Secret Service

by Tal Bauer

Brennan Walker had my heart in his hands from the moment I first walked into his Oval Office. There is a key to a part of my soul I never knew existed, and he holds that key inside himself. Didn’t

There are people who should not come together in this world. Reality quakes too strongly beneath the force of their love. I am no one. I am no titan, no giant walking this planet, but if my love for this man was ever tested—if ever the world tried to take him from me—I would rip the sky from the edges of this earth. This love I feel terrifies me, and it’s terrified me from the moment our gazes first locked, when the distance between our souls seemed like an impossible, unknowable divide. Human beings are not meant to carry nuclear reactors within their hearts. We didn’t meet that day so much as collide. Crashed. Set our futures and our presents and every muscle fiber of our hearts on fire.

We should never have met, because there’s nothing I won’t do for Brennan, and that kind of love—burn the world down, fly the black flag, you are my forever for always—is too dangerous. We are dangerous together.

Years ago, I buried a black box on a beach inside myself, full to the brim of truths I couldn’t face. Reese’s voice is the tide, and his words are waves crashing against my hidden shores. The box is unearthing. Rising. I can’t look away from his eyes.

How many agents loved their president the way I loved mine? No one. No man could ever love another like I love Brennan.

Come over. It’s on the tips of my fingers to type out. Come over, and I’ll make dinner for you. Tell me your favorite food, and I’ll devote all day to learning how to make it.

“You’re under my skin. You’re inside my mind. You’re down deep in my bones. You’re everywhere, and you’re everything. I can’t escape, but I also don’t want to escape. From you, or from this.” His eyes are huge, tumbled sapphires lit on fire. “You feel inevitable. Like I’ve been waiting for you.”

“That’s how you make me feel. I’ve kept this inside myself for years, and then I met you, and… You make me dream impossible dreams.”

Score one for the rookie. Well done, Sheridan. Get on the boss’s good side by making his lover laugh.

“Brennan.” He lays my palm over his heart. Exhales. I have never been more certain of any truth than I am of this: I want this man, in every way, for the rest of my days. I want to be the man he smiles for. I want to be the man he sighs for. I want to suspend time and the rotation of the earth to hide away with him. Learn his body and how to make him gasp and moan, cry out my name.

I want Reese’s kisses and his touch. I want him over me, beneath me, surrounding me. Arms encircling me so there is nothing but him. And I want him beside me. On the sofa while our fingers tangle and we talk for hours, or in the kitchen as I cook for us both. Watching the rain, or running together, or sitting in the fog. I feel whole when he’s near, as if he’s carrying a piece of me. Before we met, there was an emptiness in my life, but now—

drag my hands down to his neck, his face. Hold him to me. “This is exactly where I belong. Here, with you.” His eyes open, and he kisses me. He kisses me like the sun kisses the earth when it rises. Slow, an unfolding of warmth, of playful light and hints of heat. And then, all at once, bright and hot and burning away all doubt. We come together like this is fate, like I was always meant to kiss him and he was always meant to kiss me.

I thought I was protective before, when I was only the head of the president’s detail. Now I’ve made love to Brennan. Now I’m the president’s lover. Now there’s a ferocity inside me that is overwhelming. Blinding. Agonizing.

I want Brennan. I’m in love with Brennan. I want to spend all my days at his side. And I’m willing to lose everything in my own life to gain Brennan and his love.