To Love and Protect (Must Love Diamonds 4)

He reached out a hand to help her up. She frowned at the gesture, but gripped his fingers before the thought of refusing fully formed. Apparently, she’d take any excuse to touch him.

He tugged free and turned away the moment she was on her feet.

Hurt stabbed again, followed by resentment. “How is kissing me irresponsible?”

When he kept heading for the door, she followed and raised her voice. “The least you can do is answer me.”

Dev swung around so fast she jerked back in surprise.

His gaze bored into hers, dark and angry. “It’s irresponsible because when I was kissing you, I wasn’t thinking of anything else but burying myself deep inside you and the hell with the rest of the world.” Heat flared in his eyes, and he clenched his jaw. “I have to stay aware.”

The blunt words had her heart pounding so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of her. “Isn’t that why you have the security system?”

A fierce frown darkened his expression. “No, Shelby. I did not install security so I could fuck around on the job like your other useless bodyguard.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she protested.

“You are my responsibility,” he ground out as he jabbed his thumb into his chest. “Your safety has to be my number one priority. I can’t get complacent while this bastard is still out there. If something happened to you because I wasn’t good enough—” He abruptly snapped his mouth shut. His gaze held hers for another heart-thumping second, and then he spun back to the door. “I can’t let my guard down for a second. Neither should you.”

She didn’t try to stop him as she sucked a deep breath into tight lungs. A whole kaleidoscope of emotions had her reeling. She’d been kissed before, but never like that. Like he wanted to devour her. The throb of his arousal against her leg had triggered an answering pulse of need deep inside.

Need that currently had her fighting the urge to go after him. But those telling words just before he’d snapped his mouth shut shed a ray of light on his confusing surges of anger. She’d always assumed he was mad at her, but now she wondered if it was directed at himself. Was he really that worried he wasn’t good enough to do the job?

Maybe he needed her as much as she needed him. Needed to know she trusted him—with her life—and had every confidence in his ability to keep her safe.

When she ventured from the room, she was surprised to realize it was after nine p.m. Dev was at his dresser in his bedroom, and she hovered in the doorway.

“You okay if I still sleep in here tonight?”

“I figured you would.”

That didn’t really answer her question, did it? Still, since it wasn’t an outright no, she didn’t question further before brushing her teeth and returning to slip beneath the covers. He took his turn in the bathroom, then shut off the light before getting into bed.

Shelby took a breath to speak at the exact moment he shifted onto his side, facing away from her. Pressing her lips together, she kept the words inside, hands folded over the comforter across her stomach.

It felt like she lay there for hours, staring up at the dark ceiling. In reality, it was probably more like five or ten minutes before she finally whispered, “Dev?”

No answer.

“You still awake?”

A grunt from his side of the bed held a note of annoyance.

That kept her quiet for another few minutes, until under the cover of darkness, she found the courage to ask the question she’d agonized over for so long. “You had nothing to protect me from that day in my bedroom, so why did you react the way you did?”

“I had plenty to protect you from,” he growled.

“Like what? You just left,” she accused. “As if I didn’t matter to you at all.”

He turned his head in the dark, then rolled over onto his back. “You mattered, Shelby.”

“Didn’t seem like it when I didn’t see you again for nine years.” Old emotions tangled with new to clog her voice. “We used to be friends.”

“Walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he admitted gruffly.

“Then why did you?”

“I was twenty-one. You were only sixteen.”