by Sybil Bartel
But in the next instant, I felt him.
The air shifted, the sound of his boots on the pavement was right next to me, and he was on me.
Except he wasn’t.
Suddenly beside me, he kept pace.
His mouth closed, his eyes focused straight ahead, he ran next to me.
Not even breathing hard, no strain on his face, his expression locked, the fucker just ran with me.
The adrenaline spiking my system crashed, and I stumbled.
Pitching forward, my mouth opened on a gasp, and my arms flew out in front of me to brace for the inevitable contact with shitty fucking asphalt.
Except I didn’t fall.
A strong arm snaked across my waist as a hard body slammed into my back, and then I was in his arms.
But I wasn’t simply in his arms.
Cradling me, he lifted me to his chest and held me there tight. Not panting, not making a sound, he turned and started back toward the Escalade.
My head spinning, a hundred questions burning, a thousand more emotions picking at my conscience, not the least of which was anger, I didn’t say anything.
I couldn’t.
Because my tongue suddenly got caught in my throat, and my arms snaked around his neck without my permission, and for the first time in years, I felt safe. Really safe. Then something so obscenely horrible happened, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
Giant, silent tears dripped down my cheeks.
Before I could swipe at my embarrassment, his sharp gaze cut to my face.
Turning away from his dark, knowing eyes, I focused on the Escalade as my bodyguard carried me like it was nothing.
My bodyguard.
I was such a cliché, I hated myself.
Stopping in front of the passenger door that was still open, he set me on my feet, but instead of letting me go, his huge hands cupped my cheeks as his fingers gripped the back of my neck. Dark eyes that’d seen more years and more war than I’d ever understand searched my face, and suddenly I felt like the teenager he’d been accusing me of.
“Sorry,” I whispered, embarrassed about crying and talking shit to that Cara woman and having to be picked up from rehab and everything else that’d led me to this point in my life.
His rough thumbs swept across my wet cheeks, and his expression softened marginally, but not his eyes. His dark, beautiful eyes looked like they’d seen too much war to ever let their guard down again.
“You’ll be fine,” he quietly reassured.
For two heartbeats, I stared back at his high cheekbones, full lips and serious expression, and I allowed myself to believe him. Not just about his psycho mafia ex or her vengeful husband, but about everything reeling through my mind.
That I wouldn’t drown in my past the second I stepped foot in my penthouse. That my father and I would somehow, someway, have a relationship one day. That my stepmother would forgive me. That anything surrounding me would ever be normal.
That one day I would have a life outside the insanity I was raised in.
Wanting to believe what he’d said, no matter how he meant his words, I inhaled. Distant car fumes from the highway, cracked asphalt mixed with earth, damp grass—the scents all around us mixed together with the seductive aroma of protective bodyguard, and a dangerous perception swirled into my head.
This right here, this heady bouquet of life, it was what I’d been waiting for.
Not the hot afternoon briny scent of Miami Beach, not late-night sweating bodies on a club dance floor, not the chemical tang of an illegal drug being snorted up my nose—I didn’t want the charade of those fragrances anymore.
I wanted the real scent of life.
Simple.
Pure.
Honest.
The exertion of two bodies.
The wind carrying the scent of rain.
The air uncomplicated by the color of wealth.
I wanted all of these things, but I wanted something more.
I wanted to stand in the protection of a man who’d pulled me out of my own spiraling thoughts on a broken, deserted road fronting the highway.
But I was no longer high on designer drugs and lying to myself about everything. I knew the man in front of me would never give a teenage princess the time of day.
So, I did the only thing I could think of.
Fueled by desperation for a new kind of life, frantic for the one thing that felt real—I threw myself at him.
SHE LAUNCHED HERSELF AT ME.
Arms around my neck, tight body slamming into mine, her tongue swept at my mouth.
Out of my fucking mind, I let it happen.
That’s where shit should’ve ended. Fuck, I was a Force Recon Marine. I saw it coming. I knew her intent before she’d made up her mind. A single tactical maneuver, and I could’ve avoided the whole damn thing.
Except I didn’t.
And I sure as fuck didn’t let her kiss me.
Grabbing her hair and fisting, I growled against her lips and did what any self-respecting Marine would do.
I fucking kissed her.
Driving my tongue into her mouth, I claimed her like I had a right to. Her body, her will, they bended, and for one sweet, submissive moment, I forgot she was nineteen.
Until she kissed me back.
Tangling her tongue with mine, biting my lip, taking what she wanted, she didn’t kiss like a nineteen-year-old.
Despite her body pasted against my chest like her brand of submission was made for me, she didn’t just keep up with me, she gave as good as she got.
Bullshit possessiveness hit me like the fucking IED blast that took out my military career, and every damn one of my muscles froze. This wasn’t an inexperienced teenager. This was a woman, and she knew what the fuck she was doing.
My fist tightening, I breathed through irrational anger and yanked her head back. “Who the fuck taught you to kiss like that?”
Her lips wet, her eyes wide, her fingers played a game of seduction across the back of my neck. “What?”
Voice innocent, body submissive, mouth like a porn star, she was a walking contradiction, and my cock stupidly wanted in on it. “You don’t kiss like a nineteen-year-old.” I remembered high school. She wasn’t that.
She frowned, and her fingers stilled. “You don’t like the way I kiss?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” I warned, still holding on to her. “That’s not what I said.”
Her throat moved with a swallow, and the attitude I was expecting never came. “I’ve kissed men before, Shade,” she said quietly.
Using my name, the lack of reproach, her calm explanation—it all threw me. Not only did she kiss better than the last ten women I’d been with combined, she was acting too damn mature for her age.
I didn’t fucking like it.
And I sure as fuck didn’t like the fact that my goddamn thoughts were going down this road. I couldn’t think about how tight her nineteen-year-old cunt would be. My cock would destroy her faster than she could beg me to stop.
Reminding myself that I wasn’t the kind of man she could handle, I let go of her and stepped back. “You know why we’re here?”
Suddenly looking lost as hell, she shivered. “What?”
Fuck me, I wanted my hands back on her. I wanted to erase the uncertainty in her eyes. “Do you know why I pulled over?”
“No… Yes.” She inhaled. “Maybe?”
“Christ.” I couldn’t do this shit. “Get in the car, woman.” She deserved the fucking title. No teenager kissed like her.
Not moving, her calm voice came back. “Why don’t you tell me why we’re here?”
“Don’t fucking play me.” She could figure it out. “And don’t make me put my hands on you again.” I might not let her go until I did something she’d regret more than I would. “Get in the Escalade, Summer.”
Her voice quieted. “You don’t want to touch me?”
Exact opposite. “Get in.”
“I’m not
sorry,” she blurted, turning back into the nineteen-year-old. “For kissing you, I mean. I’m not sorry about that.”
“That makes one of us.”
Her face fell. “You didn’t like it?”
Too damn much. Which was exactly the problem. I had no business fucking with her. Experienced or not, she was too vulnerable, too damn young, and way too fucking used to getting what she wanted. It didn’t matter what the hell my cock thought, everything about this was off limits.
“Time’s up.” I grabbed her around the waist and unceremoniously dumped her in the passenger seat. Slamming the door before she could say anything else, I told myself to pull my shit together as I walked to the driver side.
“Fucking Christ,” I muttered before yanking my door open and getting behind the wheel.
She was quiet till we were back on the highway, doing ninety in the left lane.
Then she shit all over ever preconceived notion I had of her.
“I’m sorry. That was all my fault back there. I selfishly wanted something, and I didn’t think.” Her gaze, pure as fuck, cut into me. “I took without asking, and that wasn’t right.”
Who the fuck was this chick?
I didn’t ask.
I fucking drove.
HE DROVE, AND HE IGNORED me.
For an entire hour, my lips tingled and my core throbbed.
I’d never been kissed like that. The second our mouths crashed together, he’d taken control and I’d melted. I’d kissed a lot of guys, slept with my fair share too, but I’d never wanted to get lost in a kiss so desperately before, and oh my God did I want to get lost in his brand of controlling dominance.
That was a dangerous slope for me.
I knew who I was.
I liked to get immersed.
I liked to fall down the rabbit hole.
I liked to be in so deep, I couldn’t see a way out, because that was when I felt alive. That was the taste of danger I craved. And the man sitting next me driving with a fierce scowl was exactly my brand of self-destruction.
More so than other bodyguards I’d met from Luna and Associates, Shade had an edge to him. I didn’t know if it was his time in the Marines, if he was truly dangerous, or if it was his give-zero-fucks attitude, but there was something about him that was dragging me under faster than I could swim.
I’d apologized for kissing him, but I wasn’t sorry, not about the actual kiss. I should’ve been though. He’d quickly become my new obsession, and that kiss was like a taste of forbidden fruit. I only wanted more now, which was why I needed to never kiss him again.
But like an addict, I still wanted some part of him. I wanted to hear his voice. His maddening silence since I’d apologized was singing through my veins like a challenge. Thinking of a hundred different ways to provoke him just to hear his deep, gravelly cadence, I was about to open my mouth when his cell rang.
Picking up his cell, then tossing it right back down like it irritated him to put the smaller phone to his ear, he answered on speaker. “Shade.”
“Security was breached at your place.” André Luna’s voice filled the cabin. “And you’ve got weather coming at you.”
Glancing in the rearview mirrors, Shade took the phone off speaker. “What kind of breach?”
Listening to André, his jaw ticked and his hand tightened on the steering wheel. “You said you were fucking handling it…. No.” His nostrils flared. “I fucking said no. You handle it, or I will. I’m not standing around with my goddamn dick in my hand while the Feds decide whether or not they’re going to pull their heads out of their asses. Tell them to go after her, or I’ll turn around and take care of it myself.”
Alarm spread. “What’s happening?”
With the honeyed glow of the setting sun casting shadows across his features, his sharp gaze cut to me and leveled me with one look.
I shrank in my seat.
“I fucking warned you months ago, Luna,” Shade practically growled into the phone. “Now you say we got a problem because it’s hitting your bottom line? Fuck this noise. If you’re not going to take care of business, I will.”
He hung up and immediately dialed.
A second later, he barked into the phone. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Go back to Miami and take the offer from the Feds that Luna’s offering you. It’s the best goddamn deal you’ll get if you want out from under Antonio.” He paused to listen.
Grinding his jaw, his fingers gripped the steering wheel hard. “I’m going to tell you this one time, Cara. You’re nothing to me. If you want to live, sell it to the Feds. Otherwise, back. The fuck. OFF.” He hung up the burner phone.
“What’s going on?” I didn’t know what the hell just happened, but driving north to some remote location seemed like an even worse idea now.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he bit out.
“No, you’re not getting away with that.” No way. “You’re not letting me go home, you’re not telling me where we’re going, and you say a psycho mafia guy is after me now all because I said my name on your phone call. That isn’t nothing to worry about, and that’s not an acceptable answer.”
Drawing in a deep breath as if he were fighting for patience, he didn’t say anything.
“I asked you a question. You don’t get to sit there and play that silent alpha bullshit with me. You put me in this mess, so you owe me an explanation.”
His eyebrow shot up. “I owe you?”
Pissed and scared enough to dish it right back at him, I didn’t hesitate. “That’s what I fucking said.”
Smirking, he shook his head.
“That’s not an answer,” I snapped.
His gaze cut to me, and he pierced me with a look that was every bit as dominating and controlling as his kiss. “You think you deserve an answer? Is that the same attitude that wound you up in rehab or sold out your stepmother for drugs?”
The blow was worse than if he’d hit me. “Fuck you.”
“Right back at you, princess.”
His phone rang, and he grabbed it, holding it to his ear. “What?… No.” He scanned the rearview and side mirrors. “I fucking said no… Let me be crystal clear. If I see you, I will shoot you.” He hung up.
Panic laced between every nerve, and I lost it. “What the hell is going on?”
“Cara’s aiming for us, her husband’s on her tail, security was breached at my place…” He glanced at me. “And we’re driving into a snowstorm.”
Pissed at Luna, Cara, her piece-of-shit husband, and this whole fucking mess, I lashed out at little Miss Trust Fund. Sparing her a glance, I tossed out a low blow. “You think you deserve an answer? Is that the same attitude that wound you up in rehab or sold out your stepmother for drugs?” I felt like a fucking prick the second I said it, but I was too goddamn mad to stop myself.
Hurt crossed her face before her eyes hardened. “Fuck you.”
“Right back at you, princess.”
My phone rang, and I grabbed it. “What?”
“You do not hang up on me,” Cara bitched. “I am not going back to Miami to talk to some government men. They will not protect me. You will. I know you are on the highway. Tell me where you are going. Right now.”
“No.” I scanned the rearview and side mirrors, cursing myself for using my last burner to call her a few minutes ago. Crazy bitch was probably trying to track this cell too. Not to mention Luna said he didn’t recognize the two assholes who broke into my place and tossed it. It could’ve been Antonio’s men, but it also could’ve been someone working for Cara. I wouldn’t put anything past her at this point. All I knew was, my fucking safe was breached, and if whoever it was looked through my shit and had half a brain, they’d put two and two together. My place in Georgia was now compromised.
“Fine.” Stubborn and crazy, Cara didn’t take the fucking hint. “I am coming to you, and we will discuss it then. That is final.”
She was out of her mind. “I fucking said no.”
Fucking bitch wasn’t hearing me. “Let me be crystal clear. If I see you, I will shoot you.” Done fucking with her and trying to get her to take the deal she was being offered, I hung up.
Taking a page out of Cara’s playbook, Summer turned up the drama. “What the hell is going on?”
Silently cursing Luna and his shit assignments, I stopped pretending I gave a single fuck about professionalism and told her the truth. “Cara’s aiming for us, her husband’s on her tail gunning for her, security was breached at my place…” I glanced at her and spelled it all out. “And we’re driving into a snowstorm.”
“What does that mean exactly, that her husband is gunning for her?” Summer demanded. “What does that have to do with us? He should be worried about her, not us.”
“It means that we’re both fucked.” Going north was now a crapshoot, but we were committed. Turning around at this point would put us in the path of both Cara and her husband’s henchmen, and I’d have no defensive position on open road.
Alarm filtered into Summer’s voice. “Then turn around. Go back to Miami. Tell Luna to have more men meet us.”
Too late. “No.”
“What?”
“I said no.”
“Are you crazy?” she asked in a panic. “Turn around! We need backup or more bodyguards. You can’t just make this decision without me. I get a say in this!”
No, she didn’t. Half this mess was her fault. “Let me do my job, woman.” Checking the rearview mirror again, I scanned the lanes behind us.
“This is crazy. We can’t drive into a snowstorm!”
“That’s the least of my concerns.”
“I don’t do snow,” she stated, like I gave a fuck.
“Then you shouldn’t have given Vincenzo your name.”
“So he knows my name, so what? A lot of people know my name. It’s not a national secret.”
I threw her a sideways glance. “You cursed out a mob boss’s wife.”
She threw her hands up. “So?”
Unbelievable. “Being Leo Amherst’s daughter isn’t going to buy you out of that one.”