AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t…” She swallowed the harsh words and tried again. “I don’t understand. Why? I don’t get it.”
The look he gave her hit her directly in the throat.
“Sophy,” he said, and the very ordinariness of his voice brought tears stinging to her eyes. “Look at me.”
She moved so quickly that he didn’t have time to retreat. Her hands came up hard against his jaw, gripping his dear head between her palms and forcing his face to meet hers. She pressed her forehead to his and felt her lashes sweep the curve of his brow.
“I do look at you,” she said fiercely. “I haven’t stopped looking at you for days. And I will never understand her.”
His arms were achingly slow to come around her and then they tightened in a compulsive movement, hard bands across her back, enveloping her in warm, firm muscle.
It wasn’t the crescendo peak of a grand seduction scene. It was a quiet embrace of deep, even breaths and shared comfort. And love. For that instant of time, it was a touch of love, given freely, without strings, conditions or promises.
His fingers were tracing gentle patterns up her spine as they sat there quietly. A hand came up against the back of her head, smoothing the flow of her ponytail, playing with the ends of her hair.
“Sophy,” he murmured, and her name thrummed between his chest and her ear.
“Mmm.” She was slipping into a floaty, contented doze.
Her leather-clad pillow shifted and rolled irritatingly as he bent to try and see her face.
“Honey.”
“Ssh.”
His soft, ragged laugh was the last sound she heard as she fell deeply asleep.
***
His completely standard, garden-variety security detail in Queenstown was turning out to be an emotional trial by fire.
Mick tightened his hold around Sophy, slipping one arm under her knees to lift her high against his chest as he stood up. He wasn’t used to handling anything with such a delicate touch and managed to find a flicker of amusement in the fact that he was carrying her as cautiously as he would a live explosive. Her elbows curved about his neck as she snuggled into his throat and he remained motionless for a few seconds, just breathing her in. She smelled faintly of perfume, one of those ultra-feminine, synthetic scents that were pleasant when women didn’t get carried away with the spray. Also ever so slightly of beer from the bar, which wasn’t unpleasant either.
He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened this evening. This morning.
There were very few people in his life who truly knew him and for whom he would take a hit without hesitation. Sean was his brother in all but blood. He had several army buddies who had walked at his side into hell. On the family side of the ledger, he was now only close to a paternal aunt, a politically liberal yoga instructor whom his father had all but disinherited. His relationships with women had been largely and even then sporadically sexual. He was aware that he had a physical frame that was attractive to a certain type, but as he’d tried to tell Sophy, he was under no illusions about his lack of good looks. Women in general were not interested in taking things further than the bedroom; many had difficulty even in making eye contact. He was not the sort of man whom they were proud to be seen with in public and wanted to take home to meet their mother.
It was what it was.
As usual, however, Sophy apparently marched to her own beat. She might be skittering around the prospect of pursuing a physical relationship, but it wasn’t because of the limitations of his appearance. And he truly did believe that, for possibly the first time in his life.
As for how he felt about her –
After a lifetime of distance, it was a bit mind-blowing that he could bond this quickly and this hard with someone. He cared about her in a way that was completely out of proportion with the shortness of their acquaintance.
Moving slowly, he walked with her out of the living room and down the hallway to where two bedrooms faced one another, the doors thankfully open. There was no problem in identifying which room belonged to Sophy.
Easing the door wider with his shoulder, he carried her into the messy one.
She basically expanded the moment she touched the mattress, arms and legs flying in all directions and seriously hampering his attempts to cover her with the patchwork quilt. Giving up, grinning, Mick checked the fastenings on her windows and pulled her curtains.
Before he quietly left the house, snicking the lock behind him, he ran the back of his knuckles down the smooth exposed plane of her arm, and shook his head.
He was dead on his feet by the time he got back to the hotel, so knackered that he made a very rare usage of the elevator. Letting himself into his room with a passkey, he didn’t hold back a pained groan when Sean looked up from his sprawled position in the armchair.
“For fuck’s sake, it’s a five-star hotel. If there’s another spider, call the reception desk.”
Sean turned down the volume on the late-night game show and took a leisurely sip from a glass of whisky. He was eyeing Mick with malicious satisfaction.
