“I have doubts about your ability to concentrate on just one thing at a time.” She slides her encased laptop into her backpack and zips it shut. “It’s no big deal when there aren’t any consequences, but when my life is on the line, I’m less than enthusiastic.”
“Cryptic much?” I shake my head before catching her wrist when she stands. “Stay. Have lunch with me. You don’t have anywhere else to be, and we both know it.”
Maddie looks between her wrist and my face while I pretend I don’t want to drink in every inch of her feminine curves and long, toned legs. My hold is light, she could easily pull herself free if she wanted to, but she doesn’t move to walk away.
“Fine,” she finally relents and resumes her seat, and I’m all too aware of the lingering heat at my fingertips.
I’m mostly relieved she stayed, but a small part of me wishes she would have walked away, if only for the sake of my sanity.
Taking a deep breath, I exhale through my nose slowly and remind myself that I just need to hang around her until she’s safe, keep my emotional distance, and try not to go insane in the process.
* * *
Maddie
The feel of Sawyer’s calloused fingers grazing my skin shouldn’t spark longing of the magnitude currently pulsing in my chest. I know that touch; I’ve dreamt of that touch for a year. How those rough fingers skimmed over my belly reverently, making their way over my ribs to cup my breasts.
We were like two teenagers that week, thrown into a frenzy of fumbled kisses from under-the-shirt-over-the-bra action. There was never a window of opportunity for us to have sex, what with my giant clan hanging around, poking their noses into no one’s business. We probably would have gotten away with a quickie against the wall, but that option was out of the question for Sawyer.
He wanted to do it the right way, the way I deserved. I swooned, convinced he felt the overwhelming emotions as fiercely as I did, that he was in as deep as I was.
“I’m stealing you away, Madeline. I want you all to myself tonight,”he murmured into my ear at the wedding after whisking me away from the photographer, and God, did I want to be all his.
Heat spreads through me when I recall the first time we met at the wedding party brunch mixer, exclusive for family and close friends. Out of fifty people, he was the only one I saw, standing next to Andy and Jonah, a roguish smile on his tempting lips and a rabble-rousing glint in his dark blue eyes, the charm oozing off him in spades.
I felt the pull of him so vividly it was scary, but in the best, most exciting way. I thought he felt it too, but I guess he figured I was an easy target, older than the rest of the girls in my family, single at the oh-so-horrid age of thirty-two. Though the way he almost seemed timid when he approached me made my heart beat a little bit faster.
I still remember the curiosity I thought I saw when his gaze met mine. As it turned out, the endearing behavior was an act.
I’m not some blushing virgin, and even though my lifestyle includes a lot of traveling and moving around, which doesn’t allow for a stable relationship, there’salwaysrespect. Fucking a girl in the cloakroom while I’m standing outside, waiting for you to take me to the hotel room? That’s a new level of douche, and I am no one’s plaything.
“Stay,” he beckons me, his night-sky blues unwavering from mine as if none of this affects him in the least, and a small voice in my head whispers that I should shake off his barely-there hold and walk away. “Have lunch with me, you don’t have anywhere else to be, and we both know it.”
The dull thrum of recognition that had started low in my stomach when I lifted my head and saw Sawyer walking my way pulses in a mix of longing and warning. This tall, broad, and hard everywhere and everything gorgeous specimen of the male population is pushing all my buttons in all the wrong ways.
“Fine.” I tug my wrist out of his hold and sit back down. Sawyer may not be my top choice for a bodyguard, he’s altogether a stereotypical male with two brains that can only function one at a time, but he’s still one of the best combatants out there and I’m aware of the danger I’m in, so I owe it to myself to at least hear him out.
“What are you eating?” Sawyer asks, gesturing to the mostly dwindled line of patrons waiting to order from the cashier. It’s part of the small, communal feel of the place. No waitstaff, just a sweet family running a small business, making delicious food from recipes that have been in their family for generations and brewing excellent coffee like in the motherland.
At least, that’s the story I heard from Nonnina, the owner’s elderly grandmother who sits in the kitchen and turns lemons into limoncello.
“I already had lunch, but you can eat if you want.”
“Coffee?” he offers instead, and I nod, about to tell him how I take it, but he’s gone before I manage to.
He’s back in five minutes, setting a mug in front of me before resuming his seat across the small square table. He has to sit sideways to prevent our legs from constantly touching, the clean-shaven square of his jaw seeming tense as if he’s grinding his teeth.
“You seem to have VIP status here,” he observes in a calm voice, still as deep and seductive as it was a year ago, though it lacks the playfulness I grew so fond of during that week we spent together. “There were at least three people before us in line, but the barista made our coffee first.”
“Is there a question in there?” I wonder, lifting my mug to hide a smug smile. Sawyer may be a super-soldier, but I’ve got a few survival tricks up my sleeve as well.
“The people who work here, do they know you’re in trouble?” My heart thumps a little faster, anticipation rushing through my veins. It’s intoxicating. I’m high on the feeling of having the upper hand, of proving to this man who tried to trick me and is now determined to get under my skin that I’m just as capable as he is.
“No, Sawyer, they don’t. What kind of asshole do you think I am?” I put on my best affronted face. “I’d never put them in that kind of danger.”
“So, they just pamper you because you’re pretty?”
He’s playing the pampered princess card again, probably hoping it will throw me off my game like it did before, but I’m not giving up my advantage that easily.