Chapter 7

seven

“—startingto think it’s a myth at this point, not a fucking word from the wedding planner. Oh, hey, new kid, come on in.”

Four days after my boss kissed me on his roof, I walk into the security office to start my first full, real week as Mark’s bodyguard. Goran and his assistant head of security—Nat, a tall woman with medium-brown skin, short twists, and a Semper Fi tattoo on the inside of her forearm—are sitting at the table in the office, laptops open in front of them.

“Club schedule for the week,” Goran says, sliding a paper across the table to me as I sit down. For the main security team, the weeks start on Tuesdays, our weekends consisting of the club’s slow days, Sundays and Mondays. A smaller relief team can more easily cover the club then, and can cover Mark’s movements too.

Not that I much enjoyed my weekend. The day after the kiss was taken up with my suit fittings downtown, and by the time I could get back to Mark, he was eating dinner with some visiting guests. Then came his usual hours in the hall, continuing to entertain said visitors. There’d been a shibari demonstration, and two club submissives had come and made themselves yieldingly available until his guests happily took them to private rooms to continue the night.

And then we were walking back to the elevators, Andrea with us the entire way, deep in conversation with Mark about some budgetary problem—and by the time it was just him and me alone in the elevator, we only had a single floor together before I had to get off.

“Sir,” I said, not sure what I wanted to tell him. That I’d thought of nothing but the kiss since the moment he left the roof, that I hadn’t been able to sleep? That for the first time in months, I didn’t dream of war when I did sleep, but of sunsets and warm mouths?

That I spent the entire evening trying not to stare at him, trying not to trace the harshly handsome features of his face, or follow the sharp, cool flicks of his gaze?

That I was worried that the curse of mine, the obsession, the getting attached, was quickening?

That I was so scared—so fucking scared—that it was already too late?

My doors had opened before I could speak anyway. Mark regarded me with a gaze that was far too level for the amount of gin I’d seen him drink.

“The kiss was a gift, freely given,” he told me. His voice was still that lazy, cool drawl he used in the hall. “If you’re worried that I’ll expect more, please don’t be.”

I had to step off, and so I’d said, “Yes, sir,” but the minute I got inside my apartment, I wanted to fling myself headfirst into the river, because?.?.?.?because I didn’t know.

I just knew that his dismissive please don’t be had stung, along with the implication that he wouldn’t expect more—wouldn’t want more.

Even though that was for the best.

Yes.

I had to spend the next few days reminding myself of that. That I shouldn’t want more kisses from my step-uncle slash boss.

But the opening had been cut, the rift torn, between the curse and the rigid control I forced over my life.

I had to admit that I noticed him, his mouth and hands, the long lines of his body.

I had to admit that when I closed my eyes, I thought of his fingers curled in my jacket and his mouth on mine.

I tried not to think of anyone in particular as I gave myself release, but even with my phone playing porn in front of me, my mind was pulled back to him. To Mark Trevena, who didn’t want more from me.

Hold still, he’d said.

It was a long weekend.

But I’m nothing if not a believer in the cleansing power of routine, so here I am, ready for work to make everything right.

Nat and Goran discuss the planned kink demonstrations happening in the hall and all the notable guests who have rooms booked this week. Two of the guests have their own security teams that will liaise with Goran; one of the demonstrators will need our narrow electric truck to get their vacuum bed across the bridge; there’s a costume party on Friday that Nat wants better staffed because costumes generally equal more jackassery in her experience.

Sedge has already emailed Mark’s itinerary for the day, as well as a look ahead at his calendar—I see trips to Bishop’s Landing, Singapore, and England coming up—and after Goran and Nat finish with the weekly meeting, I sit at the table and use my new laptop to review everything Sedge sent over.

“It looks like there are already safety plans made for his upcoming trips,” I say aloud to Nat and Goran, who’ve started clicking and typing on their laptops after the conclusion of their costume party argument.

“Yeah, that would be Strassburg,” Nat says without looking up from her screen.

“Strassburg?”

Goran also doesn’t look up from his laptop but points a finger at the far wall. I get up and walk over to the corkboard, pinned with the weekly schedule, mandatory workplace safety notices, and several pictures. One of them is the whole security team with a very famous movie star, another is Goran beaming over a birthday cake in the shape of a unicorn, and the next one I see is a Polaroid of the team, this time with a husky man with bright red hair and a beard. He stands behind Mark, shoulder harness visible under his open jacket as he wraps an arm around Goran next to him. Mark has the small indent at the corner of his mouth that sometimes passes for a smile, and everyone else in the picture is grinning. The white part of the instant photo is labeled club anniversary.

“The one behind Mark?” I ask, even though I don’t think I need to. He’s the only person in the picture I don’t recognize.

“That’s the one. Great bodyguard. Got poached by a bossy little peach of a pop star.”

“I think he was smitten,” Nat says. “No way that pay raise alone was enough to leave a rent-free apartment and getting split open like a fence pos—” She breaks off abruptly.

I look back to see Goran has shoved against her shoulder with his.

“Well, it’s a kink club, who wouldn’t want to work here?” she asks, although I don’t think that had been anything like what she was going to say.

We all know about Mark and his bodyguards. That was what Andrea had said my first night in the club.

I am about to ask more, but something about Goran’s red cheeks and the studious way Nat is staring at her laptop makes me shy. And there’s no relevance in the question, is there? Even if Strassburg and Mark had?.?.?.?well, Mark had already made everything clear.

If you’re worried I’ll expect more?.?.?.

We finish our security prep work for the morning, and I leave for Mark’s floor. I’m joined by Sedge in the elevator, who murmurs a quiet hello and then slips out ahead of me the minute the doors open. The assistant even moves in a murmur somehow, his steps thoughtful and wary.

I enter Mark’s office to find him propped on the front of his desk, Sedge already explaining something in a low voice.

“And the total amount?” asks Mark as Sedge hands him a stylus. He is holding out his tablet for Mark to sign now.

“Close to six hundred thousand dollars, sir.”

“Not bad for an afternoon’s work,” Mark says, signing. “And imagine how happy our friend the congresswoman is going to be when her committee will be in the spotlight for the next six months.”

“I don’t have to imagine, sir. She’s very active on TikTok. Will there be anything else?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Mark says, and his eyes slide to me. They drop once, quickly, to my mouth, and it’s like a fist to the stomach.

Oh God.

How am I going to get through this first full week without embarrassing myself?

* * *

Three days later,I’m sitting in an office in Baltimore while Mark meets with someone in a corner suite. There’s a TV playing a financial news channel, and even though the sound is muted, the chyron at the bottom declares that Wall Street’s been rocked by the news that a weighted blanket company’s latest product—a blanket that gently vibrates as you use it, something that went viral immediately and smashed sales records—apparently has a tendency to catch fire while its users sleep. Worse, the company knew about this before the product launch and failed to disclose the risk. The talking heads on the TV are going wild about it, waving their hands—and interrupting each other if the fragmented captions are any indication. There’s talk of recalls, potential bankruptcy. A congresswoman has already sworn to investigate it—the same one I presume Mark and Sedge were speaking of the other day.

I glance down the hall to where Mark is, the suite door firmly shut, and I quickly pull my cell phone from my suit jacket pocket to confirm my suspicions.

When Mark emerges from the meeting thirty minutes later and stops in front of the TV, there’s an amused quirk to his eyebrow.

“You knew about it, didn’t you, sir?” I say later in the car on the way back to DC. “You knew when we visited their offices on my first day.”

“The company’s former COO is a member of Lyonesse. Last year, his payment was information about the blanket and anticipated sales, so I invested. This year, his payment was that they’d lied about the safety tests, so I sold my shares. As did any member at Lyonesse who’d invested with them.”

“So the visit?.?.?.??”

He stretches his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “I wanted to make sure the CEO knew it would be pointless to fight this—or to punish the former COO.”

“Was the former COO the one who leaked the safety results?”

A quick exhale, like a laugh. “No, that was me.”

“Why?”

“Why leak it? You don’t believe I’m passionate about consumer safety? Tristan, I’m wounded.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say, and that earns me a press at the corner of his mouth.

“No, you’re not, but I rather think you would be if I were really hurt, which is good of you. But alas, you are right to suspect my motives. I wasn’t happy with how they’d treated their COO—my club member—before he quit, and I felt a little vengeful on his behalf. It’s a happy accident that people are safer in their beds now.”

“I suppose giving your friend in Congress a nice soapbox was a happy accident too, sir? And the extra six hundred thousand dollars?”

“I forget you grew up here. Well then, you already know how often these happy accidents seem to occur in the Beltway.”

“It seems like they happen more often when Lyonesse is involved,” I point out.

The curve of his mouth widens, almost a real smile now. “As you say, Tristan. As you say.”

* * *

I throw myself into work,into running and push-ups and sit-ups when I’m not shadowing Mark, and when I am shadowing Mark, into the full, attentive minutiae of being a bodyguard.

I learn his work habits; learn the times he prefers to run, exercise, and eat; the restaurants he likes to frequent for working lunches; the manner in which he receives the more notable and preeminent guests of his club. I study the safety plans for the upcoming trips and begin to make my own for the few trips marked further out on his calendar; I study each and every person he meets with and commit them to memory.

And if his cool voice still works its way into my chest, if I find myself tracing the fullness of his mouth when it’s pressed into its usual delphic shape during meetings, then I hope I hide it well enough.

I can’t want him. And it would be foolish anyway, since he treats me with the same lazy remove as he did our first two days together.

If you’re worried I’ll expect more?.?.?.

Five weeks into working for him, we make a trip to Manhattan and then to Bishop’s Landing outside of it, a Hamptons-esque area with Edwardian mansions aplenty. It’s for a masquerade, and while I assume I’m meant to stay with the car and let the event security take point, Mark gives me a domino mask and makes me go inside after I help Jago secure the car.

“I need you to dance with me whenever I say,” he says as I find him again. “For protection.”

“Protection? Sir?”

The masque is a sumptuous revel of wealth and luxury, with costumes that look like they cost thousands and thousands of dollars, not to mention the flowers and candles and food. It’s like being inside a fantasy novel.

East Germany in the sixties, it is not.

Mark wraps a strong hand around mine and pulls me out onto the floor. “You see, Tristan,” he says as his other hand finds the small of my back and pulls me closer. I instinctively lay my right hand at his shoulder and feel the warm convexity of muscle there. “When you’re in the business I’m in, a party like this is a chance for people to schmooze their way into your good graces. My good graces, unfortunately, have to be paid for, but it’s not polite to say so. Being fond of dancing, with a conveniently available dance partner, makes a lovely little escape hatch from these overtures.”

The business I’m in—information, not kink. And he doesn’t need protection from violence but from awkward networking.

“This wasn’t in the job description, sir,” I mutter as I do my best to remember how to waltz. One two three, four five six. One two three, four five six.

“The job description is whatever I say it is.” A sigh. “You dance like you’re following orders.”

It’s only eight years of military experience that keep me from shooting a glare at him. “I am following orders, sir,” I point out.

His eyes flash blue under his own domino mask. “Follow them better, then,” he says, and pulls me even closer. Our hips are pulled in, his hand unyielding at the small of my back, his fingers tight around mine. “Feel what my body tells yours to do. Stop counting.”

With a deep breath, I do as he says. I watch as his shoulders dip, feel as his thigh brushes my thigh. The hand at the small of my back moves ever so slightly, a signal forward or backward or to the side, and the minute I stop thinking and let him lead, the dance becomes as natural as breathing.

And then awareness burns through me like a brushfire: the rainlike smell of him, the firm length of his legs moving so close to mine. The stretch of sun-bronzed throat above his bow tie. Our hips are close enough that it would only take a missed beat, a hesitation, for him to feel the erection lengthening in my suit trousers.

I have to look away, pretending I need to keep my gaze to the side so I don’t misstep. I don’t want him to see what I’m failing at stopping.

I’m trying not to, I want to tell him. But I think of you too much. I think of your last bodyguard, who you might have fucked, and I think the ache in my throat is jealousy.

At some point, the music ends, and we move off the floor. And despite Mark’s earlier words, and although he does keep me close, he engages in conversations the rest of the night, leaving me free from his touch and craving it all the more.