Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

“You’re going to make me guess? Are you saying if I weren’t there, you wouldn’t have approached those guys?”

“They approached us. Kind of. I think. Anyway, no, that’s not what I’m saying. If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t have had so much to drink in the first place. I wouldn’t have felt brave enough, or safe enough, to let my hair down the way I did. But I did because I knew you were there to take care of us.”

She could tell that he had regrets about what he obviously perceived as his failure to protect her last night, so she might as well be honest and give him this.

“You feel safe with me?”

She made a soft, anxious sound in the back of her throat, and averted her eyes. She sipped from her freshly squeezed orange juice, before speaking again. “Well, yes. That’s your job, isn’t it? To make me feel safe? And I do when you’re around. And that’s why I had maybe a little too much fun last night.”

“Okay. Uhm…okay, good. That’s great.”

He was rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. An uncharacteristically nervous gesture that drew her eye. Which meant that her gaze was naturally diverted to the plump bulge between those thighs but this time she lost the battle against staring and found herself unable to look away.

Do not complicate your life with this, Victoria. Why did her inner voice have to sound so much like her dearly departed nan? It was disturbing. But not off-putting enough to drag her eyes from that impressive bulge. His hands stopped agitating up and down his thighs and the cessation of movement snapped her gaze to said hands, which had curled into tight fists on his thighs.

She cringed and forced herself to divert her focus to his face.

His gaze was narrowed and searching, but he seemed distracted, like he was trying to figure something out. She held her breath as his too-observant gaze scraped over her face, leaving her feeling raw and vulnerable. She was convinced he was going to call her out for staring at his penis.

“Uh…” He paused and seemed to gather his thoughts before continuing. “Don’t disappear like that again.”

She exhaled slowly, relieved that he appeared too preoccupied to have noticed her earlier indiscretion. “I didn’t.”

“Regardless.” There was an attractive, unfamiliar husk to his usually brisk voice, and she didn’t know what to make of it. “Don’t do it. And never accept drinks from random strangers. Especially not clearly drunk guys on the street in the middle of the night. That is basic common sense.”

“I know that, but like I said, I wasn’t practicing my best judgment. I thought it was water.”

He sighed and shook his head impatiently.

“Keep your shoes on the next time you decide to dance in the streets.” This time the words were practically a whisper. “There could be broken glass and nails on the ground.”

“What do you mean, the next time I decide to dance in the streets? Wait, are you saying I danced in the streets? In public? In the middle of the night?”

She stared at him in absolute horror, hoping that he was teasing, but—despite the twitch at the corners of that sensual mouth and the sparkle in his arresting eyes—he remained absolutely serious.

“I am saying that. Yes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Feel free to ask your friend.”

“Oh, my God. How mortifying.”

“It wasn’t that bad, some kind of waltz from what I could tell.” Still no inflection in that voice but there was a definite lift to those lips and yep, his eyes were full on smiling at her now.

“I can never show my face in public again,” she declared somewhat melodramatically.

She screwed her eyes shut for a few seconds and when she opened them, his gaze was oddly tender, and his face had softened. He lifted a hand from his thighs then, as if compelled to do so, reached over to brush an errant curl from her cheek. His touch was whisper soft. Barely there. But earth-shattering nonetheless. Because he had never touched her in any way that wasn’t purely impersonal before.

He jerked his hand back as if he’d been stung and pushed to his feet with almost indecent haste.

“I think that’s all,” he said sounding winded. He loomed above her, arms folded across his chest, legs apart. “I’ll pick you up in the morning. Usual time.”

“R-right.”

“Eat the banana, it’ll make you feel better. And, uh, if you have to go out later, let security know, and they’ll contact Chance.”

Chance Griffin was her alternate CPO.

“Okay.”

“Promise me.” The words were urgent and unexpected and oddly impassioned.

“Promise you what?” she asked confused by his mood.

“That you won’t go out alone.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“And that you’ll eat the banana.”

“Cross my heart.”

“Right. Okay.” He tipped an imaginary hat at her and took a step backward. “I’ll see you in the morning.”