Collateral Desire- His to Protect, Mine to Desire

Chapter Three

Dax Pov

We had gotten home about two hours earlier. The city lights continued to shine outside my blinds, bathing the walls in soft amber rhythms. Yet I was not sleeping. I hadn't even tried. I lay there in darkness, still clothed, head on one arm, staring up at the ceiling as if it owed me something.

Elian just simply existed in his own orbit, dragging all things around him, sucking it into his dirty, blinding gravity. And somehow I was being sucked in.

Tonight was going to be simple. Get him to the press conference. Stand alongside him and guard the exits but Elian had never been a simple man. He flirted with the other CEO, the one who was his competition, some slick guy with roving hands and eyes that were trouble written everywhere. Elian knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to get under my skin.

I wonder what he would think about that gesture when he finds out I am married.

When I recognized that suspicious-looking guest approaching with something glinting in his coat pocket, I did not think. It was just impulse. My fist connected to his jaw before the security even moved. It happened the guy had a knife stuffed into his belt. And Elian? Elian just stood there. White-faced and gasping. He was so annoying. And I don't know what came over me but I raised my voice at him. He looked at me like I'd shattered his entire perfect little image.

And that little drama he he put up in the car unrattled me. And f**k me, I was hard.

Just thinking about it now had my body heating up all over again. I clenched my fists, trying to squeeze the tension out of my muscles, but it was futile. I was hot. Hotter than I should have been.

I threw the sheets off and got up.

I stepped out of my room, and the cold from the floor tingled my feet. The hallway was dark except for the dim hallway light seeping under the door adjacent from mine. I was going to run straight down to the kitchen when I heard a sound, a slow rhythm, deep and constant.

I froze.

The door was slightly ajar. Instinct and curiosity fought me out but my curiosity won. I crept up and peered through the crack.

Elliot was bare-chested and exercising. Straining push-ups as if he were attempting to press through the floor. His biceps strained with each motion, sweat droplets on his skin like dew on ivory marble. Moonlight accentuated the crests of his shoulder blades, the roundness of his spine, the tense leanness of his back. His lips parted slightly, his breathing was laboured and his eyes narrowed into concentration on the floor. He didn't notice me.

I gulped at the sight in front of me. I stiffened all over and my throat dried up. Something curled low in my stomach, and I stepped back to avoid doing something stupid. I turned around and went towards the kitchen, fingers playing at my waist.

I picked up a bottle of water from the freezer and drank the entire thing down in a single swallow, barely registering the taste. My heart was drumming in my ears. What the f**k was happening to me?

This was not the job I signed up for. I was employed to watch him. Not to think about him. Not to crave the heat of his body or his smart mouth. Not to get hard every time he put a hand on my arm or walked by me, or looked at me like I was something he was trying to figure out.

This was not safe. I needed to tune it down. Get distracted, get grounded.

I returned to my room, picked up my phone, and stared at the screen like it was a bomb that I had to defuse. And then I did something I hadn't done in days.

I called my wife.

The phone rang twice before she answered.

"You're calling me?" she said in a dry tone, her voice weary and exasperated.

"I… wanted to know how the boy was."

There was silence.

"He finally remembers he has a son," she spat, venomous.

I kept my eyes closed and pinched the bridge of my nose. "I've been busy."

"That's always your excuse, Dax."

"That is the truth."

She laughed. "It's after ten. He's sleeping and I'm not waking him up for your half-arsed attempt at fatherhood."

I caught the jab in my chest, swift and cruel.

"Okay," I said firmly. "I'll call tomorrow."

"Whatever."

She hung up first.

I stared at the phone, the screen empty, silence crashing against my ears.

My marriage had been a rotten shell for a while now, only held together by obligation and what was left of something that had been like love. Now, we were two people bound by a child and a history we didn't want to repeat.

And my career? It once was tidy. Strategic. Defined..

Now it was tangled up with temptation and tension and feelings I had no business having. Elan wasn't supposed to be anything other than a client. He was supposed to be a wealthy, arrogant little twerp with a bull's-eye on his back not a living, breathing complication dressed in smug smiles and soft skin.

I was getting unhinged. On him. On myself.

The past was creeping back in, too. The things I’d run from. The life I’d buried. Now it was all clawing to the surface- resentment, regret, failure. I’d built walls to keep it all out, but Elian … Elian had this way of slipping through the cracks.

I ran a hand over my face and lay back on the bed.

“Breathe, Dax. Just breathe.”

I closed my eyes, but all I could see was him shirtless and sweating, ramming himself into the floor as though attempting to demonstrate something.

And I couldn't help but ask myself, once more, what it would be like to let go. Just once. To give in to the flames between us and just pretend I wasn't drowning in them.

But that was off the table.