9. Ignacia

Chapter nine

Ignacia

(Or Kind of Sam)

T he contract is official.

I’ve invited the most overbearing Neanderthal into my home and made him a fixture.

He’s been in my home for a week. A freaking week. He’s been here for so long, shadowing my every move, that I’m probably about two minutes away from losing my mind. I mean, it’s not like Aiden will jump out of the damn fridge, but there Beau is, hovering right behind me whenever I want a snack. He’s there when I pour myself a glass of water, as though Aiden will ooze from the tap. I get that he wants to hover when I’m going to the barn or walking around in the yard, but good lord.

Trying to sew with the man in the room has been excruciatingly painful. I thought I’d get used to his big, black-clad, hulking self. But nope, I haven’t.

Also? He had clothes delivered overnight that first night when he decided to stay. I could hear him in the guest room, punching away at his phone. He didn’t make a single call. He probably didn’t want to chance that I’d overhear anything I wasn’t supposed to. The next morning, a duffel bag appeared by the front door. The doorbell rang, but when Beau pulled it open, there was no one there. I did go back and check the cameras, and it was a very agent-looking blonde dude who dropped the bag off. Beau insisted he open the door from now on, so he was the one to get the bag first. I assumed it was just clothes, but when he came up with a laptop and a freaking gun that he has since worn inside his jacket, I realized how wrong I was.

A gun.

I don’t know why, but I never thought that would come into play. I tried to demand he not wear it, but he reminded me that I’d signed the contract, and this was the standard way of protecting me and himself from danger. The gun was loaded, but he assured me he had plenty of experience using it, and the safety on the thing was foolproof.

That’s probably another reason why I could barely focus on my work all week.

Aggravatingly hot, delicious-smelling, and big and burly hulking beast of a guard is one thing. Knowing he’s packing freaking heat in my own house is another.

He’s banned me from going anywhere. He says that anything I need, he can have delivered to the house.

I’m not sure what progress is being made on the Aiden front or the clear-my-name front. I want to call home and tell my parents about it, but I’m out of burner phones—there’s probably no point either, now that Aiden knows where I am—and also, I’m sure that would be a violation of one of Beau’s many rules.

I should have read the darned farging contract instead of just signing it because I was miffed he asked me to declare my innocence yet again.

All week, I’ve barely slept. And it’s not because I’m scared Aiden will creep into this house and somehow get me. He was never the kind to fight with his fists or abuse physically. He was so much slimier and slipperier and snakier. I was more terrified of what he could do to my fake persona. Not that I have any credit cards. I don’t. I purposely have zero online presence with this fake ID. That probably wouldn’t stop Aiden from creating something with my fake name on it, though. I’ve been so preoccupied with the amount of evil he could do and how capable Beau is of mitigating it until it’s properly stopped, which is the reason I’ve tossed and turned when I should be sleeping.

Knowing Beau is in the downstairs room below me makes me feel safe.

But it’s also kept me awake.

It’s not because he’s ever made a sound at night. He hasn’t. His light has been on late and early under the closed door, but it’s quiet in there. It’s more like I’m too aware of his presence. Sharing a house with another person is a lot. It’s too much.

I’m especially hyperaware of him right now, and it’s a lot, mainly because tonight is one of the nights from the original contract. The hot bedding night.

It should technically be the third night we’ve spent together, but last week, he got me to sign the second contract and then took the guest bedroom. I half expect he’s forgotten about our former commitment, but no.

He walks up the stairs at nine, each step sounding like a clap of thunder as he gets closer and closer. I freeze in the bed and drop the book I haven’t been able to read a single word of all week. He knocks on the bedroom door even though it’s wide open, causing me to double-freeze. My body is pulling a frozen-in-time ice block trick, but my heart is racing madly.

This man has been up in my space, but seeing him dressed in that tight black T-shirt and those dark grey sweats reminds me he’s human. Also, he looks even more intensely muscled in this than he does in his suits. When he takes that off and puts on these casual clothes, he looks more human and less like a bodyguard slash agent from some organization he’s barely explained to me. He’s far less of an unfeeling professional who’s here to do his job and far more just a regular guy who wants to sleep in my bed.

Not that it makes him regular. In fact, it makes him highly irregular.

I’d like to say that seeing him in street clothes makes him seem vulnerable, but they don’t. Nothing about this man is vulnerable.

“I was wondering if you—” he begins.

“Remembered about tonight?” I fill in for him. I pat the other side of the bed, pretending to be all casual, but I probably look like a hyperactive penguin flapping flippers around all over the place. Because I’m not casual, and I’m not controlled. My heart is running a marathon inside my chest. “Yup. Sure did.”

“And it’s still alright?” he clarifies.

“If it weren’t, you’d just hold me to paying out something or other, yes?”

His dark eyes go from slightly guarded and a little pensive to immediately stormy. I’ve provoked something in him, and I should probably back off, but instead, it just makes me go for it while I pretend the rest of me isn’t abnormally excited about even slightly annoying a man who refuses to show any emotion.

“While we’re on the topic of what I’m okay with, yes, this is fine. We made a contract, I agreed, and I’m good with this arrangement. It’s the other contract that needs some fine-tuning.”

He stares me down with the usual impassivity he’s perfected. But I refuse to let it bother me anymore. I refuse to keep looking for emotion where it should exist. It does, I’m sure. He’s just a master at not showing it. “Fine-tuning how?” He leans against the door frame. It makes his abs flex hard against his T-shirt, and lord, I think I can see his nipples sticking out just a little in two tiny marks because the fabric is so soft and high quality.

Of course, he’d have super expensive T-shirts, and double of course, they’d make him look like a rock-hard bad-ass god.

“I need air without you breathing down my neck,” I state.

He does exactly what I expected and gives it zero consideration. “That’s not my job. You signed the damn contract. If you’d read it, you’d know.”

“Hmm.” I fling the book on the nightstand aggressively while trying to pretend I’m not pissed off. There’s pretty much no point. I should just skip straight to losing my mind so we can have this out and just go the shit to bed. “Great powers of observation there, butt floss.” Whatever. I never said I wasn’t annoyed to the point of total immaturity.

“Butt floss is not a thing.”

Gah! Does this man have to be so rational? Does he have to be so calm and infuriating and just freaking dead - face me all the time? “Oh yeah? What do you think a thong is?”

He’s way too good at this for me to get one up on him. “I want to know why you have such an unhealthy obsession with butts.”

He’s right. I do use butts way too much in regular conversation, and when it comes to insults, I’m right there. It’s just natural, is it not, to compare people we don’t like to rear ends? The more inventive, the better it is. Just calling someone an asshole isn’t nearly enough. “Who says it’s unhealthy?” I snap. I refuse to admit to him that he’s maybe got a point. I’d like to tell him to go to hell, aka the guest bedroom, but I can’t even do that. He’s got me bound right up with these stupid contracts. Not that I didn’t agree. Because I did. I fucked myself over, and I am well aware of the irony in that. “Ugh. Can you just get into bed and turn the lights off, please?”

He does. Silently. He complies like everything is hunky fucking dory. He switches off the lights and gets into bed as neatly and silently as he can while I flop back against the pillows. Then, we both lie there like that. He seems fine on his back. I don’t want to break first and look at him. It would be a kind of surrender, and that is not happening. He obviously doesn’t let things get to him. This argument probably didn’t mean a thing, and he likely can’t even understand why I’m angry or why I’m feeling any other emotion since he’s a freaking stone. Rock hard on the outside, rock hard on the inside.

Whomp! Rattle, rattle, bang!

We both shoot upright in bed at the same time. Beau is fast. While I immediately reach for my pillow to try and grasp—everyone knows that in an emergency involving night horrors, a pillow and a bed will clearly provide the best protection—Beau leaps out of bed and goes racing down the stairs. I hear his bare feet thumping and then flying . I dive under the blankets, shivering and shaking until approximately five million years, I mean a few minutes, have passed, and I hear him coming back upstairs. He doesn’t flick on the lights. He stands at the end of the bed, outlined in sexy moonlight shadows from the window like he planned for them to do him all the favors and make me steam up in the few places that even had some steam left.

“It was just a raccoon trying to get the lid off the trashcan. I scared it away.”

“What? You didn’t grab it and sit it down and have a long conversation with it about why trashcans aren’t a thing in this yard and then slap a contract on its ass?”

“Not at all. Those things are rabid, and to boot, they can’t read.”

The worst part? I’m not even sure if he’s deadpanning or serious. His eyes are a little shiny like he’s amused with himself, but it could just be the light from the yard and the moonlight doing him more favors.

“They’re not all rabid,” I say with a sniff. At least I know the wildlife out here better than he does. Beau is a city boy. He probably can’t survive five minutes in the country if he has to.

Really? He’s been here all week, surviving like a total boss.

As he climbs back into bed, I make myself comfortable on my back again. I don’t look at him. And he doesn’t look at me either. The room is so silent, and it’s honestly the most uncomfortable thing in the world.

Rattle, bump.

“What the hell was that?” I shoot straight up again.

And again, Beau goes racing back down the stairs.

He’s back in under one million years, or just a few minutes, again . This time, I manage not to grab my pillow. I just sit there in bed, gulping air.

“It was just one of the barn cats scratching at the door. The one that looks like it’s ready to slay in a cat battle. She ran off as soon as I appeared. I wasn’t the one she was hoping for.”

“Oh. Mama sometimes does that.” I will not laugh at the image that’s placed in my head. “Sometimes she wants in for a two-minute cuddle or more of those tube cat treats.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“It’s not the middle of the night, but no, she doesn’t care what time of day it is. Cats are cats. You’re on their schedule. You’d know that if you ever had one. You’re owned by the cat, not the other way around.”

He sighs, walks over, and turns on the lights like we’re going to have a discussion about cats. I don’t want to have a discussion with him. I want to get away from him, and from the way his eyes are all dark and suddenly soft and sort of smoldering hot, and his whole entire face and body look extra kissable and lickable and jumpable .

“I should probably go down and see if she comes back. She needs her pets,” I say.

“I think you should just go to sleep.”

“I’m not sure why you turned on the lights if you want me to do—oh my god! Your pump!” It’s not in his arm. The round plastic circle is gone. I should have done more research about how those things work, but I’m pretty sure they need to be there to work. Maybe he had more of a fight with the raccoon than he let on, and it stole it and ran off with the super expensive, life-saving piece of equipment. “Shit! Jesus!” I need to think fast. Stay calm. Not panic. He’s going to be fine. Uh, he will, right? I scramble out of bed so fast that I just about land on my face. I correct myself with two hands on the nightstand and a swift spin that puts me somewhat upright. “I’m going to call an ambulance!”

“Whoa.” He steps close to me but doesn’t touch me. He’s never touched me, and maybe that’s part of the madness and frustration that’s been building all week. I mean…no. NO, in screaming capital letters. “It’s okay. I have to move it every couple of days. The risk of infection gets too high otherwise, and having a needle in your skin like that can build up scar tissue that would make it not very effective. I just located it here.” He sweeps his T-shirt up and points at his stomach.”

I focus on the pump. Naturally. Not on all the abs and perfect skin and the flawless V that his body does and the—

He drops his T-shirt back down, and I let out a sigh of relief that I really should have kept inside. “Does it hurt?” I stammer out again to cover up for the jailbreak of a sigh.

“It doesn’t hurt me. But I can’t speak for others.” He says that again, like he did the first time.

He shuts off the lights, and I see him point to the bed. The hall light isn’t on, but there’s enough light coming through the crack I always leave in the curtains. Even if I were scared of someone climbing all the way up to look into them, which would be virtually impossible because the bedroom is on the side of the house, and they’d need to be really dedicated and very talented or have a massive ladder, I wouldn’t close them all the way because they’d block out all the daylight in the morning, which would make it impossible to wake up.

We both climb back into bed and do the back thing again. Do the tense thing again.

This time, I listen to all the sounds drifting in from outside. There’s nothing off, but they sound kind of…sinister tonight or something. I don’t know why, but I start shaking a little. I have to ask the question I’ve refused to ask all week. I never asked because I feel like if I mention it, it’ll come undone. Like, I’ll jinx it or something. “How’s the investigation going?” That’s probably not even what it’s called.

“It’s coming along,” he grunts. “These things take time.”

“I thought you said it would be fast.”

“Fast when compared to how the justice system sometimes takes years to resolve things.”

It’s so weird having this conversation with the ceiling. I should turn to look at him, but I don’t. I’m not going to break first. I should call him an inventive butt term. Then, he’d say, “There you go, being all obsessed again.” And he’d be right. I hate that he’s right all the time. It only adds to his inhuman side, and it’s exhausting.

“We’re working on it, I promise,” he assures me, and that might be the first human thing he’s said to me since he told me about his family in the barn.

I still can’t believe he did that.

It was like he was a completely different person. Like he had a blip in his sanity. It’s almost like it never even happened. Whoever that guy was in those moments, he’s not coming back.

“What if Aiden goes free?” I whisper. “What if I never get my life back? What if he’s out there, constantly haunting me and hurting me or hurting other people? What if he does something worse and frames me or someone else? What if—”

He puts a hand gently over my mouth and cuts me off.

His hand is huge. My mouth is not. So it’s shocking. It’s also dark in here, and I was talking. I know he just meant to cover my lips, but part of his palm misses, and his finger slips between my lips, and I kind of…choke on it when I inhale in surprise.

“Blah!” I half spit it out and half accidentally bite him a little.

He hastily snatches his hand back.

I have never been more mortified. Or turned on. Seriously? What the actual fuck? “I’m s—”

“You don’t have to worry. He’s not going to escape this. There will be consequences for what he’s done.” He doesn’t let me get the apology out for half sucking, half biting, and half spitting out his finger like it was a rotten zombie hand. It was not. He tasted just fine. Just as manly as you’d think a man like him would taste, and then something delicious underlying that. I wish I were kidding. I wish my whole body would stop noticing and going off like a live wire in this bed when he’s just a few feet away.

“Beau?” I ask after more silence ensues. After all the silence I can take without saying his name. Without going barbeque up in flames because the grease caught fire on this side of the bed. I need to reach out. I. Fucking. Need. To.

“What, Ignacia?”

There’s a part of me that wants to scream at him not to call me that, but it’s just the— I’m dying a slow, slow, untouched death here —frustrated part.

“It’s been a really long ten months. A long, lonely ten months. I know you’re the one paying for the other side of my bed, but I’m here on this side. I’m lonely, too. I’m hurting, too. If I’m going to be honest, I’m half broken. Will you…will you hold my hand?”

“That’s against the contract,” he mumbles with a sigh.

“Fuck the contract!” I snap back.

At least his eyes sweep over in the dark to look at me. My heart pounds up into my throat. I’m one aching ball of adrenaline now.

“I can’t,” he says rationally. Even before I said anything, I knew he was going to say that. I’m going to die here. It’s going to happen, and when it does, I hope he feels at least a little bit bad about the waste of my life. “It would be physically impossible because it’s electronic.”

Oh. Oh, wow. He just made a dirty joke, but instead of laughing like a normal person, I have to go ahead and blurt out something disastrously embarrassing. “That never stopped most people from cybersexing.” Yeah, I Y2K the hell out of that term and go there.

“I can’t,” he says again.

Gah! “Are you seriously joking right now? I’m super sad, and I feel shitty, and you’re just—you’re…you’re horrible. You know what? You can have this side of the bed, too. I’m taking the couch.”

His hand shoots out and lands on my arm before I can even move. He’s more serious now, graver and darker than I’ve ever seen him. “No. don’t do that.” It’s coming. I can see his lips shaping the words, working up to them. I can’t believe it. “I’m sorry.”

There it is. I’m not buying it. He’s not sorry. He refuses to feel anything, and I think it means he can’t feel remorse. He just won’t let it in. And I still want him. I still fucking want him anyway. “Are you though?” I snap. “From what I can tell, you don’t care what other people think or feel. You’re just here to do a job, ruled by your stupid contract, and that’s that. The colder you can be, the better. It’s safer that way, isn’t it?”

“No. No, no, no.” He lets out a sharp chuckle. It’s the sound people make when they can’t believe you just went there, and it hurts. It hurts like a knife sinking in despite all the armor. “You’re going to use what I told you against me? About how I truly was hurt, how I lost people I loved, and how I truly think I’m cursed? You’re going to throw that at me?”

I gulp. I can’t do the angry thing. I can’t take someone looking at me like I’ve just drawn blood. I’m not someone who fights dirty or uses thorns. “I’m not throwing it at you. I’m not. I…that was insensitive. I’m not. But you actually do that, don’t you? You block out feelings because you don’t want to feel that shitty again? Haven’t you ever wanted someone to comfort you? Someone to be there? Someone to feel less shitty with, at the very least?”

I hear his intake of breath. He’s not unaffected. He’s not even pretending right now. We’re both in this bed, wearing too many clothes, but just about stripped down anyway.

“No, because it always comes with strings,” he finally responds, but I hear the hitch in his voice. It’s not going off without a hitch.

We’re now looking at each other, and I’m going to put it out there while I’m staring him down. While his eyes are burning straight through me, and while neither of us can look away. “If you’re such a fan of contracts, and I’m obsessed with asses, maybe we could combine our two favorite things.”

Okay, that was me just putting the proposition of a sort of sex contract out there. I’m not serious. At least I don’t think I’m serious.

“No.” He puts an arm in front of himself and shoots way the hell back on the bed.

I, on the other hand, shoot way the hell forward, scooting closer and closer to the invisible line that divides the mattress. My side, his side. My always side, his once-a-week side. My free side, his paying side. My this-is-my-house side, his contracted side.

This was never supposed to be real. This was never supposed to be about sex.

“Straight up no?” he reiterates. But why does it sound like a question?

Why doesn’t he pull back when I reach for him? I fling myself across the bed, but I’m on my side, so it’s more like a caterpillar wriggle. He keeps backing up until he has nowhere else to go. That’s a lie. Even when he’s on the edge of the bed, he can just get out. He can tell me to stop being a ninny head and to get myself in line, stat.

But he doesn’t get out of the bed.

And when I throw my arms around his neck, he’s the one who catches me like I’m falling sideways and then hauls me up against him. He’s every bit the granite he looks like, but it’s real. Our bodies are pressed together. My curves bump up against a whole lot of hardness in a whole lot of different spots, and then our lips collide.

Beau tastes like mint. Expensive mint. He tastes like teeth brushed probably an hour ago, fresh air from when he went outside twice, and sin. He tastes dark and forbidden. We’re breaking…I don’t know…two contracts here? Wait, no, the bodyguard contract never said we couldn’t do this. It was just the hot bedding one.

Maybe he can add it as an appendix or whatever he calls the crap he puts on after and then get me to sign off on it.

It seems, right now, when our mouths are mashing together so hard that there are almost teeth involved, and my hips are already trying to ride against him and find the perfect spot, this was inevitable. This bed was always going to catch fire, and we were both always going to be caught in the combustion zone.

Here’s my naughty confession. I’ve read so many books about dark, sexy villains, and they always give the promise that they’re so nasty and bad that they’re good. And, of course, the villain always reforms in the end and becomes all soft and blah. But that’s not real life. Real life is this. Real life is a person that’s not a villain or a hero. He’s probably not even an anti-hero. Do I care about any of that right now? No. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing regular about this man, and no matter how hot or hard or not hard or vanilla or not vanilla he is between the sheets, I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to enjoy it because he has the right tools, and it’s been a very lonnnnnng ten months for me.

Translation: I’m basically horny as fuck.

Well, no, that’s not the translation.

No matter how long it’s been, that’s not what’s making me hot right now. It’s Beau. It’s been him and his body and his scent and all the dark, sexy energy he throws around as a big old grump. It’s the contract telling us we can’t. It’s the other contract implying this is taboo. It’s the age gap, the financial gap, and the difference in personalities.

Even still.

Even with all the forbidden and taboo making me want to do it more, I can’t do it with him if it doesn’t feel right. If I just want to give myself an orgasm, I’ll be panting all over my own fingers right now or some toy. But yeah, that’s not special for me. And if it’s the wrong person? That wouldn’t be special, either.

I want this with Beau because he’s Beau. Not because he’s rich, and not because he’s here at the right time in the right place to fulfill a very needy need.

It’s just him.

It’s the smell of his skin, the way his body moves against mine like we’ve been lovers for a century, the raspy growls he lets out, the way he kisses, the instinct and intuition, and beneath all that, it’s the soul he’s got wrapped up and hidden away behind bricks and barbed wire. It’s been calling for me, and the bruised, careful, and hurting parts of me have been screaming out for him.

This is about more than just sex. Even if it’s about the sex, too.

And I’m pretty sure it’s about more than that for both of us, which is why this is going to work.

I already know it.