CHAPTER 4: LOCKDOWN

Noah’s POV

The safehouse wasn’t much.

Concrete walls. Reinforced locks. Bare furniture and black-out curtains. It wasn’t meant to be comfortable. It was meant to keep people alive.

Adrian Vale looked at it like I’d sentenced him to death by boredom.

He prowled the space from the moment we arrived, inspecting every dull corner with something between disdain and disbelief.

“This is it?” He gave the word it a delicate curl of his lip. “I’ve been to prison cells more inviting than this.”

“You’re alive,” I said flatly. “Consider that a luxury.”

He turned to me, one brow arched. “You do know I’m paying obscene amounts of money for this, don’t you? I expected...I don’t know. Something less tragic.”

“You’re paying obscene amounts of money to not get shot in the head.” I locked the door behind me, checked the security feeds, the alarms, the blind spots. Routine calmed me. People did not. “If you want room service and mood lighting, I suggest you survive long enough to go home.”

He sighed, dramatic as hell, and collapsed onto the sagging sofa with all the exhaustion of a man forced to suffer greatly at the hands of his bodyguard. “You’re really not much fun, are you?”

“I’m not here to be fun.”

“No,” he said, gaze flicking over me like a slow undress. “You’re here to keep me alive. And glower in the corner. And make me wonder what it’d take to see you crack.”

I didn’t answer. I checked the windows again, methodical, measuring angles and exposure. Adrian watched me, head tipped against the cushion like a cat too lazy to pounce.

“You’re really good at not talking,” he said. “I almost respect it. Almost.”

Silence suited me. Silence kept me sane. But Adrian seemed determined to claw through it. He pushed buttons like it was a game he meant to win.

“How long are we stuck here?” he asked, already knowing I wouldn’t give him a timeline.

“As long as it takes.”

“And what, exactly, am I supposed to do in the meantime? Knit? Write my memoirs? Plot my dramatic return from the dead?”

I didn’t look at him. “Stay alive. Stay quiet.”

He snorted. “God, you’re exhausting. No wonder you’re single.”

That hit harder than it should’ve. Not because he was wrong. Because it shouldn’t matter. Because none of this — him, this job, this slow, creeping heat every time his gaze lingered too long — should matter.

But it did.

And I was starting to hate him for it.

“Do you ever relax, Noah?” he asked, softer now. “Do you even know how?”

“No.”

“You should try it. You might find you’re more human than you think.”

That pulled my eyes to him. Sharp. Unamused. His mouth curled at the corners, pleased. Like he’d just scored a point in a game I wasn’t playing.

“I think,” he said, rising slowly, lazily, “I might just have to teach you.”

Hours dragged.

Adrian didn’t cope well with stillness. He paced. He sighed. He leaned in doorways like sin incarnate and made comments designed to scrape beneath my skin.

“I could die of boredom before the assassins find me,” he said at one point, sprawled in the kitchen doorway while I assembled something resembling dinner. “Or dehydration. You’re not exactly the nurturing type.”

I set a glass of water in front of him harder than necessary. He smiled like I’d just proven his point.

“You know, I used to think bodyguards were supposed to be stoic and silent, yes, but also maybe...charming. Protective. Swept up in the fantasy of it all. You’re very disappointing, Noah.”

“Not here to charm you.”

“No, clearly.” He took a slow sip, eyes never leaving mine. “But I wonder. What would it take? A please? A thank you? Something more...physical?”

Heat sparked low in my gut. Dangerous. Unwelcome. “Don’t start something you’re not ready to finish, Vale.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s advice.”

He laughed. “You think I scare that easy?”

“No,” I said. “I think you don’t know what you’re asking for.”

He closed the space between us in three slow steps, the glass abandoned, his body too close, his smile too dangerous.

“Maybe I do.”

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. His hand hovered near my chest, not touching, just...there. Testing. Teasing. Daring.

“You think you’re so in control,” he said. “But I see it. The way you look at me. The way you watch me when you think I’m not paying attention. You want this job to be simple, clean, detached. But I’m not simple. And you—” His eyes burned. “You’re not nearly as detached as you pretend.”

Something snapped in me then.

Not anger. Not desire.

Both. Too tangled to tell apart.

“You think this is a game?” My voice came low, sharp, unforgiving. “You think pushing me will end with you winning?”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t falter. “I think you want to lose.”

I moved before I thought. One hand fisting in his shirt, slamming him back against the wall hard enough to rattle the cheap frame. His breath caught, sharp and stunned, but not afraid. Never afraid.

Our bodies locked, chests heaving, heat sparking in the narrow inches between us.

“You don’t know what the hell you’re playing with,” I ground out.

“I think I do,” he breathed.

And God help me. I wanted to believe him.

His hands came up, slow, deliberate, pressing flat against my chest like he wasn’t sure whether to push me away or pull me closer. His throat worked, swallowing words neither of us needed to say.

Our eyes locked.

Mine, furious.

His, gleaming with something darker than fear.

Want.

Challenge.

Need.

I could feel it in the space between us, thin as breath. Tension pulled tight, straining to break. His pulse fluttered under my hand where it fisted his shirt. His lips parted like he was about to speak. Or kiss me. Or both.

“You’re insane,” I said.

“Tell me no,” he whispered.

I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

And in the stretch of a heartbeat, the line between protection and possession blurred beyond recognition.