by Sybil Bartel
“No, you won’t.” With her attitude, who knew where her mouth had been tonight. Not judging, but some chick’s secondhand cum-swallow spit wasn’t touching my cigarette.
“Why not?” she whined.
“You want one, take one.” I held my pack out.
Her hands went to her hips. “I don’t want my own.”
“I don’t share.” One of the only things I didn’t.
Her attitude disappeared in a nanosecond, and fake seduction pouted her lips. She dragged a finger down my chest. “That sounds promising.”
“Not for you.” I shoved my pack back in my pocket.
Her attitude came back in spades. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” Jesus Christ, I was bored with this shit. “Go back inside, babe. I’m not what you’re looking for.”
Collins snorted through the comm. “I’m sending backup.”
Preston stepped out the rear exit of the club. Without a word, he stood next to me. Inked all to hell, his gaze everywhere and nowhere, he didn’t say shit, and he didn’t make eye contact with the stripper wannabe.
Meadow looked him up and down. “Who’s your friend?”
I took a page out of Preston’s book and mimicked him. My feet shoulder width apart, my hands in front of me, I stared over her head and didn’t say shit.
It took two fucking seconds for her to get a clue.
“Whatever,” she scoffed. “You’re both fucked-up.” She walked back into the club.
“Good call,” Preston said after the door shut. “You were the fifth guy she hit on tonight.”
I chuckled. “Got your eye on her, huh?”
He glanced up and down the alley, but he didn’t take the bait. He never took the fucking bait. Not even downrange when we were ten days into a FUBAR mission and low on ammo was I able to rile him. Didn’t mean the fucker wasn’t wound tight. He was. Tighter than anyone I’d ever met.
I offered him a smoke.
He shook his head. “I don’t smoke.”
“You did downrange,” I reminded him.
“Served a purpose then.”
“It doesn’t now?” Boredom was boredom.
He ignored the question and subject jumped like he usually did. “Brunette inside, the friend, she likes you.”
“Is this high school? You passing notes?” I made a joke, but I was fucking irritated.
When the third prick hit on her, I’d told Preston I’d needed a smoke and to get his ass upstairs. Then I’d stupidly watched asshole number four hit on her before coming out to the back alley to remind myself I didn’t do high-maintenance chicks. Or rich ones. And I sure as hell didn’t pilfer from the Luna and Associates social pool.
You’d never know I worked with a bunch of highly trained, highly skilled, lethal Marines. They gossiped like schoolgirls around the free protein bars and energy drinks in the staff room at base that doubled as a kitchen. You so much as blinked at a woman, they hazed you about it. So the brunette was a hard pass, but goddamn, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“She looked at you seventeen times,” Preston commented, delivering his own brand of crazy.
I took one last drag, then dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. “You still counting shit?”
“You still pulling the trigger every time you hear a suspicious noise?” he countered.
I smiled. “Sometimes I pull the trigger without hearing a noise.”
He nodded once like everything about this conversation was normal as fuck. “She likes you. She isn’t desperate.”
I’d learned on my first tour to take the shit Preston said with an ounce of humility and a pound of fucking vigilance. He’d saved my life a dozen times over downrange. I zeroed in on the content of what he’d said. “Not being desperate is good?”
“It is when you don’t want a bag of crazy.”
I laughed. “No shortage of that around here.” Who the fuck was sane after experiencing war?
Collins snorted into the comm. “Speak for yourself.”
Both of us ignoring Collins, Preston didn’t take offense. He rarely did. “Just passing the information along.” He reached in his pocket, then held out a piece of folded paper. “And this.”
I took the paper. “What the fuck is it?”
“The guest list.”
I looked. Then like a pussy, I scrolled. She was halfway down the list. Ludeviene Loic. Her address, phone number, and brief physical description followed—standard Luna and Associates protocol for events like this. I refolded the paper and handed it back to Preston. “I don’t need this shit.”
He took it without comment and shoved it in his pocket.
“Incoming, you pricks,” Collins quipped through the comm. “And, Preston, get the hell back in here. It’s crowded as fuck.”
The back door opened and, speak of the devil, the classy brunette stepped out.
“Oh.” Startled, she looked between me and Preston. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
THE TATTOOED BODYGUARD WHO NEVER made eye contact, but who I felt had been watching me since he’d come upstairs, tipped his chin. “No interruption, ma’am.” Moving around me, he grabbed the heavy exit door before it closed all the way and slipped inside.
I was left standing next to him.
The bodyguard who’d walked me into the club, railroaded every thought and feeling about men I’d ever had, then walked out of the club fifteen minutes ago when I couldn’t stop staring at him.
I shivered.
Smirking, he pulled out a cigarette as he scanned the alley. “You cold?”
The way he asked, the rough deepness to his voice, I didn’t think for one second that he actually thought I was cold.
“I’m all right.” I wasn’t.
Being near him was like simultaneously having your skin on fire and being dunked in ice water. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been obsessively thinking about him since the very moment I’d laid eyes on him.
He lit his cigarette. “You don’t strike me as the type to take a smoke break, sweetheart.”
Gooseflesh raced across my skin as I tried to ignore the way his voice caressed the endearment. “I don’t.” I hated smokers. I hated the smell. Or I had, until the moment he’d put his arm around me in the hallway and I’d inhaled the intoxicating mix of smoke and fresh laundry and man.
He took a long drag. “Then why are you out here?” He nodded toward the back door of the club. “Fun’s inside.”
I’d beg to differ. “It’s not really my scene.” Loud, hot, crowded, people drinking too much, it wasn’t my idea of fun.
“Yeah?” He spared me a quick glance.
Unlike most men in the club who’d looked at me, his brief appraisal wasn’t blatant or even sexual. It was simply… dominant.
“Why’s that?” He turned and exhaled before looking back at me with his intense gaze. “You don’t dance?”
“I hate dancing,” I admitted, telling him something I’d never told anyone. The years of ballet and ballroom dance classes my mother had made me take growing up only solidified my desire to be someone behind the spotlight, not in front of it.
He raised an eyebrow. “But you came out to a club.”
I told him the truth. “When someone like Dreena MacKenzie invites you out, you go.” She was Hollywood’s darling.
He frowned. “You’re not friends?”
I shrugged, a gesture my mother would’ve been horrified by. “I met her on her last movie set when they filmed here in Miami. I did her makeup for a few scenes when her regular makeup artist fell ill.” Dreena had been sweet, and we were about the same age. I’d gotten the impression she wasn’t very happy, but seeing her tonight with her boyfriend who used to be her bodyguard, she was a different person.
He took another drag of his cigarette. “That’s your job?”
“Yes.” I loved doing makeup, not that I had to work. “Is this what you always do, personal security?” I felt
stupid the second I asked it, as if protecting people wasn’t an honorable occupation.
He blew out a smoke ring. “I’m not on the clock tonight.”
Intimidated by his muscles, his confidence, his presence, I didn’t ask any more questions.
He tossed his cigarette down and crushed it with his huge boot. “Doing a favor for Tank.”
“Tank?” I asked.
“Falcon,” he corrected.
“You call him Tank?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. Dreena’s boyfriend wasn’t only the size of a tank, but formidable, like Ty.
Ty nodded as he scanned the alley again.
“Is your name really Ty?” I dared to ask. “Or is that a nickname?”
His jaw moved back and forth like he was agitated. Then his hand landed on the gun at his holster as he turned to face me. His dark eyes bored into mine, and for three whole seconds, he stared at me before his rough voice broke the spell. “You should go back inside, Miss Loic.”
My whole body stilled.
Then it was as if my entire life up until this very moment flashed before me, and suddenly I didn’t know who I was. I wasn’t the girl who went clubbing with a famous actress, her intimidating former Marine boyfriend, and a handful of people I’d never met. And I certainly wasn’t the girl who took one look at a man and lost all sense of myself—except that was exactly what had happened.
One look.
But upstairs he’d told me to step back, then he’d tenderly tucked my hair behind my ear. Now his stare was cutting through me and settling deep as he again told me to leave him alone, but followed the order with the knowledge that he knew my surname. His mixed signals were playing on me hard, and I was no longer standing outside a club. I was underwater in the deep end.
I grasped at the only lifeline I had. “You know my last name?”
For two heartbeats, he didn’t answer.
Then his voice dropped, and he leaned toward me. “I know more than just a name, sweetheart.”
I fought to swallow. And breathe.
Tipping his chin, he bit out a command. “Go back inside.”
My nerves a mess, warmth pooling low in my belly, God help me, I didn’t want to go back inside.
I wanted to reach for him.
As if reading my thoughts, he issued a warning.
“Now.”
RUBBING A HAND OVER MY face, the long night finally over, I got in the company Escalade and glanced at the clock on the dash.
I had enough time to get across town.
Looking in the rearview mirror, I threw the Escalade into reverse and backed out of the alley. Cutting the wheel, I hit the street and shifted to drive just as my gaze landed on her.
The classy brunette.
The one I’d told to go back inside the club before I’d done something fucking stupid, like take her innocent-eyed ass home and fuck her until she was wrecked for all other men. But for once in my life, I’d showed restraint and sent her back inside. An hour later, her driver had taken off from the alley, and I’d assumed she’d called to have him pick her up in front of the club.
Now it was two hours past that, and I paused with my foot on the brake, telling myself I was doing my job by making sure she got in her ride safe.
But I wasn’t.
I was checking out her sexy-as-fuck curves as she watched me. Or rather, watched the SUV. She couldn’t see in through the limo-tint windows, and I was taking full advantage of the moment.
One of her hands on the open door of her chauffeur-driven Town Car, one high-heeled foot halfway in the vehicle as it rested on the bottom frame, I watched her dress ride up her thigh. Every inch of her made my mouth water, and I regretted my decision to send her away.
Fuck it.
I put the window down and looked directly at her.
Then I winked.
Raising the window back up, smiling to myself at the look of shock on her face, I drove off. The smile held all the way to my sister’s as I parked in her driveway, palmed my keys and let myself in. Being as quiet as the Marines taught me, I snuck into my nephew’s room.
With the sun just starting to come up, a smile spread across his little face as his hands started to move. Uncle Ty, Uncle Ty!
I grinned and signed back. How did you know I was here? You should still be asleep.
He frowned. You’re not quiet. I feel you coming.
I chuckled. I never wake your mother.
He smiled. She sleeps like a dinosaur. He mouthed a silent roar but held his mouth open at the end of the roar and closed his eyes like he was snoring.
Little shit. Stilling grinning, I picked him up and gave him a hug. His scrawny six-year-old arms wrapped around my neck, and I sighed in contentment. “That’s my little man. Love your hugs, buddy.”
He pulled back and put one hand to my throat while signing with the other, asking me what I said.
I spoke slowly. “I can’t hug you and sign at the same time.”
He watched my lips, then signed. Is that what you said?
“No.” I smiled. “I said I love your disrespectful little butt, and I came to make you breakfast.”
His face lit up as his hands moved. Pancakes?
I chuckled. “Sure.” I set him down on his bed and switched back to signing. But you’re eating some protein too. So get dressed while I go make enough noise in the kitchen to wake your mother who sleeps like a dinosaur.
He was already jumping up and down on the bed before I’d finished what I was saying. Kissing him on the forehead, I nodded toward his dresser. Don’t forget underwear. It’s a school day.
He looked at me like I’d stepped in shit. Underwear is for babies.
I laughed. “Underwear is for six-year-old boys who need to go to school to learn math.”
His face scrunched up. I hate math. I like trucks.
How are you going to learn to work on trucks if you don’t know math? I signed back.
You will teach me, he confidently replied.
I ruffled his hair. “You’re right. Now get dressed. I’ll make breakfast.”
He jumped up and down on his bed again while signing pancakes.
I strode into the kitchen and started coffee as I pulled a pan out.
My sister walked in and leaned on the counter in front of the coffee maker. “You’re here early.”
“Not early. Late. I haven’t been to bed yet.”
She nodded. “You worked a job last night.”
I riffled through her cupboards, looking for the shit I needed. “If you could call standing outside a club all night working.”
She smirked. “Sounds like being a bouncer.”
“Except I get to carry a gun and stay after the place closes down so a bunch of Hollywood fucks in suits can drink more. Lucky me.”
That piqued her curiosity. “Guarding celebrities again?”
I pulled stuff out of the fridge. “One celebrity, her rich friends, and her man.” Not that Tank couldn’t have handled his own shit last night. No one would’ve gotten near his woman.
“Gee,” Mercy said dryly, taking down two coffee mugs. “Sounds taxing.”
Nash bounced into the kitchen in a superhero shirt and pants, his hands moving. Are they ready yet?
I laughed. “No. Set the table.”
My sister poured us coffee. “You spoil him. He won’t eat his cereal tomorrow if you’re not here to make him pancakes.”
I winked at him. “Then maybe I’ll come tomorrow morning too.”
Nash jumped up and down, signing yes over and over.
My sister smiled a tired smile.
I eyed her and turned my back slightly as I mixed up the batter. “You hear back from the doctor yet about the implant?”
She held her coffee mug in front of her mouth. “He’s not hopeful it will work.”
I shrugged. “Don’t know unless you try.”
“I don’t want to get his hopes up.”
“Then don’t present it like that. Tell him y
ou’re gonna try something that isn’t supposed to work, but you won’t know for sure unless you try and leave it at that. Kids are adaptable.” Shit, Nash signed better than me and could lip read, and he was only six.
“So now you’re a parent? You know how to best manage a kid’s expectations with crushing reality?”
“What’s so crushing? He’s deaf. He can’t get any more deaf.” And he was perfect in every other way.
“You don’t get it,” she snapped at me, still holding her coffee mug in front of her face.
“I get plenty. You’re a nurse. You couldn’t stop your own kid from going deaf. You feel guilty about it.” I leveled her with a look. “Get over it, Mercy. Meningitis happens. He’s alive and thriving.”
Nash tapped my leg.
I looked down.
What are you talking about? he asked me.
I set the bowl down. Why your mom snores like a dinosaur.
A huge smile broke out across his face. It was his version of laughter.
My sister sighed. I do not snore.
We both glanced at her, then looked at each other. I burst out laughing as Nash held his stomach with a silent laugh.
I held my fist up.
Nash bumped me, then signed, You’re funny, Uncle Ty.
“You know it.” I nodded toward the kitchen table. “Finish setting up.”
He bounced off, and I glanced at my sister. “Try the implant, Mercy.”
She turned her back on Nash. “Jesus H Christ, you’re a pain in my fucking ass.”
Nash’s hand slapped the table hard.
We turned.
He looked at us with his eyebrows drawn together in self-righteous determination. Mommy needs to pay the swear jar twice.
I glanced at Mercy. “You heard the man. Pay up.”
“I didn’t say anything!” she protested.
Nash narrowed one eye and crossed his arms as I stared at her.
“Fine!” She threw her hands up. “But this is ridiculous. People swear,” she grumbled, reaching in her purse for two dollars and dumping them in the glass jar on the shelf. She looked at Nash. “You shouldn’t pry into adult conversations. That’s rude.”
You shouldn’t swear, he signed.
Covering a laugh, I turned toward the stove. “Kid has a point.”