Page 41 of Guarded from Sabotage

Then the kiss grows deeper. His tongue plunges inside my mouth, tasting and exploring.

Dante groans low in his throat.

Need coils deep inside me.

His fingers tunnel through my hair. I clutch his biceps—oh, they’re even better to feel than to look at—as I pull myself even closer to him.

The kiss might last for seconds or minutes or hours. Time loses meaning.

When we finally pull apart, we’re both gasping for air. But kissing Dante is better than breathing.

“Sarah,” he murmurs, his gaze dark with emotion. He strokes my cheek, his fingers cool against my flushed cheek. “That was…”

“Amazing.”

A tiny, satisfied smirk lifts the corners of his lips. “It was. Did I make up for last night?”

“Yes.” I snuggle into his chest, notching my head under his chin. “You absolutely did.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

DANTE

Why was I fighting so hard against this?

For all my hesitations, being with Sarah is even better than I imagined.

I haven’t lost focus on my job, or her case.

Even when we’re apart, I can still concentrate on work because I know she’s safe at the Blade and Arrow property, protected by a top-of-the-line security system and highly-trained Special Forces operators.

When we’re together, not only can I protect her, but I can do everything in my power to make her happy. I can watch movies with her while I massage away the knotted muscles in her back. I can bring her gifts that make her smile, like the set of measuring spoons with book quotes on them I found at the little bookshop in Seguin. And I can hug and kiss her until she’s breathless and those tiny worry lines etched across her forehead smooth away.

Initially, I had a moment of worry about living so close to each other. That the close proximity might push our relationship to move faster than she—we—are ready for. I’ve dated women who lived in the same town as me, but just down the hallway? Would it be too much pressure?

No. Not in the least.

Partly because Sarah’s independent, and she likes having time to herself. She’ll let me know in the morning over breakfast—in the week she’s been here we’ve gotten into the habit of sharing coffee and breakfast after my AM workout—that she has plans to work on her resume, or practice yoga with Erik, or spend some time in the library reading.

And the other reason it’s not too much pressure? Because Ireallylike spending time with her.

When we’re together, I’m happier. More relaxed. The ever present worries—will I live up to the role Cole trusted me with, can I make this branch of Blade and Arrow a success, how much longer until Sarah’s case is solved—don’t go away, but they fade into the background.

When I’m with Sarah, everything just feelsright. Like after thirty-eight years, I may have found the person who fits me, just like my parents did decades ago.

Plus, with Sarah so close, it’s so much easier to see her. I don’t have to drive to San Antonio to take her out on a date. I just walk down the hallway. And when we say goodnight—we haven’t spent the night together yet, and that’s one thing I’mnotgoing to push—I know she’s only minutes away if she has a nightmare and needs me to comfort her.

Does it suck not being right there to hold her when she has a bad dream? Absolutely. The first time she called me at two A.M. to shakily ask if I could come over to help her get back to sleep and I showed up to find her pale and red-eyed with streaks of tears drying on her cheeks, I wanted to insist on staying with her every night.

I didn’t, obviously. That’s a decision she needs to make. But when she calls, nothing could keep me away.

It’s almost scary how much I care about Sarah already. Like if I lost her, I’d lose a part of myself.

Not that I have any intention of that happening. Not by hurting her like I did the night she kissed me, anddefinitelynot by allowing anyone else to hurt her.

That’s the one bad thing. The person behind this sabotage of Sarah’s life is still out there, and progress on her case isn’t going nearly as fast as I’d like. Even normally patient Matt is frustrated by the roadblocks he keeps coming up against—nested VPNs and proxy servers and hacked databases plus a host of other techie things I don’t fully understand.

What we do know is this person isgood. Everything they’ve done has been meticulously planned, so it seems like we’re always two steps behind. Like the security cameras outside Sarah’s office, which we hoped would help us identify the man who attacked her. But when Matt got a hold of the footage, it was clear someone had hacked into the security system and put it on a loop, so all we saw was hours of an empty parking lot.

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