Thrive (Guardian Protection)

by Aly Martinez

  My stomach performed gold-medal-worthy somersaults as I pushed up onto my toes and gave him far more than a lip brush.

  His mouth opened, inviting me in. His warm tongue rolled with mine, acting as the welcoming committee. My head became light and I fisted my hands in the front of his shirt for balance. The moan that slipped from my throat made his tantalizing lips curve up in a smile before he pulled away.

  Resting his forehead to mine, he rumbled, “Breakfast and condoms, baby. We can’t do anything without them.”

  “Not completely true,” I murmured. “I saw a loaf of bread in your kitchen. Toast will serve as sustenance, and you can eat while I do other things with my mouth that don’t require condoms.”

  His hand slipped down to my ass. “I’ve missed your mouth, Mira. But not a chance in hell you start things on your knees and I don’t end them inside you. And, for that, I’m gonna need more than toast. So it looks like we’re back to breakfast and condoms.” He gripped my ass, rocking me against him. “But we’re going to take the truck so you can slide in real close. And, on the off chance you feel like getting handsy while I drive, I won’t object.”

  That had happened a lot when we were younger. The minute my ass had hit his seat, he’d lift his arm in invitation and I’d slid all the way over, as close as I could get without being in his lap. And then he’d drive. Windows down, the world passing us in a blur, him being the only thing in focus.

  Inside that truck, I had been free to be Mira.

  And, the idea of having that now, after seventeen years of feeling like someone else, I became giddy with excitement.

  “You have a bench seat?” I gasped, staring up at him with a megawatt smile.

  Smirking, he released me and opened the passenger’s door. “When I lift the armrest, I do.”

  I giggled. “Jesus, it’s like you knew I’d be coming back.”

  His shoulders jerked, and his jaw turned to granite. And then Jeremy Lark slayed me, brought me back to life, and then ruined me once and for all. “No. Because if I’d thought there was any chance of you ever coming back, I’d probably still be sitting on the tailgate of that clunker in the woods, waiting.”

  Oh. Yes. He’d said that. And, as much as it hurt, it was the sweetest thing anyone had uttered to me.

  My throat got thick with emotion. “Baby,” I whispered.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed, but his voice was jagged as he ordered, “Get in the truck, Mira.”

  I stared up at him, his words from the night before echoing in my ear. “You were always mine.” My heart broke, but those bruises inside me faded a little more.

  “I didn’t know,” I told him in apology.

  “Get in the truck, Mira.”

  I scooted in closer, wrapping my arms around his hips and pressing my chest against his as if my racing pulse could somehow convey my truth. “I swear. I didn’t know. I always thought—”

  “Mira,” he snapped, strategically avoiding my gaze while removing my arms. “Truck. Now.”

  He didn’t want to talk about the past, and giving him that was the very least I could do after all he’d done for me.

  So, after kissing the underside of his jaw, I climbed into his truck, pushed the cup-holder-armrest thingy up, and waited for him to join me in my own personal version of heaven.

  “As far as bouncing went, this place was the cream of the crop,” he said as we sat in a little diner located in a strip mall. It had candy-cane-striped booths and rude waitresses who acted like coffee and tap water were an inconvenience. But the man across from me made it the most amazing breakfast of my life.

  Adjusting the infinity scarf I’d been forced to wear to cover the marks on my neck, I clarified, “For a strip club, you mean.”

  He smirked. “You can’t call Lux a strip club. If you didn’t make seven figures a year, this place did not exist. Everything was super secret. Private rooms. Private entrances. Membership and background checks were required. I had to sign an NDA before they’d even give me the address for the interview. Pay was incredible.”

  “Really,” I drawled. Leaning forward, I slid my empty coffee out of the way and rested my elbows on the table. “You think they’re hiring?”

  “Fuck no,” he growled. Leaning forward, he mirrored my position and kept his voice low. “Though, you put on those fucking heels and dance naked in my bedroom tonight, I’ll pay better.”

  I laughed. “I meant as a bartender. Though, depending on your body guarding price per hour, rent for putting me up at your house, and feeding me the last couple of days, I might need to take you up on that to work off my debt.”

  “Not planning to take your money, baby. However, that is one repayment I will gladly accept.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You promised you’d let me pay you back.”

  He stretched his arm across the back of the booth, his eyes taking on a heat that made me squirm as he said, “I woke up this morning to you riding my cock. You want to talk nickels and dimes, I’d say, after that, I’m the one in the red.”

  I glowered, ignoring the spark that ignited between my legs. “You promised.”

  Reaching across the table, he took my hand. “You gonna let me finish my story, or am I going to have to sit here while you have a snit fit about money?”

  I scowled.

  He winked.

  I let it go. “Fine. Finish your story.”

  “So there I was. Best job a man like me could have hoped for. I’d been working there about a month. With clientele like that, nothing ever happened. Until one night it did. Big fight broke out at the door. Guns were drawn.”

  I cringed, but he grinned.

  “I got in the middle, unarmed one of the men, pinned him to the floor until a different man hit me from behind like a battering ram.”

  I’d never understand what it was with men that made them enjoy fighting like a sport. But there it was, written all over Jeremy’s face: forty years old and nostalgic about brawling.

  He continued. “We rolled around on that floor for at least five minutes, exchanging punches and chokeholds. The other bouncers tried to separate us, but neither of us had been willing to accept defeat. Finally, the original guy with the gun was able to drag me off his buddy. Damn near broke my arm to do it though.” He laughed. “While I was down, those two assholes unloaded on management, demanding I be fired. I was so clueless as to what the hell was going on, but I lost my job before I even got back to my feet.”

  “Jesus,” I breathed. “Wasn’t that the whole point of you being there? To break up fights.”

  “Yeah, but I took down the wrong men. The guy who had started the shit took off while I went to war with the innocent guy’s personal security.”

  “Oh, shit.” I laughed. I’d have felt bad if he hadn’t been laughing, too.

  “Ten minutes later, I walked out to my truck officially unemployed, and found both of the assholes I’d fought leaning against it, waiting on me. I mentally prepared for another round, and I was just pissed off enough to do some serious damage, but when I got close, my whole life changed. Leo James pushed off the truck, extended a Guardian Protection Agency business card my way, and said, ‘I hear you might be looking for a job, son.’”

  I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand. “No way.”

  With a cocky grin, he replied, “Yep. Best fucking mistake of my life. Johnson was the other guy, and they hired me on the spot. I had to do a few months of training, but Leo more than tripled my salary. Been there ever since.”

  “Holy shit, that’s crazy.” I giggled, and I could feel it—that pride that I so often saw in Jeremy’s eyes, I was aiming it right back at him. And, when his face softened and his hand clutched mine even tighter, I knew he felt it just as deep as I did.

  We silently stared at each other for few seconds.

  His gaze locked on mine.

  That casual unspoken comfort lulling us both.

  Perfection unlike I’d ever experienced before.

 
We were older. We were different.

  But, right then, while holding hands in a shitty diner after we’d eaten cheap greasy food, talking and laughing long after the bill had been paid, we were still us.

  “You ready to go, baby?” he whispered.

  “Not really,” I confessed.

  His thumb stroked the back of my hand, and he amended his question. “Okay. You ready to go together, baby?”

  My cheeks heated, and my lips curled. Oh, yeah. Jeremy was totally feeling it too.

  Without verbally answering his question, I gathered my Gucci, slid out of the booth, and waited for him to throw his arm around my shoulders and curl me into his chest.

  He did not disappoint.

  When we exited through the restaurant door, his hand fell to my lower back. We hadn’t made it off the sidewalk when a deep, masculine voice caught my attention.

  “Mira?”

  I turned, but Jeremy turned faster, shoving half of my body behind his as we came face-to-face with the brightest green eyes I had ever seen.

  A smile broke across my face and I tried unsuccessfully to step back around Jeremy as I replied, “Walter?”

  Shoving his hands into the pockets of a tailored, black suit, he strolled our way. “Mira Benton, I swear you get more beautiful—”

  “York,” Jeremy corrected on a growl.

  Walter’s ridiculously handsome face never left mine as he replied, “Yes. I heard you finally shook yourself free of Kurt. We were all heartbroken about the Sip and Sud closing.”

  I sighed, again trying to move around Jeremy. Again failing. “Yeah. It was a mess. I’m working on opening another one though.”

  He arched a dark eyebrow. “Oh, you are?”

  “Yeah, but it’ll be a few months before I can get it up and running. Any chance I’m going to find you parked at my bar again?”

  “Chicago is a long way from Atlanta. But for you…” He raked his teeth over his bottom lip as he leaned around Jeremy to give me a head-to-toe.

  Jeremy’s body went stiff and it almost made me laugh. Walter was harmless. He traveled to Chicago for business a lot. And, for some reason, which I was thankful for considering he tipped fifty bucks a drink, he’d made his home away from home at the Sip and Sud. He loved to flirt any time he came in, but not even overprotective Kurt thought anything of it. And I knew, if he took his hands out of his pockets, he was wearing a shiny, gold wedding band. I’d once met his wife, Clare, and there was no denying given the way he watched her every move that he was head-over-heels in love with her.

  “Well, okay, then,” I said. “Keep an eye out for the grand opening and tell all your friends. A girl can use all the business she can get.”

  “Of course,” Walter murmured. His emerald gaze jumped to Jeremy’s golden one before coming back to mine. “It was so lovely to see you again, Mira.” He lifted a finger in the air as though he were hailing a cab in the middle of the parking lot, and sure as shit, a black town car pulled up to the curb. “Do take care of yourself.” He smiled, tipped his chin at Jeremy, and then prowled the few steps to the car, unbuttoning his suit coat on the way.

  “You too!” I yelled as we watched him gracefully fold inside before shutting the door.

  Jeremy’s taut body slacked as the car pulled away. He blew out a hard breath, saying, “Who the fuck was that?”

  He finally allowed me to slide around to his front, his hand returning to my lower back.

  I placed a hand on his chest and smiled up at him. “Walter Noir. He was a regular at—”

  That was all I got out before Jeremy’s hand at my back flew around to my stomach and knocked the breath out of me as he lifted me off my feet and spun us both. I felt his body jerk, and then I went down hard, my palms skinning on the concrete as I tried to break my fall.

  “Motherfucker!” Jeremy boomed above me. He was still on his feet.

  I rolled to my back, my pulse racing and my mind swirling as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on. But, just as quickly as I had fallen, a large, bald man with pale, white skin landed face-first on the concrete beside me.

  “Get back!” Jeremy barked at me, still in movement as his knee came down in the middle of the man’s back, his upper body bending over him, and his palm landing on the man’s wrist, pinning it to the sidewalk.

  My mouth fell open, my heart stopped, and bile clawed up the back of my throat as I saw a large metal blade in the man’s hand.

  “Drop it!” Jeremy growled, pure fury making his voice almost unrecognizable. Using his wrist, Jeremy again slammed the guy’s hand down on the concrete, the sound of his knuckles cracking making my skin crawl.

  He howled in pain, but finally, after the second slam, the knife skittered free.

  “Oh, God,” I cried, scrambling away on my ass.

  “Nine-one-one, Mira. Now,” Jeremy growled.

  He did not have to tell me twice. With shaking hands, I dove for my purse, which had sailed across the sidewalk when I’d fallen, and then dug my phone out.

  I dialed those three numbers in record time.

  “Easy. You’re going to start a fire,” I teased in a whisper, my hand landing on her knee, which was anxiously bobbing up and down at a million miles a minute.

  It was a poor attempt at levity, but it was all I had in me. Beneath the façade, my blood was boiling. However, every time I got loud, her anxiety spiraled higher like some fucked-up chain reaction. I’d tried to pack it down, and holding her was helping, but it was taking sheer force of will to keep my ass planted in that chair and not up pacing the room.

  She turned her overwhelmed eyes up to me and asked, “What the hell is going on?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  After pressing my lips to her forehead, I turned my gaze back on the rest of the room.

  Leo was leaning on the corner of his desk, watching Mira with the quiet brutality of a hurricane. It wasn’t aimed at her. That hurricane had been cultivated on her behalf, and I had not one doubt that his wrath would be exorcised on the men who had dared to touch her.

  We’d spent much of the day at the police station. A parade of cops and DEA agents had interviewed Mira. Leo had been kind enough to send in Guardian’s attorneys to ensure that their questioning had remained on the up-and-up. Not that she’d had anything to hide. She’d been just as dumbfounded as the rest of us.

  We were now back at Guardian and it was well after five. Caleb was thundering around the room, his phone held to his ear. Johnson was standing in the corner, his agitated eyes trained on Apollo, who was sitting behind Leo’s panel of computers, doing God knew what, probably all of which was illegal. However, considering we’d been informed that Mira’s old pal Walter Noir was actually one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country, we were all willing to turn a blind eye.

  To hear the DEA tell it, Noir’s name had been inked at the top of those most wanted lists for some years. He was deep in everything from drugs and money laundering, all the way up to murder and organized crime. In certain parts of the country, he was the king of the underworld, but it was becoming clear that his army stretched far and wide.

  So yeah…while Apollo banged away on that keyboard, doing what he did best, trying to catch a lead on any of Noir’s known associates, none of us asked questions.

  Caleb hung up and looked to Leo, a grim shake of his head doing nothing to quell the rage burning inside me.

  “What’s going on?” I questioned.

  He blew out a ragged breath and crossed his thick, tattooed arms over his chest. “Noir’s already back in Atlanta. Private plane. I’m not going to waste time trying to dig up flight records. They won’t exist.”

  “Fuck!” I growled, causing Mira’s body to go stiff at my outburst. I gathered her closer, pulling her from the chair beside me and into my lap.

  Leo and Caleb exchanged a knowing glance that seriously pissed me off, but given that Mira was in deeper shit than any of us could have imagined, my mind was foc
used on things other than office gossip.

  I leveled them both with a scowl. “You two gonna braid each other’s hair now or finish telling me about the man I took down outside the restaurant?’

  Caleb smirked. “The guy you caught was a known associate of Noir, but the dumbass has lawyered up. Claiming you attacked him.”

  “Of course he did,” I muttered.

  “It’s only a matter of time before Noir’s legal team gets him out.”

  My jaw turned to granite. I should have killed the fucker when I’d had the chance.

  Mira’s head tipped up and she flashed her frightened gaze around the room. “He was always so nice. I…don’t understand.”

  Leo piped up before I had the chance to answer. “You got played, babe. I’m guessing your ex was into some dirtier shit than just steroids and Noir was a part of that. But don’t worry—”

  He was suddenly interrupted by Zach, Guardian’s nighttime security officer, calling over the intercom from the surveillance room. “We got a problem.”

  My back shot straight and I moved Mira to her chair as I pushed to my feet.

  “What’s going on?” Leo called back, moving briskly to his computer. Johnson was doing the same.

  Apollo was already on it, and as he pulled up the camera to the parking garage, it was clear we did in fact have a serious fucking problem. Eight men looking like the Secret Service in dark suits encircled a tall, lanky, well-dressed man. He appeared to be in his late thirties and was wearing black slacks, his hands casually shoved into his pockets. A white, tailored button-down covered his shoulders, the top two buttons open, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. For the way he looked, he easily could have been one of Leo’s A-list clients. But the commanding power in his unyielding stare as he glared up at the hidden camera beside the elevator, all but challenging the doors not to open, spiked my pulse.

  “Motherfucker,” Leo whispered low and ominously.