by Sybil Bartel
“What?” she challenged, the rasp in her bedroom voice heavier than before.
I glanced at her again. Fine features, but rougher around the edges than any woman with money I’d ever met. Yeah, she’d be a silent screamer. “Nothing.”
“You’re staring,” she accused.
Fuck, her voice was sexy. “You a smoker?”
“Do you see any cigarettes?”
“Watch that attitude,” I warned, wanting to dominate the fuck out of her. “Vape?”
She rolled her eyes. “Gross.”
Jesus, I needed to find a woman, not a goddamn teenager, to pound. Maybe one with a head full of dark brown hair and an attitude like a spoiled little rich princess. Fuck the shit out of her while I pretended it was the music mogul’s daughter with the huge tits.
“By the way, I’m hungry. I need something to eat. And coffee. No fast food or any gas station shit either. Real food.”
My orders were to bring her the hell back to Miami, not take her out to eat. “We’re not stopping for a sit-down meal.” I reached behind her seat and grabbed one of the bottles of water I had and dumped it in her lap. “Pick a drive-through or eat when you get home.”
“Miami is like six hours away,” she complained. “That’s practically both lunch and dinner. I’m not waiting to eat until I get home, and I’m not eating fast food.”
“Then starve.”
“Just stop somewhere. You’re getting paid by the hour. What the hell do you care?”
Fucking Christ. “No.”
“Why?” she demanded. “You afraid to be seen out in public with me?”
“Dressed like that?” I tipped my chin at her bullshit outfit for cold weather and lied. “Yeah.”
“Liar.” She smirked. “All men want a woman who dresses like this.”
Fuck my life. “Not gonna work.”
“What’s not going to work?”
“Cut the attention-seeking bullshit, princess. You’re not getting any from me, and we’re not stopping.”
“Oh, come on.” She threw her hands up. “We’re not even on the highway yet.” She stabbed her finger at the window. “You just passed like five restaurants. What the hell is your problem? It’s a half hour to get some decent food. Leo’s paying for it anyway. What do you care?”
Close to giving in just to get her to shut the fuck up, I gave her shit one last time—in part to see how she’d react. “You want to know what happened to the last woman who gave me shit?”
Quiet a beat, she stared at me.
I stared at the road.
She broke first. “Is that supposed to scare me?”
Lifting an eyebrow, I fucked with her. “You’re not?”
“Is this some kind of veiled reference to the last time you saw me? Like some passive-aggressive bullshit about how you had to rescue me and my stepmom from my asshole dealer?”
“Rescue?” I half laughed. “Is that what you’re calling it?” Bitch was junkie high, selling out her supermodel stepmother to her dealer for a score. It didn’t get much more fucked than that.
“Whatever.” She crossed her arms.
She was lucky I shot her dealer before he shot her mother. Whatever was right. “Pick a fucking drive-through if you want something.”
Before she could bitch at me more, my cell rang. Picking it up, I answered without looking at the caller ID. “Shade.”
“Oh my God.” Summer bounced in her seat and pointed. “There!”
“Sfumatura,” a woman said in Italian.
Breathless, contrived and superior. I’d know that voice anywhere.
Carabella Contessa Palermo Vincenzo.
Former client. The last cunt I’d stuck my dick in. And the woman whose calls I’d been avoiding all day.
Fuck.
“Shade,” I corrected. I wasn’t a goddamn tinge or nuance of anything. She knew I hated that play on my name. “Hanging up now.”
“You will not hang up on me,” Cara countered confidently.
I switched to Italian. “Yes, I fucking will. You know better than to call me.”
“Your Italian is rusty,” Cara chided. “You sound like an American.”
“Because that’s exactly what I am.” Goddamn, I needed to end this call before it went FUBAR.
“Turn in, turn in,” Summer practically yelled.
“Don’t be contrary,” Cara pouted. “I need you. And who is that? Who are you with?”
“Oh my God, you’re going to miss the turn!” Summer reached for the wheel.
“Stop,” I growled at Summer in English before taking the turn because I was fucking distracted.
“I do nothing, amore mio. Who is that woman?” Cara demanded. She’d always been jealous as fuck despite the fact she was the one who was married.
“None of your business,” I barked at Cara in Italian before pulling into a parking lot of some restaurant and glaring at Summer as I switched to English. “Wait here. Rule number two. Fucking remember it.”
Cutting the engine, I yanked the key out, got out, and slammed the door shut behind me. Standing in the goddamn cold, I did what I swore I would never do again.
I gave a fucking mafia princess the time of day.
“What do you want, Cara?”
SLAMMING HIS DOOR, SHADE TURNED his back on the SUV.
A shiver wracked my whole body—from the cold, from hearing him speak Italian, from the dominant threat in his tone before he got out of the Escalade—from all of it.
Nosy as hell, I tried the window even though he took the key. No luck. I leaned forward as far as I could so I could catch his profile.
His shoulders tight, one hand on his hip, he held the phone to his ear and scanned the parking lot once.
Then he did something I’d never seen any of the Luna and Associates bodyguards do over the years. He let his gaze drop to the ground.
A bodyguard never did that.
André Luna’s men were all different, but they all had a few traits in common, the major one being they were always on high alert. Scanning everything around them, rarely making eye contact, always looking for some threat, they never let their guard down. They didn’t even take a phone call and give their full attention to it.
Whoever Shade was talking to, I was sure it was a woman.
Probably his girlfriend or wife. Maybe an ex?
I hated to admit it, but I wanted whoever it was to definitely be an ex. I hadn’t gotten that kind of attention from him, not even when I’d pissed him off and he’d grabbed my jaw. Yeah, his eyes had been focused on me and his grip had been knee-buckling firm, but he hadn’t been one hundred percent committed, not how he was now with his eyes focused on his boots and his lips moving rapidly.
For a split second, a crazy thought filtered in.
What if I got out and went and stood in that space between his feet and his dropped gaze? What if I inserted myself between him and whoever was on that call? Would he push me away? Grab my jaw again? My core tingled. Would he shove me up against the Escalade? Acknowledge me at all?
“Jesus, Summer,” I whispered into the rapidly chilling interior of the SUV. “Get a grip.”
I was not going to be a cliché.
I didn’t care how hot he became the second another language came out of his mouth, a bodyguard should be off-limits, especially now that I didn’t have the excuse of being high. Just because I had no drugs to entertain me, and my core was pulsing like a needy bitch didn’t mean I had to act on it.
Besides, I didn’t change my phone number and have my dad and stepmom as my only contacts and suffer through months of bullshit rehab therapy only to fuck the first available prick with a dick I encountered five seconds out of rehab.
He was so damn hot and cold, I wasn’t even sure he would fuck me. Not that I wanted to screw an older bodyguard who probably couldn’t get any other job because of his shitty attitude. Not saying that I didn’t usually go for older guys, but still. What the hell was I thinking?
; I wasn’t, which was exactly the problem.
I was looking at his ripped arms and the gun in a holster on his hip, and I was remembering the thrill his dominant grip had sent racing through my veins when he’d grabbed my jaw like he owned me.
Oh my God.
“Hello, my name is Summer Amherst and I have issues,” I whispered into the empty SUV, shaking my head.
“NO,” Shade growled into his phone, his voice carrying through the closed windows.
Screw it.
Telling myself I was only hungry for food, I pushed my door open.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered, stepping out of the Escalade in my favorite Tom Ford boots.
“I LEFT HIM, AMORE MIO,” Cara breathed. “We can be together now.”
Jesus fucking Christ. If she actually thought she was going to pull this bullshit, she could go fuck herself. “That ship never even docked.” I may have fucked the woman in a moment of weakness, but I sure as hell never wanted to bed down with her.
“Don’t say that. I know you want me,” she argued. “I need you now. I need you to protect me, amore mio.”
She was out of her fucking mind. “Call me that one more time,” I warned.
“Sfumatura,” she purred. “Do not be like this.”
“Hanging the fuck up. Don’t call again.” Goddamn it, I should’ve changed my number months ago, but I’d been a fucking idiot. Not wanting to cut off all contact with her, I’d kept my phone in case I decided to risk getting my dick hacked off by her husband and fuck her one last time. But no goddamn thrill was worth the hassle of this stalking shit.
“Shade,” she cried. “Wait.”
Like an asshole, I didn’t hang up. “No pussy is this good, not even yours.”
“Do not be crude,” she scolded. “Just tell me where you are. I will come to you. My driver, he is—”
“Oh, hell no.” I wasn’t getting my ass shot because of her. “Come near me, and I’ll call Antonio faster than you can blink.” Her husband could deal with her. I was done.
“I already told you, I left him. It is over.”
“Nice fucking try.” No one left Antonio, let alone the Vincenzo family. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
She gave up the pretense of trying to be nice. “Stop this right now. I am coming to you, and you are going to protect me. That is final.”
“No,” I growled.
“Where are you?” she asked, ignoring me.
The Escalade’s passenger door opened.
Looking up, I caught Rehab’s stark blue eyes. “None of your fucking business,” I told Cara.
“I will just keep tracking your phone,” Cara threatened.
Our gazes locked, little Miss Rehab stalked up to me. “The fuck you will,” I warned Cara.
“I am not kidding,” Cara bitched.
“Good for you.” Fuck this. “Hanging up. Good luck with your bullshit.”
Hands on her hips, Rehab stepped in front of me in her fuck-me boots with the gold heels and padlocks on the ankle like she was auditioning for a fucking BDSM porno. “I’m hungry.”
Before I had a chance to end the call, Cara’s proverbial claws came out, and she yelled, “Who the hell is that?”
Making a rookie mistake, I held the phone away from my ear.
Rehab grabbed my wrist and brought my cell to her dick-sucking lips. “Summer Amherst, bitch. Who the fuck are—”
Slapping my hand over Rehab’s mouth seconds too late, I yanked my phone back.
“Do not hang up on me!” Cara ordered before turning crazy-bitch, level ten. “Or I will tell him.”
Ignoring Rehab, I refused to get dragged into Cara’s brand of bullshit. “I don’t give a fuck what you do.”
Cara played her only move. “I will tell Antonio Vincenzo that you fucked his wife.”
Shoving my hand away, Rehab sighed dramatically. “I’m going inside to eat. Come or don’t.” She spun and showed me her tight teenage ass.
Pissed at Cara, at little Miss Rehab, at this bullshit assignment, I grabbed Rehab’s arm. Then, staring at my past mistakes through the eyes of a fucking teenager, I slit my own goddamn throat.
“Make sure you tell Antonio you screamed my name when I ate your psycho pussy in his bed. And tell him he needs more lube. I had to use half the fucking tube when I pounded your ass, because his small dick didn’t do shit to pave the way for me.” If Vincenzo was tapping her phone, I was a dead man.
Rehab froze.
Cara gasped. “Shade.”
Slowly turning toward me, looking shocked as fuck, Rehab raised an eyebrow.
Holding her gaze, I switched to Italian. “Have a nice life, Carabella.” I hung up and forgot to switch back to English. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
Rehab schooled the shock in her expression and brought out the attitude. “You always speak Italian when you’re dumping a girlfriend?”
I switched back to English. “You always this belligerent when you break the rules?”
She snorted. “Did you really need half a tube?”
On edge enough to want to show her exactly what I could do with a fucking tube of lube and her tight little body, I threw down a challenge. “Do you really want to know?”
With youth-induced bravery, she didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Neither did I. “Yes.”
Her face twisted with disgust. “Pig.”
“Junkie.”
She glared at me.
Fucking feeding off her contempt, I let my gaze drop to her barely covered cunt.
Rubbing her thighs, she broke first. “You’re disgusting.”
Meeting her eyes again, I smirked. “And you’ve never had your ass owned by a real man.”
Her cheeks flamed, but she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Hate to break it to you, but everything you’re so obviously watching on Pornhub is a fucking lie. Women don’t enjoy getting their asses pounded. And anyone who told you different, or screamed your name, was lying through her teeth.”
I grinned. “Is that a challenge, Jailbait?”
“I’m nineteen, not sixteen, asshole. And what challenge? If I wanted to fuck you, all I’d have to do right now is spread my legs.”
Stepping into her personal space, I ignored her bull’s-eye. “Asshole?”
Her back stiffened, and her voice went brittle. “Yeah.”
My cock twitched. “You got something to say?”
“I already said it,” she blustered.
Fuck, I would crush her. “You know what I think?” Both her ass and her cunt.
“Like I care.” She forced a half laugh, but her body language said it all. Nervous as hell and turned on, she was too damn curious for her own good.
And I was getting off on every second of it.
Not giving a single fuck about boundaries, this assignment or the girl-woman in front of me, I grabbed a handful of her hair. “I think you want my hands on you.” I could smell her wet cunt from here. “I think you want it so bad, you’re already feeling it between those sexy thighs of yours.”
Short enough for me to dominate, but not so fucking small I was bending in half to get in her face, she didn’t do what I expected.
She didn’t retreat.
Balls of steel for a goddamn nineteen-year-old, she stood her ground. “You done fantasizing?”
“No.” This close, smelling her needy cunt, I stupidly thought about all the ways I could fuck her. “You ever been with a man?”
“You ever pretend to be professional?” she threw back like a pro.
I smiled. “You gave that pretense up the second you asked me about lube.”
“You said it first,” she dished out coolly.
“Don’t show your age now, princess,” I warned, wrapping her soft-as-fuck hair around my hand because I could. “A woman finishes what she starts.”
Momentary shock crossed her pretty face, and her voice went an octave higher, but she didn’t do shit to step out of my grip.
“I didn’t start anything.”
Right. “Did you know who was picking you up today?”
“No,” she scoffed.
“Did you think your stepmother was coming?”
“No,” she said quieter, a look of hurt crossing her features.
Ruthless, I kept going. “Amherst?”
“No.” Crossing her arms, she tried to pull out of my grasp. “And what’s with the twenty questions? Are you seriously this hard up for attention?”
Ignoring her bullshit question, gripping her hair tighter, liking her in my hold too damn much, I got to the fucking point. “Then who did you think was picking you up?”
“I don’t know.” Bitching like a teen, she showed her age. “My dad’s driver or one of you.”
“One of me?” I knew what the fuck she meant, but I wanted to hear her say it.
Looking me dead in the eye, she gave me all the disdain I was worthy of. “A bodyguard.”
There it was.
“Bodyguard,” I repeated in a low murmur as I dragged the back of my hand across the cool skin of her exposed stomach.
She shivered, and her eyes fluttered, but she tried to hide it. “Yeah.”
Leaning closer, I dropped my voice for only her to hear. “Who were you really dressing up for, Rehab?”
OH MY FUCKING GOD.
What a tool.
But when he touched me?
Ohmigod.
Full-on shivers. From one touch.
How was that even possible?
Then he called me Rehab.
Needing to not fuck what little dignity I had left, I pulled out of his grasp.
Letting me go with that damn smirk on his face that said he knew exactly the effect he had on my body, he shoved his cell in his pocket. “That’s what I thought.”
“Shocking you think at all,” I threw out, aiming to insult him even though I suspected he fed off that kind of shit.
Confirming my suspicion, he laughed.
Brazen and shameless, everything about his laugh made the same shiver he’d gotten out of me when he’d touched my stomach come rushing back, and I wanted to simultaneously jump him and hit him.
“I hate you,” I blurted.
“Good.” He grinned.
Fucking bastard. I fought a smile. “You would say that.”