Page 34 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Tristan

The monitors flicker in my hotel room. Twelve feeds.

I focus only on her angles, only on her.

I should look away. Give her privacy. But I can’t.

Not after what happened. Not after I pulled her half-dead body from the bath.

She said she didn’t mean it, and I believe her.

I do. But belief doesn’t make the images go away.

Birdie is asleep now. Her hand twitches against the blanket, restless even in her dreams. She’s fighting something in her sleep, like she always is.

I watch the curve of her jaw, the way her lips part and then close again.

The way she curls into herself. The way her toes twitch.

The way she pulls the sheets over her face like they can protect her.

I tell myself it’s for security. That I need to monitor her for signs of distress. But if I’m honest, it’s worse than that now. I’m studying her. Memorizing her. Obsessing over her. I’m slowly turning into the thing I’m supposed to protect her from.

I’ve become worse than her stalker.

An email pops up on the screen. It’s from the techs at Monarca.

The final and complete list of the people who worked and studied at the school in Miami when Birdie was a teacher.

Janitors. Staff. Teachers. Students. Volunteers.

Substitutes. The list is long, and the notes are longer.

Background checks, employment history and red flags.

They’ve color-coded it for her to review.

Green for cleared. Yellow for low threat. Red for urgent.

The hum of electronics is the only sound in the room. I lean back in the chair. I should go over the list myself before I give it to her, but I can’t keep my eyes off of her. That’s not going to help.

I shove my phone in my pocket, grab my laptop and, slowly, open the connecting door to her suite. Watching her through a screen isn’t enough. If I’m going to get any work done, I need to be in the same room with her.

The carpet muffles my steps. Her room smells like lavender, her favorite color, her favorite scent. I sit in the armchair by the window, far enough not to disturb her, close enough to hear her breathe.

The laptop balanced on my thighs hums softly. List still open, I go over parts of it, names blurring together. I switch my gaze toward her instead.

She shifts under the sheets again and turns her face toward me, half-covered by a strand of hair. Her brow furrows like she knows I’m here. A chill climbs my spine. Does she sense me?

She lets out a sound—a soft, broken moan—and I’m up before I realize it. Standing over her. One hand gripping the laptop. The other curled into a fist I can’t unclench. Her eyelids flutter. She’s waking.

What would I say when she sees me here? Who am I going to be today?

Her protector or the man who keeps crossing lines, convincing himself it’s in her best interest?

The man who would kill to have her in his arms, to taste her lips, to fuck every hole she has and carve every sound and face she makes to memory until the day he dies?

Her eyes blink open, hazy with sleep and shadows. For a moment, she looks confused, caught in the quiet limbo between dream and reality. Then her gaze locks onto me.

She doesn’t speak. Just stares. Her lips press into a line hardened by suspicion. She draws the sheets tighter around her body, as if only just remembering I shouldn’t be there.

I wait for the regular question, what are you doing here , my mind ready to deliver a lie.

“You’re watching me sleep,” she says. Not a question. An indictment.

Shutting the laptop screen, I put it on the chair. I can blurt out so many rehearsed lines. Security check. Distress monitoring. Protocol. Instead, I opt for the truth. “Yes.”

“Because it’s protocol after saving a principal from drowning in a tub?”

“Because the monitors aren’t enough. They don’t let me hear the sound of your breath. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane. Without it, everything inside me starts to unravel.” I lift my shoulder in resignation. “It’s crossing a line, so many lines, but I don’t care anymore.”

She sits upright. “Lucky for you somno is my favorite kink.”

Heat creeps up my neck and cheeks. Birdie has no filters. “Concha de la lora. What the…”

She chuckles. “You’re no stranger to my inappropriate word vomit. You cross the line, and I tease back. It’s our thing.”

“Our thing…” We have a thing. I like the sound of that.

“The way you blush, though, gets me every time.”

“Gets you how?”

A mischievous smirk plays on her mouth, plays with the strings of my heart. “In all the right spots.”

I imagine just that. All her right spots, raw and buzzing and wet. “Yeah?”

“You blush to my smutty words like a virgin, and that… Nothing beats a virgin man trope who has been saving himself for the woman he can’t have, not even a masked stalker who kills to have her.”

All my blood pumps into my cock. There are words, and there are Birdie’s words.

They’re spells written precisely to enchant my soul…

and cock. At this moment, the spell is a voice that says, “Take her. Take her now.” It’s a dark mantra that doesn’t stop until all I can think about is taking her right here in that bed right now, fucking all her right spots over and over again until she passes out.

I take a deep, loud breath, gathering every ounce of willpower I have to turn my brain back on. “You think I’m a virgin?”

“You blush like one but no. I don’t think a guy like you can stay abstinent for twenty-seven years, not even if he wants to.”

“A guy like me?”

“Tall, dark and handsome, tattooed, pierced , scarred with a tragic backstory, protective and successful, who rides a bike and smells like trouble. You’re a classic— Tristan, are you okay?”

My breath gets louder. I’m moving toward the bed. Yes, take her. She’s not yours, but take her anyway.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Like what? An animal closing in on prey? A man with the hardest boner he’s ever had ready to fuck you senseless regardless of the consequences? I’m towering over her now.

Her smile vanishes, and fear jumps into her eyes. She leans back.“Tristan?”

Take her now. No one can stop you. Make her yours. Only yours. I don’t fight the voice. I don’t tune it out. I’m only moving closer, bending my head and—

My earpiece blares. I blink fast as if snapping out of a trance, swearing. Brandon is talking. “What?” I huff.

“Sir, we have a breach.”

I grab my laptop fast and open it. “Where?”

“Vineyard decoy cabin.”

“The one where you told the detective Birdie would be.” I cock a brow at her, and she blanches.

“Yes,” Brandon confirms. “Someone tried to break in. They used a jammer, disabled the perimeter cameras, but we got a shot before they did.”