Page 32 of Being Bold
Worried he’d scared her, he met her gaze and froze. Her gray-green eyes were hazy with desire. They fell to his mouth, then she licked her bottom lip.
Aw, fuck me.
He’d never wanted to kiss a woman so badly. But he couldn’t. She was a job. Not some chick he’d picked up at a bar. His focus needed to be on keeping her safe, not wondering what she’d feel like with her legs wrapped around his waist as he—
Yumi’s car door slammed, cutting off his thoughts. He glanced toward the SUV again and saw her assessing how buried the tires were. She must have gotten stuck. He’d have to pull her out.
Making sure to avoid Selene’s ocean eyes this time, he reached between her legs for the jockey box. When she let out a strangled little moan, it was nearly his undoing. Clenching his jaw so tight it ached, he forced a deep breath in through his nose. But that was a mistake.
Because she wore his clothes, she smelled like him. Like she was his. He’d never let a woman stay in his space long enough for that to happen, and he realized now how fucking intoxicating it was. Which was another reason for putting some distance between them.
Grabbing the gloves, he shoved them into her lap. “Put these on.”
He didn’t wait for a response, couldn’t stand to be in the cab with her a moment longer without taking what he wanted but didn’t deserve.
Climbing down, he walked to her side and opened the door. “Still coming?”
A sadness lurked in the wells of her eyes as she laid a gloved hand in his. “Yes.”
He helped her down and tried not to think about what put it there.
As they reached Yumi, Selene seemed to brighten. She laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “Hey, what happened?”
Yumi turned with a scowl. “A freakin’ mountain lion jumped in front of me. I feel like the stupid cat is taunting me.”
“There are mountain lions here?” Selene shuddered as if thinking she could’ve run into one while tramping through the woods.
A sharp growl echoed from the trees, and she practically jumped into his arms. “Oh my God,” Selene breathed as she clung to him, her head swiveling in all directions. “Everything here wants to kill me,” she muttered.
Gritting his teeth against the desire to pull her closer, he grunted in what he hoped was a soothing manner.
Yumi ignored Selene’s outburst. “When I slammed on the brakes, I got stuck.”
She looked at him, and he answered before she could ask. “I’ve got a tow strap. I’ll pull you out.”
Selene’s eyes were wide when she tore them away from the trees. “Maybe I’ll wait in the truck, after all.”
Bo released her and instantly missed her warmth. His heart squeezed in his chest as she walked back to his pickup. His hand twitched, wanting to massage the spot, but he clenched it into a fist and ignored the feeling. He didn’t have time to worry about what it meant. Not when they were losing the race. Every secondit took for them to retrieve the chip was a second Dao could use to find it first.
???
Selene
Selene drummed her fingers on the armrest as she stared out the windshield of Bo’s truck. The night remained quiet enough that the soft tapping of her fingertips against the dark leather echoed in her head. They’d managed to make it the rest of the way to her apartment without incident, but the churning of her stomach left her with an unshakeable feeling of unease.
Bo had parked in the back corner of her apartment building’s lot—away from any lampposts—then demanded she stay inside while he and Yumi retrieved the hidden microchip from her home. She’d wanted to argue, but she was scared. She didn’t have the skills they did. Hiding in the truck provided a measure of safety, no matter how small.
But it also left her with too much time to think—to worry. About their kiss, about almost dying, about her best friend being in the freaking CIA. She was a planner, and not having one was upping her discomfort. She needed a way forward, but the situation she faced was one she’d never expected to encounter.
Bad people wanted her dead.
How do I plan for that?
Her thoughts revolved from one problem to the other and back again, until she’d worked herself into a pressure cooker of anxiety.
How do I fix this?
Having Bo’s protection was comforting, but where did she go from there? She couldn’t expect to have him as a bodyguardfor the rest of her life. A pang reverberated through her chest, reminding her of the hurt he’d caused her.
