Page 43 of Bared

She kept it up, back and forth and back and forth, for another ten minutes. Brick just let her. Though she’d set her own boat in motion with this adventure, fate hadn’t promised her a pleasure cruise. If she needed the outlet of a good long pace, he wasn’t going to stop her.

Because the alternative choice simply wasn’t one.

Helping her take off the edge…in his way.

Which was, of course, what consumed his mind as the princess suddenly stopped.

She stalked all the way into the kitchen and swung open cupboards. When she finally found a drinking glass, she made her way to the sink with it. But as she clonked the glass atop the hexagon tiles, her head sank too. She dropped it between her shoulders, which were a pair of palpable tension.

The observation jolted Brick to finally move his own ass. As he approached the kitchen, he was struck by genuine remorse. And yeah, that made as much sense as pickles in fruit punch, but it was his truth, front and center. The only choice he could make in reaction to how she was peeling her layers off for him.

Sob by heartbreaking sob.

Good Christ.

She didn’t even cry like other women. She fought hard at the tears, shaking her head and sniffling deep. After the second, she palmed her forehead and cursed herself in raspy Arcadian.

Only after the third did she notice he’d stepped up behind her. “Brickham. I am fine. Honestly. Please do not feel you have to—”

She startled the second he cupped a hand over the ball of her shoulder.

“You think I’m here because I have to be, Pixie?”

He hadn’t intended to slip out the endearment again. But it felt too natural to ignore. Too damn right. From the second he’d first seen her in the bar, this protectiveness about her had only gotten worse. And yeah, he meant worse. Because nothing good could come from this persistent, possessive fire—especially when it came time to snuff it out. That would only be in a few hours—tomorrow morning at the latest. Then Oz and Fox would be back and taking over again. As it should be. As it had to be.

But here and now, there were no had-to-bes. No shoulds or musts. Nothing but the comfort and strength he longed to lend her. And, to be brutally honest, the fortitude he drew from her too. From the stubbornness beneath her softness. The pride beneath her stance. Even the courage beneath her tears. Dear God, especially that.

“I just thought…” she murmured back, “that since you said you were working with Jagger…”

“That I was doing all of this for a paycheck.”

She turned around by tentative inches. He hadn’t given her a lot of choice about the matter, considering how close he’d moved in.

“Am I wrong?”

He dragged in a long breath. He wasn’t sorry for not moving. “I don’t need anyone’s money, Jayd.” He also wasn’t sorry for skirting her query. It wasn’t a lie. Bastille had been running in the green for a long time, and his bank account had gained a few zeroes last week alone, thanks to the op for Reece Richards.

Her forehead crunched. Her lips pursed. He couldn’t decide which piece of tension he yearned to kiss away faster. “So you dropped everything, just like that, just to help find me?”

He hitched a shoulder in a half shrug. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Why?”

“Honestly?”

She smirked. “Yeah, pretty much.”

He ducked his head, using the tender motion for totally selfish reasons. It got his face even closer to those adorably smiling lips. “I hadn’t even agreed to the task yet. After Oz and Fox asked me, I told them I had to think about it. I stopped at the Particulier because I’d spent several hours walking around, doing just that.” He gave her a small smile. “In truth, you were the one who found me, sweetheart.”

“I am not certain Gervais would agree about that.” She joined him in only the briefest of chuckles before sobering and prompting, “So why did you give them that answer? What did you have to think about?”

Another huge inhalation on his part. Here was where the rubber met the truth-even-if-it-killed-him road. “I had to consider if I’d be able to stay personally distanced from you.”

Her gaze flared. She dropped rough fingers atop his forearms. “But you did not even know me.”

“But I had a feeling I would want to.” He leaned in lower—yet one more way he shouldn’t be tempting fate that was canceled by the feeling of her hands on him. He liked it. A lot. Too much. And damn it, he had to tell her so. All of it. “And my feeling wasn’t wrong.”

The air clutched in his throat as her fingertips tightened on him. “So…what do you know about me now?”