I would guess that means her offer’s off the table.
“You don’t have to wave them around like a flag.” She shoves them in her purse with a huff. “I’m fucking leaving. This is ridiculous.” She jumps up so fast her chair tips over. She snaps her fingers at the woman sitting beside her who hasn’t spoken a word all night. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
The shorter woman jumps up and rushes to follow Felicity from the restaurant.
“Poor Amber.” Shelly shakes her head. “She’s so sweet when she finally gets a chance to talk but for some reason she won’t go anywhere without that one.”
Becca hasn’t flinched during the whole panty ordeal. Just kept eating her spaghetti like everyone at the table was discussing taxes instead of borderline brawling. Now she puts her fork down and looks up. Her eyes wander down the table. “Where are Felicity and Amber?” She focuses on Kerri. “Why are you on his lap?”
I can feel Kerri start to relax. She looks at Becca for a second, then she starts to laugh. “Becca, I love you.” She slides off my lap and back into her seat. “You missed all the fun. What in the world were you thinking about?”
Becca looks at Kerri like she should know. Her eyes flick to me and then back to Kerri. “Well, motorcycles of course.”
Kerri laughs again. “Fair enough.”
Becca turns to me. “Would you take me for a ride on yours sometime?”
I give her a grin. I like this girl. She doesn’t pull any punches and for some reason finds what I am fascinating. I don’t usually get that. “I would love to.”
“Have you been riding for a long time?” Shelly looks at me from her spot beside Kerri.
“As soon as I could afford a bike I bought one.” It was an easy answer that didn’t give too much away. The life I’ve lived isn’t the kind of story people like to discuss over dinner. Or at all.
No one likes to hear there are some kids who grow up alone, ending up on the streets as their eighteenth birthday present because that’s when the government isn’t required to take care of them anymore.
Shelly studies me for a second. She glances to Becca who is completely focused on the screen of her cell phone. Her warm eyes come back to me. “Seriously. Thank you for taking care of my friend.” She elbows Kerri. “Even though she’s a pain in the ass.”
I lean closer and wrap my arm around the back of Kerri’s chair. It’s hard to keep my hands off her right now. Not that it was easy before, but the minute she went after Felicity something changed. I smile at Shelly. “I was warned.”
The waitress stops with a stack of checks, looking at the empty chairs. “Uh. Did they leave?”
“Well shit.” Shelly looks across the table at Becca. “I was so happy to see her gone I didn’t even think about that.”
I take the checks from the young waitress and slide three hundreds into the top leather folder before handing it back to her. “No change.”
I turn back to the table and Kerri is watching me. I pretend not to notice. Shelly has her purse on her lap and a credit card in her hand. She looks at the spot where the waitress stood a few seconds ago. “Where’d she go?”
“I took care of it.” I slap on my Mr. Charming smile. “Consider it a birthday present and my penance for ruining girl’s night.”
Shelly snorts and shoots a dirty look at the empty end of the table. “You weren’t the one who ruined girl’s night.” She turns to Becca. “Probably no more invites for Felicity.”
Becca shrugs. “I never invite her. She just shows up.”
I still have my arm across the back of Kerri’s chair and I let my thumb stroke across the bare skin of her shoulder. I catch Shelly’s eyes on the subtle caress. Her lips curve into a smile as she looks away.
“Well I think I might have had enough excitement for tonight.” Shelly stands up and pulls her purse over her shoulder. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on drinks. I feel a carb coma coming on.” She gives me a wink over Kerri’s head.
Kerri stands up. “Are you sure?” She blows out a breath. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t really going to try to shove her underwear down her throat.”
I almost laugh out loud because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the woman beside me it’s when she says she wasn’t really going to do something...
She absolutely was.
“I would have helped you do it if I could’ve reached her.” Shelly looks at me. “I’m sorry. We really are nice women I promise.” She pushes past Kerri to pull me into another hug. “Thank you for dinner.” She tips up on her toes and whispers in my ear. “Don’t let her scare you off.”
I don’t have time to react to Shelly’s comment before Becca jumps into my arms, hugging me tight. I feel her hands moving over my back. “You have really well-developed muscles.” She drops back to her feet and pokes at my shoulders. “Do you exercise regularly?”
Such a strange little woman. “I do. It’s important in my line of work.”
“What is it you do?”
“Currently?” I fish for a decent term. “Personal protection.”
“So, like a bodyguard?” Becca sounds entirely unimpressed.
“Yeah, like a bodyguard.” I glance next to me at the body I’m currently required to guard. “It’s not a bad gig.”
Shelly snickers behind my back.
I walk the women to the parking lot, making sure Shelly and Becca are safely on their way before Kerri and I pull out of the lot. Kerri is quiet beside me, staring out the window.
“Everything okay?”
She nods. “I shouldn’t have gone after her like that.” I see her jaw set. “That woman just rubs me the wrong way. Makes me act like something I never wanted to be.”
I feel sick to my stomach as the realization of what she means hits me. “You are nothing like him.”
“That’s not true.” She crosses her arms at her waist. “I blackmailed a kid into giving me drugs. I sexually assaulted you in a bathroom and I one-hundred percent was going to make Felicity choke on her panties.” She blinks hard. “I worked so hard to be different. Nothing like him or what he expected me to be.”
“Kerri.” I reach for her over the console. “Trust me when I say you are nothing like him. Everything you did was self-preservation. You considered me a threat to the life you have.” I swallow back the tightness cinching my throat. “If I had the life you do I would fight for it too.”
Her life is the kind of thing a person like me isn’t supposed to even think about having. Nobody pays an orphan’s way through school. No one pushes you to be better than you are. No one understands you want to be different than the life you came from. They expect nothing of you and as a result you expect nothing of yourself.
Because you are nothing.
“What about the part where I tried to asphyxiate a woman with a thong?” She looks at me and I see a little bit of the challenge returning to her eyes. “She’s no threat to me.”
“No. No she is not.” Felicity might turn some men’s heads but she wasn’t my kind of girl. I like a strong woman as much as the next guy, but that one can cut fucking glass.
“I just don’t understand who she thinks she is.” Kerri starts mumbling under her breath. I only catch every other word or so but it’s clear I was wrong before. Numbers isn’t jealous.
She is very jealous.
I’m still smiling about it as I pull behind her apartment building. My smile fades instantly.
Scrawled across her door in messy red writing are two words that turn my blood to ice.
Found you
Kerri sits up straight in her seat. “Evan?”
I don’t have time to enjoy hearing her call me by name. I pull out my cell and dial the only man in the world I’ve ever trusted. Butch picks up on the first ring.
“Yo. Girls made it home and everything looks good here.”
He’s been helping me since Kerri gave me the slip that first night. I knew then this wasn’t a one man job.
I
hate that I was right.
“I need you to come to Kerri’s now.” I turn the car around and drive back toward the exit, scanning the lot for any unknown vehicles. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Where are we going?” Kerri looks out the back window as we drive away from her apartment.
I quickly pull back onto the road and speed away from her building. “We’re going to make sure no one was sitting and waiting for us to come home.” I should have paid better attention. I should have checked every fucking car we passed on the way home. But I didn’t.
Because Kerri was upset and all I cared about was making her feel better.
And it could have ended badly for both of us.
I circle back around, checking every side street as we pass, making eye contact with every driver coming in the other direction. Looking. Sensing.
It’s what makes me different. The best at what I do.
Usually.
Except apparently this time. Kerri’s thrown me off from the first second. I need to change that. Right fucking now.
My phone rings.
“Yeah.”
“That’s not good.” Butch’s voice muffles but I can still hear him talking to Kerri’s neighbor. “I understand Miss Violet, that’s why I brought my car this time.”
I hear Violet in the background, giving Butch hell about his car not being any less fucking loud than his bike. He must be in the Camaro. The muffled sounds stop and his voice comes back loud and clear again. “I don’t see anything out here. I’m gonna talk to Miss Violet and see if she saw anything. Come on back.”
I don’t know if I feel better or worse. If whoever wrote on Kerri’s door was still there I’d be able to send a message to the people threatening to hurt her. Let them know I won’t allow them to use her as a pawn in whatever fucked up game we’re playing.
But then Kerri would be reminded of what I am. The ties I have to the man she hates.
I hang up my phone.
“I didn’t think it was real.” The words are almost a whisper. I chance a look at her even though I know what I see will only make the anger burning inside me worse. Her skin is pale, the flush of color her cheeks carried since the incident with Felicity drained. Her hands are braced against the seat on either side of her thighs, as if she’s ready to push off and run the minute I say go. She turns to look at me. “What in the hell are we going to do?”
We.
Not what are you going to do.
Not what am I going to do.
We.
I reach across and grab the hand closest to me. “We are going to be just fine.” I pull her cold fingers to my mouth and run my lips across her knuckles. “I promise.”
She swallows hard and nods.
She believes me. That means in some small way Kerri trusts me to take care of her. A part of me stirs. A part I never wanted to admit I had. The part of me that wanted to think I could have someone like her. That a woman like this would look at me as something other than a way to get her rocks off.
Something more.
I pull into her spot at the apartment and park. Butch is still standing by the door. It’s clean. Not a trace of what was there only a few minutes ago. I open Kerri’s car door and offer my hand. She takes it like she has the last few times only this time I don’t let go. I hold her hand in mine as we walk across the lot to where Butch is taking a container of cookies from Violet.
She looks our way and gives me a bright smile. She touches her hair. “So many handsome men around here suddenly.”
It’s funny that it takes an old woman to make me blush. “How are you this evening, Violet?”
She opens her eyes wide and blows out a long sigh. “Well I don’t even know now.” She looks at Butch. “Anthony was asking me if I saw anything suspicious and then I saw Kerri’s door and I don’t even know what to think now.”
Anthony. Looks like I’m not the only one with a soft spot for Violet.
Butch and I are similar men. Both in the club because we were men without a family looking for a place where we belonged. Society's lost boys.
The only difference is Butch found the club.
The club found me.
“Don’t worry.” I nod to Butch. “We’ll make sure everything’s okay.”
Butch thumbs toward the bright yellow Camaro parked next to Kerri’s sedan. “I’ll be here all night.”
I look at the car and then back at him. “Way to blend in.”
Butch shrugs. “Doesn’t matter much now, does it?”
They found her. All this time I was hoping it wouldn’t happen. That it was an empty threat.
I knew better.
I clap Butch on the shoulder as I walk through Kerri’s door. “Thanks man. Call me if you see anything.”
He nods as I close the door behind us and lock the deadbolt.
Kerri walks across the carpet without taking off her shoes. She spins in a slow circle to face me. “Are we safe here?”
“We are for now. If that changes, we’ll deal with it then.”
She rubs her hands up and down her arms. She looks at the door. “So your friend has a key to my apartment too?”
I feel the tug of guilt for what I had to do to make sure Kerri was safe. We’re taught in the club to do what we want without asking for permission but it’s never been easy for me. “He does.”
She nods.
“Do you want me to take it?” It would be a stupid thing to do, especially after what happened tonight, but I would. Kerri wanted to leave her father’s world behind her and I brought it right to her doorstep.
And had keys made for the door.
Kerri tips her head to one side. “Would you really take his key if I asked you to?”
“I will do almost anything you ask me to do.”
“What won’t you do?”
I step toward her and pull her body against mine.
“Leave.”
8
I SLIP OUT from between the covers of my bed and pad across the floor to the bathroom. I move silently in the still dark room trying to channel my inner ninja.
“Good morning.” Tracker rolls to his back on the bed. “You lose again.”
I flip on the light.
His arm falls over his eyes. “Don’t get mad about it.” He squints at me under the shadow of his limb. “Wouldn’t you be upset if I didn’t hear someone sneaking around your bedroom?”
I flip the light back off. “Fine.”
I’m a little crabby.
More than a little actually.
Considering how we started off, I never imagined I’d be here. With this extremely attractive man in my bed who’s already had his hands all over me.
And in me.
Only he’s using a completely different set of covers and sleeping in his clothes. With a pillow shoved between us.
And I thought I was frustrated before.
I walk into the bathroom and start the shower. At least I get to go to work today. It will be a much needed distraction and might make me feel like I still have the same life as before. That I’m still the same me as before.
Even if it’s not true.
By the time I finish my shower and come out of the bathroom in my robe Tracker is up and moving with coffee and breakfast made. He hands me a cup and my eyes linger over the dark images inked into the skin of his arm. I take the cup. He pulls back and runs his hand down the arm I’m fascinated by.
“What do they mean?” I pull out a chair and sit down at the table.
Tracker sets a bowl of oatmeal on the table in front of me. “What does what mean?”
He understood the question. I know he did. “The tattoos on your arm.”
Tracker turns and leans against the tiny bit of counter in the small kitchen of my apartment. He crosses his arms so the clear arm covers the one I’m asking about. He stares past me for a second before his eyes drop to the ground between us. “I was an angry kid.”
I sip at my coffee, forcing myself to
wait for him to continue.
“I was in foster care from the time I was ten.” Evan glances at me for a second and I feel like he’s waiting for me to react. So I don’t.
“My parents were drug addicts who basically left me to fend for myself.” He shoots me the look again.
I still don’t react.
“I did whatever it took to survive. I stole. I fought. I hid.” His eyes have a faraway look in them as he continues. “Some of the foster homes were worse than where I came from so I would run away and live on the streets, staying one step ahead of whoever was looking for me.”
My stomach drops. That’s how he became what he is now. Tracker learned to find people by first learning how to hide from them. I feel sick to my stomach as I imagine a small little boy sleeping in the cold. Alone.
Completely alone.
I can’t cry. If I do he will never tell me anything again.
Because Evan means it when he says he will protect me.
So I sit there like my heart isn’t breaking for him. Like it’s not taking every ounce of strength in me to keep from melting into a puddle of tears. I stir the oatmeal he gave me, trying to focus on the bits of dried fruit and nuts he added. I should stay in my seat and force myself to act like what he said is no big deal. Then maybe someday he will tell me more.
But I can’t.
Because all I want to do right now is hold the broken little boy who managed to somehow become a decent man. More than decent.
I stand up and go to him because I have to. I rest my hands on either side of his face. He won’t look at me and that’s okay. I understand. And I need him to know that.
So I kiss him. Because I need to feel better and I want him to feel better. Not that I’m self-centered enough to believe a kiss from me will wash away all the pain he’s had to endure. But it might help right now in this minute. We can deal with the next minute when we get there.
His lips are so soft. Especially compared to the rasp of stubble covering his chin as it rubs against my skin. I don’t care. It’s the perfect combination. Rough and soft. Like him.
I hook one hand around his neck and shove the other into the wave of his sandy hair, pushing the tips of my fingers along his scalp. I want to taste him. I lick along the seam of his lips.
Tracking Numbers: A Bad Boy Protector Romance (Lost Boys Book 1) Page 6