Proof (Targes Executive Protection Book 1)

JJ’s soft cry of surprise was the only thing that kept me from deepening the kiss. I could still hear every shaky word he’d spoken, every hard truth he’d admitted to. I’d lost count of the many times I’d wanted to interrupt him to set the record straight, but it had seemed like he’d been lancing a wound. We both had a lot of healing to do, but I didn’t care about that at the moment.

All I cared about were those few life-changing words he’d said. As broken as he’d been, he’d found the strength to tell me something that I’d given up on believing would ever happen.

And kissing him.

I cared a lot about that too.

JJ whimpered and wrapped his arms around my neck. The soft sound mixed with the desperate way he was clinging to me kept me from taking the kiss any further. His vulnerability was off the charts and there was no way in hell I was going to take advantage of that. I had too many things I needed him to understand before we went any further.

Since I had one hand at the back of his neck, I slid it into his hair and gently held him still so he’d be forced to focus on me and not the raging desire that was building inside of him.

The second I broke the kiss and put some space between us, JJ immediately tensed up.

“I’m sorry, this was a mistake,” he blurted. As expected, he tried to pull free of my grip.

“Cass, I need to go,” he said desperately as his need to escape kicked in. His already flushed skin deepened to an even darker shade of red and his body began to shake violently. “Cass⁠—”

I kissed JJ hard and this time I didn’t hold back. He stopped struggling and eagerly began to kiss me back. It took everything in me to break the kiss. JJ and I were both panting like we’d run a sprint. More importantly, though, he wasn’t trying to pull free of my hold.

“Cass—” he began, clearly confused.

I kissed him again, but more teasingly this time. It was only when he was as limp as a noodle in my arms that I said, “My turn to talk now, JJ. And if you interrupt me, no more kisses ever.”

The mock threat worked. My words were the same ones he’d used on me in the cabin to keep me quiet while he’d gotten me into the shower. Between the irony of our current location and the words, the fear disappeared from JJ’s eyes and he smiled.

I loved it when he smiled. He didn’t do it enough, though.

The mere thought of how many times I’d get to see that smile going forward had me leaning in to press a soft kiss to his lips.

“Starting now,” I murmured against his mouth before lifting my head. JJ’s eyes lit up as his smile grew.

“Okay, maybe not ever,” I amended when he licked a small part of his upper lip. The move could have been innocent but based on the fire in his eyes, I highly doubted it. My dick doubted it too. “Fine,” I relented. “Five minutes.” I wondered if I’d even be able to go that long without tasting him.

JJ lifted his free arm and made the motion to signify he was zipping his lips and throwing away the key. I couldn’t stop myself from running my thumb over his tantalizing mouth. “One minute,” I bit out before I cupped his cheek and stroked my thumb over his cheekbone. “You were right about the things you said in the cabin. About needing to let you go. About needing to mourn.”

Just like that, the smile was gone and JJ stiffened.

“New rule,” I quickly said before I kissed him hard. Hard, deep, and searching. Promising. When we both came up for air, I croaked, “Every time that beautiful mind of yours begins to doubt me or yourself, my mouth is going to bring you back to the spot it needs to be so you’ll hear my words.”

“That’s not much of a punishment,” JJ responded with a grin as his body relaxed.

“No, but this will be,” I said with a smile of my own just before I ran my hand along the hard-on he was sporting. A layer of denim kept his cock strangled behind the material.

“Oh God,” he whimpered as he tipped his head back. I gave him a couple more rubs before I pulled my hand back.

“No,” JJ cried out. He immediately tried to push his hips forward, but since I had my free hand wrapped around one of them, he couldn’t move the way he wanted.

I leaned forward and teased the shell of his ear with a soft kiss that ended in a gentle tug of my teeth. “I can keep this up all night, sweetheart,” I whispered before I ran my hand along his cock a single time.

Instead of answering me out loud, JJ nodded fiercely. His body was strung up with tension, but the good kind.

“Everyone says prison changes you and they’re absolutely right,” I began.

The lust disappeared from his eyes but was quickly replaced with such raw intensity that it actually made my next words catch in my throat. JJ wasn’t just going to listen to me, he was going to hear me. How long had it been since someone had done that for me? How many times had I wished for someone, anyone, to hear me?

I dropped my eyes for a moment as I tried to get control of myself. I’d planned for this to be a simple, dismissive narrative, but knowing I was being heard by the one person I’d been calling out to for so long hit me hard. I wasn’t about to tell a story. I was about to tell my story. I wasn’t about to tell it to anyone willing to listen. I was telling it to the one person in my life who made me feel whole. The one person who made it possible for me to step outside the prison cell I’d still mentally been living in.

I pulled in a deep breath and let it out before lifting my eyes to meet JJ’s. “That place fucked me up in ways I still don’t know how to describe. I’ll have to deal with all that shit someday, but not today. If and when I’m ready, it will be on my terms because I already know how fucking painful it’s going to be and I’m not strong enough to go there yet.”

JJ’s eyes shimmered with tears, but he valiantly held them back as he nodded.

“What got me through it was my ability to compartmentalize things. It’s gotten me through a lot of hard times,” I continued. As much as I didn’t want to delve into my past, I had to in order to make JJ understand how I felt about him.

“I was kept here in LA for the trial, so I was in county lockup. When I was convicted, they moved me to the federal prison in Colorado. That’s where things changed. Where I changed. When I’m in a better place in my head, I’ll tell you anything you want to know, okay?”

JJ nodded again.

“Right now, though, I’m going to tell you some things that will be hard for you to hear, but I swear to God, sweetheart, I’m not doing it to hurt you,” I explained.

He tensed but held himself straight. “Okay.”

“I never used to believe in that love at first sight bullshit, but the first time I saw you when I came home for good—I don’t know how to describe it,” I said as I held my hands open like they were supposed to somehow be holding the answers.

“I know what it feels like,” JJ said. Both of us had left behind the lighthearted game about kissing and remaining silent. “I don’t know if it was for the first time or second, but it doesn’t matter because it did happen. It was when I confronted you for the first time.”

I nodded. He was talking about the day I’d nearly hit him when he’d been standing in the middle of the road. Our confrontation had ended with not just one, but two passionate kisses.

JJ sent me a small, comforting smile that made it a little easier to get past whatever was lodged in my throat, trying to keep the words inside.

“While they were still holding me in jail for the trial, you were the only thing that kept me going. The fact that you’d survived blinded me to everything that was going on around me. I sat in that courtroom all day every day in the hopes that I’d catch a glimpse of you. Even though my lawyer had said you weren’t being called as a witness, I didn’t believe him. All I could focus on was seeing you walk into that courtroom and the first thing you’d do would be make eye contact with me. Then you’d smile and after that it would all be over, and I’d finally get to take you in my arms again.”

A few streaks of moisture slipped down JJ’s cheeks.

“You were my everything, JJ. When you didn’t come… when no one came, you were the hope I clung to night after night, day after day. When I finally accepted that you weren’t coming, you became the target of my hatred and rage. My fear, my loneliness; my need for vengeance, my need for forgiveness… I needed someone to focus on every minute of every day in that place to keep me from giving up. I did blame you for what happened to me.”

“I’m so sorry⁠—”

I kissed JJ softly. I could taste the saltiness of his tears.

“I needed someone to keep me alive in that place, JJ. You were the only one who could. Not because I wanted to live out some fantasy of getting revenge, but because I knew if I hung on long enough, I’d get to see you again, touch you. I put you into compartments in my head and I tapped into them whenever I needed to deal with some kind of emotion. I couldn’t let any of it out. Showing weakness in that kind of place is the moment you sign your own death certificate.”

I could tell my words were tearing JJ apart, but I knew if I didn’t keep going, neither of us would ever truly begin to heal.

“Please don’t cry, baby,” I begged as more and more tears fell from his eyes. I pulled him into my arms and held him tight as he pressed his head against my chest. I could feel his tears dampening my shirt and his body was shaking, but he hadn’t made a sound. I covered his head with my hand and just held him until he’d physically calmed enough for me to continue. I didn’t let him go, though. I needed to cling to him as badly as he did to me.

“I told you I compartmentalized everything… all those things I was feeling. The one thing I could never put in a little box and store away in some part of my brain was my love for you. That never wavered. I swear that to you on my life, sweetheart,” I said before pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

Relief flooded my body when I felt JJ nod against my chest.

“When we finally came face to face, I expected to feel only hatred, but it wasn’t there. That compartment was gone. All the bad shit I’d placed on you, that I’d needed to put on you because I knew you’d forgive me for it, was gone. I didn’t even know about your memory loss at that point. When I saw you standing there with your gun aimed at my chest, you didn’t look anything like the JJ I remembered, but it didn’t matter. I fell in love with you all over again. In that moment I knew you were mine. You. The guy threatening to shoot me, the man I kissed like there was no tomorrow, the man who kissed me back with more raw passion than anything I’d ever known. I didn’t give a damn that you were new to kissing. I loved every second of it.

“That was the moment I felt truly free. I finally believed in something again. I finally felt. I loved you that day, JJ. Not the JJ from the past. It was the same at the cabin. Everything we did, every time we touched, was real. What you’d been doing at places like Tank’s changed nothing about how I felt about you. I loved that JJ too.”

His fingers curled around the fabric of my shirt like he was trying to hold on for dear life. I lifted his chin so he’d be forced to look at me. “Isn’t that what love is, JJ? Real love? You get to have this person who takes your shitty moods, your defiant silence, your rage and anger. They share that with you just like they share your hopes, your dreams, the good days, the not so good ones. A lot of people talk about falling out of love with someone over time but look at all the ones who have been together fifty, sixty, seventy years. They fought, they struggled, they probably had to make sacrifices or give up on some hope or dream to stay together. But they never gave up on each other.”

I kissed JJ softly, once again tasting the saltiness of his tears on his lips. I pulled back only enough that we could see each other. “If I’d spent the last two years overseas fighting some war or completing some mission, I still would have loved you. I still would have dreamed of the moment I could be with you again. If you’d had a terrible accident that had made you forget me, I would have done everything in my power to get you back. That’s what love is. Never letting go, no matter what’s keeping you apart. You, James Joyce Ferguson, are the pieces of my soul that I didn’t even know were missing. Every single version of you, past, present, and future, will make my soul whole just like I hope I’ll be able to do for you someday. I can’t wait for that moment when we become one in every way, but I’m just as excited to experience every moment of that journey with you.”

This time when I kissed JJ, it was with everything I was. It was with every ounce of feeling I’d ever had for him. It was for all the things I’d never be able to find the words for to tell him. It was… everything.

I broke the kiss long enough to look JJ in his gorgeously different-colored eyes. “I’m so desperately and hopelessly in love with you, every part of you, that nothing and no one is ever going to change that. No one is going to take that from us ever again.”