Hot Protector(72)

She couldn’t stop the shaking, nor could she manage to tell him it wasn’t herself she’d been worried about. Stupid man.

“Didn’t realize it was like that,” Ian said, and Chase’s body tensed marginally.

“Like what?” he challenged, and Sophie told herself to get it together.

She gulped in a breath, pushed herself back. Chase let her go, but she sensed it wasn’t easy the way his hand tightened for a moment in her hair and then slipped free.

Ian was looking at them both with interest. “Never mind.” He sat down on a chair and kicked his feet up onto the small table, his hands going behind his head.

“You can go now, Black,” Chase said. “I got this.”

Ian just smiled. “Nope, can’t do that. Brett and I have an obligation to see you onto that plane.”

Chase went over and dropped the bag he’d been carrying. She knew it contained weapons, and she knew he would store them in the car tomorrow morning when they left it in the parking lot.

Then he turned and sank down on the couch in the small living area, throwing his arms along the back of it and sighing. He looked tired. “If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want, HOTtie.”

Sophie blinked. Did Ian Black just call Chase a hottie? He was a hottie, but… weird.

The guy named Brett sat down on a chair nearby. “HOT? Really? Fucking cool, man.”

Chase glanced at her, his mouth hardening. “Yeah, really.”

“Heard about that when I was a SEAL. Thought it was a myth.”

Sophie decided she’d had enough of the cryptic weirdness. She wasn’t tired, but she wanted to be alone for a while. “Well, if you guys are going to sit around out here and trade war stories, I’m taking the bed for a few hours. Good night.”

She went into the bedroom and shut the door. The voices kept droning on as she sat back on the bed. There was a television in the room and she turned it on, keeping the sound low.

A few minutes later, the door opened and shut and then Chase was there, coming over and propping a hip on the edge of the bed.

“You okay, Soph?”

She told herself to stay right where she was. To play this cool. But Chase was here, and she wasn’t ready to give him up. She put her arms around him, pressed herself tightly to him.

His arms enfolded her, one hand at her back and the other going into her hair and cupping her head.

“I thought I would never see you again,” she whispered. “I thought Grigori’s men would kill you.”

He bent and put his lips to her hair. “Takes more than a couple of Russians to kill me, I promise.”

“I was going to come back for you, Chase. Ian stopped me.”

His fingers tightened in her shirt, her hair. “I told you not to do that, baby. I told you to keep going.”

She pushed back and searched his gaze. “I know—but you wouldn’t abandon me, so how could I abandon you?”

He brought his hand around to her face, his thumb gliding over her lip, pressing lightly before dropping away again.

“You’re sweet, Sophie. So fucking sweet. I want another taste, and another and another. But this has to stop now. We have to stop.”

She sucked in a pained breath as she took his hand and brought it back to her mouth, kissing his skin. “I know,” she whispered past the razor blades in her throat. “There’s no future. We both know it… But Chase, if you ever wanted to try—” She swallowed, the words sticking there.

“I killed a man tonight,” he said, and her heart throbbed.

She knew what he did, knew it came at a cost. But she also knew it was a necessary part of his job. He kept people like her safe, and he had to do terrible things in order to keep that promise.

“I’m sorry you had to do that for me,” she said, and he made a shocked sound in his throat.

Then he was clasping her shoulders, sliding his hands up to cup her cheeks. “Sophie, it’s not your fault. It’s what I do, and I’d do it again if I had to. I… Fuck, I just thought you should know what kind of man I am, what kind of things I do. You don’t want to be with someone like me, Soph, even if it were possible.”

She gripped his wrists. “Are you crazy? The kind of man you are is amazing and honorable. Protective. Loyal. You’ve done more for me in the past few days than anyone ever has. If you think I don’t know that or appreciate it—well, you don’t know me then.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, took her lips in a hot, searing kiss. “I know you, babe,” he said when she was breathless and aching for more. “I know you.”

He said stuff like that and her heart melted. And, God, she was afraid it was true. He really did know her in a way no one else did—or ever would. He pulled her head down and kissed her forehead softly, tenderly.