Page 12 of The Bodyguard and the Alpha
Elie soon dropped into a light sleep. I lay awake. Treasuring the feel of her body against mine even though my cock refused to go down. It didn’t matter. Keeping my mate from moving away was more important than my own desires and she was hurt so there was no way I would act on them. And as I listened to her soft breathing, I noticed something else. Inside my head, Beast was calm. No snarling. No anger. At first, I didn’t recognise the warmth that filled my chest. Then it came to me. He was… happy. For the first time I could remember, my Beast was calm and content. And so was I.
Chapter 11
Electra
I’d fallen asleep sitting up cuddled up next to Bastien. Despite the hard floor and the aches in my body, I had slept deeply. His much larger body had surrounded mine and I couldn’t help myself. I just… relaxed. Every molecule inside me told me that I was safe. In the arms of my boss, a dangerous predatory Alpha a foot taller than me, I knew he wouldn’t let danger come to us. It was a strange reversal of our roles. Instead of me being the protector, I was suddenly the vulnerable one who needed protection. If any of the Humans First goons hurt me, I wouldn’t heal the way he did. I had training and skills in close combat but without my magic I was much weaker than usual. And right now, the feeling of being small and in need of protection was pushing all my buttons. I’d trained to be a hard ass, but it didn’t come naturally to me. I liked soft, pretty, feminine clothes. I liked to cook and take baths with scented bubbles. So, while I wouldn’t admit it, being held in the arms of a man who was strong enough to protect me from danger spoke to some primitive part of my brain. My inner cavewoman was dancing with satisfaction. Him mate. Him strong.
Cocooned in my own little bubble of safety my muscles loosened. I softened in his embrace, my body moulding to his hard one. I knew Bastien worked out with the security team but I avoided the gym when I knew he would be there. I’d turned him down for the sake of our professional relationship and my secret fantasies were just that. Secret. I denied myself the opportunity to peek at his body. At the muscles I knew had to exist under his tailor-made suits. So I’d never seen his pecs up close. And while I wasn’t technically seeing his muscles now, I was feeling them. Oh boy was I feeling them all right. If my hands hadn’t been restrained behind my back, I would have traced the muscles with my fingers. Muscles that flexed under my gaze. My mouth watered. No, bad Electra. No licking.
Then his huge dick poked into my hip. My core instantly heated, as sexual tension suddenly buzzed between us. Flustered, I’d tried to pull back, but he didn’t let me. He dragged me close to him using the leg he’d tossed over my mine. Bringing me right back to the heavy bar of his cock. And when he told me to ignore it and said “please,” I couldn’t fight him. But I’d had to recite my Oath of Service, all twenty-six verses—backwards—before the hot flush that had engulfed my body eventually settled, allowing me to sleep.
When I woke up, I was no longer beside him. If only. But no, in my sleep I’d managed to climb onto his lap, even with my arms manacled behind my back. So when I lifted my head from my pillow, drool oozing from the side of my mouth and met brown eyes, alight with amusement, I discovered that my ‘pillow’ was Bastien’s chest. Ohmygods.
“I’m so sorry!” I launched my body sideways, forgetting completely about my bruised shoulder, which protested its unhappiness. Sharply. I rolled onto my back, panting through the pain.
“Electra. Stop hurting yourself.” Bastien’s voice was harder than I’d ever heard it.
“Roger that. Next time I’ll just stay on top of you, shall I, sir?”
“It would be better.”
I remembered how his body felt underneath mine. The biceps under my hand. The firm chest. No. It wouldn’t be better. Not one bit. It made me want things I couldn’t have. I opened one eye. “You’re kidding, right?”
His handsome face was drawn into a scowl. He didn’t look like he was kidding. “No, I’m not fucking kidding.”
I just gave him a flat stare as I wriggled further away. This wasn’t happening. Bastien opened his mouth to argue further, but my stomach chose that moment to let out a loud rumble. He shut his mouth with an audible snap. “I’m sure they’ll bring some food soon,” he said, without looking at me. “They need to keep me functioning.”
“How long do you think it will be before we get rescued?” Luc’s security team was the best, but it could still be days before they found our location.
“I’m very confident in my brother’s ability to find me, regardless of how far they’ve taken us.” Bastien put a slight emphasis on the word ‘very’. Enough to make me think that…. Oh. Bastien was telling me that he could be tracked. Godsdammit. He had a tracker and no-one had ever told me.
I sat up, being careful of my shoulder. I shuffled backwards until I could lean against the wall.
“It was need to know,” Bastien murmured as if he could read my mind. As if he could sense my anger and disappointment that no-one had told me. I was the disposablebody whose life was on the line for this man. It was my job to protect him. Didn’t I deserve to know?But you failed,said my mother’s snide voice in my head.You weren’t good enough. I brought my knees up to my chest, dropping my head down as the hot wash of shame rolled over my body. Ihadfailed. My job was to make sure that this scenario never happened; that the Council President wasn’t abducted and tortured. I didn’t deserve to know.
At least I’d already decided to quit after the Summit because there was no way I would still have my job after this. “Understood,” I said dully.
And then, because my day didn’t already suck, I finally acknowledged that my bladder was demanding to be emptied. The mild dehydration that I was already experiencing had been working in my favour so far, but there was no denying my body’s demand any further. But with my hands in manacles behind my back, there was no way I was going to be able to get my pants down without assistance.
Well fuck.
Having my boss and the man I’d crushed on for five years helping me with my clothing so I could go to the toilet was awkward as hell. Awkward emotionally, yes. But also, just damn awkward because we both had our hands behind our backs. Bastien couldn’t see what he was doing and, being so much taller than me, he had to go to his knees just to get my pants down far enough. It was like some bad hazing rite, completely ridiculous. By the time I was trying to wriggle back into my underwear with Bastien touching the plain cotton fabric with nothing more than his fingertips, and his body carefully held at a distance, I finally found my sense of the ridiculous. I was smirking by the time I was fully dressed. And everything would have been fine if we could have just gone to sit down and pretend that nothing hadhappened. But when he had finished pulling up my pants and told me in his sexy voice, “Unfortunately, I’m going to need to ask you help me,” I lost it.
Five years I had dreamed about getting this man out of his pants, and this was what the gods gave me. The laugh that burst out of me was huge. And perhaps a little unhinged. But if I didn’t laugh, I was going to cry.
He waited while I cackled and chortled. I knew it wasn’t normal, but at this point, I couldn’t stop. When I had finally calmed down, he asked, “Better?” His voice was soft.
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“I think we’re past formalities now, darlin’. Call me Bastien.”
It was the second time he’d asked me to use his name but thedarlin’ was new. The endearment tugged at my heart. I squared my shoulders. I could give myself this moment. In this dark place, with danger surrounding us, the fantasy that Bastien still wanted me was unbearably alluring. Palace security would have us out of here soon and once I knew that the President,Bastien, was safe, I’d be out of his life. The thought hurt worse than the pain in my shoulder, but I wasn’t going to think about that now. I shut my eyes, giving myself permission to pretend, and breathed his name.
Chapter 12
Bastien
Beast was rumbling unhappily in my mind, cranky since our mate had rolled off our chest when she woke. My first instinct, when her soft body stiffened against mine in shock, had been to hold her closer. To never let her go. I’d met her green eyes, wide with surprise as she lifted her head off my chest. She had drooled in her sleep. It was as adorable as fuck. I wanted her to use me as her pillow every day. Even though I hadn’t been able to hold her, just having her soft body against mine, breathing in her scent, listening to her soft snores, had soothed my soul. And then, in her sleep, she had climbed on top of me. I hadn’t dared move. My breathing slowed to match hers and I sat there, back against the hard wall, ass numb from the concrete floor, and I smiled all night.
