Page 24 of Valentine's Miracle

I sure as heck didn’t wake him up form his beauty sleep.

“What are you doing?” The question comes out as more of a demand, and he isn’t the least sorry about shaving a couple of years off my lifespan with his knocking.

“Working?” I was going to answer with the obvious, but the energy radiating off his skin wipes any thought of confidence away.

“My job is to protect you, not play hide-and-seek. Don’t make this more complicated than it already is; just cooperate and work with me.”

I open my mouth but close it at the last second to come out with something to counter his statement.

“You were tired,” I end up saying. “I was just going over some documents, but I didn’t want to disturb any of you.”

“I’m your bodyguard. It is my job to protect you, and I can’t do that if you don’t let me,” he points out.

My eyebrows raise. “I can’t make you do anything, Silas.”

“You keep wanting to disappear from me.”

Whatever transpired during the time I left the room to now, I want to know what made him come to this conclusion. I’m always with him, and I don’t think I have left his sight for five minutes other than using the restaurant and showering.

“Are you still dreaming?” I ask; that suggestion triggers a glare from those green eyes.

He’s not dreaming, but I must admit that it feels nice to know that he worries about me even if it’s stemming from his job.

“I was gone maybe fifteen minutes, I’m okay, and I’m not kidnapped. You don’t have to worry. I was about to send a text message to you.”

That’s almost the truth. I was going to shoot him a text, but I got busy into the document, and I forgot about it.

He’s not having my excuse when his lips peel back with a snarl. “You want to avoid me.”

“I don’t,” I promptly deny.

Silas was an overthinker in his youth, and it didn’t change when he became an adult. I like that part about him, he would rather be too careful than too reckless, but he does have that hasty side of him.

“You try to leave when those vultures surrounded me, you went with Fyodor without consulting me on it, and you left this morning before I knew it.”

Good thing I can explain all of it. “I was buying something, and the ladies’ perfume was too strong for me. About leaving with Fyodor, he’s my friend, and he had something to discuss with me. This morning you were dead to the world, and I didn’t want to wake you up as you were more exhausted than the other day.”

The edge of his green eyes softens and the frown on his lips smooth away, and Silas sighs with a hand raising to cup my face.

Red flag number one. He doesn’t voluntarily touch me unless it’s to prevent me from getting hurt. Last night’s sleep must have been something for him to have a change in his personality, and I stop breathing to prevent my stupidity from breaking this soft moment.

“You stay where I can see you.”

His hand tightens, squeezing painfully around my jaw as a choked yelp falls from my lips. It came out of nowhere, and I have no time to address the situation when he keeps my eyes locked with his.

Nothing about Silas is soft. That’s red flag number two. I should have known that this brute has more ulterior motives than to fulfill my fantasy of a pink and glittery moment.

“Understand?”

I nod, groaning at the pressure shifting on my jaw. His strength is not a joke, and I think he can lift cars up if he wants to by how strong he is. This is a one-eighty degree change to the sixteen-year-old boy who was thin and lanky, but now he’s a burly caveman with no manners at all.

Thank goodness, a knock breaks the tense silence, and he lets go of me. Just as I rub my jaw with a pout and move to the door, he yanks me back by the elbow and clicks his tongue.

“Stay.”

“I’m not a dog,” I murmur, moving my lips to tug on the surrounding skins to see if any had fallen off from his unnecessarily rough gesture.

He’s aware of his own strength, and it’s proven by how much power he protects me from the wild crowds of convention-goers. Silas just wants to demonstrate it to me on a personal level to remind me that he can truly hurt me if he wants.

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