Bodyguard by Melanie Shawn

8

Gage

As Savannah steppedout of the bathroom, I gritted my teeth. Fuck. With her dressed in my oversized sweats, it was easier for me to keep all the blood in my body from rushing to the wrong head than it had been when she’d been wearing only a towel. But just slightly.

And I needed my wits about me. She was the most important client I’d ever had under my protection. By far. This wasn’t the time to get distracted. This wasn’t the time for my first-ever fuck up. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Client. Yeah, right. That’s all she is. Keep telling yourselfthat.

And there were additional complications, as well. Things that made this more involved than my run of the mill protection jobs.

Things besides our history. And besides the way her hips had gently curved under that towel.

For one thing, I was a lone wolf on this job. I didn’t have the logistical and operational support of any of the companies I freelanced for.

And for another—this was a two-pronged mission. Obviously, her immediate safety was the primary objective. But the secondary, and still vital, mission was to neutralize the threat altogether. After all, protecting her for the night—or a week, or a month, or a year—would do no good if dangerous men were still after her.

No. I was going to need to find a way to end this, once and for all. Because just like I had no intention of losing her to an assassin’s bullet, I also had no intention of losing her to the bureaucratic bowels of WITSEC. Not again. And fucking especially not after they’d proved themselves to be incompetent.

I’d fucking use my underground connections to change our identities and go into hiding with her myself before I let that happen.

But that wasn’t ideal. Living a life where we were looking over our shoulders every minute of every day—yes, it was better than death. And it was a helluva lot better than being apart. But it was still just surviving. Not living.

My motto was—you want a job done right, do it yourself. And that was exactly what I planned to do. I was going to finish this, or I was going to die trying.

I gestured toward the bed. “Get in. Get some sleep. I’ll be sitting right here.”

She nodded, but still looked worried. Hell, of course she looked worried. Her whole world had fallen apart, and her life was in danger.

I wished I could take her in my arms. Tell her how much I’d missed her, how I was going to protect her at all costs, that she should just let me take all the worry, all the stress. That she had nothing to worry about because I was going to take care of everything.

But I couldn’t. The words stuck in my chest. All I could do was give her a stone-faced stare and tell her I’d be sitting in the armchair while she slept.

I hoped that was enough to give her at least a little relief.