Thrive (Guardian Protection)

by Aly Martinez

  His mouth fell open before a loud laugh bellowed out. “No fucking way.”

  “Unfortunately…way. I attract all the crazies. Hence why I’ve given up on men.”

  He slipped his hand up my stomach and stroked his thumb at the bottom curve of my breast. “You attract me.”

  “Exactly my point. You have split personalities.”

  His smile transformed into a scowl, but it held no heat.

  I leaned up and kissed the tip of his nose. Then I got serious again. “So I’m guessing this pep talk doesn’t end with news that Whitney has been rescued from a lavish resort where she’s been vacationing in the lap of luxury?”

  Using my hip, he rolled me to my side. “Sorry, babe.”

  Never one to pass up a Jeremy Lark cuddle, I tucked my arms between us and nestled into his front. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

  “Though we do got a few things to talk about, and I hate to do this, seeing as you are currently laying on my bed and not wearing panties.”

  My cheeks heated because that was all very true. And then my face paled because whatever those few things he wanted to talk about were did not sound good. “Do we have to do the talking thing?”

  “I’ll make it fast. Then it will be over and I’ll take you to breakfast.”

  I groaned but quickly relented. Getting out of the house did sound good. And doing it with my Jeremy while Mr. Hyde seemed to have been banished—at least temporarily—sounded amazing.

  Craning my head back, I rested my chin on his chest and said, “Okay, fine. Lay it on me.”

  He tucked a stray hair behind my ear and then set about laying it on me. “Caleb called a little while ago. He finally got in a room with Kurt last night. He’s claiming he has no involvement in any of Jonah’s activities. Caleb pushed, told him everything that happened at your place, exaggerating in a few places. Kurt exploded the minute he heard Jonah put a gun to your head. They had to bring in three officers to subdue him.”

  I blinked, a sick feeling churning inside me. “Kurt’s a good liar, Jeremy.”

  “I know that, Mir. Warned Caleb about that too. But he thinks the surprise was genuine.”

  I gaped at him. “So this wasn’t Kurt?”

  “Now, I didn’t say all that. I just said Kurt was surprised and pissed. He’s agreed to work with the cops on finding Jonah. They haven’t been in contact since he was locked away, but they were tight before, so Caleb thought he might be of some use.”

  I sat up suddenly, crisscrossing my legs in front of me, and began worrying the ends of my hair. “Jonah said it was Kurt who sent him, helped him get the gun and everything. And that Kurt was still working on the inside.” I paused, so much more information sitting on the tip of my tongue—but I wasn’t sure I wanted to utter any of it.

  Jeremy had made it known that he thought I was an idiot for having chosen Kurt, and I had been. And then I knew how stupid he thought it was that I’d stayed with him for so many years, even when we weren’t together. And it was going to hurt like hell to validate those assumptions, but I had a feeling my next statement was going to do just that.

  “But…it’s never sat right with me that Kurt would send Jonah after me. Even when he showed up at my house, I told him that Kurt would put a bullet in his head before allowing him to put his hands on me.”

  Jeremy twisted his lips, his face getting hard, and his voice dripped with absurdity when he said, “You yourself admitted that Kurt hit you.”

  See? Further proof he thought I was a fool.

  And maybe I was—but I’d spent almost two decades playing the fool. And, in that time, even when he hadn’t been my husband in the biblical sense, I’d gotten to know Kurt Benton really fucking well. He was an asshole who’d controlled me and run all over me. He hadn’t cared that I only got one life to live or that he was ruining it. He was selfish—his wants and desires were always more important than anyone else’s. Especially mine. But the one thing Kurt Benton lived by was the if-I-can’t-have-you-no-one-can mindset.

  “I think he might be telling the truth, Jeremy, because I really don’t think Kurt would ever hurt me.”

  He eyed me warily, but I ignored it and kept talking.

  “There was this beer distributor who used to deliver to the Sip and Sud a few times a week,” I announced. “Justin seemed nice, but he made it no secret that he was interested in me. Kurt made it no secret that, if he ever touched me, he’d rip his head off. I wasn’t interested anyway, so for once, Kurt’s being a dick actually worked in my favor. Well, one morning, Justin called and asked if he could deliver on Sunday because he was heading out of town and didn’t want to turn the Sip and Sud over to the new guy covering his route. Begrudgingly, I got dressed and hauled my ass up to the bar to meet him. And that’s when everything went wrong.”

  Jeremy’s eyes turned dark, but I kept talking.

  “Justin had me alone and took his shot. He cornered me and tried to kiss me. When I rejected him, he got pissed, decided no was not an answer he intended to take. He ripped my shirt off and snatched my bra down.”

  “Jesus, Fuck!” Jeremy boomed, suddenly sitting up. “Do not tell me this bullshit, Mira.”

  I patted his thigh. “Relax. Nothing else happened. He groped me a little, tried to get my pants off, but I fought back. I cracked him in the nose with the back of my head, broke it good. Blood was everywhere. All over me. All over him. He finally pinned me on the floor and had his hands around my throat, choking the life out of me, when Kurt appeared out of nowhere. The second he saw me, paralyzing fear and rage filled his eyes. I’d never seen him look like that. I actually had a moment where I feared for Justin’s life. He was a shitbag who deserved to rot in jail, but I knew for certain he wasn’t making it out of the bar that day. Kurt snatched him off me and set forth in making that assumption a reality. He beat the shit out of that guy. When Justin started fighting back, Kurt stood off of him, reached into the back of his pants, and pulled out a gun.”

  Jeremy sucked in through clenched teeth and then growled, “Please, God, tell me he put a bullet in his head.”

  “Christ. Testosterone must be a hell of a drug.” I rolled my eyes. “No. He didn’t put a bullet in his head. I dove between them before he had the chance. Kurt was livid, but I wasn’t letting him commit murder on my behalf.” I swayed my head from side to side. “Or in the back of my bar, where I’d probably have to shut down for a few days, considering it’d be a crime scene and all. Anyway, Kurt and I started fighting about it. I’d never seen him so mad, but a lot of that was driven by fear. He said he thought I was dead when he’d first walked in and saw me covered in blood, Justin on top of me. We fought and we fought. But it ended with Kurt backhanding me across the face before storming off. A few of his guys came in, got Justin’s unconscious but still very-much-alive body, and threw him into the front of his truck in the parking lot. An hour or two later, after he came around, I watched Justin drive away. An hour after that, I paid Wendy six hundred bucks to call the cops and tell them where Kurt kept his stash of steroids.”

  Jeremy’s face remained covered in a whole lot of pissed off, but his brow crinkled in confusion. “Now, hear me when I say this… I’d like nothing more than to personally kill Kurt Benton after hearing this, but I really fucking wish you would have let him finish the job on that asshole.”

  I smiled. “I know. But I know you, Jeremy. And, when you say you want to kill someone, you mean beat the shit out of them until they are only breaths away from meeting their maker—but then you’d stop and call the cops. Because that’s the right thing to do. But Kurt was legitimately going to kill him. And it was the first time in my entire life that I was scared of him. He’d been spiraling down into violence for a long time. He’d always been a dick, talked a big game. But, on the inside, he was harmless. But, that day, I saw it in his eyes. He’d changed. He’d hit me because he was mad…and scared. But, while it was the first time he’d ever laid a hand on me, I can assure you it wouldn’t h
ave been the last. I’d been a fool for a lot of years. I admit that. I’d put up with a lot because I was too afraid to take the risk on myself and take on the world on my own. But him hitting me? Even him threatening to hit me again? I was done.”

  His hard expression melted, and I’ll be damned if that flicker of pride didn’t spark in his eyes. His palm came to my face, and his thumb stroked across my cheek. “You did the right thing, baby.”

  “I know,” I stated with my shoulders back and my head held high. And then they both fell. “It bit me in the ass though. Cops showed up. Apparently, the product Kurt had stashed at his house was only the tip of the iceberg. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs, cash, and weapons were recovered from all of the Sip and Suds. Feds seized everything, and since my entire life was tied up with Kurt’s, they took it as well. There was a big investigation into my possible involvement before I was finally cleared. But, before it was all said and done, I’d lost everything I had to show for my life.”

  He inched closer. “Jesus, baby. So that’s why you’re living cheap and saving so much money? To start another bar?”

  My gaze snapped to his. “How do you know that?”

  He grinned sheepishly. “I may have gone through your nightstand when I went to pick up your things.”

  “Seriously?” I whined, doing a mental inventory of everything that was in that nightstand. Relief struck me when I remembered a few specific items I’d packed with my panties to prepare for the move.

  He cocked his head to the side, and his smile transformed into a smirk. “And, before you fly into bitch mode, don’t think I didn’t notice that you did a little snooping of your own the other day. All the boxes in my office were out of order when I went in there this morning.”

  Okay, so I had done that. But I hadn’t found anything good, so I reserved the right to be annoyed. “Yeah, but yours was just a bunch of framed pictures of your kids and random paperwork. That’s hardly fair.”

  Chuckling, he wrapped me in a bear hug and dragged me down onto the bed. “I also went through your car and found out you volunteer at the animal shelter. Gotta say, Mir. This shit is sweet.”

  “You know what’s not sweet?” I said, one level below bitch mode. “Invading someone’s privacy.”

  He laughed, rich and hearty. Rolling on top of me, he pinned me to the bed.

  I turned my head like I was mad, but really, it was because I wasn’t wearing panties and his hips had fallen through my legs, putting pressure in all the right places.

  Clearly, Jeremy was not buying my attitude façade, because he rolled his hips, adding glorious friction to that pressure in all the right places. “Can we get back to the main topic, or are you going to have a snit fit over me looking through your stuff and finding shit I liked? The same shit that made me soften to you despite the fact that I was trying like hell to remain hard. And shit that told me, even though you’ve been given a crap hand, you still have a good heart and are fighting like hell to turn that shit into something you can be proud of.”

  God, how did he make that feel so good? My stomach dipped, and I gave him my gaze back when I whispered, “I think perhaps I’ll take a temporary stay from the snit fit.”

  Smiling, he met my lips with his, and then his smile disappeared as he opened his mouth and kissed me long and wet.

  My hands twisted in the back of his shirt as his tongue plundered my mouth with a dizzying effect.

  He stopped all too soon, his chest heaving, giving me hope that the dizzying effect wasn’t limited to me.

  “And that’s another thing we need to talk about,” he stated. “You on birth control?”

  My body got stiff. “Um…”

  I wasn’t. Inadvertent born-again virgins rarely found themselves in need of such protection. That is unless said person’s walking, talking dream man suddenly reentered their life and they found themselves naked beneath—and on top—of him in a mere matter of days. Then yes, that inadvertent born-again virgin, i.e. me, should have definitely been on birth control or at the very least suggested the use of a condom.

  But I’d been too wrapped up in the fantasy of having him back for any of that to cross my mind.

  “Shit,” I breathed.

  “Right,” he grumbled. “So I’m assuming you know your cycle then…what’s the likelihood we made a baby one of the three times I came inside you last night?”

  I swallowed hard. “Um…well, I’m thirty six, so…I’m not thinking likely.”

  He arched an incredulous eyebrow. “Last time I came inside a thirty-six-year-old woman, Mira, I made a set of twins. I’m asking if you think we need to worry about this based on your body, not your age.”

  Pangs of jealousy and disappointment hit me at the same time, stealing my breath.

  It wasn’t right that I felt jealous of his ex-wife because she’d gotten that from him. Two beautiful babies with his beautiful smile. That woman had no idea how lucky she truly was.

  And it definitely wasn’t right that I felt a twinge of disappointment by the fact that I should have been starting my period any day, thus more than likely putting us in the clear as far as baby-making went. We weren’t together. Hell, in a few weeks, we probably wouldn’t even be speaking. I should have been relieved.

  Yet it still hurt as I whispered, “I think we’re good. I’m due to start this week.”

  His eyes narrowed as he searched my face. It was as if he could read the conflicting emotions warring inside me. “You sure about that?” he asked.

  “Positive. No babies.” I smiled—weak and sad on the inside, bright and cheery on the outside.

  Thankfully, he seemed to buy it. “Okay, then. While we’re out, I’ll pick up some condoms for tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  With sex off the table until we got condoms, he shifted off of me. “Right. Now, again, I hate to do this, but we gotta get back to Kurt.”

  God, I was so sick and tired of everything going back to Kurt. But such was my life.

  I huffed. “I’m starving. Any chance we can snatch this Band-Aid off? You tell me whatever you need to tell me so we can get that breakfast you promised me?”

  Blessedly, he obliged. “Just to recap, you locked Kurt away because you thought he was getting violent, but you don’t think he would hurt you?”

  “Wait, that’s not exactly what I said. I wasn’t willing to risk that Kurt would turn that violence that was so obviously growing inside him on me. That is why I called the cops. But, really, I don’t think he would ever allow anyone else to hurt me. I was very much Kurt’s property.”

  Jeremy’s face took on a steely edge. His lips thinned and his gaze intensified almost as though he were bracing himself.

  Oh, God. Given that look, whatever he had to say did not bode well for me.

  After licking his lips, he unleashed his burden like a curse. “Then you might like to know that Kurt’s asking to see you.”

  My tense body sagged as I blinked up at him. “That’s it?”

  His eyes grew darker. “Depends. You gonna go?”

  I blinked up at him again, and this time, I saw something else. Nerves were contorting his face. Maybe a little anxiety and apprehension thrown in there, too. That steely edge was born out of jealousy, and the intensity was as if he were trying to get inside my head in order to force me to make the right decision.

  I smiled, feeling happiness radiate through my body. Even after everything I’d told him about my wasted life spent married to Kurt. Even after we’d spent the night together, reuniting in ways that included multiple orgasms and falling asleep in each other’s arms. Even after he’d told me he was going to pick up some condoms, which I assumed meant we were going to spend another night in much the same fashion. He was worried I was going to rush back to Kurt.

  I would have been insulted if I hadn’t been ecstatic.

  “Hell no, I’m not going to see him. I appreciate his concern for my safety. I would also appreciate any information he could giv
e to aid in Whitney’s return. But that gratitude will not be shown by dragging my ass up to the prison to give reassurance to the asshole who manipulated and tormented me for the majority of my adult life. So the only way he is ever going to see me again is if he uses his imagination to draw up the memories of those years because I am done being a part of his games. I officially resign as his queen.”

  There was no way to adequately describe the sheer beauty that lit his eyes and split his mouth as he stared down at me and said, “You mind if I go see him, then?”

  “You going to tell him how you only fucked me three times last night and still managed to give me more orgasms than he ever did in our entire marriage?”

  That impossibly beautiful smile grew. “It might come up.”

  Looping my arms around his neck, I swung myself up until I was only inches from his mouth and whispered, “Then by all means, baby. Have at it.”

  “This is yours?” I asked in awe, trailing my fingers over the shiny, black hood of a newer-model Ford pickup truck.

  He’d lifted it and put huge tires on it, and while the top was spotless, there was a thin layer of mud covering the running boards, letting me know that it didn’t stay locked away in his garage waiting for a Chicago snow. It actually got used—and in places that weren’t covered in asphalt. My Southern heart, which had been relocated to the Midwest all those years ago, quaked in its stunning presence.

  He stared at me, his arms crossed over his chest, the muscles of his neck straining beneath a gray henley, but not because he was stressed or upset, but rather because his muscles were so thick and defined that they were always straining.

  He answered with a simple, “Babe.”

  I swung my hand to the Escalade parked in the driveway. “What about the SUV?”

  Twirling the keys on his finger, he walked over to me. “It’s not a crime for a man to own two vehicles.” Gripping my hip, he swayed me toward him. “If I have the kids, I drive the Caddy. If I’m by myself and the Caddy isn’t blocking the garage, I’ll take the truck.” He grinned, dipped low, brushed his lips to mine, and whispered, “If I’m with Mira, I take the truck even if the Caddy is blocking the garage and I have to move it so it’s not.”