I stood up, and he nodded at the clothes I picked out. “Go on, and try them on. I’ll be right outside.”
He unlocked the door, and I locked it behind him when he stepped outside, but I no longer cared about the clothes. I tried them on, and he followed me to the register to pay for the ones I wanted to buy.
I stumbled through the rest of the trip barely seeing anything. What was happening to me?
I didn’t keep track of where I went or what I did after that. I went to a few more stores and even bought some stuff. He carried my bags for me, but at some point in the trip, he must have passed them off to someone else. I didn’t see it happen.
I finally summoned the nerve to say something to him. “I’m ready to leave now.”
He nodded, pulled out his phone, and sent a text. “Do you want to get anything to eat or drink before we leave?”
I looked around in a daze. “I guess so.”
I went over to the juice bar and ordered. Then he ordered something. It surprised me so much, and I blinked when he paid for his juice. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting something to drink. I’m thirsty. I’m not a robot, you know. Security guards need to eat and drink too.”
I looked up to find him gazing at me. Those eyes! Jesus, I would never be able to look into his eyes the same way again.
He actually smiled at me, and he completely transformed into a different person. He didn’t glare or snarl or scowl at me like he usually did.
He steered me out of line to make room for the next person to reach the register, but my world kept changing too fast for me to keep up with it.
“I didn’t mean to imply that you were a robot. I just… Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He raised one hand and trailed his finger across my forehead to comb a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. “You handled today very well. I’m pleased.”
My heart flipped again. Did he really mean that?
“Did you like it?” he asked.
I nodded stupidly. Of course, I liked it. I did a lot more than like it.
“I’m glad,” he went on. “I wasn’t sure.”
“How can you even say that? You knew I would like it.”
He laughed and became a different person all over again. Was he really laughing—him? “I guess I did.”
The employee at the juice bar handed our drinks across the counter, and I had to readjust my whole notion of reality when he started sucking on his straw. He kissed me with those lips. Those were the lips that whispered in my ear that I was his to fuck.
Him saying it somehow made it so much more real than any of the others. The others could say it, but he actually did it. He made it real, not by fucking me, but by NOT fucking me. He did it by making me wait. He might make me wait forever.
“Did you mean what you said about keeping all of them?” he asked. “Do you really not know which one you’ll choose?”
“I don’t see how I can. I’m enjoying it too much the way it is.”
He laughed again. Could he really get this happy just from fooling around with me? Was he really that close to changing his whole idea about us the same way I was?
There was no us. He was my bodyguard—nothing more.
He sucked his straw some more. I shivered thinking about kissing him again. His lips looked so fucking sexy when he sucked on his straw like that.
His hands and shoulders and waist and legs meant something so different from just a few minutes ago. Even the dozens of scars on his knuckles made him look incredibly sexy.
The shaved spot and the stitch marks on the side of his head might make him look ugly to some, but they were just more living proof that he would do anything for me, even if it meant sacrificing himself.
“You aren’t really a slut,” he began. “Not in that way, I mean.”