Picture Perfect Love: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance

by Flora Ferrari

  He’s mentioned several times how he can’t stand the idea of another man looking at me, and I guess that must extend to the security guards he hired.

  “Can somebody please explain?” Natalie sighs, exasperated. “Angela, Lennie came back?”

  “Yes, last night. He sauntered into the apartment,” Mom explains.

  “Luckily Kaleb was there,” I say. “Otherwise he would’ve caught me alone.”

  “Dad, what were you doing there?”

  “Give me a second, little gnat.” Kaleb takes out his cell phone. “I need to call the security—”

  The bell above the door rings loudly as the door crashes open.

  Lennie ducks his head and swaggers into the diner, a knife gleaming at his side, his smile knife-like in how it glimmers victoriously. Behind him, four men saunter, each of them as tough-looking as him, each of them wide and muscular and strong-looking.

  Fear lances through my bones as Lennie strolls over, tossing his knife casually from hand to hand.

  “Hello, ladies.” He grins at Mom and Natalie and finally me. “I think it’s time I showed you who’s in charge.”

  The waitress darts behind the counter, reaching for something – probably her phone – but one of Lennie’s men grabs her and wrestles her into a booth. The man looms over her, his greasy black hair hanging around his face, tattoos creeping up his neck and over his cheek.

  “Either that,” Lennie goes on, reveling in the moment. “Or I take you all one by one while this useless hunk of shit watches. Good job trying to lose me, Angie, but you really need to be more vigilant with your Find My Phone app. I broke that passcode in seconds. Kelly1, how fucking sweet.”

  Mom glances at me with fear in her eyes.

  Kaleb slides up the booth, to the end of it, as though he’s getting ready to spring to his feet at a moment’s notice. “This isn’t going to end well for you, Lennie.”

  Lennie lets out a mad cackle. “I’ve got the numbers. I’m the only one with a weapon. What have you got?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kaleb

  He asks me what I’ve got as though I’m not going to be able to give him an answer, but the hot fire moving through me is answer enough. I’ve got the blazing self-belief that I’ll never let anything happen to my woman, knife or not, numbers or not.

  “Did you really think you could get away with disrespecting me?” the rat sneers, strolling over to my side of the table.

  His men spread out all around us, but they must be able to sense some danger from the way I’m sitting, poised and ready to take them out. My body is tense and I lean slightly forward, a coil ready to violently snap open, ready to leap across at them and whir into a mad dance of warfare, of violence.

  “Stand up, champ,” Lennie says, a mocking hiss in his voice.

  I rise slowly. It’s a stupid thing for him to ask me to do. A man needs to be standing if he’s going to defend himself. Maybe he thinks he’s making some sort of tough-guy point, but he’s failing badly.

  “Now put your hands behind your back and turn around.”

  I smirk and let out a gruff laugh. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “It is going to happen,” he whines. “Or I’m going to take that young thing you’ve clearly got the hots for, and make that piggy squeal.”

  He gestures with his blade to Kelly, to my woman, to the angel who has turned my life into heat and closeness and rightness.

  And he thinks he can talk to her like she’s dirt and get away with it?

  “Don’t you fucking dare talk about my woman like that,” I growl, thunder cracking in my voice. “You fucking rat. I’ll snap your damn neck right now. I’ll leave you battered and broken in the gutter if you ever think about talking about my woman like that again.”

  “Dad,” Natalie gasps. “What do you mean, your woman?”

  “Oh, fantastic.”

  Lennie giggles like he’s no drugs. All of the men look swollen like they’ve cheated their way to their muscular bodies – they’re steroid-heads, every one of them – but Lennie seems like he’s on something more.

  “So let me get this straight. You’re fucking this young thing and your daughter doesn’t even know? But, if I’m not mistaken, they’re best friends, aren’t they?”

  I take a step forward. Behind him, his four goons shift and glare at me. I size them up one by one, focused entirely on them right now.

  This is what I was talking to my woman about, the ability to focus entirely on the moment. She brings it to me with her primal beauty, with the love I feel blazing inside of me every second of every day…

  And fighting brings it to me because I need to focus on the immediacy of the violence, of doing whatever’s necessary to protect my family.

  “Kelly,” her mom says. “What’s going on here?”

  “Careful, big man,” Lennie murmurs, taking a step back as I stalk toward him. His men are doing the same, taking his lead, looking to him for guidance when all the courage he can summon is sending him backward.

  I pause when I’m standing between the women and the threat, spreading my hands. My heartbeat is slow. My blood runs cold, like a fucking assassin’s. I remember when I won the heavyweight championship, a round one knockout with a running knee. Nobody expected a big bastard like me to be able to move so quickly.

  But I can, and I’ll explode like a force of nature to keep my woman safe.

  “I’m the one with the knife.” Lennie gestures with it, waving at me. “Get back.”

  “No.” I stare blankly at the men, five of them in total. All of them are swollen threats and nothing else. I can’t afford to think about them as more than things I need to deal with, coldly, brutally, like the beast I am.

  “Usually there’s a referee to get me off you,” I snarl. “But you motherfuckers aren’t so lucky. That’s my woman, that’s my woman’s mother, and that’s my fucking daughter right there. So you turn around and walk away or things are going to get real bad for you.”

  I speak calmly, the way I would if I was describing the weather. The man on the far left – a diamond tattoo under his eye, piss-yellow, the worst tattoo I ever saw – glances at the others. Two of the older ones exchange a glance, and the final one – with a beanie pulled low and a real junkie look about him – grimaces at me.

  “Enough games,” Lennie says. “Unless you want me to go to work with this knife.”

  I shrug. “That’s your choice. But you’re not getting your hands on these women.”

  “I’m the one with the knife,” he whines.

  Behind me, I hear Kelly and Natalie talking in low whispers. “Is it true?”

  “I’m so sorry,” Kelly pleads.

  “I don’t understand.”

  I push their voices away and focus on the shapes of the men, my instincts pricking like they did when I was a kid when I had a chance to save my parents and I ran away in panic.

  That same response tries to kick in. Five against one will end in death every single time.

  But my training pushes that weak shit down.

  My love for Kelly, my need to protect her and my daughter, my need to do the right thing… All of it swells inside of me until I’m burning with it.

  My skin buzzes with anticipation of the violence.

  Lennie starts to pace up and down as I stare at him.

  Suddenly he spins and stalks over to the waitress.

  She’s been sitting off to the side, too scared to move since they grabbed her. She looks about fifteen, with braces, terrified out of her goddamn mind. I imagine my little gnat at that age… I think about the possible daughters I’m going to have with Kelly.

  “Don’t touch her,” I snarl.

  Lennie giggles. “Sorry, this one’s mine.”

  “If you touch her, you’ve given me no choice.”

  He spins on me, letting out another deranged laugh.

  He moves well for such a big man, the way he spins and prances over to me. It’s silly jester
shit, but it tells me certain things too. He’s athletic. He might have some training in fighting.

  I need to make sure to take him out quick.

  “Listen to yourself.” He stops short of me, gesticulating with the blade. “You think you’re so tough. But you’re not doing anything, are you? You have no right to get involved. This is between me and Angie,” he spits.

  “I broke up with you,” Angela yells from behind me. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  “Because Lennie doesn’t get abandoned, okay? Lennie doesn’t get put in his place. Lennie doesn’t get beaten and treated like trash every goddamn day of his goddamn life and Lennie’s going to take the fucking slut—”

  He lunges toward the teenage girl.

  Two of his men step forward, forming a wall of solid muscle between me and the girl and Lennie. They glare at me, their fists clenched, and then the other two join them. Behind them, Lennie grabs the waitress and drags her to where I can see them both.

  His hand squeezes onto her arm, but it doesn’t look like he’s hurting her.

  Yet.

  “Here’s the deal. Angie comes with me. If not, I take out my frustration on this innocent waitress. There, Angie? Happy? Is that easy enough for you?”

  “Stop it, just stop it,” Angela cries. “You’re disgusting.”

  I look into the faces of Lennie’s goons. “I’m going to give you one chance. You leave now and I settle things with your friend here on my own. Or you stay and you accept whatever happens next.”

  The one with the piss-colored tattoo spits. “I’ve seen you on TV. Normally I feel bad about fucking someone up four-on-one, but with you, champ? I think we can make an exception.”

  “See how tough you are without all that fancy-pants MMA shit to save you.” One of the older ones – a spider tattoo spreading over his hand – reaches into his jacket pocket and flips out a switchblade. “This is a street fight.”

  Lennie begins to lead the girl back behind the wall of bodies his goons make.

  What they’re planning to do is fucking monstrous.

  I can’t let it happen.

  But five on one is terrible odds.

  I ran once when this same uncertainty touched me, tapping into my flight response and sending me soaring.

  I sigh darkly, nodding. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kelly

  The three of us stand behind Kaleb, too full of fear to sit. Natalie and Mom have glanced at me several times throughout the exchange, their eyes brimming with questions, and all I can think is how freaking angry I am we didn’t meet someplace else.

  This isn’t how I wanted them to find out.

  Now some innocent waitress is going to get hurt, or my man is going to get hurt protecting her, protecting us.

  “Warn us?” one of Lennie’s men snarls. “We’re the ones who should’ve warned you—”

  He roars when Kaleb springs into action.

  I have to remind myself this isn’t a dream, I’m in reality, this is really happening. He moves so fast, blurring across the room and punching the man with the knife across the side of the face.

  “Tsk tsk,” he breathes calmly, slamming the man twice in the stomach.

  The man coughs and drops the knife.

  Kaleb springs forward, trying to catch it, but he has to dodge away when the three other men leap at him.

  Kaleb takes a fighting stance, bobbing, hands raised as he faces the three of them down… oh, fuck, and the fourth has recovered, even if he’s wheezing a little.

  Lennie stands with the waitress off to the side, watching with a wry smirk on his face.

  “A little show before the fun, eh, ladies?”

  It’s clear the lunatic hasn’t thought this through.

  Somebody must’ve called the cops by now. We’re basically in a glass box, with all the lights on a stone’s throw from the sidewalks. But then I’ve read stories about far worse happening in even more public places.

  We could be unlucky.

  A sick part of me thinks this is punishment for what Kaleb and I did, for the pact we broke when we came together in our need.

  But no, no, I can’t think like that.

  We were made for each other.

  Lennie is the evil one.

  Kaleb feints forward a couple of times spins one way, turns the other…

  “Tsk.”

  He spins like something mechanical, snapping into perfect form and aiming a kick at the biggest one’s face. The heel of his shoe smashes into his jaw.

  Teeth fly and Kaleb surges forward, stepping in with a massive elbow for one man.

  The third and fourth grab him, and I gasp. They’ve both got their hands on him, clawing at him, aiming punches at his side.

  Natalie and I exchange a glance.

  Tears well in her eyes and I can tell she’s thinking the same thing I am. If it wasn’t for Lennie and his hostage we’d run in there right now to protect him, to protect my man… and her father.

  We both want to keep him safe, despite our different connections to him.

  Maybe we can find some solace in that.

  “Stop it,” I yell. “Leave him alone.”

  “Dad, stop fighting,” Natalie screams. “He’s not going to fight anymore, leave him alone.”

  “Argh,” Kaleb roars, suddenly wrenching one of the men so hard he goes flying behind him. The momentum makes him trip and he slams face-fight into a table, falling heavily to the floor.

  Kaleb springs up on the other grappler, spinning him around and wrapping his arms around his throat. The man’s legs kick and Kaleb holds him tighter, and tighter before he slumps down gently laying him on the ground.

  One man – except for Lennie and Kaleb – is still standing, the one Kaleb hit with an elbow. The one he kicked lies on his back, fish-mouthing. The other two are still knocked out cold.

  “What’s it going to be?”

  The man looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, with a boyish glint of arrogance in his eyes, but there’s fear in them somewhere, shivering across his features.

  “Go home, boy,” Kaleb growls. “Or you’ll force me to hurt you even more.”

  “Fuck this,” he snaps, and then turns and sprints away.

  The bell rings and the door opens and closes loudly.

  I feel like I’m living in a freaking movie scene or something. Everything is so bright, so loud, hyper-real.

  Lennie spins around, moving as if to hold the knife to the waitress’ throat.

  But he’s too slow compared to Kaleb.

  My man leaps across the fallen men, moving with the grace of a dancer, as though every movement has already been choreographed. He grabs Lennie’s forearm and wrenches him around violently.

  There’s a snap and then Lennie lets out a scream, so loud it makes me put my hands over my ears. Thankfully Mom is more aware, and she quickly runs over to the waitress, putting her hand over her shoulder.

  “Call the police, Kelly.”

  “Yes, okay. Yes.”

  I go for my cell phone now that the girl is safe. I fumble with the phone as Kaleb spins Lennie around.

  Lennie’s face is creased in agony as Kaleb grabs hold of him from behind, looking like some silver-suited medieval warrior, as though his fascination with that period has become true.

  His face is flecked with little splatters of red and his eyes are killer-cold.

  “Say sorry to my woman,” Kaleb growls. “You don’t get to talk to her that way. Nobody does.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lennie pants, struggling to keep his breathing under control. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. Okay?”

  “And my daughter, for scaring her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “And this woman?” Kaleb spins him to face my mom. “What’s her name, Lennie?”

  “Angie, she’s my—”

  He interrupts himself with a cry of agony. “I don’t know her name. I don’t know who the fuck
she is.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Kaleb snarls.

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher says over the phone.

  I want to tell her there isn’t one.

  My man saved us.

  But know there could be an even bigger emergency.

  Mom and Natalie know.

  And not in the way we wanted them to find out.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kaleb

  I lean against the balcony, the same place this all started, my hands gripping the railing. The sun has almost completely set now, sunlight bleeding across the horizon and turning the buildings glorious yellow colors, lighting them up like beacons.

  But the only beacon I’ll ever need to guide me through life is standing beside me.

  Kelly has her arms wrapped around herself. She changed into a hoodie and jeans after speaking with the police, giving our statements about Lennie and what happened in the diner.

  Lennie is wanted for a litany of other crimes.

  I acted in self-defense.

  We’re all good on that front.

  But I don’t know if I can say the same about Natalie and Angela.

  The elevator ride up to my apartment was dead quiet, and then when we got to the hallway Angela folded her arms and looked at Natalie. “I think we need to sort out a couple of things between us before we all talk about this.”

  Natalie nodded, refusing to meet my eyes, and even refusing to meet Kelly’s. “Okay, we’ll talk in my old room.”

  I wanted to roar at them to wait, to talk it out with us first, but I knew that wasn’t my place. They walked off and Kelly and I came out here.

  “What the heck are they talking about?” she whispers, a shiver in her voice.

  I reach over and touch her hand, squeezing it softly to let her know she can let out some of the tension moving through her. She returns my gesture before moving away subtly.

  Her whimpering tells me how difficult she finds the separation, the same way I’m burning up to hold her against me. After turning into Animal to save her, now all my body wants to do is claim her, to ravage every inch of her until she’s lust-red like she was last night… and this morning.