8.
CASSIE
Cassie felt almost giddy from the praise she’d just received. Her confidence was at an all-time low with the conference coming up, but Vikram was buoying her up. He looked startled by her reaction. He had no idea how much she was living for those little comments he made as though they were an obvious fact.
“We should go and get your bedding,” she said. “If you really want to sleep on the couch. Or I can send for some more. I should have probably done that with the ice cream.”
“I’ll go and get mine. I have some more things in my room I need to get, anyway. You’re coming with me. I’m not leaving you here on your own.”
He yo-yoed between giving authoritative commands and almost seeming shy about things he’d said. She wanted to keep pushing the boundaries of his professionalism even though she knew it was cruel to put him in that awkward position.
She got a rush of heat every time he had to look away from her after he broke his stern bodyguard character, though. She wanted to go sit in his lap and tell him she didn’t care if he was just himself around her, that she wanted to know everything little thing that went through his mind, especially if it was about her.
“I figured.”
He scraped the last bit of his ice cream up and looked tempted to give the bowl a lick. “Come on. Let’s go now. You look exhausted.”
“Gee thanks.” She was starting to feel it, though. The adrenaline had left and her whole body felt sluggish. Her arm was throbbing.
And the conference began tomorrow morning.
She definitely needed some sleep.
She stood up and stretched, then trailed after Vikram into the corridor.
When she got there, though, she had to stop. The body was gone, but the evidence of the struggle wasn’t. The area where the assassin had been stabbed was taped off, but the blood was still smeared on the wall and pooled on the floor. All the images, the surge of fear she’d felt as she ran, came hurtling back for a moment.
It had been so close. If Vikram had taken just a bit longer, she wouldn’t be here anymore.
“I can’t believe someone tried to kill me,” she murmured, going closer to the wall and finding it too easy to imagine herself pushed against it, the knife going through her heart.
She wondered who would have come to her funeral. Or, have actually wanted to come rather than feeling obligation to go because she was their colleague.
Her shoulders sagged. She’d spent all this time on the job and Archie was the only person who’d ever truly cared about her. She’d never had friends outside of work, it was too hard to keep up with them. She was always being called away, going on excursions that took weeks at a time. It wasn’t conducive to having any kind of relationship.
“I don’t want to stand in the corridor for too long,” Vikram said, resting a hand on her shoulder. He stood behind her and she automatically relaxed into his touch, taking for granted the fact he was physically close when she couldn’t get emotionally close to anyone.
He immediately pulled his hand back, though, and she forced herself not to flinch.
He was just here to do a job, not to be her friend. She needed to keep reminding herself of that.
She turned from the blood and started walking back down to his room. She wanted to apologize, but was sure it would just make things more awkward.
He unlocked his room and revealed a pristine hotel room, as though no one had been staying there. She shouldn’t have been surprised. A small bag was in the corner, and he slung it over his shoulder.
“That’s all you brought with you?” she asked.
“That’s all I need.”
“I suppose you wear all your weapons,” she teased, grabbing a couple of pillows from his bed and trying her best to breathe deeply. They smelled like him. A strong, clean smell with just a hint of spice. Maybe she could surreptitiously switch them and keep these ones for herself. “Got everything?”
He took a quick glance around, went into the bathroom and stuffed a few more things into his back, then grabbed the comforter from the bed. “Got everything.”
She’d been hoping to get some insight into what he was like when he relaxed, but his barren room had given her nothing. She’d have killed to get a look inside his room back at his home.
Back in her room she put the pillows on the couch, and he slung the comforter on. Then he tried to lay down. His legs hung over the arm of the couch up to his mid-thigh.
“This is ridiculous,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. She was going to get used to just touching him, she decided. So that it didn’t make her stomach curl every time he laid one of those large, reassuring hands on her. “You can’t sleep there. Have the bed.”
When he got up, she laid down instead, and easily curled into the sofa between the two arms. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it would do. “This is fine for me.”
He folded his arms. “I can’t let you sleep on the couch.”
“You’d rather we both slept in the bed?”
It was certainly what she’d rather do, but she knew he was doing a lot better at managing his self-control than she was.
His mask fell apart for a moment, and he looked utterly conflicted. It was such a simple question and it looked like it was tearing his world apart. She sat up, feeling suddenly terrible. “We’ll just share the bed for one night,” she decided. He needed her to just make a decision; putting it on him to choose was putting all the responsibility on him. “Then tomorrow I’ll get the staff to transfer us to a twin room. I’m really exhausted now, though.” Even the thought of getting up from the cocoon she had on the couch was draining.
She knew they had to share the bed, though. The thought of letting his charge sleep somewhere lesser, of putting himself higher, was completely against his training.
She was starting to realize just how ingrained it all was for him.
He relaxed a little when she told him what they were doing. “Okay,” he conceded. “Just one night.”
“Just one night,” she repeated, dragging herself off the couch and onto the bed. She stuck completely to her side even though she liked to starfish, and turned her back to him, wrapping herself tightly in the comforter.
She felt the bed dip and he slid in beside her, and the temperature instantly rose between the sheets. She wanted to slide back and press herself against his warmth, allow him to wrap his arms around her, and distract her from the images of the assassin’s death, of Archie’s death, floating in her mind.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shared a bed with someone.
She shut her eyes, resisted all her urges, and said, “Good night.”
After a pause, a reluctant, “Good night,” came from the other side of the bed.
The awkwardness left her no desire to stay awake, and she fell asleep in minutes.