ZANDER
Partners of The Firm will maintain appropriate professional conduct with clients at all times.
Ella drifts to sleep on my lap.
But I’ve never been more awake in my life. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to. I keep talking long after she’s out, until my throat goes so dry I can’t say another word. Every heartbeat feels like an electric shock. What we’re doing is technically within the bounds of her contract with The Firm. That’s what I tell myself, at least. Professional conduct can include physical touch. It’s impossible to avoid sometimes when you’re providing security for a client. You take their arm and shield them from prying eyes as they exit a vehicle, or a building. You tuck them into your side when moving through an unruly crowd.
My hands have been on both male and female clients before. Not once has it been an issue. Not once has it been … like this.
There are provisions for physical touch in Ella’s contract too. I know there are. I know because we had a team meeting about it when Cade pitched the case to the rest of us. There was no way around it. We’re here twenty-four hours a day and we are required, required, to provide emotional support.
But this …
Does not feel like providing emotional support.
It feels like knocking down brick walls with a sledgehammer, for the both of us. Her walls are obvious and where my attention should be, yet I can’t help but to notice my own. The one I’ve kept in place for years now. It feels like giving something to myself just as much as it feels like giving something to her.
There aren’t any provisions for that in the contract. I don’t get anything out of this but a salary. That’s the rule, and them’s the breaks.
Too fucking bad.
I stretch out my free arm—the one not running softly up and down the bare skin exposed by the sleeve of Ella’s robe riding up slightly. My hand splays out under the throw pillow on the sofa in my effort to stretch.
And meets glass.
A tiny glass bottle.
I pull it out and examine it in the light. It’s one of those miniature bottles of alcohol.
Are you fucking kidding me? The disbelief is as palpable as the discontent.
No wonder she looked like she was going to pass out. She’d been drinking. Not much, given the size of the bottle, and it shouldn’t react badly with the meds she’s on. Assuming she only had one.
But she shouldn’t be drinking at all. We were supposed to clear the house of all alcohol before she moved in. I thought we’d gotten rid of it all. How the hell did this get past Damon?
Irritation wars with concern inside of me. This could have gone so very wrong.
Ella’s shoulders rise and fall with a whimper, almost as if she can feel my disappointment with her. And there’s that wall again, destroyed and leaving me wanting nothing more than to refuse any backsteps after the moment I had with her tonight.
My thumbnail taps against the glass and I know it’s something to look into, but not something I can do a damn thing about right now.
It’s a problem for later. After deciding what to do about the matter, I tuck the bottle back under the pillow.
“Ella.”
She doesn’t wake. Doesn’t so much as stir. Her breathing has gone slow and even. I imagine she needs a deep sleep, but even so I monitor her breathing and when she stirs, fighting the urge to wake up, I let her fall back under, rather than rousing her to consciousness.
She can’t sleep here. I’m quiet as I stand, preparing to take her upstairs and put her in her bed. The idea of putting her to bed is met with thoughts that shouldn’t be anywhere on my mind. Specifically: reddening her ass with my itching palm for hiding alcohol.
Even that small thought has my cock hardening.
Fuck.
Calm focus. Four-count breaths. Four times over. There are eyes everywhere in this house. Cameras. Every move I make needs to be carefully considered, because even if I alter some of the footage, there can be nothing suspicious about the rest, nothing to indicate that my heart is beating out of my chest and I want to kiss her awake. Run roughshod over her boundaries. And punish her ass so she won’t sneak alcohol again.
So damn badly.
More than I’ve wanted anything since Quincy.