Page 61 of The Bodyguard
Brin shook her head. “The most we get is a text or maybe an email. That usually goes through Ronnie.”
It made her sad. I could see it in her eyes. The next time I saw Dylan I was going to give him a piece of my mind. Hurting his sister, being absent from her life, was not cool.
Not that I would have any reason to see him. Once I found out who was terrorizing her and put an end to it, she would go back home.
To The King’s Land. Where the Kings belonged.
“Well, have fun planning your party,” I said in lieu of goodbye.
I should have just walked out. Kept things simple. Instead, I didn’t move from where I was rooted.
Romeo, apparently having eaten his fill, had passed out. Gently she set him down on the cat bed she’d bought for him. She came up to me and I could see she was just as uncertain about what to do.
I had already laid (no pun intended) it out for her about what this was. I didn’t do relationships. I didn’t do long-term.
No, asshole. You fuck them and forget them. And you toldherthat.
She rocked on her toes. “So, ‘bye, I guess.”
“Stay on the ranch. No surprises. I’ll do a drive-by at some point and be home around five.”
“Okay.”
Yeah, I definitely should have left then, but I didn’t, and she didn’t move either.
“I’ll make dinner,” she said, trying to fill the awkward silence. And it was me doing it. I was making things awkward because I wouldn’t do what I said I was going to do and just leave.
“You don’t have to.”
“No, I insist. It’s the least I can do. What do you like?”
What did I like? The sound of her screaming my name as she came. I liked that a whole fucking lot.
“Anything. I’m pretty easy.”
“I can do easy. I don’t cook as well as I bake. It’s not as fun to me, but I’ll see what you have in the pantry.”
I didn’t want to disappoint her but I doubted I had much in the pantry. “Just promise me no grocery-store trips if I don’t have something you think you need. Make do with what’s here. Got it?”
She pursed her lips. “You’ve told me, like, a thousand times to stay put. I’ve got it. Now you go off to work like the big bad sheriff you are while I stay here and futz around. I might even go muck the stables again. And I can’t believe that’s a sentence that came out of my mouth!”
She was smiling and glowing. Relaxed from a hard fuck and a few orgasms, and if I didn’t leave that second I was going to have her again. And again and again until I purged myself of this ache in my chest.
“’Bye,” I said curtly and turned before I kissed her. Because that’s what I wanted to do. Not as any kind of foreplay. Not as a buildup to something better. I wanted the last thing I did before leaving for work to be planting a kiss on her smiling mouth.
Because I wanted it so much I couldn’t let myself have it.
I walked out the front door, letting the storm door swing shut. I got in my truck, only to realize she was standing at the door waving at me. Like my leaving was a big deal.
She’s high on good sex. It means nothing.
Except, as I started my truck and pulled out of the driveway, she stood there the whole time. I forced myself to look away from that, as well.
