lightly.
“Makes two of us.” Hayden smiles. “I don’t mix business and pleasure, and I do my damnedest not to make the same mistakes twice. It’s why I didn’t want to take this job in the first place.”
“You got involved with someone you worked for?” I ask, drawing up on one elbow to feign shock and surprise.
“No,” he laughs. “I told you I spent a lot of time around a political family growing up. They were, like you, rich and famous. Known to the public, an empire in the making built on preserving family values and the all-American dream. All while paying immigrants like my mom to clean their house, cook their meals, and look after their garden. But at least, as a favor to my mom, they let me hang around the house and interact with their daughter, who was a couple of years older than me.”
I search his face in the warming light, searching for the parts of the story he’s not saying out loud.
“You fell in love with her.”
He nods once. “At least, I thought it was love. My mom tried to warn me off her, said she was trouble. But I didn’t listen. So, when I got old enough, I went into the military and tried to make something of myself.”
“Where you met Allie.”
“Yeah. And one summer, while I was home on leave staying with my mom, she convinced me she had feelings for me. But it wasn’t real. She just used me to rebel against all the things her parents stood for.”
“That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
“Nine months later, I was about to re-up my military commitment, but I get a phone call from my mom. She told me I was needed at home, and when I got back, there was Chloe, bundled up in my mom’s arms alongside a mountain of legal paperwork.”
I think back to the way any scandal in my family has been handled.
How everything gets quietly taken care of, but there’s a whole team that gets brought in.
Publicists, agents, fixers, and several lawyers working on retainer to get us out of a sticky situation.
They’re the next best thing to having an actual bestie in the circles my family moves in.
And I think about what they might have advised her to do in this situation.
“She gave her up,” I say, my heart aching for them both.
“Yup.” Hayden clears his throat. “She signed away her parental rights and had a bunch of records sealed. Told me kids weren’t part of her current life plan, but because of what her family stands for and the fact that her dad was facing re-election, she couldn’t terminate.
Because she wasn’t interested in being a parent, I tried to be both. I tried to be whatever Chloe needed.”
“Wow,” I breathe, emotion welling up in my throat for this man and the enormity of his heart.
Duty, honor, integrity—Hayden embodies all of those traits, and my heart balloons with a whirlwind of feelings.
“I know my birth parents gave me up when I was young, and I don’t know what their reasons were.
But I know what it’s like to have a set of parents who love you and who try their best for you.
And I can see plain as day that’s what you do for Chloe. And she adores you for it.”
Hayden kisses my hairline and tightens his hold around my waist.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
“So, after the military, you became a bodyguard?”
He nods. “I didn’t re-up in the end. Instead, I moved everyone here, far out of the reach of that family’s influence, and we all started over.
Chloe became my reason for living, and for thirteen years, I was content devoting my life to being a good dad and a good son.
” He gives me a rueful smile. “Then I met you and found myself wanting to be something more.”
That shiny, new thing in my heart coils tighter in my chest as he searches my gaze and pushes my hair out of my eyes.
I open my mouth to say something bold, something rash, but before I can get any words out, a loud, piercing alarm sounds, and Hayden rolls off the bed in search of his phone.
“What is it?” I call out, leaping out to follow and tugging my scattered clothing back on.
“Code 808,” he says, reappearing in the doorway and frowning down at his phone. “I think we found your mystery sender.”