“Billie!” Max calls from the living area, clearly impatient.
“I’m… I’m…coming,” I say, almost busting out in post-orgasmic laughter as the unintended pun slips out of my mouth. “One second. Give me one second…”
I quickly grab some tissue, wipe away the mess, and sort my clothes out and stand up from the door to look at myself in the mirror.
“Come on, get a hold of yourself,” I whisper, splashing my face with cold, crip mountain water direct from the faucet. “It’s all a performance. Life is a performance. Go out there, play it cool, wrap him around your finger. You’ve got this.”
And with that, the rapid-fire bout of self-pleasure is right at the back of my mind.
It’s time to get my ass back on the stage and give Max a performance he can believe—and when he’s eating out of the palm of my hands, that’s when I’ll turn the tables and start making this situation work for me.
It won’t be long before I’m out of this nowhere town bunkhouse and back on stage with my crew, doing what I love. And when I am, Max will be nothing more than a silly, hot mess of a one-time bathroom jerk-off memory—and we can all live our lives like this whole thing never, ever happened…
Chapter 4
Max
“Four minutes fifty-eight seconds,” I mutter. “Close. Too close.”
Billie doesn’t respond. He got his butt out of the bathroom in time, but only just—almost like the whole thing was a deliberate provocation. But if he doesn’t realize that I’m wise to his game, then he’s got another thing coming.
I lean against the cabin’s kitchen counter, my arms crossed, watching the boy from across the room. He’s perched on the cozy couch in the corner, his legs tucked under him, staring out the window as snow falls in soft, silent drifts. His face is still flushed, his cheeks a shade too pink, and his hair’s a little mussed, like he’s been running his hands through it.
Billie rushed out of that bathroom looking flustered, muttering something about needing a second, and now he’s sitting there, all defiance and pout, like he’s daring the world to mess with him. But I see it—the way his fingers fidget with the edge of his jacket, the way his eyes flicker with something that looks a hell of a lot like fear.
The boy is trying to play it cool, but he’s not fooling me.
Underneath that pop star bravado, there’s a scared boy, and it’s stirring something in me I’m not sure I need right now. Call it instinct. Or call it a most basic level of lust. That drive to be a Daddy is calling me right now. I know it when I feel it.
I’m about to step over and lay down the house rules—curfew, no wandering, no touching my gear—when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Not the burner phone I use for civilian calls, but the encrypted one, the one only the Guard uses.
My gut tightens. I know it’s likely to be intel, or an update on the mission. And often, that means bad news. Mr. G keeps things very minimal typically. If you don’t hear from him, then that’s probably a good thing as it means everything is running to plan.
Okay, Mr. G, what have you got for me this time…
I pull it out, keeping my eyes on Billie as I unlock the screen with a swipe. The message is short and coded, the kind that’s meant to look like gibberish to anyone else:
G: Asset prominence draws eyes. Source unconfirmed, high-value target. Escalation likely. Secure and report.
I read it twice, my jaw clenching. Translated, it’s bad news. Billie’s fame—his chart-topping, stadium-filling, billion-streaming fame—has drawn the wrong kind of attention. Not just a random crank, like his manager Trent suggested. This is something bigger, something the Guard’s intel network is sniffing out. Maybe a rival, a syndicate, or worse.
My mind flashes to the worst-case scenarios I’ve seen in my years with the Guard: blackmail, kidnapping, or a hit meant to send a message.
This mission, which I’d written off as babysitting, just got a lot less boring—and a lot more dangerous. I’ve been around for long enough to sense a change in the mood, a feeling that a mission has another level to it that is going to suddenly unlock and spill out in any number of ways. Right now, this mission is very much feeling like it could take a similar turn.
Focus.
Assess.
Keep the boy calm and controlled.
I slip the phone back into my pocket, my eyes still on Billie.
He’s pouting again, his lips pursed as he glares at the snow like it’s personally offended him. That defiance of his is infuriating, all sass and attitude, like he thinks he can charm or tantrum his way out of this.
Given his life as a celebrity, I almost don’t blame him for behaving like this. After all, he’s probably surrounded the whole time by people who are either on his payroll or trying to finesse him for everything they can get out of him. I don’t feel jealous of Billie’s fame or money, and to be honest I’m not even sure that the boy truly wants it either. I might be wrong, but I think the whole pop diva thing might be a defense mechanism.
Hell, I’m no psychologist though. I’m a Guard, a Night Ops guy. It’s time to quit trying to be an armchair expert and instead focus on the very real task at hand…
