Page 36

SINCLAIR

For the next few days, Denver and I train more.

But without the role play. It’s as though now the tension has snapped between us; I don’t need it anymore.

I’m able to fight with him just for the opportunity to show him how far I’ve come since he started teaching me.

Because as much as I would have once hated to admit it, I love seeing the pride in his eyes each time I almost kick his ass.

But it’s only ever almost. Each time I’ve come close, he’s managed to overpower me and get me beneath him again. His favorite place for me to be.

That’s when I kiss him.

We’ve had a lot of sex on that gym mat.

I smile as I lean against the side of the cabin watching Monty sniff around happily in the undergrowth while Denver chops firewood, shirtless, in a pair of faded jeans.

“You okay?” he asks, wiping sweat from his brow with his forearm and placing his axe down as he notices me.

“I am now. Don’t stop.”

He shakes his head, the closest thing to a smirk I’ve ever seen on his face as he picks the axe back up and continues.

There’s more than enough wood for the fire in the evenings, which is the only time he and I are really in the front room.

The rest of the time we’re either training, cooking in the kitchen, or in his shower or bed together.

I clench my thighs as he lets out a grunt, his ab muscles rippling as he chops a huge log in half down the center. I know who this firewood is for really. And that’s what makes him look even sexier as he goes to so much trouble to chop it.

“You okay, Boy?” Denver says, leaning down to pat Monty as he trots over to him. Monty whimpers at him, so Denver scoops him up, holding him to his naked chest as he fusses him.

“Wait until I tell Zoey about this,” I mutter quietly as I take in the scene that looks like it’s from a hot guys who love animals calendar. If I weren’t taking the contraceptive shot, then I might have just gotten pregnant.

Denver places Monty down and he trots over to me.

“I’ll start to think you love him more than me,” I say, looking down at him.

He wags his tail and I crouch, rubbing his ears. “You like it here, don’t you, baby? Walking in the forest, eating all the good treats, sleeping in front of the fire all day long.” He licks my face, and I giggle.

Denver walks up to us, brushing his hands off on his jeans. “I’m going to go and clean up, then I’ll make us dinner.”

“I can do it,” I say as I stand, unable to stop my eyes from lingering on the dips and grooves of his pecs.

“Make dinner?” His brow creases. I’m a terrible chef and he knows it. He’s the one who’s made all of our meals.

“Clean you up,” I tease.

He runs his tongue over his lips. “You want to come wash me, Princess?”

“I want to come in the shower with you so you can do that thing to me against the wall again.”

“That thing?” he rasps.

“You know the one.” I giggle as his eyes darken.

He grabs my hand, wrapping his fingers around it protectively, the same way he did after he caught me out with Julian weeks ago. Everything about home and the city feels so far away here.

I grin as he marches me inside the cabin, locking the door behind us.

He pauses in the living area to throw another log into the fire where Monty promptly flops down onto the rug in front of it.

Then he pulls me along behind him toward his bedroom and I have to rush to keep up with his large strides.

I shouldn’t even call it his room anymore. It’s ours. I’ve been sleeping in here with him every night since what happened between us. I wake up cocooned inside his giant arms while he sleeps beside me with his gun beneath his pillow.

It’s funny how quickly you can get used to something like that.

And now I make full use of the huge erection he wakes up with every morning.

This morning when he opened his eyes, I was already sinking down onto it.

I know he was awake long before I straddled him.

This is Denver. He wakes from the slightest sound, always on high alert.

But he pretended to be asleep as I trailed kisses over his chest and jerked him off before climbing on top of him.

I love that he lets me be in control sometimes.

Because most of the time he’s on top of me, huge and powerful between my thighs as he makes me come over and over.

And I love that, just like I loved when he flipped me over after I’d ridden him for a bit and thrust into me from behind, his giant hands curling around my hips as he told me to come for him.

Just like that, “Come for me, Princess.” And I did.

I always do.

He turns and faces me as we enter the room.

I bite my lip, my nipples already pebbling against my vest. I hope he sucks them again when we get in the shower.

Drinks the water off them like he did yesterday, groaning about my taste and how he can’t get enough.

I loved feeling the vibration of his growl travel over my skin when he had his mouth on me.

I reach down to peel my vest off, but his gaze has dropped to my sneakers. I follow it, finding him scowling at my undone laces.

“You know, at the funeral, you looked at my shoes the same way you’re doing now. It’s obvious you hate these sneakers, and you looked like you wanted to throw my heels I wore to Ashton’s gallery show in the trash too. Do you have an aversion to all footwear, or just mine?” I tease.

“Just yours,” he says, his attention still on my feet.

“Oh.”

He drops to one knee by my feet and lifts my foot, pulling my sneaker off. I place one hand on his shoulder for balance so he can remove the other. He looks so serious as he rubs my foot before placing it down onto the carpet.

“Are they that bad?” I ask, confused. The sneakers were a gift from Gucci after a shoot I did with them. I think they’re pretty.

“The laces come undone too much. I don’t like anything that could hurt you.”

His face is so serious as he looks from my sneakers back to my feet.

“Even back when it was the funeral?” I ask. It’s more than two years since my stilettos sank in that mud and almost made me fall over. Sometimes the grief makes it feel like only yesterday. But Denver wouldn’t remember it as clear as I do, surely.

He runs his strong fingers over my ankle, massaging it.

“Even back then?” I ask again.

He looks up and holds my eyes. “Always.”

My breath hitches as he stands.

“Do you think everything I’ve done for you has been because it’s my job?”

“Well, I was… I mean, I am your client.”

“No.” The sharp cut of his jaw catches the light as he says that one word so softly I almost miss it.

“No?”

“You mistake me choosing to do things for you because I want to, for me being at your beck and call because it’s my duty. I could have stopped and treated you like any other client.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because you’ve never been just a client and I think you know that.”

“Ever?” I ask.

He looks away, shaking his head with an exhale like he can’t believe I just asked him that.

I’m stunned. I know things have changed between us since he became my bodyguard.

But he’s talking about before. He’s talking about all the years he’s worked with my father, barely looking my way, hardly ever speaking to me.

All those silent car rides when he had no choice to pick me up because Sullivan or my father had asked him to.

“Then what was I? Before we came here, I mean. Who was I to you?”

His eyes meet mine and the gold glows in them. “You’re Sinclair,” he breathes out, saying it like it has meaning, like I should understand.

“But who is that?” I whisper, emotion clogging my throat. The last couple of years I’m not sure I even know. Some days I could swear I’ve almost faded into nonexistence. Everything has felt so… numb.

He slides his hand around my neck, the pads of his thumbs pressing gently over the racing pulse in my neck. “Someone beautiful.”

I roll my eyes. “Cameras are all about light and how it hits your face. I have a face that photographs well, that’s all. I’m plainer in person, I’ve been told that more than once.”

“By who? Idiots?” Denver grumbles. “It’s not the camera that makes you beautiful. It’s the light in your eyes, the one in your smile.”

I give him a half smile. “You’re sweet.”

“I’m accurate,” he huffs. “But I didn’t mean on the outside. I meant the way that you look after others when you’re hurting. It takes someone special to do that.”

“I don’t.”

He fixes me with a warning look that tells me not to argue.

“It’s easy to be happy for others when you’re happy yourself.

But to be happy for them on your darkest days…

that takes something special. And you have that, Sinclair.

You are that. You hired your father a dating coach to find him love because you knew he needed it.

You’re angry at your brother for having a suite at The Lanceford because you want him to find someone too.

You convinced Zoey to meet Ashton and now they’re getting married. You don’t see it, but I do.”

“But you called me a spoiled princess when we got smoothies.” I pout, loving the tenderness that’s crept into his eyes as he gazes at me.

“I called you a princess. Not spoiled. You added that yourself.”

I open my mouth to argue, then close it again.

He’s right. He’s never once called me spoiled or treated me like he thinks I am.

Not like a lot of people I meet do. I know what they must be thinking, supermodel with a billionaire father, heiress to one of the largest family-owned diamond businesses in the world.

To the outside world, I have it all.

To Denver, I’m Sinclair. And that’s all I need to be. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Tell me something about you.”

“Me?” He arches one perfect, thick brow.

“Anything. Something I don’t know.”

His eyes pinch like he’s considering how much to share with me.

“My parents died in a car accident when I was five. My grandparents took me in and raised me.”

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I had… I had no idea.” My heart clenches painfully. How can I have spent so many years with Denver in the periphery of my life and know so little about who he really is?

“My grandparents were great. You don’t need to get upset for me. I was loved.”

The deep sigh that accompanies his words has my breath stalling.

“They were great?”

“They’re both gone now too. I lost them both when I was eighteen.”

I swallow down the yelp that bursts from my lips. “I’m so sorry.”

He strokes my cheeks with his thumbs like he’s trying to ease my pain. Like I’m the one who deserves to be comforted.

“I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”

“That’s the thing,” I whisper, holding his eyes. “I do worry about you. I’m starting to worry a whole lot.”

His eyes soften. “I told you, worrying is my job. Now, are you going to come and wash my back for me like you promised?”

I blink at him and fight down the emotions bubbling inside my stomach. He wants to move on. It must be so painful for him to talk about, and as much as I want to ask more, to understand more, to know him better… now isn’t the time.

I manage a slow, teasing smile as I tilt my head to one side. “You want me to?”

“I do.” His eyes darken. “So…?”

Heat fires low in my belly from the way he’s looking at me like he can’t wait to get my clothes off.

I trail my fingers up his bare chest. “That depends.”

“On?”

“On whether you’ll do that thing to me again?”

“Make you come on my fingers?” One of his dark, thick brows arches.

“Uh-huh. And then your tongue… and then your…” I curl my hand around his swelling dick, grateful there’s no sadness in his voice anymore, only lust.

“Get in the shower, Princess,” he growls, his lips hovering over mine.

I press a gentle kiss to them, squeezing his cock again and making him hiss.

“Now,” he adds.

And I swear he smiles.