Singe (Guardian Protection #1)

After an hour of chatting, I was still going a mile a minute. If I added the word content of all of my messages, I’d probably typed out the equivalent of a dissertation. Jude’s responses weren’t nearly as in depth, but I figured he was busy with Val.

When my phone rang at nine p.m., he was chuckling on the other line. “Jesus, Rhion. How do you still have feeling in your fingers? Can we switch this to the phone?”

I was happy to oblige. Hearing his deep, sexy voice was better than typing any day of the week.

During our conversation, Jude told me all about his life and I listened so intently the world around me disappeared. I learned that Jude had graduated from Ohio State and gone directly into the police academy. He strategically skipped over the part where he’d gotten fired—because of me—and went right to his position in LA, where he’d worked for a security firm. The way Jude talked in paragraphs about his job made it clear he loved it. A lot. And I loved that something positive had come for him after the fire. It gave me hope that maybe I hadn’t ruined his life after all.

I laughed harder than I had in years at his ridiculous stories about his various celebrity clients over the years and then even harder as he recounted the day he’d met Johnson.

But the most important thing I learned during our three-hour-long conversation was that Jude was an amazing man. He told me all about meeting April but falling in love with Val. I thought it was sweet that he paid for her private school tuition every month. Until I found out he had to do it or April wouldn’t let him spend time with Val. Then it was just sad. Without any legal rights, he worried she’d eventually try to take the little girl away from him. I didn’t tell him that Val had expressed those same fears to me. She hated it when Jude and her mom fought for that reason. I felt so bad for them both. Jude loved that little girl, and by all accounts, she loved him too.

After that, Jude and I swapped stories about our families. He told me about his overdramatic but incredibly loving mother and his stoic but also incredibly loving father. It made my chest warm in the strangest way possible. I was happy he’d had that and truthfully, jealous that I never would.

But, when Jude whispered a consoling, “Butterfly,” across the line as I told him about the day my father died, the jealousy evaporated. Right then, I was thankful that his parents had raised such an incredible man.

When he yawned for the tenth time, I let him go. Or, more accurately, I said goodbye, ended the call, and burst into tears. It had been a long time since I’d felt that kind of connection with anyone. The kind that, even over the phone, made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

He was off on Monday so he could spend more time with Val, but our texts and phone calls continued. By the time my eyes closed that night, I feared my smile would never fade. And the idea of that filled me in unimaginable ways.

I had written that man at least twelve different ways over the years, but never once had it come close to the real thing. He was by no means perfect. He was a Raiders fan, preferred domestic beer, and had quite the penchant for telling me how things were going to be. But maybe that was exactly what made him better than my words ever could.

Jude Levitt.

Was.

Real.

I woke up on Tuesday morning to a knock at my door. Nerves rolled in my stomach as I cautiously flipped the security cameras on my TV on and saw Jude standing at my door. I did the best I could to comb my hair down as I struggled to shrug my robe on before rushing to answer it, cursing myself the whole way for not swinging by the bathroom for a once-over with a toothbrush first. However, by the time I got there, he was nowhere to be found. There was only a tiny, black box sitting on my welcome mat. No note. No card. The gift equally as illusive as the man who had delivered it.

But, when I opened it, my heart nearly burst. Tears welled in my eyes as I lifted the repaired platinum chain I wore my mother’s diamond on out of the box.

Up until that moment, there’d been nothing special about that chain. I’d bought it only six months earlier, after I’d broken the last one. That tended to happen a lot when you wore the same necklace twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five.

Truthfully, I’d already restrung the diamond on a spare I’d had waiting in my jewelry box for such an occasion.

But Jude had taken precious minutes out of his limited time with Val in order to get my necklace fixed.

So, with shaking hands and an unrivaled smile, I threaded my mother’s stone onto my now second-most prized possession and proudly hooked it back around my neck.

Needless to say, by the time that night rolled around, my excitement at finally having Jude alone was off the charts. He was out on an assignment that he said could last anywhere between two and twelve hours. And, as the clock hit seven, it appeared it was going to be closer to twelve.

The aroma of my homemade chicken pot pie was barely lingering in the air as I sat on my couch in a pair of skinny jeans and a clingy, cream V-neck T-shirt. I’d tried approximately seventy-five outfits on before deciding to go casual. Though I wasn’t sure it could be considered casual because I was rocking a pair of bordeaux feathered Jimmy Choos.

I wedged beer number two between my thighs and switched the phone to my other ear. “I’m not changing it, Brianna.”

“But what does Maleficent see in him? I don’t even know who the hero is in this book. He’s supposed to be Prince Philip, but you’ve given him this dark need to own her,” she argued.

“Heroes aren’t infallible. It’s the flaws that hold all the beauty. Besides, if Johnson showed up at your door right now, saying he wanted to own you, you’d turn him away?”

“That is not fair. You know Johnson is my weakness.”

“Yeah, well, Maleficent’s weakness is Prince.” I took a sip of my beer.

“And that’s another thing. Every time she calls him Prince, I break out into the chorus of ‘When Doves Cry.’”

I nearly spit lager across the room as I burst into laugher.

She giggled right along with me. “Can we please change his nickname, Rhion?”

I was trying to collect myself when a knock sounded at my door. I snapped my head up and stared at the door as though I had x-ray vision. “Shit. Shit. Shit. I have to go. I think Jude’s here,” I whispered.

“Okay. Call me as soon as you can and let me know how he is in the sack.”

I scowled and whisper-yelled, “I’m not sleeping with him tonight!”

She barked a laugh. “So Jude Levitt shows up at your door right now, saying he wants to sleep with you, and you’d turn him away?”

She had a point, and as I opened the door and his dark-green gaze landed on me, I had a feeling that was exactly what he wanted to do. And there was no question I was going to say yes.

He’d changed out the suit he usually wore when he was working and into the most amazing pair of faded jeans and a plain, black T-shirt. It was what I’d learned from the guys to be the tough-guy, off-duty uniform.