Bodyguard Crush / Literature

• Subverted in Suzanne Brockmann's Troubleshooters series book Hot Target where celebrity producer Jane Mercedes Chadwick needs a bodyguard but doesn't want the bad publicity of being in fear of her life so she holds a press conference where she strongly implies that she's sleeping with Cosmo Richter, her bodyguard. Cosmo is very upset and points out that his bodyguard business is fledgling and the implication of sleeping with his clientele makes him look very unprofessional to potential clients who mainly hire him to protect their wives, mothers, and young daughters.
• In David Eddings's Elenium series, it's very explicit between Sparhawk and Ehlana. In this case she's his Queen, and with the exception of the backstory period during which he mentored her as a child, any power imbalance is weighed strongly towards her end.
• In Laurel K. Hamilton's Meredith Gentry series, the royal bodyguards pretty much also serve as sex slaves to Queen Andais, Princess Meredith, and Prince Cel.
• A Song of Ice and Fire
  • Sandor Clegane is Prince Joffrey's sworn shield, but is more often seen protecting Joffrey's betrothed, Sansa Stark, leading to a Beast and Beauty pairing. Sansa's thoughts seem to be conflicted. She's frightened of Sandor, but he seems to spring to her mind every time sex or kissing is mentioned, and she canonically fabricates a memory of kissing him.
  • Two members of Renly's Rainbow Guard have the hots for him: Brienne, a large and ugly Action Girl, and Loras, his gay lover.
  • Jorah Mormont is hopelessly in love with Daenerys Targaryen, whom he serves as part of her Queensguard. She's aware of the situation and repeatedly rebuffs him.
  • The Kingsguard are supposed to be celibate, but...
    • Aemon the Dragonknight and Queen Naerys. If they weren't sleeping together, they were at least in chaste Courtly Love. Inverted Trope in that he did not develop feelings for her after guarding her; rather, the feelings came first and motivated him to take the job.
    • Ser Criston Cole and Princess Rhaenyra. They were close for a time, then had some sort of disastrous falling out, after which there was "Rashomon"-Style drama where both accused the other of coming onto them, and both claimed they were the one who turned them down. Regardless, it's safe to say someone had feelings there.
    • Queen Cersei and her lover Ser Jaime. Like with Aemon and Naerys, it's an Inverted Trope—they had loved each other since they were children, and Cersei suggested Jaime take the job so they could always be together. Initially, this backfired for them since Jaime went to King's Landing whilst Cersei was forced to go back to Casterly Rock when their father Tywin resigned as Hand of the King over the outrage of losing his heir (Kingsguard are not allowed to inherit lands or have children). Luckily for Jaime and Cersei, Robert overthrew the Mad King and married Cersei to secure an alliance with House Lannister, so they were able to be together in the end.
• Prince Roger The 'March/Prince Roger' saga has the spoilt misunderstood brat, Prince Roger Ramius Sergei Alexander Chiang MacClintock (whew, what a mouthful!) and his Action Girl bodyguard, Nimashet Despreaux, agonize endlessly before finally hooking up in the second book, March to the Sea. This was complicated further by the part where after they finally decided to hook up, Roger went from third to first in the line of succession — meaning that country-girl commoner Nimashet had just gone from 'going to be married to the most redundant junior prince' to 'prospective Empress'. The latter possibility terrified her enough that she immediately broke the relationship off cold — which created some serious tension, given that she was still his bodyguard. Then, Nimashet was given a direct order by her superior officer to reinstate the relationship and become the eventual Empress Nimashet. Even though they know it's a bad idea to fraternize inside the chain of command, they need her to steady Roger because he'd either abdicate to be with her again or else try to rule the Empire alone and end up as Emperor Roger the Mad. (Nimashet is pretty much the only person around who can hold Roger back from massacre once his Berserk Button is pushed, and Roger on some level knows this.)
• Kushiel's Legacy: Warrior Monk Joscelin denies himself any attraction, romantic or otherwise, to Phèdre, saying that he can't both be her bodyguard (servant of Cassiel) and her lover, because it goes against his vows, which include a Vow of Celibacy. Granted, in Kushiel's Dart he and Phèdre, ah... paid homage to Namaah. Later in the series, they develop a proper relationship as the Comtesse Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève and her consort (read: practically husband) Joscelin Verreuil.
• The Faerie Queene: The Red Cross Knight and Princess Una in the first book. Red Cross is Easily Forgiven for abysmally failing the "bodyguard" part at first, abandoning his charge thanks to a Not What It Looks Like scenario courtesy of the Master of Illusion.
• Star Wars Expanded Universe
  • In the second book of the Coruscant Nights trilogy, we find that Padme's eyepatched bodyguard Typho was in love with her, and at her funeral, having seen the autopsy, comes to the conclusion that she was killed by use of the Force. Anakin Skywalker was supposed to be bodyguarding her in Typho's absence. Thus he decided to track down Skywalker; later he assumes that Vader killed them both, so he has to kill Vader. You can imagine how that went.
  • In The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton, Prince Isolder knows that his chief bodyguard, Captain Astarta, is in love with him, and reflects that, instead of being inconvenient, it is part of what makes her so good at her job.
  • In the Jedi Academy Trilogy General Wedge Antilles is set to bodyguarding Qwi Xux, an ex-Imperial scientist who had worked on the Death Star, the World Devastators, and the Sun Crusher, cheerfully oblivious to what these projects would be used for. Yes, a general serving as bodyguard to a scientist. They fall for each other, and in I, Jedi this development dismays Corran, since he ships his boss with one of his friends (Who Wedge did end up with in a later novel after breaking up with Qwi).
• In Moira Moore's Heroes series there are two kinds of magic users, Sources and Shields, who get permanently paired up. The Source deflects natural disasters while the Shield protects the Source from some kind of backlash that occurs. First person narrator and Shield Dunleavy really likes her Source Shintaro and protects him not only while working magic but tends to protectiveness also in more mundane situations. He in turn makes no attempt to hide that he lusts after her.
• The Rifter: Kyle (the Kahlil) is assigned to secretly watch and guard John when John is a child. He does so for ten years, and as John grows up Kyle becomes immensely attached to him, though he won’t allow himself to think that he might be falling in love because he knows he might receive the order to kill John. By the end of the book, Kyle knows for certain that guarding and loving John (the Rifter) are his two purposes in life. It’s both a confirmation and a radical revision of the relationship that the holy scriptures indicate between the Kahlil and the Rifter.
• In the Spaceforce (2012) series, Prince Ragoth, youngest son of the Taysan Empress, has a personal entourage of three bodyguards from the exclusive Clan of the Imperial Shield. The most recently appointed is Maydith, who is young and pretty. Other characters suspect that the pair are in love, but because of the crippling restrictions of Taysan society, it can never be.
• In the Gemma Doyle trilogy apparently it was once pretty common for the Rakshana and the members of the Order they guarded to be lovers. Named examples include Gemma and Kartik (eventually), and Miss McCleethy and Hugo Fowlson. It may or may not be worth noting that neither pairing ends well, but then, what pairing in this series does?
• In the Quantum Gravity series, Lila Black has been hired to bodyguard/spy on Zal, and the first thing that happens when they meet is a love match Game, which pushes them together, along with Zal's general open flirting. They marry.
• In the The Compass Rose, magic-users in the military are assigned bodyguards. Kallista's bodyguard Torchay is madly in love with her. Kallista resists, but after being ordered into marriage, eventually requites Torchay's feelings.
• The Elfstones of Shannara: Invoked by Rone Leah in Wishsong: he goes along to protect Brin specifically because he has a crush on her.
• The Godless World Trilogy: It isn't obvious, but Anyara's bodyguard Coinach seems to be developing a bit of a crush on her, which she may well reciprocate (she looks straight at him when someone tells her she should marry in order to make herself happy).
• From the Honor Harrington series:
  • Hugh Arai for Queen Berry in Torch of Freedom. He's luckier, because she reciprocates the feelings, fires him as her head of security, and drags him off to her bedroom. Possibly inverted, as she fell for him even before he was assigned as her head of security.
  • Major Andrew LaFollet, head of Honor's Grayson-assigned Steadholder security detail and her personal chief bodyguard, spends most of his life quietly, deeply, and unrequitedly in love with her, even refusing to marry or have children (all but unheard-of on Grayson) in his devotion to her. She's aware of his feelings and regrets hurting him by not reciprocating, but he doesn't seem to consider it a loss.
• Anne Rice's Angel Time: Lucky the Fox and his boss, The Right Man have something going on, although it's implied that it doesn't involve sex.
• Ari II and her "azi" (essentially slave, though YMMV) bodyguard Florian in Cyteen.
• In Andy McDermott's Nina Wilde series, the titular Adventurer Archaeologist and her ex-SAS bodyguard Eddie Chase slowly fell in love and married over the course of their adventures. The romance is subtle and only made in passing mentions since their main focus is trying not to die preserving rare artifacts.
• In the Kris Longknife series, there are some very strong hints that Kris' bodyguard Jack is in love with her.
• In Cerberon, Margaret becomes attracted to George after he volunteers to be her escort for her journey to America. He is oblivious to her attraction until she mentions she wouldn't mind his intimate attention.
• In Star Trek: String Theory, the Back Story for ally character Ziv and minor antagonist Sem involves this trope; Ziv was Sem's bodyguard, and in violation of their people's custom they had a sexual relationship.
• The Wheel of Time: This sort of thing is common between Warders and Aes Sedai . It helps that the Warder Bond means that the Warder is the one person in the world who can see through the emotionless Aes Sedai mask.
• Mistborn: The Original Trilogy : Vin in the second book to Elend, as she's a Mistborn and he's a Muggle Non-Action Guy. It ends when Elend marries Vin and subsequently Takes a Level in Badass, becoming a Mistborn himself.
• In Shadow of the Red Vixen Alinadar develops one on Lady Sallivera, though it's not requited until "Shadow of her Sins", and had another unrequited one for her previous mistress The Red Vixen. It turns out towards the end of "Shadow of the Red Vixen" that Melanie was trying to invoke this when she hired Ali to be Salli's bodyguard.
• In Lucky by Jackie Collins, the heroine, a teenager at the time, falls for and when she's old enough begins a relationship with her bodyguard. It ends badly.
• In the Black Blade series, Lila Merriweather and her employer's son, Devon Sinclair.
• In Wings of Fire, Fathom and his bodyguard Indigo have a Childhood Friend Romance, but can't be together because Fathom is a Celibate Hero. Note that Indigo got herself assigned as Fathom's bodyguard because it was the only way she'd be allowed to be near him, though that doesn't stop her from being competent at her job.
  • There's also Queen Glory and Deathbringer, her assassin-turned-bodyguard, between whom there is definite romantic tension.
• In A College of Magics, a relationship develops between Faris and Tyrian, the bodyguard her uncle hires for her.
• In The Locked Tomb series, necromancers and their cavaliers often share a very intimate and close relationship, and for those for whom it's not a familial relationship, there's often some romantic tones to it; in the case of the Fifth House pair, they're literally married. Especially implied to be the case for Camilla's feelings toward Palamedes, whom she's sworn to protect and look after. It's also teased a lot between Gideon and Harrow; Gideon's feelings for Harrow grow in tandem with her commitment to her duty as cavalier, and as they grow closer Gideon's narration is shocked to find anything attractive about her lifelong tormentor, but she starts to find things regardless.
• In Tinker, the title character develops strong feelings for her elfin bodyguard Pony - while already married to someone else. However, due to the quirks of elf culture, Tinker herself is the only person involved who isn't cool with this; neither her husband nor Pony really see the problem.
• Inverted and Gender Flipped in The Rise of Kyoshi, as Yun is clearly attracted to his female bodyguard, Rangi, though he seems more interested in Kyoshi overall. For her part, Rangi gets together with Kyoshi after becoming her (unofficial) bodyguard.
• Greg Mandel Trilogy: Teenage heiress Julia Evans regards her chief of security as a Parental Substitute (Greg realises the reverse is also true). In the final novel set years later, Julia's next chief of security thinks he's an Ignored Enamored Underling, but she ends up taking him as her lover after losing her husband.
• The Guinevere Deception: Guinevere may love Arthur, but her feelings are far from uncomplicated. Among the complications is Lancelot, the Statuesque Stunner Lady Knight who is sworn to her protection, and who becomes her closest friend, confidant, and... some undefined other feelings.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: Over time Tasia falls in love with Joslyn, her bodyguard. Joslyn does as well, and they grow into a couple.
• The Daevabad Trilogy does this twice, with the first book showing the growing attraction between Nahri and Dara, who is sworn to protect her family (though this becomes complicated later on). Later on we have a male-male variation with Muntadhir, the heir to Daevabad's throne, and Jamshid, his bodyguard and captain (though by this time Muntadhir is married to Nahri and all concerned are miserable).

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