The Bodyguard: A BWWM Bad Body Romance(26)

And how close they’d been to the cock he had to convince to stand down. “Stand up,” he cleared his throat, willing his mind to literally anything else. “Let me see you walk on it.”

Juliet hesitated only a short beat before sliding carefully from the bed. She glanced warily at him a moment before lowering her bad foot to the floor. When she wobbled, Hank’s hand shot out immediately to steady her at the small of her back. “Easy.”

“I’m alright.” Her reply was quick - defensive almost. But it lacked the rebuking edge it might have mere days ago. Juliet’s fingers had curled hard around his forearm to keep her from falling but as soon as she had her balance she released him. She paced the few feet across the room slowly, back and forth. Even in the low light, it was easy to see that she still favored her good foot heavily. Hank was no doctor but he imagined it would be at least another week or two before she could bear weight on it. He opened his mouth to tell her so the very moment she tripped over the edge of a box and went sprawling.

Right on top of him.

Hank caught her with little effort. She had to be half his size. But it wasn’t the effort he was worried about. The moment all those soft curves pressed against him, he forgot that he was supposed to be protecting her. That he shouldn’t get involved and that Juliet had to be just as damaged as he was.

Fuck.

He crushed her against him.

Hank didn’t want to feel the sharp, helpless emptiness in his gut. He’d spent a lifetime fighting it. But if Juliet wanted to lessen it for a moment - just a moment - he supposed he could deal with that. Especially when she was so warm and pliant against him, her breath feathering over his jaw in soft exhalations that tightened every muscle in his body.

He ran a hand slowly over the line of her spine. He knew from the record of her injuries that there was a gunshot wound just below her ribcage and he touched it tenderly – feather light. Juliet merely nestled further against him, seeking comfort in his warmth.

Hank wasn’t a lover - not in the proper sense. She had no idea how he could ruin her. When she pressed her lips, soft and tentative, against his neck, the contact went straight to his cock. Hank immediately jerked backwards, his gaze guarded, as he held her at arm’s length.

“Juliet...don’t.”

Goddamn what was he was supposed to do when she looked at him like that? Lips parted, eyes glazed over, that damn nightgown of hers all but see-through in the early morning light. “You don’t want me. You’re just upset.” He tried to tell himself, viciously, that this was Solomon Aguiler’s woman. The man who had killed his baby-sister - poisoned countless neighborhoods with drugs.

But his body didn’t seem to be listening. Beyond that, Hank’s gut churned with guilt at the mere notion. Juliet, he knew, did not consider herself Aguiler’s woman. She was trying to rise above the title she’d been branded with...and maybe that was why he was so goddamned attracted to her.

Reaching up, Juliet cupped his face with slender fingers, her gaze searching his. “Solomon was my first.” She murmured quietly, a thumb stroking over the stubble of his jaw. “My only. Who are you to tell me what I want?”

Jesus.

Hank would have had to be a saint to walk away from her at that moment. Those eyes, that mouth...the way she touched him….there was less desperation there than pure need and he found himself a slave to it.

His mouth came down on hers as he jerked her back to him and Juliet clung to him as his tongue tangled with hers. God, she tasted good - like fucking nirvana after being in the dark for as long as he could remember. And the feel of her in his arms…

Maybe it was because he was usually drunk when he took women home, but he’d never known a woman could feel like this. The press of her breasts against him was more than enough to let him know she wasn’t wearing jack shit under her cotton nightgown, and Hank could feel her nipples pebbling against the solid wall of his chest.

How the fuck had he held out for so long?





Chapter 6: Real Need


Juliet had never been surer of anything in her life. If she were honest with herself, she’d wanted Hank Compton from the first moment she saw him. Sure, she thought he was an asshole and he certainly wasn’t the best housemate, but no woman could deny his rugged allure.

Did he even know what he did to the female species? Strutting around in a pair of jeans that were worn so they hugged the muscular lines of his legs and a wife-beater that exposed the long lengths of tattooed arms...Christ.

Though Juliet had been drawn to Solomon’s lean strength and his tall build when she first met him, she’d quickly come to learn that he wasn’t half as attractive as he thought himself. Allure came as much from within as without, and that made Solomon Aguiler one of the most ghastly people alive.

The young woman wouldn’t presume to know Hank half as well. She’d been with him for all of a week and a half - but she could already sense he was different. There was a strength to him that had nothing to do with pompous promises or illusions of power...and she wanted that strength.

She needed it.

He tasted of tobacco and something spicy beneath it - something raw and masculine that she never imagined she’d have the pleasure of indulging in. When his lips tugged at her lower lip, coaxing her mouth open, Juliet moaned, long and low.

When was the last time she’d truly been aroused?