Page 20 of Tangled Like Us

Hard lines crease his forehead, and he sets the water on a shelf. “I didn’t mean to overstep—”

“You’re not at all,” I interject. A much larger smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “This is the Cobalt way,” I answer with pride. “It’s what I know. We’re given choices. Every choice has costs and benefits, and it’s up to us to choose accordingly. She’s made the cost of working here much higher so that I’ll quit on my own terms.” I tie my hair back into a low pony. “It’s a mental chess game.”

His gaze drops down me for one of the first times.

Ever.

As though I’ve just bared a new layer of myself.

Hairs prick on my arms, his roaming gaze like static electricity. Nearly compelling me forward in a dream, and I want to ask more, so many questions crowding me at once.

If you could be anywhere, would you still choose to be here?

What were you like as a teenager?

What made you join security?

What’s your dirtiest, wildest fantasy?

When did you lose your virginity? Did you enjoy your first time?

Do you ever think about me?…of course he does.

I shift my purse to my other shoulder.

He’s my bodyguard. He has to think about me and my personal safety.

Perhaps he feels the same bottled-up sexual tension that writhes around, aching to be unleashed, but I wouldn’t dare ask. To use his word, I’m notoverstepping.

Thatcher suddenly diverts his gaze, his fingers to his earpiece before speaking hushed into the mic on his collar.

So I steeple my hands to my lips and stare down the disastrously enormous shelf of silks and sheer fabrics. “It’s not checkmate yet,” I say to myself. I’m not a sad little cub about to be eaten.

I’m a motherfucking lion.

Thatcher finishes with comms, arms crossing like usual. “You’re sticking this out then?” he asks, his tone not disclosing an opinion of his own.

“I think so.” I eye the fabrics. “I just hope I can figure out what fabric would work so I don’t completely destroy my mom’s new line. She’d do anything for me, and she’ll include whatever ugly dress I construct in her collection.” I take a breath. “This most definitely isn’t my passion, but I don’t know what I want.” And I’m curious, of course, so my eyes drift to my towering bodyguard. “What do you think?”

Thatcher stands with commanding stillness. On-duty. But when I’ve seen him off-duty, he’s just as stern. “I think you’re twenty-three,” he tells me. “You don’t have to know exactly what you want.”

I tip my head, my gaze falling in thought. Did he not know what he wanted at twenty-three? Or does he just think I’m young? But he’s been going strong as a bodyguard for six years. It seems he knew what he wanted when he was my age.

“You think I’m young,” I say aloud.

He hardly blinks. “I think you’re twenty-three.”

My pulse hops a measure. God, I’m too fond of how cut-and-dry he speaks. I saytoo fondbecause I shouldn’t be drawn to him when he’s not divulging much at all, you see. Yet, I nearly sway forward. “That, I am.” I nod. “…good ole twenty-three.”

Thatcher pins his gaze right onto my eyes.

I smooth my lips together, face heating as I recall the first time I met Thatcher Moretti. It was long ago, back on his official first day as a bodyguard. His client was Xander Hale, and I’d serendipitously been at the Hale house during their first interaction.

Thatcher was only twenty-two.

Good ole twenty-two.

And after he greeted me, these were the first words I ever uttered to him: