Singe (Guardian Protection #1)

“Yeah,” I replied absently.

We both started past Johnson when she pulled up short to ask, “I’ll see you at breakfast in the morning, right?”

He shot her a wink and a smile that resembled something more like a grimace. “You know it.”

I didn’t figure she’d buy it. Rhion was astute, especially when it came to Johnson. But, less than a minute later, she was on my arm as we strolled across the street, back to her apartment.





It was well past midnight when my phone vibrated on the nightstand.

“Hello,” I whispered while inching out from under Rhion’s sleeping body.

“You sleeping?” Val asked.

“Nope. But you should be.”

She let out a long-suffering sigh. “I know. But I can’t sleep. I thought maybe we could have a talk. You know. Like old times.”

Stealthily, I made my way to the door.

“Jude? You there?”

“Hang on,” I whispered, slipping out the bedroom door and silently closing it behind me. “Okay. Now, what’s up, sweetheart?”

“You at Rhion’s?” she asked.

“Yeah. She’s asleep, like someone else I know should be.”

She giggled. “You already said that.”

“But you’re still awake, so I figured it could stand to be repeated.”

Bypassing the ocean room next door for fear Rhion would hear me talking through the wall, I walked to the room at the end of the hall and flipped the light on.

It was the one room in Rhion’s house we didn’t spend time in. In addition to using it for her tattoos, it was where she stored her vast collection of paperbacks. I’d occasionally found her in there, flipping through the pages of her favorite novels, but besides that, the door always remained shut.

“Does this mean things are getting serious with you two?” Val asked.

Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? Things had been serious with Rhion since I’d first laid eyes on her. What we needed now was light, easy, and painless.

Or maybe that was just me, because while the sucker-punch of guilt still found me on occasion, Rhion seemed to have forgotten there was ever a fire in the first place.

“I think so. Would that be cool with you?” I asked as I removed a book from one of her shelves.

My woman liked her smut, so not surprisingly, there was an image full of abs on the front. With a chuckle, I slid it back into place.

“No. I hate her.”

“Val!” I scolded.

She laughed. “I’m kidding! Of course. I love Rhion. She’s awesome. She surprised me with a giant box of clothes today.”

“No. I surprised you with a giant box of clothes today. She just helped me pick them out. Good to know you got them though, brat,” I teased.

“Thank you, Jude. I love them.”

I smiled and moved to the other shelf. I knew exactly two things Rhion liked: expensive shoes and books. Dating a woman with money had its difficulties. With Christmas coming and no fucking way to afford a pair of twelve-hundred-dollar heels, books were on the menu. If I could figure out her favorite authors, I could probably do some serious damage at a bookstore for her.

“You’re welcome,” I told Val. “I’m really proud of you for going down a size. Personally, I think it was unnecessary, but I love that, when you decided to lose some weight, you went about doing it the right way.”

“And when you say the ‘right way,’ you mean by ignoring Mom?”

“Yes. Exactly that,” I laughed, a huge grin pulling at my lips when I caught sight of a row of books with Rhion Park written on the spine. I tilted my head to the side and read every letter.

I knew she didn’t sell them, so I’d never considered that she’d actually have physical copies. The one time I’d read over her shoulder while she was working, she’d lost her mind. Her eyes had become as wide as saucers and her face had turned redder than I’d thought the human skin was capable. Laughing, I’d attempted to snag her computer. I didn’t make it very far, because not a second later, she took my cock in her hand and told me that I was never, not even if Hell froze over, allowed to read her books. She then wrapped her warm mouth around me and issued the most incredible blowjob of my life, not allowing me to come until I’d confirmed that I understood. In that moment, I would have agreed to be waterboarded by the federal government, so of course I’d said yes.

I grinned at the memory and fanned the pages of her book with my thumb.

The damn thing was thick, and my woman had written every single word of it. Pride swelled in my chest. I’d gotten to know Rhion pretty well over the last few weeks, but I could only imagine the pieces of herself she’d left on those pages.

My curiosity had been piqued.

Surely, she couldn’t hold me to that silly promise I’d made on the verge of sexual insanity.

I glanced up and found the door still closed. Then I traced my fingers over the words on the front.

Burning Love was the title, and it had a simple but stunning design on the cover. It was the same fiery butterfly that graced her chest.

“So, how you been sleeping?” Val asked.

“Good, actually,” I replied as I flipped the book open to a random page in the middle.

I was vaguely aware that Val kept talking, but my attention was stolen by the sight of my name on the page.

Not just once. Multiple times.

And on the next page.

And the next one.

But it wasn’t until I saw her name on there too that the vile sense of unease slithered over my skin.

I immediately pulled another of her books off the shelf.

Different cover. Different title.

Same. Fucking. Names.

“Val, I need to go,” I said, wedging my phone between my shoulder and my ear as I went to work removing all of her books from the shelf.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

Judging by the sinking feeling in my gut? No fucking way.

“Yeah. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you, and get some sleep.”

“I love you too,” she whispered.

After I’d ended the call, I sat on the floor and plucked a different one of Rhion’s books from the mountain of at least fifteen titles and opened it to the first page.

It took approximately three sentences for her words to sear through me—bone-deep.

She’d written about the fire.



It didn’t feel like I was moving, but somehow, I knew I was falling. The world became a blur as terror faded into acceptance. I was going to die.



But the further I read, the more I realized that it was no fire I’d ever been a part of.

I frantically turned the page, unable to process the words so clearly printed in front of me.



Until his strong hand landed on mine, snatching me back from the grips of death.

“Hang on!” he barked, dragging me clear of the flames.



It was the fictional version. Filled with beauty but not a single fact. My stomach churned, but I continued reading, unable to look away.



“Oh God, are you real?” I cried, my body trembling in fear of the truth.

His forehead crinkled. “I’m real,” he swore before sucking in a shaky breath. “I just don’t know if you are, Butterfly.”