Bodie by Nyssa Kathryn

Chapter 15

Maya trailed a finger down the heavy arm lying across her waist. Bodie’s heavy arm.

She’d been awake for at least five minutes but hadn’t moved a muscle. She didn’t need to move. This was where she felt most at peace.

After they’d left the bar last night, Maya had been quiet. She hadn’t known what to say because anything that even began to explain her reaction to the police officers involved a whole lot of confessions.

Thankfully, Bodie had filled the silence with his chatter. In fact, he’d acted like nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t run to the bathroom and hidden from police like a wanted felon.

Sooner or later, Bodie would want to know the truth. She just had to hold off telling him until it was time to leave.

At the thought of leaving him, pain shot through her chest. Maya ignored it. She was going to enjoy their moments together while she had them.

She hadn’t looked at a clock, but if the sun poking through the cracks of the blinds was any indicator, it had to be about mid-morning. Plus, she felt well rested. Something that she’d rarely, if ever, felt upon waking in the last few months.

Rolling onto her other side, she looked straight at Bodie. Surprisingly, his eyes were wide open.

“You’re awake?”

Well, obviously. He’d just been so still that she’d assumed he was asleep.

The corners of his lips pulled up. “I am.”

Bodie’s hair was lightly ruffled, and he had the beginnings of a morning beard. The man was beautiful, in a wild warrior kind of way.

She was all too aware of the hand that gripped her hip. Of the leg that brushed against hers.

She ran a finger across his muscular shoulder. “What should we do before work today?”

She knew what she wanted to do. And it didn’t involve taking a single step outside this room.

A small frown marred his brow before he cleared his features. “I thought we could have breakfast together.” He paused for a moment before continuing. Suddenly, Maya got an uneasy feeling in her gut. “After breakfast, there’s something I’d like to discuss.”

Something he’d like to discuss…as in, something important. Or upsetting. Something that couldn’t be discussed casually in bed.

Trepidation crept down her spine. “Sounds serious.”

Was he going to demand a reason for her actions last night? The very idea had her brain scrambling for what she’d say.

He gently squeezed her hip. “It’s nothing to worry about, just something I’ve been needing to tell you.”

If that was supposed to make her feel better, it didn’t.

Before Maya could respond, his head dipped, and his lips pressed to hers. “Mm, how do you taste so good this early?”

She smiled, but the smile didn’t come quite as easily as it might have moments ago. “I probably have morning breath.” She definitely had morning breath. “I shouldn’t even be letting you kiss me.”

He kissed her again. “Nope. No morning breath. You taste amazing.”

Her gaze flicked to the connecting bathroom. “Is it okay if I shower before breakfast?” That should give her just enough time to completely freak out over what Bodie might have to tell her.

He nuzzled his head into her neck. Some of the tension in her chest eased. “Only if there’s room for two in there.”

Two as in—

Before Maya could finish that thought, Bodie jumped out of bed and lifted her into his arms.

“Bodie!”

She tried to be angry, but couldn’t stop the laugh as he marched them to the shower. All other thoughts leaving her mind.

An hour and a half later and they were finally sitting down to breakfast. They’d remained in the shower for quite a while. Certainly a lot longer than it would have taken had they showered separately.

The thought brought heat to Maya’s cheeks.

“What are you thinking about over there?”

Maya’s gaze shot across the table to Bodie. Damn. The man was too observant. Either that, or she was too obvious. Probably a bit of both. “That we have quite a feast this morning.”

The feast part was true. Together, they’d whipped up eggs, bacon, bagels…they’d even gone to the effort of roasting some vegetables. Well, Bodie had gone to the effort. Maya had been more an assistant in the kitchen.

Bodie gave her a knowing smile. The man knew what she’d said had not been what she’d been thinking, but he didn’t seem willing to call her on it. Thank god. “I learned a long time ago that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you don’t start with the right food, you may as well stay in bed.”

Maya chuckled. If that were true, she shouldn’t have gotten out of bed for months.

She took a bite of her egg and bacon bagel. Bodie was eating his open with a knife and fork. Much classier. “And bacon is the right food to start the day with?”

“A hundred percent it is.” Bodie shoved a huge fork full of food into his mouth. It made Maya laugh again. “Bacon and bagels for the taste, and eggs and veg for the nutrition.”

“I would argue that eggs can be eaten for the taste too.”

She actually loved eggs. Not that she’d eaten a whole lot of them lately…not since money had been an issue.

He lifted a shoulder. “I can take them or leave them. My mom used to make them every single day when I was a kid. Let’s just say I got over them.”

At the mention of his family, Maya paused. “How’s your family doing with you living in Keystone and them being in Jacksonville?” She couldn’t imagine that the distance would be easy.

“I haven’t lived in the same state as them for a while. Not since enlisting. Everyone’s pretty used to it.”

She was about to ask him how often he spoke to them when he got a question in first.

“What about you? Keep in contact with any of your foster families?”

Not one. But she chewed her food slowly, considering her words. “Some kids in the foster system find people they really click with. A family that becomes their family. I never found that.”

Sometimes, she’d thought she was close. Then she’d realize it was just wishful thinking.

“I’m sorry.”

She kept her eyes on her food. “It happens. The positive is that I have no strings. I can pick up and leave town quickly without letting anyone know. I don’t have to worry about whether anyone needs me.”

Or worry that their lives could be endangered because of me.

“Have you had any long-term boyfriends?”

Okay. Now he really was going to think she was pathetic. “No. Not long-term. I dated a couple of guys in college, but nothing ever stuck.” In other words, she’d never had anyone in her life for an extended period of time. Every single person, every relationship, had been temporary.

Just like Bodie.

She barely stopped herself from rubbing her hand over her heart at that thought.

“Well, my family will love you.”

Her head snapped up. “Your family?”

He shoved another piece of bacon into his mouth and nodded. “Yeah, wait until you meet them all. My straight-laced brother. My neurotic sister. And don’t get me started on my overbearing parents. They’ll drag you into their home and never let you leave.”

Some of the hard casing around Maya’s heart softened. The guy planned for her to meet his family? That had to mean that he saw them as more than a short fling.

Mentally shaking her head, she crashed back down to reality with a thud.

She would never meet them. She couldn’t plan a future with Bodie. She couldn’t plan a future with anyone. Hell, the guy didn’t even know her real last name, for goodness’ sake!

Bodie shoved more food into his mouth. His plate was already nearly empty. “Although, we’re going to have to work on your cooking.”

Maya frowned. “My cooking?”

He shrugged. “I saw the way you flipped those eggs. Your technique could use a little refining.”

Was he serious? “Maybe I was just mimicking your bacon-flipping technique.”

He put a hand to his heart. She couldn’t help but laugh at the wounded expression on his face. “I am an awesome food flipper, thank you.”

She lifted her bagel to her lips. “Guess I’m not too bad then, either.”

For the remainder of the meal, the conversation was light. Bodie teased Maya about her cooking, her supposed sleep talking—which she was pretty sure didn’t exist—and her refusal to eat the bagel with a knife and fork. Maya gave it all right back to him.

By the time their plates were bare, her cheeks hurt from smiling so much. They tidied quickly before Bodie took Maya’s hand and led her to the couch.

That’s when the energy in the room shifted. The playfulness of moments ago disappeared, and visible tension entered Bodie’s body. Maya suddenly remembered his earlier mention of the conversation they needed to have.

Crap. It had all but slipped her mind.

Swallowing the dread that was already crawling up her throat, Maya sat beside him on the couch and wrung her hands in her lap.

“I’ve tried to wait as long as possible to tell you this. I wanted us to build trust first.”

This was sounding more and more like an introduction to something she did not want to hear.

“I’m telling you now because I think you know me. You know that you can trust me. That I would never hurt you.”

Maya nodded. That was true. She did trust him not to hurt her. But she also knew that trust was fragile. It could be there one second and lost the next.

“I told you that I was in the military. I was a Navy SEAL. A few years ago, my commander signed my team up for a program called Project Arma. We received specialized training and drugs to help with our physical performance and recovery time.” Pain flashed briefly over Bodie’s face. “But the program was a front for something else. We didn’t know until it was too late.”

Numbness began to creep into Maya’s limbs. Like she knew where this was going but didn’t want to believe it. “What was it a front for?”

For a moment, Bodie appeared apprehensive. It was the first time she’d seen an ounce of fear on him—and she just knew whatever he was about to say was going to change everything.

“The drugs they injected into us…made us stronger and faster than ordinary people. I don’t feel the cold as much as I should. I heal quickly.”

Maya’s heart sped up. Her breaths moved in and out of her chest in quick succession.

“I can see through darkness. I hear things I shouldn’t be able to hear.”

“Like a person’s heartbeat…” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Like a person’s heartbeat.”

Maya shot to her feet and took a hurried step back.

He was just like them. Like the men who had murdered her colleagues! Snapped their necks. Thrown her into the wall.

Bodie stood too, slowly, raising both hands in front of him. “Remember, Maya, you know me. You know I’d never hurt you.”

“How did you find me?” Because now that she knew he was like them, there was no way he was here by coincidence.

“Quinn.”

Maya’s eyes widened. “Quinn, as in the reporter Quinn? The woman who worked for The New York Times, who I met in Tyler?”

Bodie nodded. “Quinn is the sister of one of my teammates, and the partner of another. She told us about you. About your connection to people like us. She wanted to come, but unfortunately couldn’t make it. I came here to help you.”

Help her? He didn’t even know her.

“Why would you want to help me?”

“Quinn and Wyatt went to your apartment in Tyler to find you, but you weren’t there. She’s worried about you. Because your enemies are our enemies, and we don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Enemies…so Bodie wasn’t aligned with the men who broke into the lab? “Those people who robbed the lab, the men who killed my friends…they’re your enemies?”

“Yes.” This time, his expression hardened. His features darkened. “My old commander, a man named Hylar, is their leader. We’ve torn down most of their organization but he’s still out there, with a few men at his side.”

Maya’s heart was racing. So much so that she almost felt faint.

“So this,” she pointed to him and then herself, “this is you getting close to me to protect me?” A sharp pain stabbed at her chest.

He took a step forward. She took another step back.

“No. The plan was to befriend you before opening up about the truth. I wanted you to feel safe first. Everything else that has developed between us happened naturally.”

Maya didn’t know what to think. The man in front of her was like them. Not one of them, but like them. Those men who were so evil, so powerful, they belonged in fictional stories.

But she hadn’t met Bodie by accident. He’d searched her out. Found her. Gotten close to her. All with an ulterior motive.

If Bodie had found her, surely that meant he could find her.

Thick panic seized her whole body. “How did you find me?”

“We tracked the location from where you sent the last email to Quinn.”

Okay. That was good. Only his team knew about that email, then, and no one else should be able to track her here.

Bodie stepped forward again. When she didn’t step back, he reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry to dump all of this on you. I know you may need some time to get your head around it.”

Time…she felt like she needed an eternity.

“The other night, when I called you because the heating wasn’t working, your clothes were damp from the snow and your hair was windswept.” It wasn’t a question…but it was.

Bodie scrubbed a hand over his face. “When I got to town, I set up silent alarms and cameras at the exterior entrance points of your home so that whenever someone came or went, I was alerted.”

He’d been watching her home with cameras?

“Just the exterior of the home,” Bodie repeated firmly. “That night, I was sitting in my car on the street when the back door alarm went off. I caught a guy in your kitchen. I chased him but didn’t catch him.”

Ice pooled in her veins.

They’d found her.

She’d thought she was hidden. She wasn’t. Not even close. Bodie had found her…and now someone else had, too.

Thoughts raced through her head. Of running. Of slipping away in the dead of night. But now that Bodie had found her—now that he’d found her—it was too late.

She chafed her arms, trying to ward off the cold. “I’m just…I’m struggling with the fact that you’ve been watching me and I didn’t know.” She avoided eye contact, finding it difficult to look him in the face. “I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that you’re like them. I’m feeling sick to my stomach at the fact that there was someone who broke into my home.”

A million different feelings rushed through her, and she didn’t know how to cope with a single one of them.

A part of her whispered that she should be happy Bodie was there to look after her. But the Bodie who stood in front of her felt different from the man he’d been ten minutes ago.

Maya wanted to ask about the future. About how he intended to keep her safe. Did he want her to return to wherever the rest of his team was? What did he plan to do about their relationship?

She didn’t ask any of that.

“I need to grab some things from my place before my shift starts.”

When she finally looked up at him, she saw the hurt on his face. The hurt and maybe a bit of fear, too. He didn’t even try to hide it.

“Of course. I’ll drive you.”

Maya nodded, feeling somewhat numb. She had been careless in emailing Quinn to say she was okay. In sending that email, she’d lost her illusion of safety.