Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
My hands began to shake. I knew this wasn’t the same situation as ours, and I knew Bear’s feelings for me were genuine and not coerced. But I still needed to hear it from him.
“Ryan…”
“No,” he growled, narrowing his eyes at me. “Do not Ryan me. And do not for one minute think—”
I reached out and clasped his forearm. “Okay,” I said softly. “Okay.”
He let out a breath and put his hand over mine for a brief moment, just long enough to squeeze it in reassurance. “I just don’t know what to do now.”
It was rare for my Bear to sound so uncertain. It made my chest squeeze with the need to protect him as fiercely as he protected me.
I scrambled to think of a fix. “What if we…” I dismissed several ideas without voicing them, options I knew Bear would never go for. But there was another I knew he wouldn’t go for that still needed to be put out there. “What if you asked to be reassigned? What if we lie low for a little while and then start dating publicly after the new year, after it’s clear we’re no longer connected as bodyguard and principal?”
Bear looked at me like I was obtuse. “And who would protect you in the meantime?”
I nodded toward the front of the plane. “Lou. Boomer. Whoever else Violet wants to assign.”
He clenched his jaw. “Meanwhile, she assigns me to another principal, and I end up half a world away on some business trip while you have an active fucking target on your back? No way. No fucking way, Z.”
“Bear…”
“Don’t ask me to leave your protection detail, Zane. Not now. I can’t. I won’t.”
I yanked my arms inside my hoodie and pulled my legs up in the seat, anything to keep from climbing into his lap and curling into his chest. “Then what’s your plan?”
“My plan is to ask Violet whether we can proceed with some kind of legal action that allows for legal depositions or some way of asking our suspects questions under oath about their actions around you. If we can find and neutralize whoever’s making these threats, maybe I’d…”
I couldn’t help but grin at him. “You can’t say it, can you? You’d hate it if someone else was my close protection officer.”
He made a low grumbling noise under his breath.
I wrapped my arms around myself inside my shirt. “What if you…” I knew he would balk at this. “Hear me out, Bear. What if you quit? What if you traveled with me full-time as… not my close protection officer?”
“Well, one of the things that would happen is an eventual eviction from my apartment,” he said. “My truck is paid off, but I wouldn’t be able to keep it insured or gassed up for long. And then there’s the matter of setting aside money for retirement. I know the super-wealthy don’t have to think about these things, Zane, but the rest of us have to consider how our bills are going to get paid if we quit our jobs to spend all of our time with our boo-thang.”
I could tell he was saying it with a teasing tone and the hint of a grin, but I still felt stung.
“Don’t call me that,” I muttered. “And I obviously wouldn’t let any of those things happen. I’d—”
There was no teasing left in his voice when he cut me off. “Don’t say it. Do not even think it.”
I turned away and looked out the window into the pitch-black night. After a while, I felt him get up and move away. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, if only to escape the stress involved in trying to solve this dilemma.
A few minutes later, I felt the familiar weight of my travel blanket settle over me. Bear’s signature scent wafted through the air with it, and I opened my eyes to meet his. They were filled with love and affection, care and comfort, and I suddenly realized maybe this blanket could give us some cover.
The lights were low in the plane, and several people had leaned their chairs all the way back to sleep. The flight attendant would have easily offered to convert these back two chairs into a bed for me, but there was no way I was going to take a bed while everyone else sat around me in chairs.
I nodded for Bear to take the seat next to me again, and then I poked my arms back through my sleeves and reached for his hand, tossing the corner of the blanket between us to hide our twined fingers.
His voice was low when he spoke, even though the loud noise of the plane would have covered it at regular volume. “I can’t take your money, Z. Not when we’ve only been together for five minutes. You have to understand that.”