ChapterFive
It didn’t matter what time of year it was. As soon as Bianca wanted to do something with her day, the heavens opened up and dumped a foot of rain over Seattle.
Today was no different. She had risen from bed, done an hour of yoga, had her usual breakfast of yogurt and mixed berries, taken a shower, and dressed with the intention of leaving her apartment to enjoy the slivers of sunshine that had greeted her when she rolled out of bed. But by the time she opened her closet to search for the perfect outfit, rain was splattering against her window.
Any other day, she would have braved the downpour like a native Seattleite. Even a café in the rain was a pleasant experience if she had a book to read or a journal to put her thoughts down in while couples talked around her and baristas said hello to their favorite regulars. Occasionally, she would even convince one of her old school friends to join her.
But that was before Sam Reddy became a permanent staple in her life.
She peered out the peephole of her front door. Sure enough, Sam was out there, pacing up and down the hallway Bianca shared with her sister Scarlett. Right now, Sam’s gaze was directed at her phone, but her posture was formidable, poised to pounce at any sign of trouble with her catlike reflexes.
As soon as Bianca focused her eyes on her, Sam turned her head toward the door.
Crap!She stepped back, her heart skipping. It was like Sam had heard Bianca staring at her.
One week of this, and Bianca was already losing her mind.
One week of Sam Reddy, the tough-but-sexy bodyguard who took her job so seriously that when she said 24-hour service, she meant it. When she wasn’t standing outside Bianca’s door, she was tailing her to a follow-up doctor’s appointment, a lunch with friends, and a day out with Parker to the cat rescue her girlfriend Julia ran.
To top it off, Sam had taken up residence in the family’s guest apartment downstairs, right beneath Bianca’s. Her mother had given the apartment to the security team to use at their leisure, and Sam had claimed the spacious master suite as her own so she could be close to Bianca at all times.
She was just glad Sam hadn’t insisted on staying in her spare bedroom. Bianca allowed Sam to follow her around, but she drew the line at having a new roommate. Sam would stay out of Bianca’s apartment unless they were going over the day’s schedule. Or if there was an emergency, but they would cross that bridge when they came to it.
Did Bianca resent Sam’s presence? No. Was she confused about a few things? Yes. She was confused about what had made her mother paranoid enough to overhaul the family’s security, let alone why there was so much emphasis on Bianca. It was one thing for her mother to be extra protective of her youngest. But it was another for Scarlett and Parker to shrug their shoulders and act like they didn’t know what was going on when Bianca brought it up.
She was confused by one other thing, too. Namely, her irrefutable attraction to Sam Reddy.
Bianca had met her share of attractive women in her life. She was surrounded by them—at school, in her social circles. And they weren’t limited to the girly femme types who dipped their toes in polish and bathed in perfume.There were quite a few androgynous and more butch women in her circles too, along with her sister Parker’s. That woman was a magnet for hot queer women, some of whom Bianca had silently lusted after from a distance, because she was too young—and too nervous—to approach them.
Sam was different from them all. Her clothes, cars, and business were expensive, but Bianca could tell that her bodyguard came from more humble means. That only made her hotter. If Bianca put her ultimate type on paper, it would be someone who wasn’t anything like the people she was surrounded by. Someone who wasn’t wrapped up in the pageantry of class and wealth, who didn’t occupy themselves with what the media and gossip sites said about them.
Sam was beyond that. She was above that. She existed on a plane separate from the world Bianca had inhabited her whole life—and that only made her more beguiling.
Bianca knew what she liked in a person, regardless of gender. And she liked Sam, who wore a suit with her hair tied up in a tight bun during the day, and a sexy leather jacket in the evening when she was technically off duty.
That jacket alone could have summed up Bianca’s sexuality. It was better than trying to put a label on it. Bianca had grown up in a world of labels but had always wanted to push them away. She’d been exposed to Parker’s lesbian existential crises, to Scarlett’s bisexual angst. And while she’d never been ashamed of her feelings toward women, she also felt like labels could be just as restrictive as they were freeing.
So she simply existed, without any fanfare surrounding her sexual orientation. She knew it wasn’t that simple, that it couldn’t last forever. But she wanted to pretend that it didn’t matter for as long as she could. So what if she was open to being with anyone who made her heart sing, along with other parts of her? So what if she was still figuring it all out?
She hadn’t had a lot of experience with anyone, but she’d had more experience with women. Making out with her best friend in high school. Doing more than simple ‘cuddling’ with an exchange student who slept over one night. And—God wouldn’t let her forget—the Belgian stranger who had cornered her in a dark nightclub in Brussels, dancing sensually with her—on her—before finally inviting her to more in the back of a car. The only reason Bianca hadn’t taken her up on the offer was because her drunk friends had come along and dragged her off to another club.
But Bianca thought about it constantly. Especially when she was alone with her thoughts. Especially when she was lonely in her bed.
She thought about that tall and stunning stranger more than she thought about the girls she’d actually had sex with over the years. There hadn’t been many, but there was a reason Bianca thought about that woman above all the others. That strong, confident woman had wanted her with a kind of intensity that no one else ever had.
And as she closed her eyes and replayed that moment, the stranger’s face morphed into Sam’s. Sam, cornering her in that dark club. Sam’s body, pressed against hers, pinning her to the wall as music boomed against them, their bodies moving to the rhythm of it. She still remembered what it felt like to have Sam’s body against hers. Only this time, when she imagined it, they weren’t in a hospital room. They were far, far away from here, lost in a storm of lust that was consuming them both…
Was it absurd to think of Sam that way? Her impassive bodyguard hadn’t shown any real interest in Bianca. But hadn’t Bianca detected a spark of desire when their hands first touched?
Or had she imagined it all?
Bianca crept back to the door and peered through the peephole again. She wanted a glimpse of those straight shoulders in that tailored suit, those cheekbones that could cut a girl’s inhibitions in half.
This time, when Sam glanced toward the door, Bianca didn’t back away. She practically invited Sam to step up to the peephole and stare right back at her. I could get lost in those dark, intense eyes…
Instead, she flung open the door, draping herself across the entryway. It had the desired effect on Sam. Her eyes skated down Bianca’s body for just a moment before she yanked them away, meeting her eyes instead.
Look all you like, Bianca wanted to say. I’m yours for the taking.