The Bodyguard: A BWWM Bad Body Romance(24)

Fuck. Reaching up, Hank scratched the back of his head, wondering if that had sounded as dickish as he thought it had. “I didn’t mean to say...I mean...fuck.” He growled lowly, turning on his heel to leave. He wasn’t good at this. He had never been good at this.

“Don’t go.”

Those two words were enough to stop Hank cold. They weren’t a demand or even a plea - merely a statement, uttered in a tone so soft that, for a moment, he thought he must have imagined it. One look at Juliet’s face, however, proved otherwise.

Only her large eyes were visible. The rest of her face was hidden below her arms as she gazed up at him so entreatingly that he would have had to be heartless or a complete asshole to leave her alone.

Exhaling a long breath, Hank made his way to the bed to perch precariously on the edge of it. He didn’t trust himself to get much closer to her. Even from three feet away he could catch the edge of her floral, feminine scent.

Christ, when was the last time he’d been laid?

A long moment of silence passed between them before Juliet spoke again, her voice no louder than it had been before. “I’m sorry I just...I’ve been alone in my head all night and I need a bit of a break.”

Hank glanced over at her. She had emerged from her arms and was eying him tiredly. He knew that look. How many times had he suffered insomnia when the mistakes of his past came back to haunt him?

But he wasn’t here to talk about himself. “Did you eat anything last night?” It was all he could think of to say. “If not, I could make us some breakfast. I’m shit in the kitchen but it’s pretty hard to fuck up eggs-”

“Thanks, Hank.” She cut him off softly. “But I’m not hungry. I’d prefer to talk...if that’s ok with you.”

Well, shit. “Look, Juliet...I’m not the best conversationalist.” He might as well tell her the truth - better that than risk looking like a complete ass.

Juliet emitted a soft snort of derision. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve actually talked to someone and not been talked at? This is already the best conversation I’ve had in years.”

Hank grimaced at the prospect. “I can’t even imagine.”

Juliet laughed. This time the sound was less mournful and more genuine. “Can I tell you a secret?”

She’d already told him a shitload the previous day. He couldn’t see one more hurting. “Hit me.”

“...Simmons told me I should try to get you talking.”

Hank swallowed a groan. The man already complicated his life enough without his warped form of matchmaking. “Talking about what?”

“Solomon. And whatever he did to piss you off so much.” Hank immediately stiffened.

Goddamn it. He’d been a fool to imagine he could tiptoe around Juliet without this coming up. Problem was, it wasn’t something he liked to discuss with anyone, let alone a woman who had spent the last eight years with the man.

It was, however, at that moment that Hank realized that he was being a bit idiotic. Once upon a time, he’d imagined that Juliet still carried some kind of torch for Solomon. Despite attesting that she hated the man upon her first meeting, Hank could never have imagined the actual horrors she’d been through - and she’d just begun to tell her story.

Now, he realized that there was no way in hell Juliet Brown would ever go slinking back off to the Aguilers...which meant that she, more than anyone, could understand what he’d been through.

“Not something I like to give fucking dissertations on.” He meant for the comment to have a little more bite than it did. Instead, his low growl didn’t seem to dissuade Juliet in the slightest.

“I don’t exactly like to expound upon my past either, but here I am.”

Hank scrubbed a hand through his buzzed hair before scowling. Those huge brown eyes of hers were fixed on him like whatever he might say next would make or break her whatever this moment was between them. Call him crazy, but he wasn’t exactly eager to go back to being at one another’s throats.

He turned away from her to sink back onto the bed with a hot exhalation. The mattresses were shit and Juliet made a small sound of discomfort as the one beneath them shifted, almost pitching her into his arms. In the end, however, she settled at his shoulder - so close he could touch her.

To make sure he didn’t, Hank concentrated on telling her what she wanted to know - the short and messy of it. “I’m sure you can imagine I’m not like Bosh and Crowley. There was no Ivy League School or Police Academy that got me here. I came up in a rough neighborhood on the south side in a three room apartment infested with fucking vermin. My mom was usually so drunk she couldn’t stand up straight and my dad took off a few years after I was born.” He shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary in that part of town. I came up looking after my younger sister as best I could, even though there were times I was sure my mother was trying to kill the both of us.”

It had been a long time since he told anyone this. Simmons, of course, knew the reason at the core of his hatred for the Aguilers, but this...this was something Hank liked to bury deep. It reminded him that there had been a time that he was vulnerable - and he’d be damned if he let that happen again.

“Naturally, I had no clue how to raise a little fucking girl, but I did my best. I thought Morgan was going to turn out alright. I took her to school, made sure her grades weren’t complete shit, and when she wanted something enough, I pinched it for her. I adored her.” It had been the simple love of a boy who literally had nothing else, and that was why it was so goddamn devastating when it was snatched from him. “So you can imagine I was pretty fucking upset when I found out she shot up for the first time.”