Page 40 of Protecting Mr. Fine

By the time I got to the spot on the gravel path where I needed to turn around, my head was clearer. What I needed was a plan. A plan to keep from fucking things up even more. A plan to keep from kissing Zane again.

But also a plan to get things back on track between us because… I missed him, damn it. I missed seeing his sweet smile. I missed his gorgeous voice as he hummed distractedly to himself while he waited for the toaster to pop. And I really,reallymissed the way it felt when he’d curl up beside me on the sofa at night and let himself relax.

I might never be able to have Zane’s lips against mine again, and I would surely never have him in my bed, and that sucked. But the idea that he might be so upset he’d no longer want me in his life, that I might have lost his trust and, with it, the privilege of keeping him safe, that I was no better than his cousin—yet another person he should have been able to count on butcouldn’t—was fucking intolerable.

It took the duration of the cool-off walk back to the house before I came up with an idea that could work. It would take a miracle to create the kind of conditions that would make kissing Zane unattractive, but I just might have come up with one.

ELEVEN

ZANE

It’s hard to stay mad at a bear. Underneath that ursine stubbornness, bears are surprisingly charming creatures, constantly playing and testing themselves. This play isn’t just for fun; it’s how they learn to survive in the wild. But it also makes it nearly impossible to hold a grudge against them for long.

—Bear Facts for Insomniacs, Episode 27

I was still in shock. It had been twenty-four hours, and I couldn’t stop replaying the kiss.

Ryan Galloway had kissed me.

He’d more than kissed me—he’ddevouredme.

And I’d loved every minute of it.

My heart thundered as I remembered the details. The way Bear’s large body had blocked the wind. The feel of his warm hand on the back of my head. The fact that he didn’t pull away when I kissed him back but instead stepped closer, had put his arm around me andpulled me tighter. The thick length of the hard bulge in his pants nudging my lower belly before pulling away.

The dizzying moment when I realized none of it was in my imagination.

Guitar in hand, I exhaled and stared out at the sun setting across the water. The sunroom was warm and silent. Only the echoes of the G major 7 chord filled the space around me as I tried to piece together the fragments of melody that had been tumbling around my brain since Barlo. But though the house was mostly silent, my mind was in turmoil.

I’m sorry, Bear had said.

Are you?I’d challenged, hoping against hope he’d say he hadn’t been—that, in fact, he’d wanted to do it again.

He hadn’t taken it back, though. Instead, he’d doubled down and reiterated just how sorry he was.

Apparently, kissing me was a regrettable activity.

Well, he could take that apology and shove it up his ass. Bear didn’t get to lecture me about people like my cousin using me for their own gains and then try to pretend the sexiest fucking kiss in recorded history hadn’t happened, as if my feelings didn’t matter one bit.

He wanted my honest emotions? He wanted me to be real with him and notfine?

Then he needed to know I was angry. That I was mad as a fucking wasp. That I was a whole nest of wasps, in fact, and they buzzed with restless intensity under my skin.

What was I supposed to do with this feeling? Of wanting him, getting a single taste of him, and then learning there were no more tastes coming?

And how was I supposed to act normal and pretend it hadn’t happened?

I tried to be reasonable and calm myself down. Was Bear even gay? I still didn’t know for sure. Had the kiss been some kind of failed experiment for him? Or was he so wonderfully and annoyinglydedicated to his job that he thought kissing me might somehow compromise my safety?

If so, he was dead wrong. I couldn’t be in the same room with my bodyguard anymore without feeling nervous and hot. Without feeling like my face and ears were going to melt off from the humiliation of wanting someone who didn’t want me back.

Without wondering if kissing me had been like getting a free sample of something that looked and smelled amazing at the grocery store and realizing it tasted like dog shit.

That was me. I was the dog shit.

And yes, my brain could argue against that conclusion perfectly well. Millions of fans around the world found me way more attractive than dog shit. I knew that, objectively. But there was nothing objective about this feeling of rejection from the man I was most attracted to. From the man I most wanted to like me back.

I was like a pathetic emo teenager, sitting alone in the darkening room, strumming my feelings out on a guitar.

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