Christmas with Her Bodyguard

There was no reason at all for her to obey. So why did she?

And then he’d closed the gap completely and they were standing there, in front of each other, and she had no idea what to do next.

Myles, by contrast, suffered no such doubts.

He reached over, thrusting his fingers into her hair and hauling her to him, to his mouth. Then he kissed her.

And, oh, how he kissed her.

He didn’t just press his mouth to hers, he claimed her, invaded her, branded her with every slide of his tongue and every graze of his teeth.

Her entire being exploded, like the most dazzling firework display on New Year’s Eve. She wasn’t sure when she’d lifted her hands but somehow they were on his shoulders, her fingers biting into the thick, corded muscles, revelling in Myles’ strength, his size.

Like coming home.

Briefly, images of that awful tape, and the way she’d been with the press those years immediately following the most humiliating year of her life, flooded her brain.

She should tell Myles the truth, she thought weakly. Surely basic pride, self-respect, should mean she’d want him to know who she really was.

But what if he didn’t like it?

He’d claimed to despise the brash, indiscreet, classless girl she’d reinvented herself into those years immediately after the sex tape had come out. He’d told her that she epitomised everything he despised. He’d been only too quick to accept the media lies that this was the girl she still, albeit to a moderately lesser extent, was.

Yet here he was. On the one hand telling her that he loathed her. On the other, kissing her as though he couldn’t get enough of her. Would never get enough of her.

He certainly hadn’t kissed the quiet, innocent, pure Raevenne like this.

Which made her wonder which girl he was really attracted to.

And then there was the fear that she would tell him what had really happened, and he wouldn’t believe her. Sadness spiralled down inside her like the helicopter seed from a sycamore tree.

As much as people were all too eager to accept her first, scandalous reinvention from innocent girl to man-eating, party-loving vamp, it had never suited their salacious appetites to see that only a few years later she’d reinvented herself again into a focussed, private, junior doctor.

It was too deliciously scandalous to keep seeing her as the girl she’d been for those few brief, lost years. The girl who had made a sex tape with her bodyguard to boost her ailing family name, to bring in money, after their father’s death.

And yet she put up with it. All the press’ lies and all the public’s feigned shock, because, frankly, she’d wasted enough years trying to win her father’s approval when he’d been alive. She’d be damned if she was going to waste more years trying to win over a public who thrived on the perceived drama.

But if Myles did that...? If he refused to see past his prejudice and only saw her as that girl, she feared it would torment her far worse than anything else. Better not to try or know than to try only to be disappointed.

Placing her hands on his chest, she braced herself. It was distracting, how little strength she suddenly seemed to have. How instead of pushing him away, her fists were curling around his lapels, and pulling him closer.

Briefly, she wondered where all this was leading.

Would it shock Myles to know that, even though she’d slept with Justin that night because she’d imagined herself to be in love, believed him to be her soul mate, she’d never once felt as alive as she had with Myles?

Probably.

Probably worse.

Yet still she clung to Myles, his mouth crushing hers so exquisitely, and hers responding so completely. As though every part of her had been waiting for him to do it all night.

As he kissed his way down her body, searing her skin with his mouth as he dropped kisses down her neck, across her breasts and nipples, which were so tight they ached, an

d over her belly, she closed her eyes and let the shivers of pleasure ripple through her body. He might as well have been worshipping every inch of her, and as she stood there, practically naked and otherwise exposed, she realised that he didn’t make her feel ashamed, or small, or cornered, the way Justin had.

On the contrary, Myles made her feel powerful, desirable, all woman. It was a heady experience. She’d never ached for anyone the way she ached for Myles.

If only she knew how to act on it. How to show him.