“Sanders? You’re… You’re alive!” Stacy cries out, and I see her eyes brimming with tears.

“A bit bruised and battered, but alive, yeah,” I smile, happy to be close to her again. It might not seem like it, but two days are too long to be without her.

“Chuck, how did you--?” She starts to ask him, but the man just shrugs noncommittally.

“I guess that’s for him to explain,” he merely says, and then slips out back out to the studio, leaving me and Stacy all by ourselves.

“So?” She turns to face me, and then closes the door to her dressing room behind her. “I think you owe me an explanation,” she whispers, a harsh and demanding tone replacing the happy one with which she greeted me.

“I do, but do you think it’s wise to lock yourself in your dressing room with your biggest stalker?” I offer a smile - I’m getting better at it - as I speak, so as to not frighten her; still, I see a bit of concern flickering on her eyes.

“Is that what you are? A stalker?”

“No, I’m not a stalker, Stacy,” I reply, finally free to tell her all the truth. I spent the last two days dreaming of this moment.

“What are you then, Sanders? A reporter? A fan?” She insists, dying to hear an answer coming out from my mouth, and already expecting it to be a bad one.

“I’m a soldier, Stacy.”

“I know, you’ve told me you were an ex-SEAL and --”

“I lied. I’ve fought in the Afghanistan and Iraq, that much is true, but I never left the service. A few years ago I was invited to join a taskforce that specialized on counter-terrorism in the States, an effort spearheaded by both the CIA and the NSA.”

She blinks once, and then twice, and I can see the gears inside her head turning as she tries to process the meaning behind my words.

“Then… What…? What does that have to do with me?!” She finally cries out, pulling one of chairs pushed against a corner and sitting down.

“Well, it seems that three weeks ago you had a performance that caught the eye of the sleaziest bastards on the face of the Earth, ISIS operatives, and apparently they found it too sexual and offensive. Which they promptly told your network by mailing them a videotape filled with threats and promises of revenge. Your network did the right thing and called the authorities, and I was dispatched for undercover bodyguard duty.”

“Is that… the truth…?” She mumbles, looking completely dumbfounded. I guess I’d be as confused as she seems if someone told me out of the blue that some terrorists scumbags wanted to off me.

“That’s the truth. My task force does a lot of stuff, and some of it involves protecting high profile non-government civilians such as you. We had to keep it a secret, though, even from you… We didn’t know what these fuckers would try, so we needed to have someone close by that no one even knew was there to protect you.”

“So… I’m in danger?” I smile again, realizing that she’s more interested in the fact that I’m a SEAL than in the death threats she’s a target of.

“Not really. The NSA has already picked up on the tape’s origins, and half of my team has already been dispatched to the site so that, uh, they terminate the threats. And they’ll do it, I guarantee it. My boys don’t play.”

“So you’re not a stalker?” She asks me, almost as if she still doesn’t believe that I’m not some psycho.

“Not a stalker.”

“And you’re not a serial killer?”

“Not a serial killer either.”

Slowly, she gets up from her chair and takes one hesitant step toward me. She smiles as she closes the distance between us, but then something clouds that smile. “I’m sorry, Sanders,” she whispers, now so close to me that I have to struggle against the urge to simply grab her and crush my mouth on hers.

“Sorry? For what?”

“I shouldn’t have left you… I came back for you, but you weren’t there and --”

“Don’t be a fool,” I simply whisper, bridging the gap between our bodies and pressing my lips on hers, shutting her up for good. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I continue, my forehead pressed against hers, and one arm around her waist.

“Thank --”

“And nothing to thank me for,” I continue, the smile in my face widening.

“I’ll try,” she smiles back at me, her voice light and honeyed, making my heart race faster and my cock pulse against my boxer briefs. I’ve been two days without her naked body, and it has been complete torture. “You’re my bodyguard, then?”

“No,” I shake my head, both my hands on her hips. “When I got up from the accident, the first thing I did was transfer my commission.”

“Transfer…?” She looks taken aback, almost as if the word transfer means that I’ll be going away for good. “Why would you…?”

“Because I wasn’t doing a good job. Because… Because I fell in love with you, Stacy. I knew that the moment I saw you running away from me. It nearly broke my heart to think I might lose you for good.”

“You have a heart, then?” She teases me, flattening the palm of her hand over my chest. “I thought you were some kind of emotionless machine.

“I was,” I say, responding in kind, “but then I met you.”

“I love you, Sanders,” she breaks into a genuine smile, her eyelids drooping as she goes on tip-toes and moves in for the kiss.

“I love you too,” I whisper back at her right before our lips touch, and then I surrender to the most perfect kiss I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

“Let’s go home,” she says suddenly, breaking our kiss and looking into my eyes with an expression of pure lust and desire. “Right now.”

I make a straight line toward the door, her hand in mine, and then grin.

“Right now.”