Unexpected (The Protectors 10)

I couldn’t help but let my eyes slide over him. He was so very different when he was angry. There was always a certain stiffness to Nash, like he was constantly on point. But now, he just looked… dangerous.

And my traitorous body responded to that.

The man was beautiful, no doubt about it. He had a hard body that his suits never failed to hide. His black hair was short and cut in such a way that I suspected he just had to run his fingers through it after taking a shower and he was good to go. But it was his eyes that had all my cylinders firing.

They burned.

With a brittle anger, yes.

But with something more too.

Something that proved he felt things. That he wasn’t the robot I sometimes unfairly thought of him as.

And right now, in addition to the fury, was the hurt I’d seen outside. It wasn’t the predominant emotion, but it was there all the same.

Hurt I’d caused.

“Nash—”

“Excuse me,” he cut in, then he pushed past me.

“Nash, wait, please,” I said. I grabbed his arm, but when that didn’t stop his forward motion, I did something that I thought might break through his cloud of anger.

“Jonathan, please.”

Using his first name had been a means to try and diffuse some of the tension, but all it did was ignite the burning embers of his rage. He suddenly grabbed me by the arms and forced me back several steps until my back hit the door behind me. The move didn’t actually hurt, but it shocked me into silence.

“Don’t call me that!” he snapped. “You don’t get to call me that!”

At thirty-four years old, more than twenty years my junior, Nash exuded strength, but I instinctively knew he wasn’t using it all on me. He had my arms pinned against the door next to my body, but not hard enough that I couldn’t get free if I really tried.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly, hoping to deflate some of his anger.

He held me there like that for a moment before something subtly shifted. I knew what it was almost instantly, because it had happened once before. We’d been in almost this exact same position, only it had been the car at my back instead of the pantry door.

But this time there was no mistaking what I was seeing.

Because Nash was doing nothing to hide it. Whether he was too far gone in his anger or some other emotion entirely, I wasn’t sure. But I did know what it meant when his gaze dropped to my mouth. I knew what it meant when his hips moved just a little and his hardness brushed mine. I knew what it meant when his breathing hitched up when he tightened his hold on me just a little bit more.

And God help me, but I welcomed it.

All of it.

I didn’t even care that it should have shocked me to learn the man was gay, or at least very, very curious. I also didn’t care that he was too young for me or that I was his superior or that what he was doing went against every rule in the proverbial book – his and mine. All I cared about was that I no longer felt caught in a constant battle of feeling only pain or feeling nothing at all. I actually felt like… me.

When was the last time that had happened?

The answer to that question was like someone dumping a bucket of ice water on my head.

“Nash,” I managed to say, my voice shaky as my body warred with my brain. “You have to let me go.”

It was his turn to get dumped on by the metaphorical ice water. He lurched back, releasing me like I’d burned him. Realization of where we were, who we were, seemed to return to him in one fell swoop and he opened his mouth as if to say something, but then just shook his head. He looked truly horrified, and I felt like shit for being the one who’d thrown him so off-balance with my surly attitude.

“Nash, what I said outside – I only meant that I’ve decided to give up the agency’s protection altogether, not you specifically.”

He seemed not to react to the statement at first. A good fifteen seconds passed before he straightened and took another step back. “That’s your choice, Mr. President. But I would urge you to reconsider. The agency can find you someone who’s more… conducive to your personality.”

It should have irritated me that he was falling back on formality so easily, but I could tell he was still struggling with the near miss. I had no clue what was bothering him more, though. The fact that I was now clued in on what was quite possibly a big secret, or the fact that he’d been about to throw his precious protocol to the wind so he could follow through on what his body had so clearly wanted… on what I had so clearly wanted.