“Oh God, that’s hot! I don’t usually come that fast.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

I swallow the rest of him down and smile at him.

His next move surprises the shit out of me. He lifts his legs to either side of me, rips his pants off all the way, and then roughly flips me up into the air somehow. I see the ceiling for a split second before finding myself looking at the parquet floor and his naked muscular ass.

Then I’m flipped again and on my back on the bed in the bedroom, my naked protector and childhood guardian on top of me.

God, he’s like a tank. I mean, I always knew he was big. I’ve seen him with his shirt off a million times, but the sheer mass and weight of him is like being pinned down by a wall of rock.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous!” he says. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“You can have me. Take me.”

He makes a sound like some sort of animal and puts his hand over my face, scrunching it.

My body convulses under him, ready to be ravaged.

“I want to fuck you,” he says with a low hiss through gritted teeth.

“Fuck me!” I say.

“I’ve wanted to fuck you since . . . I shouldn’t say . . . since I first . . . knew.”

Huh?

Something goes haywire. My head spins a little.

No, no, no! Let’s just fuck!

“Fuck me!” I scream.

“I want to fuck you, don’t you understand? I want to fuck you so hard until you explode.”

I scream. “Then do it!”

“I can’t!”

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, nooooooooooooo!

He meets my eyes in a frozen perplexed glare. We stay like that for a moment too long.

“What?” I say.

“You’re Smudge. You’re my little Smudge.” He grazes the back of my cheek with his hand, like he’s wiping the latex paint off my face again.

“Stop it! I’m not Smudge anymore! I’m Abigail! No, fuck that! I’m Jayd! Jayden Raye!”

“What? You’re who?”

The moment is fading. We’re talking too much. “Fuck me!”

“I can’t just . . . fuck you, Smudge. I love you too much!”

The world stops spinning. Everything goes crashing down all to hell.

I close my eyes, feeling everything implode into nothingness.

Damn. Shit.

Shit. Fuck. Shit.

I push on his chest, and he rolls off me. I swing my legs around the bed to the floor, suddenly feeling very exposed, even though I’m not even naked. I wrap my arms around myself and face the floor.

“What did you say?” I say.

“I said I love you. I’m sorry, Smudge. You have to know. I can’t just do this. It wouldn’t be right. Go ahead and hate me. Go ahead. I have principles, and I can’t violate them.”

“Principles? What the fuck are you talking about, Trevor? This isn’t some goddamned movie about being noble. I’ve wanted you since the first time I got horny.”

“And that’s the problem. You’ve wanted me. I’ve always sensed that. But there’s a difference. You want me, but I love you. I mean, I really love you, Smudge. Like nobody else on earth. And I am not right for you.”

Oh God, will men please stop saying that to me!

I try to speak, but I don’t know what to say.

“See,” he says, “it’s one thing to desire someone. It’s completely another to adore and worship someone. And yet it’s completely another to love someone more than your own flesh. So that what is best for that person is your primary intent. My love for you has nothing to do at all with me. Nothing to do with my desires, even though I desire you more than any woman on Earth. But you deserve a boy your own age, not some aging bodyguard running from his own demons.”

I turn to look at him. “A boy my own age? A boy my own fucking age? Fuck you! I’m a grown woman, asshole! It’s not like I’m the little girl whose face you wiped paint off.”

“I’m fifty, Smudge.”

A lead weight drops on my head, or at least that’s what it feels like. “No, you’re not. You’re thirty-five. Forty, tops.”

“Smudge, do the fucking math! When your dad hired me to rescue Addison, I was thirty-two. You were three. That was eighteen years ago. Numbers don’t fucking lie.”

“But you can’t be fifty!”

“I tell myself that every morning when I look in the mirror, but facts are facts. It wouldn’t, it couldn’t, ever work with you and me and you know it. I would be in a position where I would be a source of hurt to you eventually. And if there’s one promise I made to myself, it’s that I would protect you from any hurt . . . including my own goddamned self.”

I rock on the edge of the bed for a while. “But I do love you, Trevor.”

“Not like I love you, Smudge. I know Chad or Todd . . . or who-the-fuck-ever . . . isn’t the guy for you, but I also know you don’t love me the same way I love you. I’m your childhood fantasy, your father figure.”

“Fuck you! You are not some childhood fantasy! And I have a father!”

Trevor laughs, then drops his voice down low. “Yeah, okay.”

We stay quiet for a very long while, not saying anything. The wind kicks up again outside, and the rain pours down. There is thunder and some flashes of lightning.

Eventually, we both realize we have nothing else to say. What else can be said?

We’re two people stuck in two different times who love each other, and yet what he said makes sense. I can’t lose him. He means too much to me. He’s Trevor, not my sexy lover, even if he is and always has been super-sexy.

Maybe some things are better left to fantasy.

I finally break the silence. “You make too much goddamned sense, Trevor.”

“I do. It’s what keeps me going. I was trained to make sense of everything. But, Smudge . . . ” He takes my hand. “. . . just knowing there is one person in this world that I’m connected to like no other.” He places my hand on his chest. “Someone to care for and love with every fiber of my being. It’s worth so much more than fucking.”

I sense wetness on my cheeks. I get up onto the bed and touch the right side of his face, his rough stubble burning my hand.

“One favor,” I say.

“Anything.”

“Hold me.”

“That I can do.”

My protector and guardian wraps his arms around me as I cuddle into him.

Soon, I’m asleep.

Chapter 4

The smell of coffee wakes me up.

Where am I?

Oh yeah, right. The Redmond Apts.

I swing off the bed and walk across the creaky floor to the kitchen. As I pass the bathroom, I notice it’s been used.

Trevor is in the kitchen, showered and shaved and ready for the day, cleaning the Keurig.

“This doesn’t belong here,” he says. “Ruins the feel of the place, don’t you think? Should be an old-fashioned percolator instead.”

“Good morning,” I say.

He doesn’t look at me. “Good morning. So, look, Smudge, I’ve got some shit to do. Your dad spent the night at the Radisson¸ and I’m going to meet him later.”

“Can’t you stay and have breakfast? I bought Hungry Jack pancakes.”

“No, but you’re safe. Stay here for as long as you want. You won’t be charged.”

“Yeah, I was meaning to ask you about that.”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

“But how can you just–”

“I said, don’t. Look, I’ve got to run. I just need to take care of something I’ve been meaning to take care of for years. Now that I’m here, I need to do it. Especially now that I’ve played a card with Rodrigo. I just announced to someone that I’m here. I need to go see . . . this particular someone. It will get my mind off this.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

He takes a sip of his coffee and meets my eyes for a tenth of a second, then looks away again with a little smile. “Couple times.”

“You know, it’s strange. We know nothing about your life before Dad hired you to rescue Addison.”

He gulps down his coffee and rinses the mug in the sink. “And I want to keep it that way.”

He’s about to walk past me toward the door, but he stops and pauses. Then he turns and looks into my eyes.