Page 44 of Broken Bodyguard

We’d fallen asleep together on the video call. We’d watched movies while on video call.

It was fucking wild. Like living a dream that felt too good to be true. Here I was, traveling the worldanddating a woman. I could be on the move,andlet someone else into my heart. I hadn’t realized the two could co-exist.

For now, it was enough.

Nash Nightingale was a good employer. He was rough around the edges, got a little too drunk and prone to annoying songs sometimes, and could talk circles around anyone who dared utter a word about real estate. When he had beer, he could speak Spanish, and when he had whiskey, he could speak French. For a poor kid from an old steel town in Ohio, he’d come a long way. That’s what I related to the most. He didn’t have a stable father figure growing up—never even knew who his father was to begin with—and spent his life trying to claw his way out of poverty. Just like the rest of us in the Fairchild orbit.

He and I hit it off fast. It was evident by the end of week one that we were a good fit. By the end of week two, we’d gotten drunk together. By week three, Maddie had lured Nash onto a video call one night and roped him into the accountability plan for me taking care of my knee. And by the end of week four, we were finally considering coming back to the US. Nash and his twin brother Archer were somewhere between boss and brother for me. So when they began laying out plans for the upcoming year, I knew that New York was my new base.

It had to be. That’s where they needed me, and that’s what made sense.

Which meant my tenure in Seven’s apartment, looking after Jordan’s weird-ass cat Ranger, was back in the forecast.

It just didn’t leave a lot of time for visits to Louisville. That was the part I was trying to figure out. We could be long distance for a time. But I wanted her in my arms every night. That was the goal.

After Nash’s South American “test trip”, I finagled a stopover in Louisville. I got four days before they needed me back in New York, when I’d drive north from Louisville in my Jeep. Four magical days with Maddie and Grace…Ihoped.

When I pulled up to her parents’ house in early March, I felt like I was in a dream. My muscles were coiled tight with anticipation of seeing them again. Seeing if these daily video calls for the past month had really passed as a relationship.

Maybe I was deluding myself.

Maybe the bottom would fall out on this any second.

Grace was the first to burst out of the door. She was dressed in a winter coat and boots, clearly dressed and waiting for me to arrive. I picked up the cute little blondie and spun her around as she shrieked with excitement. “Toy!”

Well if that wasn’t fucking worth the four week absence, I didn’t know what was.

But then came Maddie.

She burst out of the house next, racing my way with the biggest, prettiest grin on her face. My heart nearly stopped beating as I drank her in. Brown wisps of hair escaped her topknot as she shrieked and launched herself into my arms. I received her jump-hug easily, my heart racing a mile a minute.

“God, we missed you!” She cinched her arms around my neck, laughing wildly as I hoisted her.

“I missed you more.” I couldn’t wait any longer. I kissed her, my tongue finding hers instantly, onlookers be damned. Her thighs squeezed around my torso as my hands slid to cover her ass. A groan began to rumble out of me, until Grace’s little voice broke through.

“Mommy has a boo boo again,” Grace said.

We dissolved with laughter. I squeezed the melons of her ass cheeks, pulling back enough to kiss the tip of her nose.

“Hello. I’m ten seconds away from defiling you in your parents’ driveway.”

She giggled, pressing her forehead to mine. “Is that a promise?”

“Or a threat. Not sure which. Fuck, I missed you.”

“We should go inside. My parents are obsessed with you and need to tell you how much they love you.” Maddie wriggled against me and I loosened my grip, letting her slide to the ground. “How much time off did you get?”

I bit my bottom lip as I sized her up. Juicier than fucking ever. I found her hand and brought it to my lips. “Four days.”

I caught the slightest beginning of disappointment crashing across her face, but she perked up quickly. “We’ll make the best of it. Let’s go in.”

“Hey. Guess what?”

A knowing grin curled at her lips. “You went to the doctor.”

“I did. In Quito. Radiology and all.”

“Well?” She watched me expectantly.

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