Page 31 of Guardian Angel

“Really? Because in the two weeks I’ve been here, I’ve heard multiple people compare their food to sex. And I haven’t left this apartment in the past five days.”

“Well, you did spend a lot of that time in a café. It’s kind of the goal to make people like the food.”

“Just because that’s the goal doesn’t mean it makes sense to me. Food is supposed to give you sustenance so you can live your life—you aren’t supposed to live so that you can eat. There is no good reason restaurants are treated like recreational places.”

She shook her head, not looking at me. “Are we really having this conversation?”

“Am I upsetting you?”

She turned away from the stove to face me. “Actually, I happen to agree with you for the most part. However, your way with words is something else.”

I took a step closer to her. “Is that your nice way of telling me I’m being a judgy asshole?”

Her lower lip slipped between her teeth as she looked up at me. She was so tiny I towered over her when we stood this close. I probably should have felt bad about crowding her, but all my focus was dedicated to watching the way her teeth sank into the soft flesh of her lip.

I reached out and tugged her lip with my thumb without really thinking about it. It was every bit as soft as it looked. I traced over it, and she sucked in a soft breath, her eyes locked on mine. Shit, I wanted to kiss her, to know what her lips felt like against mine.

The sound of the stove timer going off broke me out of my trance and brought reality slamming back. I yanked my hand away as if her lip had burned me.

“Nathaniel?” she asked, and I could hear the hurt in her voice.

“I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.” Like I’d ever given a fuck about what was appropriate.

But Sierra was my job, my responsibility, and any other kind of relationship was off the table for us. I couldn’t afford the distraction or consequences. It didn’t matter what my body thought of her; I needed to keep her at a safe distance.

What I really needed was to get out of this apartment, but that wasn’t an option. So I settled for backing into the farthest corner of the kitchen, giving her space.

Sierra nodded, but she didn’t look at me as she drained the pasta and started pulling dishes out.

Lunch was silent and tense. It didn’t take a genius to know that I’d managed to fuck everything up. But in case I’d somehow missed that fact, Sierra disappeared into her room as soon as she was finished eating and didn’t come back out as minutes turned to hours.

* * *

By Saturday morning,I was fed up with Sierra’s disappearing act. Not only had I barely seen her in two days, which really didn’t mix well with the whole bodyguard gig, but Kylie wasn’t speaking to me either.

Thursday night the two of them had hidden out in Sierra’s room. Kylie had come out and told me she didn’t want to be in the middle of whatever was going on between Sierra and me. Hell if I knewwhatexactly she thought that was, but I wasn’t going to argue with her about it.

Now Kylie was off with her maybe boyfriend, and Sierra had yet to emerge from her bedroom. I knew she didn’t have work because I’d checked the printed schedule the girls kept taped to the fridge.

I knocked on her bedroom door. “I need proof that you’re alive and well.”

“I’m fine,” her voice called back through the wood.

“Let me rephrase. I needvisibleproof. Yelling through a closed door isn’t going to cut it, baby girl.”

“Stop calling me that,” she snapped.

“Did you even listen to the rest of what I said?”

“The answer is no, Nathaniel. I’ve done what you wanted all week. You don’t get to dictate where I go inside this apartment too.”

I reached for the doorknob, starting to wonder if she was actually hiding something.

It was locked.

The rational part of my brain told me that she just wanted privacy, that it was her bedroom and she had a right to lock her door while living with a guy who’d already been toeing the line with her. But the rational part of my brain was drowned out by the icy fear that traveled down my spine. She’d locked me out. It was my job—myduty—to keep her safe, and she’d blocked my path to her.

The lock snapped as I twisted the knob sharply. I had the door open before any kind of reason could invade my brain.