Page 37 of Guarding the Star

I get in, close the door, and take her hand in both of mine. She smiles.

We sit in silence for a while. I trace circles with my thumb over the scar on her hand and, without saying anything, I kiss her. Because now I know I can choose. I can choose the noise, or I can choose the silence. And silence, when someone is beside you, isn't empty.

It's the opposite.

Chapter 12

Paula

“Sit down, Paula. We need to talk for real this time,” she says, pointing at her bed and sitting against the wall with her back flat. “Tonight I figured something out, and I need to say it before the effect wears off.”

“Before the effect wears off?”

“Yeah, the effect of having a kid asleep on your chest for five hours. Turns out it's the most effective therapy in the world, and I know a lot about therapy. Plus it's free.”

“Okay,” I say, confused, and sit on the bed next to her.

“I want something real,” she says. “Not as some nice idea or an Instagram caption. I want crappy nights trying to get a kid to sleep. I want…” She stops. Looks at her hands. Opens them. Closes them. “I want a relationship like Tessa and Zoe's, and Paula, it terrifies me. Because if this is what I really want, why have I spent my whole life running from it?”

“You want a relationship?” I ask.

“Yes. Like Zoe and Tessa's. With kids,” she adds, draping her legs across my lap. “And I want us to stop playing games, because I like you enough to try something serious for the first time in my life. And you like me too, you just use all that crap about being my bodyguard and not crossing lines and blah, blah, blah… stuff you don't even believe yourself.”

I search for something to say, but I don't need words because she tucks her legs and leans in to kiss me.

And she kisses me slowly. Slower than Iris does anything. She brushes my lips, pulls back, comes back. No rush. Something worse: the certainty that this was going to happen, that we both knew it for days, and all that was missing was the step.

“Iris.”

“Don't say a single word about your job, because I swear I'll slap you, even if you slap me back,” she jokes.

She slides her hands over my face, fingers spread across my cheeks, holding me still, like she doesn't want me to move, even though I have no plans to.

I bite her lower lip. Soft. A sound escapes her throat, short, surprised.

“God,” she whispers against my mouth.

“You okay?”

“I'm great. Don't stop.”

Iris gets on her knees on the bed, facing me, and pulls my shirt up and over my head. She kisses my neck, and then stops at my left collarbone, where I have a mole.

“Hey there, little guy,” she whispers before kissing it.

“Are you talking to my mole?”

“Yeah, I love it. I mean, I love plenty of things about you, but I don't want it going to your head,” she says, covering my neck in small kisses.

Her teeth graze below my ear, and I shiver. A real, visible tremor that runs down my spine.

“So that's one of your weak spots, huh?” she murmurs, and I can feel her smile against my skin.

She moves down to my shoulder, mouth open over my collarbone, her teeth and tongue tracing the skin.

She pulls back, looks at me, and the smile she gives me feels like the best thing in the world. She pulls her shirt off over her head in one motion. Underneath, freckles on her shoulders and a gray sports bra from her sponsor that's seen better days.

“Not exactly gala lingerie,” she jokes.