The Ex Assignment (Rogue Protectors Book 1)

by Victoria Paige

  “Don’t—”

  He took a step back, scrubbing his face and then sighing. “Don’t want me to touch you? Fine, but let me stay close to you—”

  “I stink,” she mumbled, covering her mouth.

  His head reared back. “What?”

  “I. Stink.”

  Realization dawned on his features, and a corner of his mouth hitched up. “I promise I won’t hold your physical hygiene against you today.”

  Trust her ex-husband to bring out the prissy Gabby of long ago. If it were Kelso in front of her, she wouldn’t have cared. She’d done overnight stakeouts, navigated through sewer tunnels—which was the foulest smell on earth—and belly-crawled through disgusting tight spaces of dilapidated homes. But deep down she was just like any woman who had come face-to-face with an ex who dumped her. Clearly, appearing her best for that encounter wasn’t in the stars. In fact, the universe was conspiring against her.

  “I’m just being polite.”

  A dark brow raised, and his green irises grew closer. “Polite? Are you forgetting, Angel, that I’ve seen you naked?”

  She sucked in a breath at his words, not to mention the endearment she thought she’d never hear from his lips again.

  “I’ve been inside you, know how you sound when you come.” His voice lowered perceptively. “Knowing all that, you think we can just act polite?”

  “It’s been seventeen years, Declan. We’re nothing more than strangers now.”

  His jaw worked reflexively as his eyes hardened into emerald ice. “If that’s how you wanna play it.” He paused. “You’re still not using the bathroom alone.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “You want a shower? I’m getting in there with you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  Amusement played at the corners of his lips. “Then no shower for you.”

  “That’s hardly your decision!”

  “Two of us in this house and you’ve been given into my care. I’m following doctor’s orders.”

  Gabby had enough of this conversation and the rancid taste in her mouth. She edged her way past the looming presence in front of her (was he really this tall before?) and scooted into the bathroom. He followed her closely but kept a respectable distance. After freshening up with a toothbrush and mouthwash, she stared at his reflection in the mirror. His face was impassive.

  “You can sit there.” She nodded to the toilet. “And wait until I finish. Is that acceptable?”

  She took his shrug as agreement. She grabbed the edge of her shirt and pulled it over her head, tossing it to the hamper in the linen closet. Her bra followed and she walked to the shower to turn it on. As she let the water steam up the glass enclosure, she inhaled deeply. Her whole body was tingling.

  She turned to face him. Declan’s chest rose and fell as if he was having difficulty breathing. His face was still expressionless, but there was an all too familiar heat in his eyes.

  “You changed your tune fairly quickly.” His voice was rough.

  This time it was Gabby who shrugged as she removed her sleeping shorts and panties. She had to get within a foot of him to throw the rest of her clothes into the hamper. She also grabbed a towel, but she didn’t wrap it around her even when she felt her nipples hardening.

  “I work with men. We’re a special division down on seventy-seventh. Only one locker room. Can’t suffer modesty now, can I?” There was actually a sectioned-off area in the locker room for women.

  “You’re saying you’re treating me like one of the guys. Is that it?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  His eyes glittered ominously as he stepped closer. She held her ground, chin tilted up in challenge and forced herself not to shiver at his proximity. Their gazes locked in challenge. His hand came up and it took all her willpower not to flinch. A finger tucked a stray curl behind her ear before it made its way down the line of her chin, her neck, flirting on the skin above the swell of her breasts.

  “Do the guys do this, too?”

  “Stop with your games, Dec. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove.”

  She spun away from him. As dizziness hit her, his hands caught her under her armpits, brushing against her breasts.

  “Stop being so reckless,” he hissed in her ear. “Or I’ll think you’re doing this on purpose just to feel my hands on you.”

  “In your dreams,” she snapped. “Let go.”

  “You got it?” he asked tightly.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be right here.” He sat on the closed toilet lid as she stepped into the glass enclosure.

  “Try not to slip, okay?” he added sarcastically.

  She had the oddest urge to stick out her tongue, but she didn’t. The hot water spray instantly soothed her poor banged up body.

  “This feels so good …” she groaned as she began to lather her hair, and then reached for the soap to get rid of the last traces of the hospital smell. She loved her peaches and vanilla shampoo, some of the last luxuries from her old life she couldn’t give up. She mentally regrouped, reminding herself that it took real strength to become a detective in LAPD’s toughest division, and hell would freeze over before she let her ex-husband rattle her. For three years she was that broken woman, marrying Nick on the rebound, thinking another baby would fill the hole inside her. But she lost that one, too and that last miscarriage took with it her desire to become a mother. She had to find a new purpose.

  “You all right in there?”

  “Yes! Almost done.”

  “Don’t shrivel up into a prune, okay?”

  “Ugh, stop rushing me. The water just feels so good.”

  “Yeah, I heard you.”

  When she washed up the last of the soapy residue and wrung out her hair, she stepped out of the shower and a towel was immediately wrapped around her.

  “You’re gonna get your shirt wet,” she warned.

  “Don’t care.” He dried her brusquely, yet carefully.

  “Seriously, Dec, I’m not helpless.”

  “Fine!” he muttered and let go.

  “I don’t know why you’re”—her eyes dropped to the bulge behind his shorts—“Oh, my.”

  “Ignore it.”

  “It’s hard to ignore because it’s staring right at me.” She laughed.

  His eyes narrowed. “Haven’t you learned that it’s insulting to laugh at a man’s erection?”

  Was she pleased that she could still turn him on? Not that she was going to do anything about it, but it soothed her pride somewhat, especially after feeling like a sewer rat this morning.

  Wrapping the towel snuggly around her, she smiled impishly. “You’re on your own with that.” She fled into the bedroom. She was probably playing with fire, but payback’s a bitch, right? Especially after his sexual taunts this morning.

  She tossed her towel on the bed and paraded past him to the closet.

  “You’re playing with fire, Angel.”

  “Am I, really?” She shot back and couldn’t help digging into the past. “Because last I remembered, you shut me out for four months. No amount of sexy underwear would interest you.”

  “I was mourning my sister!” he exploded, startling her, his face a thundercloud. “And you couldn’t even give me that!”

  “Four months, Dec? We took vows. For better or worse, remember? And when worse happened, you shut me out. Her voice caught on emotions that wanted to break free and, in a garbled voice she soldiered on, unable to hold back the hurt she’d held so deep in the heart of her. “And then two weeks before we separated, you fucked me as if you hated me, and after that you blamed me for your sister’s death.”

  His face twisted in a sneer. “I should never have married you.”

  Declan pivoted away from her and left the room. Gabby stood motionless, his words slamming into her with the force of a forty-five caliber pistol.

  Boom!

  Staring at the empty space he’d vacated,
his barb ricocheted around her like an echo. And in that echo, there was one statement he hadn’t uttered in the present.

  “I should have never married you and maybe, just maybe, my sister would still be alive.”

  That had been their biggest fight. Somehow Gabby knew their marriage was over then, his words ripping out her young insecure heart and unleashing a vindictive vixen. She almost slept with another man. Declan thought she did, declared them over, and changed the locks of their apartment. She tried to explain, stalked him until he put a restraining order on her and, ultimately, he served her divorce papers on grounds of adultery.

  She would have accepted that their marriage was over and wallowed in self-destruction had she not found out she was pregnant. For a time she hoped a child would fix their marriage, so she made one last ditch effort.

  But that final effort shattered her further when Claudette answered their apartment door wrapped in a towel. Gabby pulled another t-shirt over her head and chuckled bitterly. How naive she’d been. The child wouldn’t have fixed their marriage. They would have only brought an innocent baby into a union that was already broken.

  Did Declan still blame her for his sister’s death?

  Maybe it was time for closure.

  You’re a fucking moron.

  Declan imagined Claire O’Connor reaching out from the grave just so she could smack him upside of the head.

  He found some gluten free waffles in the freezer and popped those in the toaster oven. There was weird green juice in her refrigerator, and he wasn’t sure if it was going bad or it was meant to look that way. At least there were eggs. He reached for the carton and began cracking a few into a bowl to scramble.

  Simply put, Declan was at a loss in handling this new Gabby. So different from the girl who captivated him from across the room at a Hollywood party, and yet the way she could twist him inside out had not changed. And that pissed him off. Why? Why only with her? He prided himself on his self-control when it came to women but watching Gabby shower through the glass was hot as fuck and he couldn’t look away if his life depended on it. Add to that her moans of pleasure and he was instantly hard.

  So, he lashed out.

  Old hurts.

  Buried resentments.

  The scars from their shared previous life blistered, opening forgotten wounds that never healed right, and words from that past made a dissonant refrain. There was one difference. They didn’t fester, and the second he left the room, he regretted his outburst.

  Footsteps shuffled behind him. The barstool scraped back. “You didn’t have to cook.”

  “I’m hungry,” he replied without turning around. “You can eat that green shit in the fridge, but I want real food.”

  “Kale juice is real food.”

  “Whatever you say, babe.”

  Silence reigned for the duration of his cooking. The toaster popped up the waffles and Gabby stepped up beside him and dished them on a plate. They worked side by side, each lost in their own thoughts.

  He poured coffee into a mug and brought out the milk without asking if she still liked milk with it.

  She poured it into her mug. Guess she still did.

  Declan crisped the scrambled eggs at the corners the way she liked it. Whether he did that consciously or not, he didn’t know.

  There was tension in what was familiar.

  Existing beside each other was weird as fuck right now.

  Declan grabbed the other stool and sat facing her.

  “Guess no green shit for you today, huh?”

  “Stop calling it green shit.”

  “Where’s the girl who liked her medium rare burger?”

  “That girl still likes her burger medium rare. She just reserves it for cheat days.”

  “That’s health nut mumbo-jumbo.”

  She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee.

  “I still like my food, but I am getting older. I eat all the junk food when I’m around Kelso or at Division, so I call it balance.” Gabby primly cut at her waffle and forked it into her mouth.

  “Junk food like donuts?”

  “Yep.”

  “That’s so cliché, Gab.”

  “It’s the stress.”

  Declan shoveled the scrambled eggs in his mouth. “You close to your partner?”

  Her brows furrowed. “What kind of question is that?”

  “It’s a simple one. He married?”

  “He’s single, and if you’re fishing to see if I’ve fucked him, the answer is no. Not that it concerns you.”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Kelso is family. We have a close-knit team. Even the wives. Captain Mitchell’s wife is like our mother hen. They’re the family I’ve always wanted,” she whispered that last statement wistfully.

  Something twisted in his chest. An unexpected pain. He and Gabby were supposed to be family. Guess she didn’t want what they had. His fingers tightened on his fork as he forced himself to finish his breakfast, which tasted as bitter as his thoughts.

  Her gaze dropped to the corner of the countertop, her finger circling the rim of her mug as if in contemplation, then her eyes lifted. “I need to ask you something.”

  His body froze, but he nodded.

  “We made a big mess of our marriage and it took me a while to get my life on track and I really don’t want to re-hash things about the divorce. You’re clearly in a better place and so am I.”

  If she only knew he came straight from jail to California. And was she delusional to think that this lifeless apartment she lived in was a better place? But who was he to judge? Declan thought of his own condo. Was he in a better place? Were they in a better place?

  He called bullshit.

  “I need to know,” she whispered. “Do you still blame me for Claire’s death?”

  His eyes slid shut. “No, Gabby.”

  “Really?”

  Opening his eyes, he gazed at her steadily. “Claire was sick. She’d always been on borrowed time with the Cystic Fibrosis.” Seventeen years ago, the drug that would have given his sister a real chance at life wasn’t available yet. “She wanted us together.”

  “But I made you stop working—”

  “You didn’t make me do anything. The only way we could be together was if I stopped working as a male escort.” He had other jobs, but the high cost of Claire’s medical treatments made him resort to desperate measures. Competition was steep in LA for modeling and acting jobs, and he also worked construction, but the compensation was abysmal. His sister’s life mattered more than his self-respect.

  “I told you I had money, but …” Her voice trailed off.

  Declan clenched his jaw. A typical Hollywood story, they met at a party and hooked up. Their relationship became tabloid fodder, but they didn’t care. They were in love. Six months to the day they met, they eloped to Vegas and tied the knot. Then reality and bills hit them. His pride took a beating when he couldn’t be the main breadwinner, but the desire to be with Gabby trumped all that. Or so he thought. Cracks in their marriage started to show, became harder to ignore. Gabby’s father thought he was a gold-digger, so the bastard cut off his daughter’s finances, even withheld her paycheck from acting. “You underestimated how much your dad hated me, that’s all.”

  “We could’ve gotten better treatments for Claire!”

  “We managed as much as we could.”

  Gabby’s smile was sad. “But that time … You really blamed me, didn’t you?”

  “I did,” he said shortly. “Claire’s death was sudden. She was doing so well and I thought …” He shook his head and pondered how he could have fucked up everyone’s life by putting his heart first. “I thought I deserved to be happy … with you. When she died …the guilt was crippling. I should have spent more time with her. I thought I had more time with her.”

  “Instead you spent most of it with me.”

  “It took me years to get over the guilt.” He held her eyes. “Claire wouldn’t have wanted me t
o put my life on hold for her. She wanted me to be happy, but for the longest time I wondered if I’d been on top of her situation, if I could have prevented that lung infection.” He blew out a breath. “After I joined the Army, after seeing my brothers blown up by IEDs despite being so careful, I realized just how little control we have over death.”

  “Believe me, I know,” she mumbled.

  He stared at her, still not able to wrap his mind around the woman she was now. “What made the young star of Dead Futures give that all up and become a homicide detective?”

  “That’s a long story.” She smiled and glanced at the clock. “And we need to get moving.”

  “Yeah.” He stood and gathered the dishes. There were many things left to be said, but those would have to wait. At least he could give her this. Closure for the harsh words he said to her that started the death spiral of their marriage. A marriage that only lasted seven months and left a tragic, mangled history. One part of his past was at peace, but there was more to the wreckage that followed.

  “Claudette is in town,” she said suddenly as if reading his mind. “I’m sure I can get the lawyer to—”

  Throwing that woman at him was getting old. “I don’t need to talk to Claudette.”

  “But Dec, you need to discuss Theo. You missed—”

  “Listen to me,” he growled. “I want to get to the bottom of this. Theo is a smart kid and he’ll soon realize I’m his father, but I’ll be damned if I let him think I slept with Claudette.”

  “You did … at least before me, you did.”

  Declan scowled at her. “That’s a low blow. Before we decided to see each other exclusively, I told you everything I did as a male escort and we agreed never to talk about it again.” The first thing he admitted was sleeping with her former stepmother. Gabby was able to get over it because it was at a time before Claudette married Peter. It did take Gabby a week to digest this information, and when she decided to take a chance on Declan, she also had to tell Peter. “Are you gonna throw that in my face now?”

  She lowered her head and rubbed her brow. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  “All I want is what’s good for Theo and to figure out what security is needed around him.”

  “Understood.”