Page 34 of Protecting Mr. Fine

Alone with me.

In the solo hour.

The slow tempo and soft tone did its magic and soothed me deeper into sleep. I felt the ghost of Bear’s arms around me. Smelled traces of him on my pillow. Heard the soft caress of his voice calling mebaby.

The dream ended, but the sense of him didn’t. It carried through until I awoke, remembering.

Thankfully, I was alone. Bear had been part of my dream. If I’d woken up in Bear’s arms again, like I had in Atlanta, I would have been mortified. Twice in the span of a week? He would have called a therapist and canceled the next leg of the tour for sure.

I let out a breath and remembered one of the moments from the dream. The fleeting thought that I could spend time working on new music. It was true that I’d had a song on my mind. The tune was almost there, but the words were still elusive.

After showering and dressing in comfortable clothes, I had to admit to being a little relieved we weren’t in New York preparing for a bunch of interviews. Instead, it was another beautiful clear day at the edge of the world.

I breezed out of my bedroom and made my way through the open main room to the kitchen, where Bear was already standing, his hip propped against the counter while he sipped coffee from a mug.

“Morning!”

He glanced at me over the rim of the thick ceramic. “Mpfh.”

“Sleep okay?”

He peered at me while I walked past him to take in the view through the wide windows. The sun glinted on the water across the fjord.

I didn’t wait for an answer before exclaiming. “This place is amazing! Look at the views. Was it like this when you were here before?”

When he didn’t answer, I glanced back over my shoulder to see him shaking his head. “It was full summer. Very green and warm. Still gorgeous, though.”

Bear’s voice was rough with sleep. I noticed he was barefoot. The denim of his jeans brushed across the arched tops of his long feet on the hardwood floors. There was something vulnerable about seeing him barefoot and drinking coffee while the morning sun lay shimmering stripes across the kitchen around him.

I turned back to the view outside to keep from staring at him. Or jumping him. “I’d ask if you miss Ventdestine, but I’m sure you do, even if just for the winter weather. Hard to biathlon in Southern California.”

“I miss the skiing, sure, but I don’t wish I was still there.”

I glanced over my shoulder again. “You like living in LA?”

He shook his head and took his time swallowing another sip of coffee before explaining. “I like my principal.”

I blinked.

He grinned. “You’re a hundred percent less high-maintenance than Asger Salling and the rest of the royal family.”

“Oh.” I resisted rolling my eyes as I moved over to the coffeepot. For a minute, I’d thought he’d meant something more. That he’d, like,likedme-liked me. Which was ridiculous.

“They probably set a low bar,” I said, imagining that protecting one musician paled in comparison to the challenge of protecting a king.

“They do.”

“And I’m probably way less likely to be shot at,” I said, remembering how he’d come to work for them in the first place and how King Asger had been killed after Bear had left.

Bear’s eyes darkened. “You’d better be.”

He was obviously worried about the threatening email and the target stamp, so I tried to reassure him. “Bear… if they wanted to hurt me, they could have done it already. If they got close enough to stamp me, they were close enough to hurt me. And they chose not to.”

He didn’t say anything, so I scrambled to fill the silence as I poured coffee into a mug. “They’re just trying to scare me. Maybe they’re trying to make me beef up security. Do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

I busied myself adding cream and sugar when a thought came to me. “Maybe it’s a security company who wants my business. What better way than to show they can infiltrate my current security detail?”

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