Confined with the CEO and the Bodyguard

the table with him.
“No,” I said, and hastily scrambled away. “I don’t do that here. This is my professional space. I can’t mess it up, you know? The way I did...” I broke off. My heart hammered in my chest. “The way I screwed up and got kicked out of my foster home for being a cam girl.”
Beau watched me for a long minute. Then he got up. “Guess we’d better relocate and finish this discussion.”
We promptly did, into the living room, where I poured my heart out in a way that I never have done to anyone before. I’m not sure why I chose to unload to Beau, when Dakota is the one who listens with such kindness. In my head it was a test run, maybe, before I pour my heart out to the man I’m falling in love with.
Or perhaps, I just couldn’t stand being alone with my anger and loneliness anymore.
After several minutes of listening to my teary confessions, Beau had one of his own. He’d already figured out my daddy issues. It didn’t take long before things led to the scene of rough sex that Dakota walked in on.
I’m so going to mess things up with him. He’s tender and kind and supportive—everything I’ve ever wished to find in a man—and I am so fucking terrified of messing it up. The fear flooding through me makes me use more force to compensate for the trembling weakness in my hands. To calm myself, I silently recite the names of the muscles as I target them. Trapezius. Deltoid. Pectoralis major.
“Ouch!” Dakota winces. “Ease up, Sadie.”
“Sorry,” I mumble. I ease off and keep going with slow, soft strokes. “Is this better?”
“Yes. Thanks. What’s got you so worked up, Sadie Banes?”
I love it when he calls me by my full name. I’ve been given cutesy nicknames by some of my foster families, which I hate. But Dakota never does that to me. Ever since the moment I clambered out of my Chevy van, he’s seen me as a whole person. It makes me feel vulnerable.
“I don’t want you to feel jealous because I was with Beau this afternoon,” I blurt out. I can’t control the emotion in my voice, though I try to hold it back.
“I’m not,” he insists. I can tell he’s lying though, from the way his body tenses under my touch. I still have so many emotions bubbling under my surface that it’s not surprising when they come out in a rush of words.
“The truth is, I’m self-sabotaging,” I tell him.
“Why?” Dakota asks. I feel him relax, which calms me in turn. The physical connection between us has become an unspoken communication channel. I work my way down between his shoulder blades before speaking again.
“I’ve had to struggle for everything I have. Nothing has ever come easily to me. But the very things I’ve done to survive have made me unworthy of friends or love. I let down my guard once, Dakota. I let myself fall in love, but when he found out that I was working as a stripper, my boyfriend dumped me. I can’t handle it if you do that to me, Dakota. Not that I’m doing that, anymore. Massage was supposed to be my path to independence. But now it feels as though that possibility has been closed off, too.”
To my utter horror, a tear drips down my cheek. I scrub it away hastily. My patient notices and captures my hand in his warm palm. I am mortified by how much I need his comfort. It’s obvious that the massage is on indefinite pause. That’s twice in one day I’ve let my feelings get in the way of providing the service I’m contracted to perform.
So much for being professional.
“Sadie. I’m not going to do that to you. We agreed to a threesome for a few weeks. If you want to stop, we stop.” He licks his lips and I want to kiss him. “But I have to say that isn’t the impression I got. So, tell me, what’s going on with Beau?”
My eyes burn. I never cry. Not when my mom died, not when I was separated from my half-siblings, not when my aunt called me a whore and kicked me out of the house for showing my titties on the internet. I don’t even remember crying when my boyfriend threw my stripper costumes at me and yelled, I thought these were for me. Only for me.
But Dakota’s stalwart kindness hollows me out. I can fall apart, knowing he’ll never kick me when I’m down.
“I was roleplaying,” I tell him. “But I think doing that cut a little too close to real life. It wasn’t as fun as I’d hoped it would be. It was more like...therapy.”
If I had been honest with myself, I would have known going into it that I’d be an emotional wreck when it was over. My timing sucked.
Dakota shifts. He rolls onto his side. The towel is draped over his narrow hips. If I weren’t so much in my feelings, I’d be angling to tug it away. I’m already this far into violating my own personal vow to maintain a firm barrier between my past and my future. What’s one more step?
“If you needed that, then you needed it,” he says. Dakota’s breath is hot against my temple. “I’m not here to judge. I admit I felt a little left out, though.”
Fear stabs through me. “I’m sorry. It had nothing to do with you.”
That isn’t true, though. It was all about the man whose arms are strong and warm around my back. About how I find my way out of the mess of guilt and shame.
Because only then can I ask for what I really want: his love.
I tiptoed up to the edge on that first day when I asked if he wanted to be exclusive. But we weren’t ready for that yet—I wasn’t ready for it. Maybe, I’m still not. It doesn’t stop me from wanting it