Page 64 of The Bodyguard Proposal

“Right. Technically, you are the one with the big dick. Recent evidence has come into light.”

As if answering her, my cock thickens.

“You”—my jaw tightens—“had to go there, didn’t you?”

“So we aren’t going to talk about us kissing earlier? Cool.”

I reach behind, grab a pillow, and stuff it over my lap. What is wrong with me? My cock is vigilantly fucking present today. It won’t go down. I’m going to need to pop into the bathroom and stroke it fast and hard to get this out of my system. Though the thought of Komal being on the other side as I do that would be fucking torture.

Curiously, she grabs the other pillow and puts it on her lap as if also hiding.

We look down at ourselves. The mood has shotgunned, mutating tension into heat. Not that I haven’t felt this way around her—so many times I have—but we are on a bed now. Desperately, I want to fist my cock in my hands, telling it to behave.

“Huan—”

“About the movie—” My very bones strain to keep this normal. “You want to do the right thing.”

“People pick that up as boring,” she grumbles, maybe because of the new topic or because I'm dragging us away from the last one at high-speed like a mad man.

“People are bored themselves," I say. “They don’t see you. You don’t show them you. But what I want to say is… You don’t have to trade in your life choices. Your happiness counts.”

Her smile disappears quicker than ever before. “Does it?”

How could it not?

“You matter,” I say as neutrally as possible. "Everyone in your life thinks so."

Not just me, very specifically. We are talking in broad, general, non-incriminating terms.

Out of nowhere, Komal clutches my shoulder. She's paler than normal in the moonlight.

“But,” she says slowly. “What if there was a choice made out of love that you can’t pay back? What if a decision changed everything? How can I ever not just be grateful foranythingI’m given?”

I’m not sure what she means. I start to ask when she answers.

“I have a secret. A big, life-changing secret that no one knows.”

My body tenses. “Are you okay?”

She drops her head onto my shoulder. “No.”

“What is it?" Whatever it is, I'm moving mountains, rivers, villages,anythingreally, to make it better. There’s a part of me that has come to terms with that. For a long while, I've fought any interest growing on my part. I've traded shifts to get away and observed her from the furthest distance possible, and kept a mental wall erected between my objectivity and any sort of curiosity when it came to Komal.

I definitely didn't care about the private eye-rolling she did whenever she thought no one was watching, how she kept changing her ringtone to reflect her mood as some sort of secret language, that she hated fruity cocktails so often served at the parties she went to, and made a very subtle humming noise when given a chance to have high-end tequila; and yes, I didn't watch her stalk with dancer's talent her friends and family, loving how they jumped out of their skin when she popped out. There's no reason to watch for the fire in her eyes as a way to read her real feelings, as opposed to whatever dry-toned pleasantries she's saying out loud.

If pressed, I could pick her laughter out from a crowd. The real one and the fake one. There's also a way she bites down onher lips with frustration that hints at her real opinions rather than expressed ones in front of a crowd. I know she sings badly. Her friends are everything to her. She's got her sharpest, most funniest tongue around them. Other bodyguards laugh at her sarcasm when she feels free enough to whip it loose.

These are observations anyone could have. They are excusable, in theory. If only London didn't happen, I could happily go on with my self-control and discipline. It has, though. Shreya pushed and pushed until I agreed to the job. And now spending this amount of time together has shattered any kind of rules I've imposed on myself. I'm clinging so hard to my pride and professionalism that if they were physical objects, they'd be covered with marks.

“Whatever it is,” I say with complete sincerity. “I’ll help you.”

"You can't. Because Shreya didn’t have me.”

“She didn’t… have you?”

EIGHTEEN

Huan

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