Page 15 of One Time Only (One Time Only 1)
“Yes.” He shifts instantly, away from the physical, like the last few minutes didn’t even happen.
“Me too. I did some yoga, some Pilates in the morning. I feel like a brand-new man today. Ready to tackle any challenge that the world is going to throw at me.”
“What sort of challenges do you think the world is going to throw at you?”
“Anything. Everything. The world is tossing them in my direction, and I’m going to handle all of them, J. And mostly, I want you to know the biggest challenge I’m going to handle,” I say, since this is serious.
No messing around here.
No matter how much I want this man, I need to honor his lines.
I want him to know I respect his boundaries.
“What’s that?”
“The biggest challenge is that I need to resist you. And I plan on it. I’m going to resist the hell out of you. I am going to earn myself all the awards ever in the history of resisting the sexiest bodyguard in the world.”
He laughs, loud and deep, and that shifts the mood once more. Turns it light again, the sensuality washed away with a chuckle. “That’s good to know.”
“Isn’t it?”
He meets my gaze, his eyes showing a hint of regret. Like maybe he doesn’t want me to resist him. Maybe not after the way I just touched him, like he needed some softness, some tenderness.
But in a split second, that regret is erased from his irises.
He is all certain, and—as an adult who is trying desperately to adult—I’m glad I’m resisting him.
“Yes, Stone, it’s very good to know,” he adds.
“And you know why I’m going to do it?” I ask, because I need the reminder too.
His brow knits. “Because I work for you?”
“Because you work for me. Because I respect you. And because I want to show you my skills,” I say, laying out my reasons.
“You want to show off by resisting me?”
I answer from the heart. “That’s what you were getting at last night when you talked about the private party. You think I’m easy. You think I touch anyone. And you don’t like that. You were jealous at the thought of me touching someone else.”
Jackson shakes his head, his jaw tightening, his lips forming a straight line. He glances toward the front of the car, even though there’s a soundproof screen between us and the driver.
“We don’t need to talk about this.”
“But we do. Because I think that’s part of the issue for you. You don’t like the fact that I’m a free spirit.”
His answer is hard, bitten with tension as he gestures from him to me. “That has nothing to do with this.”
“You say that. But it kind of does. And I want to prove something to you. I want to prove to you that I don’t just throw myself at anybody.”
Jackson lets out a beleaguered sigh. “Why do you want to prove that to me?”
I look hard at him, at this stunning man by my side. I could give him a million lines. I could tell him he’s sexier than anyone I’ve ever known.
But that doesn’t matter to him. He won’t care about that. The things that matter to Jackson go deeper than sex, deeper than looks. That’s why I want to impress him with the man I can be. I don’t know what the future holds with Jackson and me. Don’t know if there’s a chance for anything more with him. But for now, I need to show him and myself that there’s more to me.
“You’re important to me. So I made a bet with myself. To resist you and everyone else.”
He laughs. “You’re crazy.”
“Maybe I am.”
But maybe this is something I need to prove to myself.
Not only that I can resist him, but that I can resist sex.
So that’s what I do for the entire next month.8JacksonA month on the East Coast is good for me. Stone plays shows in Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Raleigh, DC, and New York, and I do my job.
I make sure screaming fans don’t grab his clothes or steal his phone. I protect him from the wild onslaught of groupies who want to touch his arm or slide a hand through his hair.
Fabian used to say my job was risky too, but guarding celebrities is nothing compared to the daredevil risks he took for clicks on social media.
Hell, my job is safer than a firefighter’s. Much less risky than the Marines. My work involves using my brain more than my body.
It involves eyesight and instinct.
And tonight it involves Portland, Maine, the last leg of this brief East Coast stint.
That’s my favorite stop, since I can escape to see my family. On my night off, I stay with them and take my mom, dad, and two sisters out to dinner. The next morning, I drive Bethany to school. She’s an early bird like me, so she’s not due in class for thirty more minutes, which means we have some time.
