Page 5 of Protected by the Loner (The Men of Ghost Security #2)

OWEN

T he server room hums around me at five in the morning, cables coiled with military precision around the backup systems. My fingers move automatically, checking connections I’ve already double-checked.

If I stop moving, I’ll remember how perfect Vivian’s body felt over and under me, her seductive moans in my ear, the way she clung to me as I gave her orgasm after orgasm.

I’ll never forget how it felt to be inside her—and how, instead of going back to her coffee shop the next morning, I’ve avoided her for an entire week.

So I keep moving, pretending that cables and code matter more than the only woman I can’t stop craving.

“Jesus, Owen.” Jake’s voice cuts through the mechanical drone. “You said it would take a week to clear the server maintenance backlog. What about theFerdinand assessment?”

I don’t look up from the router configuration. “It’s done now.”

“All of it? The redundancy protocols, the security patches, the hardware diagnostics?” Jake steps into the server room, his sharp eyes taking in the organized chaos around me. “Fuck, man. That’s more than a week of work.”

“I need to keep busy.” I adjust a cable that doesn’t need adjusting.

“By the way,” Jake says, settling against the wall, “Izzy’s back from LA. Studio sessions went well. She says she’s up to help Vivian out.”

I look up from the cables. I may be hesitant to see Vivian right now, but it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring about her or stopped wanting her to succeed. If Izzy can work some of her magic for Vivian, that would be fantastic.

“How’s her schedule looking?”

“It’s pretty open right now, though she’s locked away today because she’s working on a new song. Izzy loves supporting local, women-owned businesses, so she’s definitely in.”

“That’s great,” I say, though I know the enthusiasm in my voice is lacking. “It would mean the world to Vivian to have Izzy’s support.”

“No problem. She’s happy to help.” Jake’s boots scrape against the floor as he moves closer. “Are you okay, Owen? You look like you haven’t slept or changed your clothes in days.”

My jaw clenches. “I’m fine.”

“Owen.” His voice carries the tone he uses when he’s not going to accept any excuses. “Did something happen?”

The cable blurs in front of me. Vivian’s face flashes through my mind—her head thrown back, lips parted as she screamed my name while I made her come.

And then come again. Fuck. It’s criminal how sexy she is and how she responded to me.

A lifetime wouldn’t be enough to get lost in her sexy curves and between those glorious, thick thighs.

I’ve never been with a woman I felt so in sync with—especially on the first night together.

“Something happened with Vivian.” The words scrape out of my throat.

Jake settles on the floor beside me. “Want to talk about it?”

My hands still on the cable. The server room suddenly feels too small, the air too thin. “We...we had sex.” My voice drops, raw. “I haven’t seen her since.”

“And that was whose decision?” Jake’s eyes narrow at me because he knows me and knows my history with women.

I meet his eyes. “Do you have to ask? It was mine.”

Jake blinks, then lets out a low whistle. “Fuck, man. Are you ever going to get past that ‘I destroy everything’ bullshit?”

Anger flares in me, then goes out just as quickly. It’s not like I don’t know that I’m the problem, but women always get mad, and I don’t know how to get past that. Hell, I’d give my right arm to know how not to make a woman mad.

“I wanted her so badly, and I was holding back so much it hurt, but I couldn’t leave.

Then she kissed me, and it was…” I pause, not wanting to compromise her privacy and dignity.

“It was unlike any other experience I’ve had.

Truly mind-blowing. And afterward...All I could think was how badly I’d ruin her life if I let her in and tried to build something with her.

You know how I am with women. So I’ve stayed away. ” I pause, the guilt eating at me.

“Owen, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re committed to your work, yeah, but the right woman will make you want to balance that.

For the right woman, you’ll find a way. She’ll help you face all your fears and help you overcome them.

You’re not Zane, brother. You respect women.

God only knows if Zane will ever meet a woman he wants to see twice. ”

“What about that girl he mentioned last year? The one from before he enlisted?”

Jake sighs and shakes his head? “He won’t talk about her these days. All I know was he truly loved her, and it didn’t survive his deployment.”

“That sucks,” I say. Zane may outwardly be a jackass, but he still deserves to be happy – and I don’t think being the team Casanova is him being happy, regardless of how he boasts about his conquests.

“But, enough about Zane. He’ll figure things out, or he won’t,” Jake says, steering the conversation back to me. “You need to give this Vivian a chance.”

I force myself to meet his eyes. “I’m not good with women. Or relationships. So why bother?”

“That’s a good way to stay single and miserable, brother,” Jake says, shaking his head. “Remember, she chose you. That has to count for something.”

Jake’s right. She let me in. She let me have her. She gave everything to me.

“I know.”

“What if you stopped overthinking and assuming you’ll disappoint her, and went back to talk to her?”

“What if she doesn’t want to see me after a week of radio silence?”

“Then you’ll know. But hiding in server rooms guarantees you’ll never find out what could have happened. All it guarantees is you staying miserable.”

I finally look up at Jake, with his easy confidence. Before Jake met Izzy, all of us at Ghost Security thought we’d be bachelors forever, for our own reasons. But now Jake is navigating his relationship with Izzy and all the demands of her career and the paparazzi with an ease I don’t comprehend.

“What if I screw up again?”

“Then you apologize,” Jake shrugs. “At least you’ll have tried. And for what it’s worth, any woman who makes you feel this way can probably handle Owen Blake at full intensity.”

The cables blur in front of me as I process his words. Vivian kissed me first because she knew I was holding back.

And damn if it wasn’t the best night of my life.

When I finally get home, I shower, put on clean clothes, and tidy up my already organized apartment. I pace between my desk and my kitchen for an hour, my laptop open to increasingly desperate Google searches.

How to apologize to a woman.

How to fix things after ghosting a woman for a week.

The search results mock me with their generic advice and cheerful optimism. None of them address the specific humiliation of having the best sex of your life, then vanishing because you’re terrified of how much you want her.

Without conscious thought, I start new searches:

Do women like intense men?

How to stop sabotaging relationships with women.

How not to be a workaholic.

The cursor blinks mockingly in the search bar. I slam the laptop shut.

Maybe Jake is right. Maybe I just need to man up and talk to her.

But why is the thought of that more terrifying than the thought of her wanting to be with me?