Page 22 of Protecting Peyton

“She’s gonna be pissed when she finds out.”

“Look, is this too difficult for you?”

“Ye of little faith. I’ll get to it tomorrow.”

“If you don’t get off the phone, I’m leaving,” the woman complained.

“Thanks, man. Get back to your guest.”

“Don’t blame me when she comes after you with something sharp.”

I returned to find Peyton, phone in hand, tossing couch cushions aside. “What’s up?”

“The tracker says my AirPod is here, but I can’t find it.”

I took a different approach, and kneeling down, found the tiny thing under the couch. “Is this it?”

“Thanks.” She grabbed it and scampered off.

Watching her ass as she left was no hardship.

Later, as I lay in bed, I wondered what I would do if it turned out Peyton was an escaped prisoner, or a bail jumper. Did I really want to know? It wasn’t too late to call off Jordy.

My memory drifted to the section of the evening before the mugging, and I felt myself grow hard. With great difficulty, I pushed back the urge to rub one out to images of Peyton, to memories of the way she felt clinging to me on the bull, the way she smelled, the way she felt on top of me on the mat.

I rolled over. Nope, not going there.

Not tonight.

CHAPTER 5

Peyton

I lay awakethe next morning, wondering if anything I’d said at the hospital last night had put me in danger. Eventually, I decided the answer was no. I hadn’t shown my fake ID to either the hospital or the police. The paperwork I’d filled out had been under a different name, and the police hadn’t filed a report, so there was no record of Peyton Smith for anyone to find.

It had taken me forever to get to sleep last night. I could try to blame it on the adrenaline from the attack, or the headache it had caused, but I would only be lying to myself.

The cause had been simpler—Zane March, the current bane of my existence.

Why couldn’t Hawk Security have sent some smelly, overweight, ex-cop with bad breath to help guard Grace? Instead, the universe was testing my resolve around my rules by bringing March into my life.

I found him attractive. Hell, any woman with a pulse would. He was also a good man—that I could tell. I was drawn to him like a moth to the flame. Yet I knew if I gave in to temptation, I’d reap the same fate as the moth.

I heard the sound of March coming out of the guest room and moving down the hall. It would be creepy to come out of my room at the sametime, as if I’d waited to ambush him. How long should I give him? A few minutes at least, I decided, so I rolled over and reached for my phone.

The soreness in my shoulder told me it would take a few days to bounce back from being thrown into that wall.

I scrolled to the encrypted messaging app I used to communicate with Rhonda, the one friend from my past life I kept in touch with. And even she didn’t know my current name. A message had arrived from her last night.

Before decoding the new message, I reread our short exchange from weeks ago during the insane attacks on my boss, Grace.

RHONDA: That sounds way too dangerous. You could get caught up in the violence. What if they put a bomb in the building? You should get another job IMMEDIATELY.

ME: My boss is great, the people are nice, and it’s over now. Don’t worry about me. All is good here and back to normal.

For Rhonda’s sake, I’d fibbed. She was a wonderful friend, but delicate. The attacks hadn’t been over when I wrote that, but she was freaking out, and I’d needed her to calm down.

I tapped the button to decode the latest message and swallowed hard, reading it.