Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
She rolled on her side, pink sheet draped over the curve of her wide hip and belly. Wavy brown hair frizzed wildly around freckled cheeks. Her small breasts exposed and nipples perked—and my cock twitched with an aggressive, primal hunger.
If she was a lion, then I was the animal that wanted to mount the fuck out of her and play around with her until she was one beautiful whimpering mess. Spent and safe and satiated in my arms.
I didn’t want to leave her room. I wished I could listen to her talk while the sun rose and set. Every second. Every day.
But I had to go.
Zero three hundred hours. On the dot. Or else my fucking carriage would morph into a pumpkin.
“It’s just that…” Jane trailed off, giving me a long once-over. Her aching breath pushed her lips apart. She fixated on my dark hair tucked behind my ears and my jawline and my tall, muscular build. “You’re blatantly hot and fit in the realm of Vikings and billboard jocks. I’m—”
“Gorgeous,” I interjected. Not hesitating to cut her off there.
A soft noise left Jane, eyes melting. “I…” Flustered, she sat up slightly on the headboard. “We’ve been through this. I have a strong love for myself, you know, but I recognize that classically, I’m not the world’s definition of beauty.”
“You’re mine,” I said with power and force. Feeling pissed off, I shifted my glare onto the wall and grabbed my black button-down off the ground. I was boiling.
Not at her.
But at the media outlets, tabloids, and spineless pricks that constantly critiqued Jane’s appearance. That pitted her against whatever the popular body type is of the fucking millennium.
It was horseshit.
Jane went quiet.
I finished buttoning my shirt, and I trekked stringently to the end table. Collecting my things. I holstered my gun on my waistband. “There shouldn’t even be an ideal woman.”
I caught her smile.
She cleared her throat. “I agree.”
We stared at each other for a long time, unsaid things reinforcing more tension and strength between us, and I broke the silence. “If your brothers and sister are assuming that I can’t be attracted to you because I’m classically hotter, then that’s outright fucked up.”
Her siblings never met any of her friends-with-benefits. Including Nate, who looks like an A-list Hollywood actor that spent time shoving kids against lockers in high school. But even if Charlie had shaken hands with Nate, I was sure he’d say that he’d been using Jane.
“My siblings would weigh all probabilities, I think,” Jane said softly. “And maybe it hurts them to assume this. But we’re all smart enough to know that the emotion inside a fact doesn’t make the fact any less true.”
I tried to process that, and I held her gaze in a vice. “It doesn’t make it any less fucked up.”
She tipped her head with a nod. “Vrai.” True.
I’m not like the Cobalts. Her brothers and sister did everything they could to help Jane tear down walls, knowing romantic pain was on the other side, but I’d want to protect her from heartbreak. Not guide her towards that feeling.
So at the sports bar, Charlie’s words are like a rubber band snapping against my eardrum: A week ago, none of us thought you were attracted to her.
I bottle heat in my lungs. “I wasn’t allowed to be attracted to my client publicly, not beyond the op.” I shouldn’t ask the Cobalt brothers anything.
As a bodyguard, it’s inappropriate. But I’m off-duty and her boyfriend. To breach the fortress of this family, you can’t be timid.
And I know I’m not that. “Why were you all so sure that your sister’s feelings were one-sided?”
Jane whips her head to me, smiling. I’m not easy to push over, honey.
“I just didn’t think you’d be into her,” Beckett admits, and to Jane, he says, “I owe you an apology, sis. I’m sorry.”
Ben drops his feet beneath the table. “Me too.”
“It’s okay,” Jane says with a warm smile. “Thank you.”
Charlie pulls at his messy hair, his annoyance visible and on me. “You gave us no indication of liking our sister. I’m not apologizing for that.”
I nod. “You don’t have to.”
Eliot grabs something from behind his back and tosses it down to his brother.
Tom catches what looks like a gold statue, a twinkle in his eye. He flashes a smile in my direction. “For you.”
Muscles stiff and hot, I reach forward and collect the statue. I turn it over in my palm.
I breathe in through my nose. What the fuck. I’m holding a trophy shaped like a snake. The plaque reads Master of Deception with the year engraved below.
Comms crackle. “Flash it to us, Moretti,” Oscar banters.
No chance.
If I acknowledge SFO, the Cobalt brothers will think I’m choosing security over them. I set the trophy on the table and hear Farrow, his voice picked up on Oscar’s radio. “Cobalts are extra as fuck.”