The Bodyguard: A BWWM Bad Body Romance(31)

Weeks, a wicked voice in the back of his mind prodded, that you’ll have in the same house with Juliet.

Scowling, he shoved the notion back into the dark where it belonged. It was time to go to work. Unless he was getting more information from her or keeping her safe from an imminent threat, he couldn’t afford to keep his mind full of his charge.

Even if his body all but screamed for him to return to her.

“Morning.” Hank straightened at a low, tentative voice from the kitchen doorway. He intended to utter a blasé greeting in return but stiffened at the sight that met his gaze.

Juliet was still wearing his shirt.

In the full light of day, he could see every glorious curve through the thin material, from the dark coins of her nipples to her flat stomach and the gorgeous, firm lines of chocolate-hued thighs. For a moment, Hank’s mind went completely blank as blood slammed southward. Just hours ago, he’d been inside her.

What he wouldn’t give to be there again…

A long beat passed before Hank realized Juliet’s eyes were fixed on the disassembled weapon on the table with wary curiosity. He cleared his throat, forcing his gaze back to the task at hand. “Morning.” His reply was gruff, and terse enough to scare off a more timid woman.

Juliet, however, merely took another step into the kitchen. “You haven’t slept... at all?”

Now Hank could see the perfect nodules of her tiny toes and sucked in a breath, glaring up at her. “No.” How the hell could he when all he could think about was her in the next room? At the sharpness of his tone, Juliet’s full mouth turned downwards.

“You’re upset.”

Hank lasted another thirty seconds mindlessly slamming working pieces of machinery together before he plunked the piece he was working on down against the table to glare at her in warning. “No fucking kidding I’m upset. Put some clothes on before Bosh or Crowley comes in here.”

Juliet merely arched an elegantly sculpted brow. “Crowley and Bosh? Why would they barge in? They never come this close.” She took a step towards the table and Hank shoved back, doing his best to reign in his baser instincts. “Goddamn it, Juliet. Get dressed.”

To his consternation, her gaze took on a wounded sheen. “Not so gorgeous in the light of day, am I?”

Hank cursed, rising from the kitchen table to turn away from her - in part to gain composure and in part to hide his already burgeoning erection. “That has nothing to fucking do with it and you know it.”

He didn’t like it when women fished for compliments - even if he knew that wasn’t what Juliet was doing. Hank wasn’t blind. He’d seen the burns and old bruises that pockmarked her body. Thinking what Solomon had done to inflict each and every one made him want to wrap his fingers around the man’s neck and squeeze until something broke.

But that didn’t mean Juliet was any less mouthwatering. If anything, he respected her more for the pain she’d gone through.

But that was where it ended - respect.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Hank.” Juliet didn’t approach him. Quite the contrary. Hank listened to her plunk down in the extra chair before he turned to face her. Though he could, quite prominently, see the tips of her breasts through the thin material of the t-shirt, the young woman’s expression had gone carefully neutral as she gazed up at him. She raised her arms to cross over her chest before continuing to speak to him. “I don’t expect anything from you. It was a one-time thing. We both needed a little R&R...and I needed to get away from Solomon. You’ve helped break his hold on me, you know. I have to thank you for that.”

Hank merely stared at her. He didn’t know whether to feel flattered or irked. He might not have gone to a fancy school but he knew how to read between the lines. Juliet was basically admitting that she’d used him. That she didn’t want Solomon Aguiler to be her only anymore.

Fuck if he knew how to respond to that.

“Well fine. Good.” He sank back into his own chair, picking up the pieces of the revolver before him as he scowled at her. “Long as you know it can’t happen again.”

Hank forced himself to swallow the prickle of pride that rose in him at her appearance. He had mussed her hair like that. He had kissed that network of marks into her skin.

Not Solomon.

It felt damned good.

“Of course,” Juliet replied, her tone casual. When she reached towards the implements he worked with, however, Hank stopped her with a hand on her own.

“What’re you doing?”

The young woman smirked - infuriating and sexy all at the same time. “Do you really want to know, or do you just want to manhandle me?”

As tempted as he was by the latter, Hank released her - but Juliet didn’t relinquish the parts she’d picked up. Silently, Hank sat back in his seat to watch as Juliet lined up a bevy of metal pieces in front of her. Without a word, she assembled them. She wasn’t as fast or as proficient as he was - but it was clear she knew her way around a gun. By the time she slid the last piece of the revolver into place Hank was, if anything, even harder than he’d been before.

Not that he was going to let her know that.

“Solomon taught you, I assume?”

“No. Caesar.” Snapping the gun shut, Juliet slid it across the table to him with a bitter smile. “Thought I should know how to defend myself, even if he never really put one in my hand.”