Tangled Like Us (Like Us 4)

She considers, silently.

I glance at her cold beer bottle. My joints lock. It strikes me that she’s been drinking, and I should’ve factored in alcohol. Fucking unprofessional. “We should wait until you’re sober—”

“I’ve only had one beer. I’m not even buzzed.” Her cheeks are rosy, and she tentatively checks on the families again. Maybe even glancing at Farrow and Maximoff.

I don’t follow her gaze to confirm. I’m only looking at her and the empty beach on my nine. “If now’s a bad time, you can tell me, Jane.” It’s my job to alleviate pressure in her life. Not add to it.

Jane thinks for a moment. “We can go for a short walk, you and I.” She must really want to hear what I have to say.

The private beach has been secure all day and night, so I don’t need to lead the way like I would if there were crowds.

Jane is able to journey ahead, but I keep pace and flank her left side. I click my mic at my collar. “Thatcher to security, I’m Oscar Mike. Jane is going for a walk on the beach.”

Jane glances curiously at me after I release my hand on the mic, but she thinks against speaking and turns her head forward.

Yeah, I need to unfuck this.

It’s driving me insane.

Akara sounds in my ear. “Copy.”

Keeping the team informed of changes in positions is important. Only a couple bodyguards have consistent problems with this rule.

Like Farrow. Figuring out where he’s fucking off at during regular days is like playing Where’s Waldo.

The more distance we add from the firelight, the more darkness descends over us. I turn my head to Jane.

She looks over at me.

We say nothing.

I’m trying not to think anything I shouldn’t.

She focuses ahead again, and my flexed muscles contract. I keep the pace she sets. We’re several meters away from her family. Tension snaking around us in thickening silence. But the rush of the sea grows louder as we leave behind the chatter.

We’re alone together, but in my line of work, it’s not uncommon at all that I’m alone with Jane. But it’s not usually under the pretext of “can we talk?”—and I need to fucking talk.

My jaw feels wired shut.

Jane appears the furthest thing from annoyed when I’m quiet, and that stuns me. She just looks me over with that mounting curiosity, and she scuffs sand with her bare foot. Humidity expands the volume of her hair, and wind carries the strands.

“Can you hold this?” Jane lifts the beer up to me.

I take the bottle, and she ties her frizzing brunette hair into a low pony. We drift closer to the water. Making boot-prints and footprints in the damp sand.

I glance strongly back at Jane. Being assertive is my natural state, and I just say it, “I want to make this right.”

Finished tying her hair, her arms drop.

I hand the bottle back.

“Merci,” she says, her features harder to read in the dark. “After you apologized to Farrow and Maximoff, they forgave you.”

I could believe Farrow and Maximoff would give me another chance when I didn’t deserve one because they’re both good men. It didn’t shock me, and it doesn’t surprise me that Jane is still conflicted.

Her loyalties are to them. As they should be, and I hate that I’ve put her in a position where she felt like she had to cold-shoulder her own bodyguard.

I fix my earpiece and tuck a few strands of hair behind my ear. “I meant I want to make this right with you.”

Her eyes slowly widen, and we come to a stop. “In what way?” Her shoulders curve forward, goosebumps pricking her skin. We’re far from the fire now, and she didn’t bring a jacket or blanket.

I unbutton my shirt.

“Oh—” Her lips part. “I can’t take your shirt, Thatcher…you’ll be terribly cold.” Her breezy voice and distinctive way of speaking is like honey dripping down my throat.

It’s my job to make her life safe.

It’s not my job to imagine tasting her words against my tongue while I push deep inside—don’t .

Don’t.

My muscles sear as each tendon contracts.

Before I became her bodyguard, Banks warned me that being around Jane would be hard on my end. Figuratively.

And physically.

I didn’t believe him. Not at the time.

I don’t look away from her, and I keep unbuttoning. “I’m not cold, Jane.”

A shiver snakes through her body. “Are you positive?”

“I’m positive.” I reach the bottom button, a gust of air sweeping my hot skin.

She watches me take off the shirt, her gaze stroking the ridges of my abs and carved waist. Blood pumps through the veins in my cock.

Fuck.

Jane.

Not in that order. Not in that fucking way.

It’s not my job to think about her in any setting outside of client-bodyguard relations.

It’s not my job to think about what she’d taste like if I spread her legs. I have pictured it, and I’ll do a hundred deadlifts as punishment for even thinking about her pussy.

Unprofessional.

Un-fucking -professional.

It’s not my job to feel a fucking thing other than duty. Responsibility. Devotion—workplace devotion.

Not even as intrigue lights up her eyes.

I stay rigid.

“Before you worked in security,” Jane says, “did you always gravitate towards button-downs?”

I thought she was about to say, did you always gravitate towards me?

That wouldn’t make sense. I met Jane when I first became a bodyguard at twenty-two. She never knew me before security.

This is an easy question to answer. “Button-downs, no.” I pull my arms out of the sleeves. “Before this job, I only wore them for formal events like mass, weddings, and funerals.” I pass Jane my black shirt, and I take her beer, our hands brushing for a second too long.

Her neck tightens with a shallower breath, and she speaks quickly. “But security has no uniforms, except for some events. Correct?” She fits her arm through one hole.

I nod firmly. “The Tri-Force encourages bodyguards to dress professionally.” For the families.

Jane pulls one more arm through. Stretched-out sleeves are baggy on her limbs, and my shirt hangs to her thighs. She clears her throat. “So…how are we making this right?”

We?

“Me,” I correct. “I fucked this, not you.”

She tilts her head like I’m revealing more of myself. Something beneath the hard exterior.

I try not to wear my gui

lt. That’s for me to bear. “First,” I say. “You should be able to speak openly with me. If you want to know how I feel about Farrow or the whole situation or anything about me, I’ll tell you. I’m going to give you more transparency.”

She deserves that.

“Starting when?” she wonders.

“Now.”

A brighter smile pulls her freckled cheeks. “You’re opening Pandora’s box by giving me free reign to all questions, you know?”

I nod.

I’m not even close to afraid. But that lack of fear almost stokes fear . Because I must want Jane to know more about me. Under the circumstances and the rules of being her bodyguard, being too personal is wrong and feels fucking impossible.

Jane wraps her arms up in my shirt, and she puts her nose to the collar and breathes in.

I stiffen. Don’t think about her like that.

She notices that I just noticed her sniffing my button-down. “Um…you smell wonderfully.”

My dick strains against my slacks. I’m a brick wall. “Thank you.”

Jane reaches for her beer that I’d been holding, and she lands on a question. “How do you feel about Farrow rejoining security? Are you upset?”

I shake my head, almost instantly. “I’ve always wanted him to be on the team. I voted for him to stay last December.”

Back when I was a lead and the team found out Farrow had been sleeping with his client, Akara and I voted for him to keep his job. We were two votes out of three in the Tri-Force, and majority wins.

“I remember. I thought…perhaps your feelings had changed since then, and now you wished you’d voted for him to be fired.”

“No, I stand by my decision.” I notice how she’s straining her neck to keep eye contact with me. “You can look away if it’s hurting your neck.”

Jane smooths her lips together. “Um…” She blinks for a long second. “I’m quite fine…”

I can’t discern much else in the dark, but I’m trying.

“Is there a second?” she asks me.

I frown. “What?”

Jane holds my gaze. “You said, ‘first, you should be able to speak openly…’ I wondered if you wanted to make things right some other way too.”

She’s perceptive. Especially when her whole attention is on you. It’s like you’re the center of the fucking universe.

Like now.