It makes me want things I absolutely should not want from my witness protection handler.
Dario just sent you chocolates and you came thinking about him in court and now you’re mind-fucking your marshal. Get it together, Stevie.
But Dario didn’t just anything.
Dario is somewhere I’ll never know. Past tense. Closed door.
And this man with the kind eyes and the capable hands is present tense, sitting three feet away, waiting for me to finish breaking so he can help pick up the pieces.
“There’s one more thing,” Saul says gently.
I look up. Meet those faded denim eyes.
“We need to change your appearance. Hair, mainly.” He hesitates like he knows this will hurt. “We have someone here who can do it now, before we leave. It’s safer that way.”
My hand goes to my hair without permission.
Dark brown. The same color it’s been my whole life. The color my mother had. The color I see in the mirror every morning when I’m still Stevie Reeves.
The woman who notices too much.
The woman who gets inappropriately horny during federal processing.
Add it to the fucking resume.
“What color?” I ask, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine.
“Lighter. Blonde, probably. Shorter too.” His jaw tightens just slightly. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot.”
Blonde.
I wonder if Stevie Reeves will scream when the dye hits her scalp.
Or if she’s already gone.
“I’ll be there with you,” he adds quietly. “During the process. If that helps.”
It shouldn’t help.
He’s a stranger. A government employee doing his job. A set of kind eyes and capable hands and thighs I want to straddle and ride attached to a man I met four minutes ago.
But when I nod, something in my chest unclenches.
Just slightly.
Just enough to breathe.
Why is this hot? Why is “I’ll supervise your traumatic haircut” making me want to climb into his lap?
My vagina is actively sabotaging me.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He stands. Offers me his hand to help me up.
I take it.
Two of his fingers could undo me.
