Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 73

I waved my hand through the air as if I were trying to backhand her words. “Oh fuck off! I wouldn’t have made it long enough for Henry to get there, and it could have easily been a blood bath if Tanaka had his entire force. Plus, you saved me on the chopper!”

I took another step toward her. “Who hurt you, Chloe? What happened to make you see yourself like this? I’m fucking lucky to have you!”

Something I said must have struck a nerve. Chloe didn’t say anything. For a second, I thought she might hit me.

Instead, she stiffened and looked off into the middle distance, chewing on her bottom lip.

“I don’t want you to go, Chloe,” I said, pleadingly. “I really like you, and I swear to God, if you get a replacement, I will ditch him at every opportunity.”

That got a snort from her. She cut her eyes at me and gave me a look like I was an idiot.

“We can’t continue this if I stay,” she said.

“Continue what?” I was already scared of the answer.

“Sleeping together.”

Yeah. That’s what I was afraid it would come to.

If I agreed, and she stayed, I could see her every day.

And I’d be haunted by the memory of what it was like to see her undress in front of me, while never experiencing it again. I could never feel the ripple of her muscles under my fingertips while making love. I would never get to taste her again.

That brought up another question.

“What happens if I say no?”

She shrugged. “Then I stop being your bodyguard.”

“Then what?”

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked. Her arms tightened slightly in front of her, almost like she knew what I was about to ask and was drawing into her shell a little more.

I couldn’t help myself.

“You stop being my bodyguard. Then what happens? Do we still keep doing what we’re doing?”

“No,” she said. That was it—no further explanation.

I didn’t have the fucking words.

I held up my palms like I was out of options. “So, that’s it then. You feel bad, and you decide you’re out? That’s it?”

This couldn’t be my fault, could it? Chloe would have told me if I did something wrong, if she felt nothing for me, or if I was a bad lay. It’s not like she shied away from hurting anyone’s feelings, right?

“Are you sure this has nothing to do with me?” I asked. “Chloe, I really like you, and I like what we did out there. It meant a lot to me, but if it didn’t mean anything to you or you didn’t feel anything… then just… let me know.”

“Fuck, Marcus,” Chloe said. She turned and walked to one of the two airplane windows nearest her. “You’re a moron sometimes. You know that, right?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I had a good time with you, and you made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a while. That’s the problem… if there isn’t a clean break, then I don’t think I can trust myself to be an objective security asset.”

“But you can’t stay with me even if you’re no longer my bodyguard?”

Chloe shook her head. “I would go to work for someone else. Marcus, do you have any idea how many hours I spend at my job?”

I genuinely didn’t. “A lot?”

“Most of my waking hours are spent doing this. I don’t have much time to devote to anything other than the job.”

“You’re making that choice, though.” I pointed out.

“And I enjoy what I do. It’s fulfilling. I’m sorry, Marcus, but everything else is second.”

I… didn’t know what to say to that.

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure why this was upsetting me so badly. It wasn’t like I was asking Chloe for a relationship. Sure, I was fond of her, but did I love her?

Did I even know the difference between desire and love anymore? It was getting difficult to distinguish the two. Was I just another entitled asshole who burned through women like hours in a day? Maybe. But that didn’t explain why the thought of someone else touching her—warming her at night while I faded into memory—made my throat close.

“So, you’re just done, then?”

She raised her hands, palms up. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I can’t keep doing this, and you do. Since we can’t make that work, we should part ways.”

Wait… she wasn’t telling me that her leaving was inevitable. She was saying that we were done sleeping together. That didn’t mean she was out of my life, though.

“What if we can make it work?”

Chloe turned to face me and leaned against the wall, arms still crossing her chest. “How?”

“We break off whatever we had in the forest, and you keep just being my bodyguard.”

Chloe arched an eyebrow. “You think you can do that?”

“It’ll suck,” I admitted, “but I think I can manage.”

The silence was eerie as we stared at each other. Her golden brown eyes daring me to look down at her cleavage as she stared directly into my eyes. I took the challenge and met her gaze without looking away—or down.

Finally, she said, “If you think you can manage, so can I.”

“So, you’ll stay?”

She closed her eyes and nodded once. “I’ll stay.”.

Relief should have followed. It didn’t.

A part of me was sad that this conversation wouldn’t end in a kiss… or with me slipping that robe off her shoulders. Right now, I needed that. I needed her.

There was still so much of Chloe I hadn’t unlocked—parts of her I hadn’t uncovered, hadn’t earned. And the idea that I might never get that chance made my stomach twist.

You’d think I would’ve pulled Erin into a room by now. But between the cold in the forest and the ache of this conversation, I hadn’t been in the mood.

Funny how pain had a way of lighting old fires.

I might have to wake Erin after all.

“One thing,” Chloe said, taking a couple of steps closer. Her head dipped slightly as she looked at me with a serious expression, chewing on the inside of her cheek in thought. “Does Erin know?”

“About us?”

“Yeah.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Good,” Chloe said. “It stays that way.”

“Why just Erin?” I asked.

Chloe snorted. “If you were going to tell anyone, it’d be Helen or Erin. More likely Erin since she’s here. Why?” she cocked her head as she looked at me, “Did you tell someone else?”

“Astrid knows.”

Chloe looked at me in disapproval.

“She figured it out on her own!” I said, raising my hands defensively.

The accusatory expression faded. “Yeah… I suspected she figured it out,” Chloe muttered and shrugged. “Eh… if it gets out, it gets out. Just don’t go spreading it around. Deal?”

I glanced down at her cleavage when she looked at the floor, giving myself a moment to mourn. When she looked back up at me, I was being a good boy again.

God, I would miss that body.

“Deal,” I said.

Our eyes held—too long.

Then she looked away. That was new.

She blinked first.

Maybe this wasn’t as easy for her as she wanted me to believe.

***

They say the best negotiations leave both sides a little unhappy.

This one felt like a win, but it didn’t feel good.

I had hoped we could pick up right where we left off in the forest, but if I had to choose between having Chloe in my life without the intimacy and not having her at all, I’d gladly choose the former. She wasn’t just another fuck. I genuinely enjoyed her company. Chloe was cool. She was good at her job and incredibly level-headed.

She made my life better.

Out of my shitty options, this was the better of the two.

It was still shitty, though.

So when I left Chloe’s room, the only thing I felt like doing was being alone. Maybe in an hour, I’d see what Erin was up to, but after that conversation, I needed to decompress… maybe take a nap.

The last thing I wanted to do was talk to anyone, so I stalked the short distance to my room and quietly shut the door behind me.

It was dimly lit. The window panels were lowered so that slivers of light escaped from the bottom, casting a section of the floor in a dim orange glow that painted the room in dark silhouettes—perfect for napping.

As I made my way to my bed, I stripped my shirt off and tossed it to the side. Next came my shoes, pants, and socks, so by the time I reached my darkened bed, I was in nothing but my boxers, ready to crash for a few hours.

I stood with my back to the bed, huffed, and fell back onto the mattress.

A scream erupted from the sheets as I landed on a body.

“Fuck!” I bellowed, twisting onto my hands and knees, ready to attack whoever was thrashing and flailing as they scrambled to sit up.

I reached for the bedside light and fumbled with it until it finally blinked on. A heartbeat later, the lamp on the other side of the bed did the same.

Bobbi Nanford was crouched near the edge of the bed, one hand braced on the bedside table while the other dropped to the mattress as she turned to look over her shoulder at me. Her golden brown hair was a tangled mess, shimmering in the low light. Her slate gray eyes, large and fearful, peered from underneath the wild mane.

And she was completely nude, her fair skin glowing in the incandescent light like a hill at sunrise.

The way she stretched toward the end table made her modest breasts hang naturally from her chest, dusky pink nipples already stiff—likely more from fear than arousal.

“Marcus!” She breathed. “You scared me!”

I came into the room frustrated and a little sad. Seeing Bobbi triggered months of workplace trauma, and I immediately felt remnants of old dread and dislike bubble to the surface.

“What did you call me?” I snapped.

Her eyes narrowed and her jaw set, and I recognized that initial hatred, but it was replaced almost immediately with a look of guilt, followed by genuine concern.

“I uh…” She pushed off the end table and straightened. Her legs were folded beneath her, weight resting on her heels. “I…”

In this position, I was treated to a lovely sight. Her hair fell from her face and draped her shoulders, framing the elfin features. Her mouth was set in a small frown, less hateful and more worried that she had transgressed. Her hands rested on her thighs, and her lovely, natural breasts settled on her chest in peaches and cream teardrops.