Stone grinned. “You’re not getting your hands on my gun.”
“Bloody hell.” There was no strength in her words, none of her normal spirit. It was as though her usual vitality had been sucked right out of her.
“C’mon. Let’s get you in a bath.” Hopefully the heat would relax her, make it easier for her to find her spark again. Stone didn’t like seeing her defeated. He wanted her to fight back now that she wasn’t quivering in fear.
She let him help her sit up. “Will you wash my back?” she asked.
His gaze met hers, her twinkly eyes lifting a load of tension from his body.
Smiling, he said, “If you want me to.”
“I want your hands on me. I want to feel something other than numb. Ineedit. I don’t want him to take more than he already has.”
“Okay.” He helped her to her feet. “But no sex.”
She eyed him with a narrowed gaze—a deep frown.
“It’s not that I don’t want you.” The hard-on in his pants was proof he did.
Her eyelids fluttered closed and she drew in a deep breath. Eyes popping open again, she stared at him with those brutally honest green orbs that took his legs out from under him. She was so open. No shields. No hiding.
“It’s okay. I get it. You think you’d be taking advantage of me.”
“No. That’s not it.”
“It’s not?”
“I can’t protect you.” He shrugged. “I only had one condom with me.”
“Oh.” She took a step, pressed her front to his and sent a shudder of desire rushing though him. “We can do other things besides sex though, right?”
Stone sucked in a breath when she wiggled so her breasts rubbed against his chest. “You’re dangerous when you want something, you know that?”
She grinned with some of the sparkle he’d grown to love. “It’s you. You bring out the best in me,” she drawled in a sexy whisper.
He chuckled. “I’m sure others would say it’s the worst. You have an image that doesn’t include having sex with your bodyguard.”
“I’ve never worried about what other people think.”
Tilting his head to the side, he asked, “So you don’t care what I think?”
“You aren’t other people.”
“I’m not?”
“No.”
“Then what am I?”
“The guy I’m falling for.”
God. She slayed him. Her honesty. Her refusal to hide an ounce of herself from him. Every fucking thing about her brought him to his knees and he had no defense against the emotions she inspired. He didn’t want any.
But he wasn’t stupid. He knew the situation could be responsible for their chemistry.
Stone understood himself well and knew what he felt was real—solid—but Soph, for all her honesty, remained an unknown, and while he believed she felt something for him, he wasn’t convinced it would last beyond their forced time together.
And right there was another reason he shouldn’t touch her again. With or without protection, sex or no sex, he should keep his hands to himself and do his job—only his job.
