Chap­ter 6: Brid­get

TRIAL MONTH ONE

“You’re jok­ing.” I pulled the black vest out of the pack­age, let­ting it dan­gle from my fin­gers like a dirty piece of laun­dry.

Rhys sipped his cof­fee and didn’t look up from his news­pa­per. “I don’t joke about safe­ty.”

“This is a bul­let­proof vest.”

“I’m aware. I bought it.”

Inhale. Exhale. “Mr. Larsen, please explain why I need a bul­let­proof vest. Where am I sup­posed to wear it, class? My next vol­un­teer shift?”

“To pro­tect you against bul­lets, and sure. If you’d like.”

A mus­cle twitched beneath my eye. It’d been a month since we agreed to our deal, and I got it. I’d messed up. I nev­er should’ve snuck out with Ava, but she’d been so down about her rela­tion­ship trou­bles with Alex, and I’d want­ed to cheer her up.

Obvi­ous­ly, it had back­fired, big time.

The kid­nap­ping inci­dent had thrown a buck­et of cold water over my pre­vi­ous­ly rosy out­look on per­son­al safe­ty, and I was com­mit­ted to act­ing more respon­si­bly. I hat­ed admit­ting when Rhys was right because he was such an arro­gant ass about it most of the time, but he put his life on the line for me every day. How­ev­er, he also seemed intent on mak­ing me renege on the deal by throw­ing the most out­ra­geous sug­ges­tions my way.

Like a freakin’ bul­let­proof vest.

“I bought the vest as a just-in-case item,” Rhys said mild­ly. “Now that you men­tion it, we should take it for a test spin next time you’re in pub­lic.”

Take out the chip, and I’ll do what you say, when you say it, as long as it’s secu­ri­ty-relat­ed. I promise.

I grit­ted my teeth. Rhys had tak­en the chip out, and I didn’t break my promis­es.

“Fine.” A light­bulb flashed in my head, and a slow smile spread across my face. “I’ll put it on now.”

He final­ly raised his head, his face dark with sus­pi­cion at how eas­i­ly I’d capit­u­lat­ed. “Where are we going?”

“Shop­ping.”

If there was one thing Rhys hat­ed, it was accom­pa­ny­ing me shop­ping. It was such a stereo­typ­i­cal male weak­ness, and I ful­ly intend­ed to exploit it. My smile widened when his face dark­ened fur­ther.

This is going to be fun.

An hour lat­er, we arrived at the Hazel­burg Mall, a four-sto­ry mec­ca of stores I could tor­ture Rhys with. Luck­i­ly, it was win­ter, which meant I could hide most of the vest’s bulk beneath a chunky sweater and coat.

Accord­ing to Rhys, he’d bought a lighter ver­sion for me, but the vest was still hot, heavy, and awk­ward. I almost regret­ted my shop­ping revenge plan, but Rhys’s fero­cious scowl made it all worth it… until cat­a­stro­phe struck.

I was try­ing on clothes in our dozenth bou­tique of the day when I got stuck in a dress. I’d acci­den­tal­ly grabbed the wrong size, and the unfor­giv­ing mate­r­i­al dug into my ribcage while trap­ping my arms above my head. I couldn’t see, and I could bare­ly move.

“Shit.” I rarely cursed, but the sit­u­a­tion called for it. One of my life­long irra­tional fears was get­ting stuck in cloth­ing in a store.

“What’s wrong?” Rhys demand­ed from out­side the dress­ing room. “Is every­thing okay?”

“Yes.” I pinched the sides of the dress and tried pulling it up again, to no avail. “I’m fine.”

Ten min­utes lat­er, I was sweat­ing and pant­i­ng from exer­tion and the lack of fresh air, and my arms ached from being held up so long. Shit, shit, shit.

“What the hell is going on in there?” Rhys’s annoy­ance came through the door, loud and clear. “You’re tak­ing too long.”

I had no choice. I had to ask for help. “Can you call a sales assis­tant over? I need their help with a, uh, cloth­ing issue.”

There was a long pause. “You’re stuck.”

Flames of embar­rass­ment licked my skin. “Just call some­one over. Please.”

“Can’t. One employ­ee left for lunch, and the oth­er is six peo­ple deep at the reg­is­ter.” Fig­ured Rhys would be track­ing everyone’s move­ments while he wait­ed for me. “I’ll help.”

If I could see my reflec­tion, I was sure I’d see a mask of hor­ror star­ing back at me. “No. You can’t come in here!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m…” Half-naked. Exposed. “Inde­cent.”

“I’ve seen half-naked women before, princess. Either let me in so I can get you out of what­ev­er jam you’re in, or sit tight for the next hour because that’s how long it’s gonna take the cashier to get through the week­end crowd. They’re mov­ing slow­er than a tur­tle on mor­phine.”

The uni­verse hat­ed me. I was sure of it.

“Fine.” I forced the word out, the flames of embar­rass­ment burn­ing hot­ter. “Come in.”

The dress­ing room doors didn’t have locks, and a sec­ond lat­er, Rhys’s pres­ence filled the tiny space. Even if I hadn’t heard him enter, I would’ve felt him. He exud­ed an intense ener­gy that charged every mol­e­cule of air until it vibrat­ed with him.

Raw. Mas­cu­line. Pow­er­ful.

I held my breath as he approached, his boots soft on the linoleum floor. For some­one so large, he moved with the grace of a pan­ther. The dress cov­ered my chest, but my lace panties were on full dis­play, and I tried not to think about how much skin I was show­ing as Rhys stopped in front of me. He was close enough I could feel the heat radi­at­ing from his body and smell his clean, soapy scent.

Ten­sion and silence hummed in equal mea­sure when he gripped the hem of the dress above my head and pulled. It slid up half a cen­time­ter before it stopped again, and I winced when the fab­ric dug into a fresh sec­tion of flesh.

“I’m going to try from the bot­tom up,” Rhys said, his voice detached and con­trolled.

Bot­tom up. Mean­ing he had to put his hands on my bare skin.

“Okay.” It came out squeaki­er than I would’ve liked.

Every mus­cle tensed when he rest­ed his palms on the top of my ribcage. He smoothed his thumbs briefly over the chafed area where the dress had dug into my skin before he hooked his fin­gers beneath the mate­r­i­al as much as he could and inched it up.

I couldn’t hold my breath any­more.

I final­ly exhaled, my chest heav­ing like it was try­ing to push itself deep­er into Rhys’s rough, warm touch. The breaths sound­ed embar­rass­ing­ly loud in the silence.

Rhys paused. The dress was halfway up my shoul­ders now, enough to bare my bra-clad chest.

“Calm your breath­ing, princess, or this ain’t gonna work,” he said, sound­ing a touch more strained than he had a minute ago.

Heat scorched my skin, but I wres­tled my breath­ing under con­trol, and he resumed his work.

Anoth­er inch…another…and I was free.

Fresh air assault­ed my nos­trils, and I blinked to adjust to the light after being trapped in the dress for the past twen­ty min­utes.

I clutched the mate­r­i­al in front of me, my face hot with embar­rass­ment and relief.

“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Rhys stepped back, his jaw like gran­ite. Instead of respond­ing, he picked up the bul­let­proof vest and T‑shirt I’d worn beneath it and crooked his fin­ger. “Come here.”

“I can put it on myself.”

Again, no response.

I sighed and walked to where he stood. I was too tired to fight, and I didn’t resist when he slipped the T‑shirt over my head, fol­lowed by the vest. I watched him in the mir­ror while he worked, adjust­ing the vest and straps until it sat com­fort­ably on my tor­so. I still held my dress in front of me, angling it so it cov­ered my under­wear.

I didn’t know why I both­ered. Rhys showed as much inter­est in my half-naked form as he would in a foam man­nequin.

A strange nee­dle of irri­ta­tion pricked at me.

Rhys fin­ished fix­ing the vest, but before I could step away, his hands closed around my biceps in an iron grip. They were so large they eas­i­ly encir­cled my arms.

He locked eyes with me in the mir­ror and low­ered his head until his mouth hov­ered next to my ear.

My heart skipped a fran­tic beat, and I clutched the dress tighter in front of me.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing all day.”

Rhys’s breath whis­pered across my skin in a dark warn­ing. “I indulged you this time, princess, but I don’t like games. Lucky for you, you passed the test.” He slid his hands up my arms until they rest­ed on my vest-clad shoul­ders, leav­ing a trail of fire in their wake. “You need to learn how to fol­low instruc­tions with­out argu­ing. I don’t care if you think I’m being ridicu­lous. A second’s delay can mean the dif­fer­ence between life and death. I say duck, you duck. I say wear a bul­let­proof vest to the fuck­ing beach, you wear the vest. Under­stand?”

My grip stran­gled the dress. “The vest was a test to see if I would wear it? That is so…underhanded.” An entire day wast­ed on a stu­pid test. Indig­na­tion unfurled in my stom­ach. “I hate when you do stuff like this.”

A grim half-smile touched Rhys’s lips. “I’d rather you hate me alive than love me dead.” He released my shoul­ders. “Get dressed. We’re leav­ing.”

The door shut behind him.

I could final­ly breathe easy again, but I couldn’t stop his words from echo­ing in my mind.

I’d rather you hate me alive than love me dead.

The prob­lem was, I didn’t hate him. I hat­ed his rules and restric­tions, but I didn’t hate him.

I wished I did.

It would make my life a lot sim­pler.

---

TRIAL MONTH THREE

“I can’t go.”

“What do you mean you can’t go?” Jules’s dis­be­lief oozed over the line. “We’ve been talk­ing about the fes­ti­val since sopho­more year. We have coor­di­nat­ed out­fits. Stel­la rent­ed a car! We might die on the road because she’s a ter­ri­ble dri­ver—”

“I heard that!” Stel­la yelled in the back­ground.

“—but she’s the only one with a license.”

“I know.” I glared at Rhys, who sat on the couch pol­ish­ing a knife like a psy­cho. “A cer­tain body­guard deemed it unsafe.”

My friends and I had planned on attend­ing the Rokbury music fes­ti­val for years, and now, I had to sit it out.

“So? Come any­way. He works for you, not the oth­er way around.”

I wished I could, but we were still in the tri­al peri­od of our deal, and Rhys’s con­cerns weren’t total­ly off base. Rokbury took place at a camp­ground an hour and a half out­side New York City, and while it looked like a blast, some­thing inevitably went wrong every year—a festival-goer’s tent catch­ing fire, a drunk­en group fight lead­ing to sev­er­al hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, a pan­ic-induced stam­pede. It was also sup­posed to storm the week­end of this year’s fes­ti­val, which meant the camp­ground would prob­a­bly turn into a giant mud pit, but my friends were risk­ing it, any­way.

“Sor­ry, J. Next time.”

Jules sighed. “Tell your man he’s hot as hell but a total buz­zkill.”

“He’s not my man. He’s my body­guard.” I low­ered my voice, but I thought I saw Rhys pause for a mil­lisec­ond before he resumed pol­ish­ing his knife.

“Even worse. He’s run­ning your life and you’re not get­ting any dick from it.”

“Jules.”

“You know it’s true.” Anoth­er sigh. “Fine, I get it. We’ll miss you, but we’ll catch up when we’re back.”

“Sounds good.”

I hung up and sank into the arm­chair, FOMO—Fear of Miss­ing Out—hitting me hard. I’d bought the fes­ti­val tick­ets months ago, before Rhys start­ed work­ing for me, and I’d had to sell them to a ran­dom junior in my polit­i­cal the­o­ry class.

“I hope you’re hap­py,” I said point­ed­ly.

He didn’t respond.

Rhys and I had set­tled into a more func­tion­al dynam­ic over the past three months, but there were still times I want­ed to chuck a text­book at him. Like now.

When the day of the fes­ti­val rolled around the fol­low­ing week­end, how­ev­er, I woke up to the shock of my life.

I walked into the liv­ing room, bleary-eyed, only to find it trans­formed. The fur­ni­ture had been pushed to the side, replaced with a pile of boho-print­ed pil­lows and cush­ions on the floor. The cof­fee table groaned beneath var­i­ous snacks and drinks, and the Rokbury fes­ti­val played out in real time on-screen. The pièce de résis­tance, how­ev­er, was the indoor tent dec­o­rat­ed with string lights, which looked exact­ly like the ones peo­ple set up on the fes­ti­val grounds.

Rhys sat on the couch, which was now pressed flush against the wall beneath the win­dow, frown­ing at his phone.

“What…” I rubbed my eyes. Nope, I wasn’t dream­ing. The tent, the snacks, they were all there. “What is this?”

“Indoor fes­ti­val,” he grunt­ed.

“You put this togeth­er.” It was a state­ment of dis­be­lief more than a ques­tion.

“Reluc­tant­ly, and with help.” Rhys glanced up. “Your red­head­ed friend is a men­ace.”

Of course. That made more sense. My friends must’ve felt bad I was miss­ing the fes­ti­val, so they put togeth­er a con­so­la­tion par­ty, so to speak. But some­thing didn’t add up.

“They left last night.”

“They dropped every­thing off before­hand while you were in the show­er.”

Hmm, plau­si­ble. I took long show­ers.

Appeased and delight­ed, I grabbed an arm­ful of chips, can­dy, and soda and crawled into the cush­ioned tent, where I watched my favorite bands per­form their sets on the TV. The sound and pic­ture qual­i­ty was so good I almost felt like I was there.

Admit­ted­ly, I was more com­fort­able than I would’ve been at the actu­al fes­ti­val, but I missed hav­ing peo­ple to enjoy it with.

An hour in, I poked my head out from the tent, hes­i­tant. “Mr. Larsen. Why don’t you join me? There’s plen­ty of food.”

He was still sit­ting on the couch, frown­ing like a bear who’d wok­en up on the wrong side of the cave.

“No, thanks.”

“Come on.” I waved my hand around. “Don’t make me par­ty alone. That’s just sad.”

Rhys’s mouth tugged in a small smirk before he unfold­ed him­self from his seat. “Only because you lis­tened about not attend­ing the fes­ti­val.”

This time, I was the one who frowned. “You say it like you’re train­ing a dog.”

“Most things in life are like train­ing a dog.”

“That’s not true.”

“Show up to work, get paid. Woo a girl, get laid. Study, get good grades. Action and reward. Soci­ety runs on it.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he had a point.

“No one uses the word woo any­more,” I mut­tered. I hat­ed when he was right.

His smirk deep­ened a frac­tion of an inch.

He was too large to fit in the tent with me, so he set­tled on the floor next to it. Despite my cajol­ing, he refused to touch the food, leav­ing me to inhale the snacks on my own.

Anoth­er hour lat­er, I’d ingest­ed so much sug­ar and carbs I felt a lit­tle sick, and Rhys looked bored enough to fall asleep.

“I take it you’re not a fan of elec­tron­ic music.” I stretched and winced. The last bag of salt and vine­gar chips had been a bad idea.

“It sounds like a Moun­tain Dew com­mer­cial gone wrong.”

I almost choked on my water. “Fair enough.” I wiped my mouth with a nap­kin, unable to hide my smile. Rhys was so seri­ous I delight­ed when­ev­er his stony mask cracked. “So, tell me. If you don’t like EDM, what do you like?”

“Don’t lis­ten to much music.”

“A hob­by?” I per­sist­ed. “You must have a hob­by.”

He didn’t answer, but the brief flash of wari­ness in his eyes told me all I need­ed to know.

“You do have one!” I knew so lit­tle about Rhys out­side his job, I latched onto the morsel of infor­ma­tion like a starved ani­mal. “What is it? Let me guess, knit­ting. No, bird watch­ing. No, cos­play.”

I picked the most ran­dom, un-Rhys-like hob­bies I could think of.

“No.”

“Stamp col­lect­ing? Yoga? Poké­mon—”

“If I tell you, will you shut up?” he said cranki­ly.

I respond­ed with a beatif­ic smile. “I might.”

Rhys hes­i­tat­ed for a long moment before say­ing, “I draw, some­times.”

Of all the things I’d expect­ed him to say, that wasn’t even in the top hun­dred.

“What do you draw?” My tone turned teas­ing. “I imag­ine it’s a lot of armored vehi­cles and secu­ri­ty alarms. Maybe a Ger­man Shep­herd when you’re feel­ing warm and fuzzy.”

He snort­ed. “Except for the Shep, you make me sound bor­ing as shit.”

I opened my mouth, and he held up his hand. “Don’t think about it.”

I closed my mouth, but my smile remained. “How did you get into draw­ing?”

“My ther­a­pist sug­gest­ed it. Said it would help with my con­di­tion. Turns out, I enjoy it.” He shrugged. “Ther­a­pist is gone, but the draw­ing stayed.”

Anoth­er bolt of sur­prise dart­ed through me, both at the fact he’d had a ther­a­pist and that he spoke so freely about it. Most peo­ple wouldn’t admit to it so eas­i­ly.

It made sense, though. He’d served in the mil­i­tary for a decade. I imag­ined he’d lived through his fair share of scar­ring expe­ri­ences.

“PTSD?” I asked soft­ly.

Rhys jerked his head in a quick nod. “Com­plex PTSD.” He didn’t elab­o­rate, and I didn’t press him. It was too per­son­al an issue for me to pry into.

“I’m dis­ap­point­ed,” I said, chang­ing the sub­ject since I could feel him clos­ing off again. “I’d real­ly hoped you were into cos­play. You would make a good Thor, only with dark hair.”

“Sec­ond time you’ve tried to get me to take my shirt off, princess. Care­ful, or I’ll think you’re try­ing to seduce me.”

Heat con­sumed my face. “I’m not try­ing to get your shirt off. Thor doesn’t even—” I stopped when Rhys let out a low chuck­le.

“You’re mess­ing with me.”

“When you get riled up, your face looks like a straw­ber­ry.”

Between the indoor fes­ti­val set­up and the words “your face looks like a straw­ber­ry” leav­ing Rhys’s mouth, I was con­vinced I’d wok­en up in an alter­nate dimen­sion.

“I do not look like a straw­ber­ry,” I said with as much dig­ni­ty as I could muster. “At least I’m not the one who refus­es to get surgery.”

Rhys’s thick, dark brows low­ered.

“For your per­ma­nent scowl,” I clar­i­fied. “A good plas­tic sur­geon can help you with that.”

My words hung in the air for a sec­ond before Rhys did some­thing that shocked me to my core. He laughed.

A real laugh, not the half chuck­le he’d let slip in Eldor­ra. His eyes crin­kled, deep­en­ing the faint, odd­ly sexy lines around them, and his teeth flashed white against his tanned skin.

The sound slid over me, as rough and tex­tured as I imag­ined his touch would be.

Not that I had ever imag­ined what his touch would feel like. It was hypo­thet­i­cal.

“Touché.” The rem­nants of amuse­ment filled the cor­ners of his mouth, trans­form­ing him from gor­geous to dev­as­tat­ing.

And that was when anoth­er cat­a­stro­phe hap­pened, one far more dis­turb­ing than get­ting stuck in a too-tight dress in a pub­lic dress­ing room.

Some­thing light and vel­vety brushed against my heart…and flut­tered. Just once, but it was enough for me to iden­ti­fy it.

A but­ter­fly.

No, no, no.

I loved ani­mals, I tru­ly did, but I could not have a but­ter­fly liv­ing in my stom­ach. Not for Rhys Larsen. It need­ed to die imme­di­ate­ly.

“Are you okay?” He gave me a strange look. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”

“Yes, I’m fine.” I refo­cused on the screen, try­ing my best not to look at him. “I ate too much, too fast. That’s all.”

But I was so flus­tered I couldn’t focus for the rest of the after­noon, and when it final­ly came time for bed, I couldn’t sleep a wink.

I could not be attract­ed to my body­guard. Not in a way that gave me but­ter­flies.

They’d only flut­tered when we first met, but they’d died quick­ly after Rhys opened his mouth. Why were they return­ing now, when I had a full grasp of how insuf­fer­able he was?

Get your­self togeth­er, Brid­get.

My phone buzzed with an incom­ing call, and I picked it up, grate­ful for the dis­trac­tion.

“Bridge!” Jules bub­bled, clear­ly tip­sy. “How are you hold­ing up, babe?”

“I’m in bed.” I laughed. “Hav­ing fun at the fes­ti­val?”

“Yessss, but wish you were here. It’s not as fun with­out you.”

“Wish I was there, too.” I brushed a strand of hair out of my eye. “At least I had the indoor fes­ti­val. That was a bril­liant idea, by the way. Thank you.”

“Indoor fes­ti­val?” Jules sound­ed con­fused. “What are you talk­ing about?”