Page 10 of Riggs (The Maddox BRAVO Team #2)

Vanessa

I’m in big trouble. Riggs isn’t just a bodyguard anymore, he’s turning into something more. Something I don’t want to part with when this is all over.

Denver hits like a live wire—bright, dry air, big sky, and a terminal that sounds like a thousand rolling suitcases singing the same off-key song.

Chaos blooms the second we step off the jet bridge.

People, phones, flashes. Someone shrieks my name like it’s a raffle win.

Another person shouts, “Where’s the boyfriend?

” and a tide of faces tilts toward us as if one mind.

Riggs doesn’t stiffen. Instead, he narrows. It’s subtle—shoulders set, gaze deepens, hand slides into mine and that alone buys us three feet of air. “Eyes up,” he murmurs. “Walk like you belong.” His steps quicken.

His hand engulfs mine. I know we’re in a hurry, but there’s something about this man’s touch that makes me want to live here for another heartbeat.

We cut left at a frozen yogurt stand, down a service corridor that smells like cardboard and citrus cleaner, and into a freight elevator where the doors close on the shouting and the airport breathes out.

I do too. He doesn’t let go of my hand until the elevator dings and the doors slide open to a quiet slice of curb, where a matte-black SUV idles like a patient animal.

The driver steps out—tall, lean, weathered grin. “Lucas,” he says, offering a nod that reads ex-military before the patch on his jacket does. “Maddox DENVER Team. Welcome to the high altitude.”

“Riggs,” Riggs says, shaking his hand. “Appreciate the pull-through.”

“Happy to run blocker.” Lucas opens the rear door, scans the sight lines in the same unhurried way Riggs does. “Took the long way around the cameras. Your friend in a cap bought glue at Concourse D.” His mouth crooks. “Turner’s boys were two minutes behind him.”

My stomach drops and rights itself. Riggs’s hand finds the small of my back for exactly two seconds. “Copy,” he says. “Hotel, side lane.”

Lucas rolls us into Denver’s hard light like he owns the lanes.

Riggs keeps a quiet watch—mirrors, rooftops, reflections in shop windows.

I keep a quiet watch on him. It’s ridiculous how safe that makes me feel, how a charcoal shirt and a steady profile can switch the world from threat to background .

We slide into a canopied side entrance at the hotel and up through a service elevator that smells faintly of soap and rain that hasn’t fallen here.

Our floor is hushed carpet and expensive quiet.

Riggs does the sweep in our room—wedge, latch, slider, alarm—and I promise my body I’ll be vertical for ten more minutes.

I last three.

I faceplant on the bed with a noise that isn’t cute and dream for a while that the world is just warm and safe. Somewhere in my dreams I spy Riggs, holding me by a fire. A rustic cabin. A happy home.

When I blink awake, the room is dusk-soft and I’m under the duvet, shoes gone, hair tamed into not-feral.

The table by the window is…ridiculous. Silver domes, tall water, ginger ale, cut fruit, a florist’s idea of a salad, sliders, fries, some kind of tiny tacos, chocolate cake that looks illegal, and— oh God —soup. He ordered me soup.

Riggs is at the window, speaking low into his mic.

“…copy. We’ll adjust ingress. Send me the internal camera placements for tomorrow’s hall and have Jax drop a box at the vendor door.

” He taps his earpiece off, turns, and somehow the look he gives me makes something in my chest expand and settle at the same time.

“You were out cold,” he says. “Figured we could either eat real food or you could take a nap and then I could convince you to eat real food.”

“You got soup,” I say, sitting up, suddenly aware that I drooled on a five-star pillow. “You’re dangerous.”

“Tomato,” he confirms, like that clarifies my entire life. “Grilled cheese with a respectable crunch. Sliders, because I like my chances. Cake because I like being right.”

I pad barefoot to the table, lift a lid, inhale. “Marry me,” I sigh at the bowl.

He snorts. “Eat first. Propose later.”

We sit side by side at the window table like we’ve done this a thousand times—knees bumping, shoulders brushing, his thigh a steady line of heat against mine. The city below pulses neon over grid. The sky is big in a way Saint Pierce forgets.

I dunk my grilled cheese into tomato soup and groan indecently. He looks at my mouth like it’s a tactical problem and then reaches for his slider like he’s saving us both.

“Tell me why you would propose to a man for him ordering you soup.”

I smile. “My father used to make me grilled cheese and tomato soup whenever I was sad. It’s like he knew it would cheer me up.”

Riggs nods. “And it did?”

I smile wider. “Always.”

“Where’s your father now?”

I glance down for a beat, staring into my soup like it holds all the answers. “He died when I was young.” I set my sandwich down. “Cancer. It was horrible watching a strong man turn weak right before your very eyes.”

“Lost my mother to cancer too.” His eyes gloss over. “It sucks.”

I appreciate him for not telling me he’s sorry.

So many people give me the pity look and tell me how sorry they are for my loss.

Not Riggs. It’s because he’s been right where I am too.

“It fucking sucks,” I say with a small chuckle.

“Now, tell me something funny,” I say, because laughter is my favorite armor and also because I want to hear what his version of funny is.

“Jax once named his drones after Motown singers and forgot to change the labels before a PD demo,” he says. “Chief standing there while I’m calling ‘Aretha’ off a roof like it’s normal.”

I choke on a crouton. “Please tell me there's a video.”

“Rae has everything,” he says, deadpan. “She’s building a retirement plan out of our mistakes.”

We eat too much. We argue about the correct fry-to-ketchup ratio (fifty-fifty, obviously), about whether soup is a meal (yes), about whether the cake is worth the sugar crash (absolutely).

He pretends to be grumpy when I feed him a forkful.

But I know he isn’t. When he slides the ginger ale closer without comment, my chest does the expanding/settling thing again.

“Movie?” he offers, like this is a thing we do.

“Funny,” I say. “No explosions.”

He gives me a look that says that’s a hate crime and then queues up the kind of smart comedy that makes both of us laugh out loud.

We migrate to the bed without discussing it, plates banished, lights dimmed to one lamp that turns his jaw into something sculptors dream about.

I curl into his side because of course I do.

He fits an arm under my shoulders, hand on my far upper arm, solid and easy.

The movie throws a soft flicker across his knuckles.

I try to pay attention to the movie. It’s hard to hear punch lines when I can hear his heartbeat under my ear.

“This is cheating,” I murmur. “You smelling like citrus and laughing with your chest while pretending you’re not cuddling me.”

“Not pretending,” he says. “And the citrus is your shampoo.”

“Don’t ruin it,” I whisper, and tip my face up.

He looks down and the movie keeps talking but we don’t.

Something in his eyes shifts from protect to want and that’s all it takes.

He leans in and kisses me slowly. There’s no rush, no audience, no tactical motive.

His mouth is warm and certain, tasting faintly of ginger and salt.

The kiss builds the way good music does—layers, a rhythm we find together, a tease of tongue that makes my pulse trip.

My hand curves over his jaw, slides into his beard, and he makes a small sound when I tug lightly and I feel it low in my stomach.

He rolls, not on top, not away—just enough to brace above me, careful, always careful.

The weight of him is a kind of safety I didn’t know I needed.

His palm cups my cheek while the other splays at my waist, thumb rubbing slow circles through the thin cotton of my T-shirt like he’s learning a pattern he plans to keep.

I hook a knee over his thigh and he exhales against my mouth.

“Vanessa,” he says into the kiss. It’s both a warning and a prayer.

“I know,” I breathe, kissing him again because the word doesn’t mean stop. It means I’m right here with you. I open for him and he takes what I offer, deepening the kiss until the room spins out of control.

He kisses the corner of my mouth, my jaw, the spot below my ear that turns my brain to static.

Heat pours through me, steady, velvet, not frantic.

His fingers skim under the hem of my T-shirt, just at my waist. I arch into his hand and he swallows a sound that makes me want to undo every button he owns.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs, forehead pressed to mine.

“Not a chance,” I whisper. “Tell me to breathe.”

He laughs, and it’s rough and wrecked and my new favorite thing. He kisses me again, slower, and the movie becomes pure background to the way he kisses me with patience, to the way my hands memorize his back.

We break when oxygen starts filing HR complaints. He rests his weight on his forearm and stares at me like I’m a sunrise he didn’t plan for. I smooth his shirt where I wrinkled it and don’t apologize.

“I don’t want to stop, but I know I should,” he whispers.

Something happens deep within my chest. “Don’t stop,” I say back, confident in the fact that I want this man more than anything else this world has to offer.

His eyes widen, and then turn pitch black. “You’re so fucking pretty. I see why the whole world wants to follow you.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “Why I want to follow you.”