by Sybil Bartel
Turned out I didn’t have to.
“We’re going to a friend’s house, guy who lives down here. Once Luna makes his way to us, we’ll all go back to Miami together.”
I didn’t know who Luna was other than the shirt Ty was wearing the first time I’d met him had a small logo with Luna and Associates written on it.
“We’ll be safer at a residence than a hotel,” Ty added, as if I’d asked the question.
I stared out the window as he drove north out of Key West proper.
Ten minutes later, after circling the same block three times, Ty pulled down the driveway and around the back of a darkened house just north of Key West proper that butted up to the water. Small and modest, but neat, the house had sawhorses in front like it was under construction.
Cutting the engine, Ty looked over his shoulder. “Wait there.”
I nodded, but he was already out of the car and walking to my side. Opening my door and taking my arm, he helped me out of the car. Then his hand found the space between my shoulder blades, and he led us to the back porch of the house.
“Roark isn’t here,” he explained as we walked up the steps. “I’m just getting the key.” We stopped at a small wicker table between two lounge chairs that were facing the view of the water, and he lifted a corner. Coming away with a key, he straightened to his full height without protest, but I saw the strain on his face.
I touched his side where he’d been thrown.
He smirked and covered my hand briefly. “I’m good, sweetheart. Don’t worry about me.” He gently removed my hand from his ribs. “It’d take a hell of a lot more than a boat crash to keep me down.” He unlocked the back door and let us inside, but then he pushed me against the wall. “Wait here while I do a walk through.”
Clutching the scrubs the paramedic had given me, I stood where Ty told me and watched as he disappeared through the kitchen into the darkened house.
Paint, wood, some sort of cleaning product, everything smelled new inside. I glanced around the kitchen, and in the soft cast of the moonlight, the stainless-steel appliances and gray stone countertops didn’t look as masculine as I thought they’d look in the daytime.
Ty came back a couple minutes later carrying first aid supplies. “All clear.” He set the items on the kitchen counter. “There’s a working shower in the master bath upstairs. Get yourself rinsed off and put your dry clothes on, and I’ll take a look at your arm.”
I glanced at the stairs.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Lights stay off for now.”
I didn’t want to walk up there in a dark house I’d never been in. I didn’t want to walk anywhere without the man at my side coming with me.
“Go. You’ll be fine. I need to make a few phone calls.”
It came back like a tidal wave, and I remembered the names he’d said into the phone in the ambulance. More importantly, I remembered the woman’s name.
He was married.
And he’d called me client.
I pulled my arms across myself.
He frowned. “What?”
I shook my head.
“It’s not nothing,” he clipped, surprisingly good at reading thoughts. “What is it?” he demanded.
I thought about just walking upstairs.
But I didn’t.
I asked.
I rubbed my thumb and forefinger over the ring finger on my left hand, then I pointed at him.
“No.” Still frowning, he shook his head once. “I’m not married.”
I waited.
He stared back, but he didn’t offer anything else.
I tried again. I made the same gesture, but after I pointed at him, I made the gesture an umpire makes when a batter is out.
Half of his mouth tipped up in an almost smile and he smirked.
It was devastating to my heart.
“No, I’m not married, or divorced, or involved with anyone for that matter, sweetheart.” He tipped his chin toward the stairs. “Now get your ass upstairs and clean up so I can call Luna, then get you taken care of.”
Relief I shouldn’t be feeling surged like a wave as prickles of heat washed over me. I ducked my head.
He chuckled quietly. “I saw that. Get upstairs.”
I hid my smile as I walked away.
GODDAMN.
Her asking me if I was single?
Fuck.
That was the last complication I needed, but goddamn that shit had me thinking about a hundred inappropriate thoughts.
I called Luna from Roark’s house phone.
Luna answered on the first ring. “I’m on the road, and Collins is behind me, but we’ve got a problem.”
Fucking great. I wasn’t expecting anything less, but the adrenaline was wearing off, and I was tired as hell. “Let me guess, that prick came ashore.”
“Not Dante himself, but two guys from the yacht.”
“That would be Addis, my contact, and maybe the captain. A guy named Huller. Or they picked up more security.” Who fucking knew with Dante.
“Last footage we have of them, they were seen talking to bystanders on the marina. As long as you covered your tracks, you’ll be fine until I get there, but lay low.”
“Was planning on it. Give me a heads-up when you’re close so I don’t fucking shoot you.”
“Ten-four. I’ll call Roark’s line.”
“Thanks.” Needing a shower, I scrubbed a hand over my face. “How’s Mercy and Nash? You tell anyone who they were?” Luna had made me a promise when he’d hired me, but I didn’t know if he’d keep it under the circumstances.
“Preston grabbed them before he went to meet up with Christensen on his boat. She wasn’t happy, but last I saw of them, Preston was walking them up and signing to your nephew. And I made you a promise. No one knows who they are except Preston, and you know that wasn’t my doing.”
“Preston was signing?” When the fuck had that prick learned ASL? And how did Ludeviene know it? Before having to learn it for Nash, ASL wasn’t even on my radar, let alone did I know anyone who knew it.
“Yeah, seemed to be pretty good too.”
Fucking great. “Watch him around them.” Thank fuck my sister wasn’t Preston’s type. I’d told him years ago when he’d met her that I’d kill him if he ever touched her because I’d seen the shit he did with women. He’d assured me he wasn’t interested, but just the same, I was gonna warn that fucker off again next time I saw him.
“Ten-four.”
“One last thing. After we get her safely home, I’m going after Dante.” If I didn’t, I was dead.
Luna sighed. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
He was out of his head if he thought it wouldn’t. I didn’t bother to reply.
“Also,” Luna continued, “we’re not taking her back to her condo. Loic requested delivery at his estate. It’s guarded.”
The thought of her locked up in some estate didn’t sit well, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think she didn’t need protection. At least until I could take down Dante. “Ten-four.” I started to hang up.
Luna stopped me. “Hey.”
“What?”
“You good?”
I’d been thrown from a boat, had my family threatened, I didn’t gut Santos when I had the chance, and I left witnesses before getting off that goddamn island. “No, I’m not fucking good. You’re rubbing off on me. I left too many assholes breathing before I got her off that damn island.” I heard the water go on upstairs, and my dick twitched at the thought of her naked—a woman who’d been beaten and almost raped. I was a fucking asshole. “I’m going soft.”
“Cristo.” Luna sighed. “I don’t know whether to be appalled at that admission or relieved.”
Me either. “That makes two of us.”
“See you in three hours.”
“Later.” I hung up and thought about calling Mercy, but it was late and I heard the water turn off upstairs.
I was washing my hands when Ludeviene walked
into the kitchen in scrubs and looked at me hesitantly.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Her hair up in a bun, her face bruised, her clothes two sizes too big, she still looked fucking classy—beat all to hell, but classy.
I nodded at the kitchen table. “Take a seat.”
She held up the dirty clothes in her hands.
“Dump them right there. I’ll take them to the laundry room and wash them after I fix up your arm.”
She dropped the clothes to the floor and sat at the table as I turned on one light above the stove.
Gently taking her arm, I pushed her short sleeve up to her shoulder and took a look at what I was dealing with. Now that there wasn’t dried blood all over the wound, I could see it wasn’t as bad as I’d initially thought.
I spread some antibiotic ointment over the cut. “How’d this happen?” I asked, but I wasn’t expecting her to answer, and she didn’t.
She didn’t even shrug. Staring straight ahead, she kept her eyes on the backyard and the water beyond.
I followed her gaze and scanned the backyard as I wrapped her arm with fresh gauze. “We’ll be safe here until Luna gets here in a few hours. Then we’ll take you back home, and you can put this shit behind you.” I finished dressing her wound and stepped back. “You hungry?”
Looking at my handiwork, she shook her head.
“Thirsty?”
She shrugged.
Fuck, I was thirsty—for a goddamn fifth of tequila so I could forget the fucking image of her tied up and naked.
Grabbing two waters out of the fridge, I handed her one. “Go upstairs and get some rest. Try and sleep for a few hours. I’ll wake you when it’s time to leave.”
She took the water, but then she pointed at me, raising her eyebrows.
I smirked. “I’m fine. I’ll sleep after we get you home.” There was only one bed in this house, and she did not want me near her in the mood I was in. Trying to shove down the twisted shit in my head about her, I took a long drink of my water. “Besides, I’m on laundry duty.” I half smiled, leaving out the part that I was also on watch.
Inhaling, she scanned the kitchen. Then without so much as a glance in my direction, she went upstairs.
Feeling fucking naked with only one gun, I pulled the soaked half pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and tossed them. I threw her shit and my shirt, pants and socks in the laundry on a quick cycle. While it ran, I searched Roark’s for another weapon, but all I found was a gun safe in a downstairs closet that was locked. After throwing the clothes in the dryer, I made my way to a couch covered in a sheet that sat in the middle of his living room that was nothing more than plywood floors and exposed studs for walls.
Leaning back in my fucking boxers, I set the gun on the cushion next to me, focused on the street and settled in to wait for Luna. Goddamn, I wanted a smoke.
And her.
Except, unlike every other woman I’d ever been with, I wasn’t just thinking about a single fuck with Ludeviene. Something told me she’d be more addicting than my goddamn itchy trigger finger and nicotine combined, which was a disaster for someone like me.
Fate fucking with me, five seconds later, I heard her coming down the stairs.
Too damn tired to move, I didn’t acknowledge her. I waited.
And watched.
I watched her sharp inhale and her steps pause the second she saw me. I took in how her hands gripped the banister. And I saw the mistrust in her eyes.
All of it pissed me off, and the curse slipped out. “Fuck.”
She flinched.
I wanted to kill Santos all over again. “What’s wrong? You okay?”
Her gaze dropped to her feet.
Goddamn it. Here we went. “You hurting?” Twenty fucking questions. Not what I wanted to play with her. Ever.
She shook her head.
“Hungry? Thirsty?”
Again with the headshake.
“Can’t sleep?”
She didn’t move.
Exhaling, I moved over on the couch. “Come here, sweetheart.”
Her eyes glued to her fucking feet, she made her way over and went to the far end of the couch.
Fuck that shit. I reached for her good arm and pulled her down beside me.
Her entire body went stiff.
“I don’t fucking bite. Come here.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulled her into my chest and leaned us both back. Then I lifted her legs and put them over my thigh. “There. Get comfortable. We’ll wait together.”
For two whole fucking minutes she sat stiff as a fucking board. Then slow and steady, she allowed herself to let go and she curled into me.
“That’s it.” Without thinking about what the fuck I was doing, I kissed the top of her head. Then, because it felt fucking good, I did it again. “Relax, sweetheart. You’re safe.”
Her arm curled and she didn’t rest it across me, but she leaned further in.
She smelled like a man’s soap and hospital clothes, and I decided then and there I fucking hated it. It reminded me of that asshole Santos touching her, and I had to make a conscious effort not to tense my muscles, but I couldn’t stop my trigger finger from its telltale twitch.
I inhaled another lungful of the too masculine soap, and I gave her the truth. “I want to kill Santos all over again.”
Then for the second time, she shocked the fuck out of me.
She spoke.
“I thought you were one of them.” Rough, husky and unused, her voice was the sweetest fucking victory I’d ever heard.
But I couldn’t help it, I laughed.
She tensed. “That wasn’t meant as a joke.”
Her speech was proper and formal, but her voice was so damn throaty, she sounded like a sex vixen on steroids.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but this is the last fucking kind of pillow talk I expected. Like it, just didn’t expect all it’d take was to get you horizontal and in my arms before you gave me that sweet voice again.”
“We’re not in a bed, and there are no pillows,” she corrected.
Goddamn, I liked her. “Details. It’s still sexy, and I’m half naked and you smell like another man, so I’m counting it as pillow talk, even if it is the most fucked-up pillow talk I’ve ever experienced. And trust me, that’s saying a lot.”
She tensed again.
Shit. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend.”
She didn’t respond.
Kicking myself for that last statement, I changed the subject. “You got any injuries besides your arm, jaw and cheek?”
She shook her head.
“I was hoping to hear that sexy voice again, love.”
She tensed when I said love. “No, no more injuries, and my voice isn’t sexy.”
I leaned my head back, liking it far too much when she’d tensed. “Trust me, it’s fucking sexy.”
“No one has ever told me that before,” she admitted.
“Then you’ve been with shit guys.”
“Present company excluded, if the last twelve hours is any indication, then I would agree with that statement.”
I picked my head up and looked down at her, but I didn’t say shit.
Sensing my movement, she looked up at me. “What?”
“You always talk so fucking formal?”
“I don’t know you.” She ducked her head, but she didn’t lean back in to me.
The way she said the words in a nervous rush, it was as if she either didn’t mean to say them or she didn’t trust me. Either way, I didn’t like it. “You don’t need to know me to use me as a pillow. Lean back.” I tucked her head against my chest again.
She held still for a beat before she tentatively put her arm across my abs.
Then something that hadn’t occurred in years happened. I took a full breath without any fucking noise in my head. No commotion, no urge to keep moving, no restlessness, just fucking air in my lungs and her weight against me.
Christ.
The past five years I couldn�
��t shoot, fuck, drink or smoke my way to peace, but a five-foot-nothing brunette with rope burns climbed on my lap and put her head against my chest and I could fucking breathe?
Goddamn.
Inhaling again, because I fucking could, I dropped my voice. “Close your eyes, beautiful. Try and rest.”
She didn’t protest, but I also didn’t feel her body completely relax.
My short-lived peace evaporated. “You want to talk about it?” I didn’t want to hear what had happened to her before I’d gotten there. It’d only make me want to go back and kill every goddamn motherfucker I missed. But if she needed to fucking talk, I’d shut the hell up and listen.
“No.”
Thank Christ. “Let me know if that ever changes.” I hoped it wouldn’t. I wasn’t some storybook hero who’d listen to her cry and braid her fucking hair. I didn’t do that shit. Ever. But I was man enough to admit I was sitting here and enjoying the moment, so if I could return the favor, I’d fucking try.
Except she saw right through me. “Why did you offer if you don’t want to hear about it?”
I rubbed a hand over my face. Scanning the darkened street outside the front window again, I evaded. “What makes you say that?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Your muscles tensed.”
“I’m a tense kind of guy.”
“You’re a murdering kind of guy.”
For a heartbeat I didn’t respond, because I couldn’t read the lack of tone in her voice. But there was no hiding the truth. “No denying that.” But I didn’t equate survival or self-defense with murder.
“You killed for me,” she said in the same emotionless tone.
“I killed to save our lives,” I corrected. And because I was fucked-up.
“You didn’t kill the young one. The one on the deck.”
“The kid?” I looked down at her. “No, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
I studied her face. “Did you want me to?”
She held my gaze. “No.”
Jesus, this woman was stunning. And she was getting under my skin. It was the only excuse I had for opening my mouth and admitting what I was going to do. “After I get you home, I’m going after Dante.” I no longer wanted to kill him for just me.