Bodyguard by Melanie Shawn

50

Gage

I didn't like this.I didn't like it one fucking little bit. Watching Savannah flirt — even though I knew it was fake – was plain and simple torture.

It had been one thing watching that perv Crypt build a cartoon version of her that was basically her as a porn star. That had been hard enough to just stand there and take without saying anything. Or putting a damn stop to it. But I just kept reminding myself that, as torturous as this was in the moment, it was going to serve the greater good. Her safety. That was the ultimate goal, and if this was the best way to accomplish it, I couldn't get in the way of that.

But now, watching her with a headset on making suggestive comments to Barlowe's little prick of a son – I didn't think I was going to be able to stomach it much longer.

I had thought that I was hiding my feelings pretty well, but apparently not, because Bear turned to me and said under his breath, his voice tense and angry, "Do you need to go wait in the car?"

Fuck. That was the kind of thing that a mom said to a toddler having a tantrum in Walmart. Not the kind of thing that one trained operative was supposed to have to say to another. I needed to get it together. And fast.

I shook my head, and apparently that was pretty convincing, because he nodded and turned back to the monitor.

I tuned back into the conversation, determined that I was going to listen to it through the lens of the operation, and not the lens of what I felt for Savannah.

"Okay, baby. That sounds great," Savannah was saying. "I'll see you at ten o'clock tonight. And, baby?"

She paused, apparently waiting for some kind of response. When she spoke again, her voice was lower and even sultrier. "I can't wait."

Crypt hit a few keystrokes and the gameplay disappeared from the monitor. "We're clear," he said.

Savannah turned to me. "Okay," she confirmed. "Ten tonight. It's on."

I nodded.

This whole thing would be over soon. One way or another. Either we would both be dead, or we'd be free. Free to be together, and free to live our lives however we wanted.

But one thing was for damn sure—whichever way the ball bounced, I was never...never...going to just stand by quietly and listen to her flirt with another man again. I didn't give a fuck if he was the punk son of a gangster that I was about to kidnap. It was never going to fucking happen again.