Breaking My Bodyguard novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Leash
She ditches Rafe at the museum, kisses him in front of a guard to prove a point, and he kisses her back.
On Monday my father put two new men on my door.
They were Brandolini men, lent as a courtesy, and they wore gray suits and stood.
One of them followed me to the car at noon.
"Where to, Miss Santoro?" Rafe asked, from the driver's seat.
"The Art Institute."
"Why?"
"Because I'm allowed to look at paintings."
He glanced at me in the mirror.
His arm was still stiff, and he drove.
"Ten minutes," he said.
"You said that on Saturday."
"And you used all ten."
The Art Institute was cool and quiet and full of school groups.
I walked into the first gallery with Rafe right behind me and the Brandolini man trailing him.
I stopped at a painting of a woman in a blue dress who looked bored out of her mind.
"She's me," I said.
"She's a hundred years old."
"She's me with better hair."
"Move along, Miss Santoro."
"You keep calling me that."
"It's your name."
"It's my father's name," I said. "You said Livia once. In the bar. Say it again."
He didn't answer.
He looked at the painting.
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
So I did the only thing left.
A group of schoolkids came through the doorway, shrieking, and for four seconds nobody could see us.
I ducked left behind a marble column and through a side door marked Staff Only, and I ran.
I made it down a long hall and past a cart of folded tarps before a hand caught my wrist.
It was four minutes.
I counted.
Rafe spun me into a service alcove with a fire extinguisher and a janitor's mop.
He wasn't breathing hard, and he wasn't smiling.
"Four minutes," he said.
"That's a new record."
"You're going to get yourself killed."
"By who? A mop?"
"Livia."
There it was.
I stepped up until my chest almost touched his.
I could smell his soap and the faint metal smell of the gun under his jacket.
"Say it again," I said.
"Livia."
"Again."
"I'm going to take you home," he said, rough.
"No, you're not."
I took hold of his tie and pulled his head down and kissed him.
I had planned it for months.
I had planned it in the shower and in the car and in my bed with the lights off.
His mouth was warm and firm, and for one second it didn't move at all.
Then it did.
He made a low sound in his throat, and his hand came up and closed on the back of my neck.
He kissed me like he'd been holding his breath for a year.
My back hit the wall.
His hips pressed against mine, and I felt exactly how much he wanted this, hard against my stomach through his trousers.
I gasped into his mouth and he swallowed it.
His thumb stroked my jaw.
His other hand pulled my hip against him, firm, and I wanted him to do it harder.
I knew I'd been right.
Whatever he kept behind that suit, it was mine to break.
Then he tore his mouth away.
He put his forehead against mine, and we both breathed like we'd been running.
"Do that again," he said, "and I quit."
"Then quit," I said.
He laughed once, short and unhappy.
"You think I'm joking."
"I think you're a liar."
He pulled back and straightened his tie with fingers that weren't steady.
Over his shoulder, at the end of the hall, the Brandolini man in the gray suit stood very still.
He held his phone up, and I knew that flat black lens.
He had been taking pictures for a full minute.
He lowered the phone and gave me a small nod.
Rafe turned and saw him.
For the first time in three years I watched Rafe Basile go pale.
His own phone started to ring in his pocket.
He pulled it out and looked at the screen.
I read the name upside down.
Carmine.
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