by Sybil Bartel
He shrugged without apology, then he scanned the parking lot and the front of the restaurant. “You can get takeout. We’re not eating in.”
“It’s Japanese,” I protested.
“So?” He opened the door behind the driver seat, pulled out an article of clothing and tossed it at me. “Put that on.”
Forced to catch it or let it drop to the ground, I grabbed it. “I’m not eating sushi on my lap in the damn car.” It was a black zip-up sweatshirt with the Luna and Associates logo on it, and it smelled like him, but I couldn’t imagine him wearing it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to. It’d seemed sacrilegious to cover all that ink on his arms. “Is this yours?”
Ignoring my question, he took a leather jacket from the back seat and put it on. “Then order something else.” Giving me a warning look, he snatched the sweatshirt from me and fed one of my arms into it. “Takeout or nothing.” Unceremoniously shoving my other arm through, he zipped it to the top. Then, as if it were as natural as breathing, he pulled his gun out of his holster, dropped the magazine, glanced at the bullets, slammed it back home and shoved the gun back were he’d taken it from. The whole routine was over in seconds and his hand went to his waist. “Make a decision.”
Wow, that shouldn’t have been sexy, but it was.
Getting clean had either made me completely lose my mind or I was starved for attention, or maybe it was the rich scent of aftershave that suddenly enveloped me, but I really wanted to eat a meal with him in the stupid restaurant. I didn’t even care if I had to ask nicely. My skin was tingling from where he’d touched me, and I wanted more.
So I asked.
Nicely.
“Please?”
His other hand went to his hip, and he stared at me.
For a long moment, his dark eyes took me in, and I felt it all the way from the hair on the back of my neck to my toes.
I didn’t know what the hell kind of spell this man had me under, but in that moment, I would’ve done anything he told me to. And maybe it was as simple as the fact that he was a man. All man. A complete asshole, but also a strong, no bullshit, dominating, no brain-to-mouth filter man.
I didn’t know anyone like him.
My whole life I’d been cursed by my last name. Everyone I’d ever met wanted something from me, or they wanted something from my father, and I was just leverage.
Except Shade the Bodyguard didn’t seem to give a single damn what my last name was.
Exhaling, he let his gaze drift down my body, taking in every inch like he was touching me, then he looked back at my eyes and shook his head.
“Remember this moment,” he ordered.
“Oh-kay.” I kinda hated how good he looked in his leather jacket. And I wondered if the stubble across his face was purposeful or because he hadn’t had time to shave before driving up from Miami. I also wondered who the hell Cara was, but carefully trying to shove that whole part of our conversation down, I compartmentalized. Because I didn’t want to know about Cara and the ass pounding she got from him. “Why?”
“Because when it all goes to shit, this was the turning point.” His hand landed on the small of my back. “Come on, princess.”
Awareness shot up my spine and down my body, then went straight to my core. “Sit down?”
“Yeah,” he acquiesced begrudgingly.
I smiled. Wide.
“Fuck,” he grumbled, leading me to the front door and pulling it open for me. “I’m gonna regret the hell out of this.”
SHE ORDERED HALF THE FUCKING menu, and she didn’t shut up.
The woman was driving me to drink, but I couldn’t even order a beer, because, despite appearances, I wasn’t a complete dick.
“Are you sure you don’t want some?” She held a piece of raw fish out with her chopsticks. “It’s sooo good.”
Jesus fucking Christ. “For the fifth time, no.”
I wasn’t eating that shit, and I sure as fuck wasn’t shoving two goddamn sticks in my mouth. I’d paid my dues downrange eating cold MREs in dirt and sand hellholes with plastic fucking sporks while enemy fire rained down overhead.
I didn’t live through that shit to eat with a goddamn piece of bamboo or whatever the fuck the chopsticks were made out of.
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be a dick about it.” She popped the raw shit into her mouth.
“You haven’t seen me be a dick.”
Snorting around her bite, she picked up her napkin and patted it against her lips like she was a fucking queen. Shaking her head, she let out a half laugh. “Pretty sure ordering some woman to tell her husband you fucked her in his bed is the very definition of being a dick.”
Half my mouth tipped up. “I was inspired.”
“Jeez, by what? Psycho pussy?” Her face flushed, but she pulled off the jab with a solid dose of attitude.
I smirked. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Her eyebrows drew together, and she dropped her gaze. “You make a habit of that?”
“Of what?” I ate the last of my steak. It was decent, but not like home cooking.
She looked up. “Dating crazy women.”
“Who said I dated her?” Grabbing my water, I winked.
She shook her head. “You’re a piece of work.”
“And you’re surprising, for a fucking teenager.” Which I needed to keep reminding myself of. Despite the size of her rack and her ability to spar like a woman, she was still young as hell and not fuck material. Catching the eye of the waiter, I signaled for the check.
Looking affronted, she sat back and crossed her arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The waiter came over. “Can I get you anything else? Some to-go containers?”
“Princess?”
“No,” she snapped at me before looking at the waiter and toning it down. “Just the check, please.”
The waiter pulled the check out, and she reached for it.
Knocking her hand away, I gave the waiter my credit card.
“I’ll be right back.” The waiter took off.
Rehab glared at me. “What the hell was that?”
“No woman buys me a meal.” Trust fund teenager or otherwise.
She looked at me like I was certifiable. “Why?”
“I’m Italian.” Women didn’t buy me fucking food. Period.
“So?”
“If you have to question it, there’s zero point explaining it.”
“What, so this is some kind of cultural, old-world thing? You’re Italian,” she mocked, mimicking my deep voice. “You can’t let a woman buy you a meal because you’ll lose your man card?” She snorted. “Whatever.”
I looked her dead in the eye. “It’s respect. You’re welcome.”
The disdain wiped clean from her expression, and she blinked. Her cheeks flushed, and her mouth closed. She didn’t say shit.
The waiter showed back up.
My eyes on her, I took the receipt. Briefly glancing at the amount, I added tip, signed and stood. “Let’s go.” I held my hand out to her.
Her blue-eyed gaze cut nervously from my hand to the ink on my inner wrist.
“Not a ploy, princess. Just helping you out of the booth.”
With a quick inhale, she took my hand, and the feigned indifference I’d heard earlier in her tone came back. “I didn’t think it was.” Sliding off the seat, she looked up at me. “You’re not that subtle.”
She was fucking astute for her age, and I didn’t argue, because she was right. I was about to drop her hand when her expensive perfume hit me and shit clouded my judgment. Smelling like a woman and not a teenager, I stared at her young-as-fuck face for a beat, and something buried deep that I didn’t ever fucking let out anymore tried to surface.
Before I could think twice about saying shit, I opened my mouth. “Don’t let any man disrespect you.” Still holding her small-as-fuck hand, suddenly feeling like I needed to protect her from the whole damn world, I tightened my grip. “I do
n’t give a shit who it is.”
Her voice went quiet. “You disrespect me every time you call me Rehab or princess.”
“Not the same.” She knew what I meant.
“I’m not ashamed of going to rehab, but I don’t like being called that.”
Christ, she was honest, but she didn’t get it. “I don’t engage with clients, let alone share a meal and conversation. You walk into a restaurant with a man, he pays. Period. That’s all I’m saying, and point taken on the nickname.”
She half laughed. “So you’re saying this was a date?”
She still didn’t get it. “No.” I didn’t bother giving women enough attention to shell out advice, let alone the respect of a meal. Not even the ones I fucked. My first deployment taught me life was fucking short—too damn short to get attached to shit.
Her smile dropped, and she forced indifference. “Oh. Right. You save that for Cara.”
I wasn’t suicidal. “I never went out to eat with her.” Cara was a moment of weakness that lasted too damn long.
Fucking her under her husband’s nose was a sorry substitute for the adrenaline rushes downrange I’d been jonesing for since going civilian. I didn’t do shit with Cara except pussy chase. I used her, and she used me. There wasn’t a damn thing between us outside the sex. And I sure as hell never had a conversation with her like I was having with this fucking nineteen-year-old.
“Right,” Summer scoffed. “You broke up with someone you dated but didn’t go out to eat with. Sounds logical. And super sustainable. How long did that last?” she asked flippantly.
“I didn’t date her. I fucked her.” Big difference. “How long is none of your business.” Too goddamn long. I should’ve had Luna pull me from her detail after the first day. But Carabella Vincenzo had trained her gaze on my ink, then my junk, and I’d made it my personal mission to get under her skirt just for the fuck of it.
“Sounds like that’s a habit for you,” Summer teased easily.
“More like a lifestyle.” Or sanity preservation, take your pick. I didn’t date or do relationships. I fucked the type of women who could handle my proclivities, then moved on. And that sure as hell wasn’t gonna happen with little Miss Rehab. Letting go of her, I dropped my hand to the small of her back. “Let’s go.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Fucking Christ. “Staff Sergeant, woman. You gonna use my rank, get it right.” I led her out of the restaurant.
“What branch?”
She had to ask? “Marines.” The only branch.
Conscious or not, she moved closer to me. “How long were you in?”
“Ten years.” I should’ve stepped the fuck away from her. Possessive shit screwing with my head, I allowed myself to consider the way she fit under my arm like she belonged there. “Now whose turn is it for twenty questions?”
“I promise to limit it to nineteen,” she easily sparred. “So, you seem like the Marine type. Why’d you get out?”
“Medically retired, and word of advice, unless you want your head bit off, don’t ever call a Marine the Marine type. There is no type. We’re Marines, period. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Remember that.” I opened the door of the Escalade.
“Got it.” Her face scrunched up. “Medically retired? Were you hurt?”
“It was war,” I evaded. “Get in.”
Looking up at me, she stared for a long moment. “Now you’re opening my door?”
For a split second, I hesitated. Her voice even, her expression void of attitude, she looked like she was asking an honest question.
But then she bit her bottom lip.
Yeah, not honest. “You reading into my actions, princess?”
“You said don’t let a man take advantage of me.”
“I know what I said.” I meant it more than she’d ever know.
“You were an asshole when you picked me up,” she blurted.
“Your point?” I knew what I was.
“Why aren’t you being one now?”
“You want me to be?” Jesus, was this chick fucked in the head?
“No, I just want to know why you’re being different now.”
No hesitation, no bullshit, she threw her questions out there, and I had to admit, not many women I’d met who were my own damn age would’ve had her brand of brass.
I gave her the truth. “The last time I saw you, you were letting your dealer hold your stepmother at gunpoint. I was making sure you knew I wasn’t going to put up with any bullshit.”
Snorting out a laugh without an ounce of humor, she shook her head. “I was high.”
“No shit.”
Embarrassment hit her cheeks. “Well, I’m not that person anymore.”
“You clean?” I didn’t fuck with women who were messed up with that shit. Not that she was a woman. Nor was I gonna fuck her.
Her voice and her eyes dropped. “Yeah.”
With a knuckle under her chin, I tipped her face up. “Why didn’t you look at me when you said that?”
She looked away. “What does it matter to you if I’m clean or not?”
“Eyes on me,” I demanded.
She brought her gaze back to mine.
“It doesn’t.” I didn’t lie to her. “But it should matter enough to you to look me or any other asshole in the eye and tell them you’re done throwing your life away.”
She gave me a wry smile. “So, you’re admitting that you’re an asshole?”
Holding her chin, holding her gaze, I didn’t give her a verbal response. Instead, I let her look at me. If she was smart, she’d figure it out.
She dropped the smile. “Point taken.”
“Smart girl.”
Her voice turned shy. “I’m not a girl.”
“Get in the car, woman,” I ordered.
“Yes, sir.” A smile tugged at her lips, and she got in.
Closing her door, I muttered under my breath. “Little minx.”
Keys in hand, I rounded the front of the SUV and opened the driver door as a black Lincoln pulled into the parking lot and slammed on the brakes right in front of me.
My hand went to my piece.
The rear door of the sedan flew open, and a woman I never wanted to see again lunged out of the vehicle.
“Sfumatura,” Carabella Contessa Palermo Vincenzo breathed, reaching for me. “I found you.”
Motherfucker.
WITH HER LONG, DARK HAIR loose, Cara grabbed two handfuls of my shirt and aimed for my mouth before I snapped the fuck out of my shock.
“STOP.” Enraged, I gripped a handful of her hair and yanked her mouth away from mine as I drew my 9mm. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Aiming at her driver, I held her back. “You goddamn tracked my cell?”
“You left me no choice,” she pouted, ignoring my gun and putting on the same tired act she did when I was fucking her. “I needed you.”
I scanned the open car door and, more importantly, the man behind the wheel. “Get the fuck out here, Dominic.” Holding my aim steady, not easing up on my grip on Cara, I gave zero fucks about any witnesses in the restaurant or parking lot. Dominic was old as shit, but make no mistake, he’d shoot me without hesitation.
“Do not yell at him,” Cara snapped.
“Shut the fuck up, or I’ll shoot you on principle,” I warned Cara as the old man made an act of slowly getting out of the Lincoln and picking his way around the sedan.
His hands up, Dominic shook his head sheepishly. “Mr. Shade.” His accent thick, his voice wobbled with age. “I had no choice.” He attempted a smile. “I cannot say no to the signora.”
“Who else knows where you are?” If their cell phones were on, Antonio was tracking them same as Cara had tracked me.
“I tell no one, I swear.” The old man crossed himself with one hand.
Sighing like she was the one who was put out, Cara rolled her dark eyes. “I told you I left him. It is just you and me now. Stop this nonsense. We need to get moving.” She gest
ured toward the restaurant. “You’re attracting attention.”
“I’m not attracting shit,” I corrected. “You are.” In a white dress with high heels, she was dressed for Miami Beach summer, not Jacksonville winter. “Get back in the car.” I tipped my chin at Dominic. “You’re taking her home.”
“No,” Cara protested, clawing at my chest. “I am coming with you.”
“The fuck you are.” Done with this bullshit, I eyed Dominic. “Bring me both of your phones.”
As the old man shuffled back to the Lincoln, the passenger door of the Escalade opened.
Motherfucker. “Back inside, princess,” I barked.
Ignoring me, Summer walked around the front of the SUV. “What’s going on?” Eyeing Cara, she glanced at me. “Is that the psycho ex?”
Whipping her head around despite my hold on her, Cara practically levitated. “Who the hell is that?” Looking up at me, she seethed. “You are fucking this girl?” Switching to Italian, she let loose. With a string of cuss words, she cursed me, my family and my unborn children before threatening to cut my dick off.
“Get in the Escalade,” I warned Summer as Dominic came back and held the phones out to me.
Crossing her arms, Summer defiantly glared at Cara. “Not a girl, bitch. Woman. Just ask Shade.” She smirked.
The shit hit the fan.
Cara lunged at Summer, Dominic dropped the phones as he made a grab for Cara, two waiters came out of the restaurant yelling, and a third car with tinted-out windows careened into the parking lot.
I didn’t fucking wait to see who it was.
I didn’t have to.
Shoving Cara into Dominic, I grabbed Summer and tossed her in the Escalade. “Move, move, move!”
She scrambled across the driver seat and over the center console as the first shots plunked into the SUV. Jumping in after Summer, I yanked the door of the armored Escalade shut, shoved the key in, and threw it in reverse.
Gunning it, I backed into the street but then slammed on the brakes as two of Vincenzo’s henchmen fired at us in broad daylight like this was the fucking Alamo.
Grabbing the back of Summer’s neck, I shoved her head to her lap. “Get down.” Opening her window, I took aim.