Page 1 of Billionaire Bodyguard

One

Linzey Grey

Safety. The warm arms wrapped around me tipped me off. Another nightmare. I must have been screaming in the night.

For four years, I’d had nightmares, but they’d grown less and less—until recently when I’d started meeting with my legal team. The man who’d murdered my mother was finally going to trial for my kidnapping and assault, and everything was coming back to me in crystal-clear, terrifying detail.

“God, I’m so weak,” I disparaged myself, whispering so I didn’t wake the man holding me. He barely slept as it was.

Adler Fredriksen. My bodyguard by day and night. My comforter since the day he’d rescued me from the hands of the man who’d taken me—albeit during the mission to save my sister who’d been kidnapped just an hour before.

Not me. He’d had me for thirteen days and seventeen hours.

My hand fisted, biting my nails into my palm to keep the memories and emotions from pummeling me again.

Otherwise, I didn’t move. I wanted to enjoy the feel of Adler wrapped around me. His even breaths warmed my neck, and I could feel his pulse beneath me ear as I used his muscular arm for a pillow.

His other hand…

I fought back a moan and steeled myself from pressing my thighs together to alleviate my arousal from the way his hand splayed over my belly,beneathmy pajama shirt. The sensation of his rough calluses against my skin was everything—everything I’d wished for over the past few years. But Adler… He was all business about being hands off.

Except in sleep, apparently.

He stirred, making a soft snuffling sound as I felt him coming awake. My hand covered his to keep him there just a few moments longer.

“I had another nightmare,” I murmured. It seemed too quiet and still to break the silence with anything more.

“Mmm,” he replied, noncommittal, but I didn’t need him to tell me I’d been having terrors. My body hurt from it, the echoes from it evident in my aching muscles and scratchy throat.

I hated that I was so weak.

“Was I screaming?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” he chided, his face in the hair at the back of my head. Since he’d never do that if he were fully awake, I doubted his brain was fully online yet. “It’s… I’m here for you.”

He was here to protect me, not to hold me in the night when the dreams got out of control. My breath shuddered. “It’s not part of your job.”

“I know.”

“It would be easier if you went to your own place at night.” Easier for him anyway. “I’m sure a big shot security guy like you has his own place that’s just collecting dust. I mean all the who’s who want protection from your company.”

“Hardly,” he scoffed.

“Enough of them do. You probably have a mansion someplace.”

“I don’t. Besides, if I was off in some mythical mansion, I wouldn’t be here for you when you have nightmares.”

I bristled, though it was the truth. “You know I’m an adult. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Are we going to have this argument again? At…” The muscles under my head flexed as he bent his arm to look at his watch. “Five-twenty in the morning?”

“I’m just saying…”

“Trust me. I’m well aware you’re an adult,” he grumbled.

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