Why You'll Love This
A 58-year-old Hollywood Ice Queen who gets exactly what she wants — including her bodyguard.
- Great if you want: age-gap, butch-femme sapphic romance with unapologetic heat
- The experience: fast, steamy, and tension-forward — reads in one sitting
- The writing: Hayes keeps the power dynamic charged and deliberately unresolved until it isn't
- Skip if: you prefer slow-burn or emotional depth over heat
About This Book
When a seasoned bodyguard is assigned to protect one of Hollywood's most formidable actresses, the job was never going to be simple. Emerald Crowle is wealthy, exacting, and accustomed to getting exactly what she wants — and with a volatile ex-husband in the picture, the threat is real. But the danger Romy Russell didn't see coming is the one closest to her. Protected is a charged, steamy romance built around an age-gap dynamic and a delicious push-pull between an ice-cold femme fatale and the butch professional trying to keep her walls up. The stakes are both physical and deeply personal, and Hayes makes sure readers feel every shift in that tension.
What sets this book apart within the Bodyguard series is how efficiently Hayes works within a compact page count — 216 pages that never drag. The prose is direct and confident, the power dynamics between Romy and Emerald are carefully calibrated, and the romance builds with genuine heat rather than contrivance. Readers who enjoy sapphic fiction with sharp character contrasts and unambiguous emotional payoffs will find this a satisfying, well-paced entry in a series that consistently delivers on its promises.
