Love.
I breathe in. “Who said that?” I smile teasingly.
She hesitates, wavers, shifts her weight. “Me?”
Banks said it.
Fucking Banks.
I can’t even be upset. “You wouldn’t even win bronze in Lying. You’d get a cheap tin-bottle cap with the words Loser in marker.”
She shoves my arm with a smile.
I smile back, then get more serious. “I appreciate your support—I always will, but it’s not easy for me to just walk away either. I love being your bodyguard, Sulli. I want to be on your detail as much as I can, as long as I can.” As I edge nearer, I glance at her lips; she glances at mine, and I say, “And I want to kiss you.”
My fingers tighten on her wrists at her side, and her breath hitches.
“A friendly kiss, or…?” She smiles playfully but it falters as she stares at my mouth.
My lips drop to her ear, giving her more. “I’ve heard you come, Sul. I’ve made you come. And every night, I go to bed picturing myself inside of you. So no, not a friendly kiss.”
Her chest rises in a deeper inhale. “Should we buy some rope?” Her eyes lock onto mine in greater challenge.
“But, string bean, you have enough rope to climb with.”
Her face flushes. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” I’m being a dick and giving her a hard time, but I can’t help it.
“Kits—”
“What would you need the rope for?” I want to hear her say it. The air thickens between us, arousal brewing.
“I want to know what it feels like.” She glances down to her wrists where my hands still clutch them tight. “I like when you do this.”
I step closer. Our bodies flush up against each other, and I bend down just slightly so that our lips are a breath away. “Do you like when I kiss you?” I wonder.
“Yeah. I like that, too.” She pulls back to see my eyes. “Do you like when I kiss you?’
“Sulli,” I groan and lean into her lips, kissing her deeply in a better reply. She sinks into me. Her back knocks into one of the canoes, and while we kiss, I step her to the side so they don’t tumble. Crickets chirp loudly around us.
I could stay in this moment forever. Never leave.
Never really want to.
But then I hear a voice that punctures my reality. Rips me from it.
“I’d say I hate to interrupt, but I don’t. And I need to talk to my cousin for a second.”
Sulli and I break apart.
Shit.
In her shock—at the sight of Charlie fucking Cobalt—she stumbles into the rack of canoes.
They all go down like Jenga pieces. Too quickly to even try to right them, but I stop one from falling on Sulli. Canoe upside-down, Sulli and I hold it above us, our pure shock on each other.
How did I miss him coming in the store?
I ease my gaze on Sulli. Trying to reassure her. But her cousin just saw us making out—this is bad. Another canoe drops on top of the one we’re holding.
Sulli and I support the impact, but I hear a louder crack.
We look up and see the large fissure.
“You can put the canoe on your business card,” Sulli tells me.
I’d laugh if behind the canoe wasn’t a complete shit show.
“What the hell?!” Chuck yells from deep in the store as we pull the canoe off our heads. But he doesn’t emerge to check on us.
Setting down the canoe on top of the others, footsteps pound through the store’s entrance. “What’s goin’ on?” Banks asks, looking between all of us.
Oscar Highland-Oliveira stops short by Charlie and eyes the canoes. “Everyone alright?”
Anger surges. Oscar doesn’t always provide his location change, and usually I let it slide because he’s dealing with a difficult client. But after the cougar attack, I specifically told him and Farrow, you go anywhere, use comms and give your location, no excuses.
Besides this event being avoided, I should have that intel in case of real emergencies in Yellowstone.
I zero in on him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were on your way here?”
Oscar frowns, skepticism in his eyes. “I lost connection on the road. By the time I came back, we were already here, and Banks just saw us parallel-park outside.”
Charlie stares through me.
I don’t avoid his gaze. I’ve never been intimidated by him, and I’ve always found ways out of impossible situations. But my mistake isn’t a typical one that I ever make.
I’ve given a twenty-two-year-old the perfect ammunition to cause ultimate chaos.
Right now, I want to press Oscar harder and tell him that’s not good enough. That he should have still radioed in once he was here, but I’m worried that if I sound as angry as I feel, it’ll be too suspicious.
Not that it matters. Our secret is already half-blown now that Charlie saw us. He could implode everything right here, right now.
Oscar has no allegiance to me when it comes to gossip, and if he knows I kissed Sulli, he’ll blurt it to the other Yale boys in less than a heartbeat. Shit, he’ll probably radio them about it right now.
And Banks…
He eyes me for a large second, confusion and questions pinging in his brown irises. I fucked up. Everyone’s going to know I kissed Sulli, and it’ll push him to the side. And then if she chooses him in the end—it just complicates things for her.
It’s messy.
So messy.
And only Charlie Cobalt has the ability to make it less complicated. Seeing as how I was once his bodyguard for a total of two months, I’m not holding my breath.
32
SULLIVAN MEADOWS
Holy fuck.
Holy FUCK?!
Charlie saw Akara kissing me—Charlie, the one cousin out of all my cousins who is a complete fucking wild card. It’s almost worse than Moffy finding out. He’d just do the whole big brother overprotective routine and then settle on being happy for me, like he did with Jane.
I don’t know what Charlie will do.
I don’t even know what he’s thinking.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fucking fuck.
Charlie casually turns to his bodyguard, acting like nothing transpired. “I just have to talk to Sulli.” He glances between Akara, Banks, and Oscar. “And I’d like to talk to my cousin in private.”
“I’ll be outside,” Oscar says. “I can see you through the window.”
Banks and Akara don’t agree to that distance, but they take the crickets and head towards the other side of the store near the tackles. Out of earshot, but within better eyesight. They whisper to themselves, and I know Akara has to be updating Banks on this royal fuck-up.
“Charlie,” I whisper-hiss. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” His brows arch. “Shouldn’t I be the one with the first accusatory statement?”
I let out a frustrated noise. Communicating with him feels so fucking out of my wheelhouse sometimes. Like I need Jane. “I just wanted to know why you stopped by the fishing store.”
“I came to find you.” He shoves his hands in his wrinkled slacks. His white button-down is half-untucked and unbuttoned. “I’m not here to watch you climb, remember?”