by Diana Gardin
“Nope.” She giggles as she climbs into the passenger seat. I can’t help palming her ass as I help her in, and she narrows her eyes at me as she settles in her seat. Kneeling beside her, I hold her gaze with mine. Her eyes are huge in the darkness, and that hair is pulled up into a pile of curls on her head tonight, some tumbling down around her face like some kind of dark little angel. Just looking at her sitting in my car, I feel something inside my chest shaking around a little.
“Then what exactly did you have in mind, wild girl?” My voice comes out husky because of all my dirty thoughts, and clearing my throat won’t do a thing. I watch her eyes darken as her pupils dilate in response to something I said or did. I like it.
Damn, I like it a whole lot.
I trace the rough pad of my index finger down her cheekbone. Her skin is always so soft, and I don’t want to stop touching her. She closes her eyes as my finger draws a trail down to her jawbone, sketching the curve of her face until I reach her lips. I drag my finger along the bottom one, and then she opens her mouth.
She opens her eyes, watching mine widen in surprise.
She gently sucks my finger inside the perfectly wet heat of her mouth and closes her lips around it.
Fuuuuuuck. A rumble emits from my chest, and she allows my finger to pop from her mouth with a sinful smile on her face.
She leans forward and whispers, “Don’t put your fingers where they don’t belong if you don’t want them to end up wet and hot.”
She knows. She knows she’s undoing me, because it’s right there in her devilish eyes. Pulling back slightly, I smirk. “I like hot and wet.”
Her smirk widens, and I like the fact that she can take every single thing I give her. And she can give it right back.
“I want to go dancing.”
The sentence pops out like we weren’t just being extremely dirty, and I have to switch gears in my mind and my pants before I can answer.
“You want to go…dancing. Really?”
She nods. “Already texted Berk and Greta. They’ll be at Boots.”
Boots is a local bar with a small dance floor that plays both pop and country, and it’s not exactly my thing. But the look on her face as she thinks about spending some time with her friends and shaking her ass makes me get on board with the plan real quick. Plus I can sit and have a beer with Grisham and Dare while I watch her.
In the back of my mind, something nags at me. It might be the fact that I already downed three whiskeys here at See Food, but I drank them over time and I’m still sober. So I don’t need to listen to the little voice that tells me I’m drinking way more than I used to.
It’s irrelevant.
My mom’s dead. There’s nothing I can do about that now. There’s no going back and saving her. So I’m dealing with it, and the whole shitty situation is going to be temporary. I can handle it.
On the drive over to Boots, I offer Mea a sideways glance. “You’re not worried about what our friends are going to think when we walk in together?”
She shrugs her thin shoulders. “They’re either going to think I’ve lost my mind, or that I’ve finally found it. Either way, I don’t care.”
Smiling at that snippet of straight-up Mea honesty, I pull into the parking lot of the bar.
When we walk in, we scan the small crowd until we find our friends. They’ve snagged a table near the patio door, and we head in that direction. As we draw closer, I place my hand protectively on the small of Mea’s back, and she lets me. Melts into my side like butter. When I glance down at her, she gives me a sultry look that tells me this is going to be a good night.
Four sets of eyes are locked and loaded on us as we approach, and Berkeley’s lips tilt up in a small smile when she notices my hand on Mea’s back. Greta doesn’t even try to hide her grin.
“Hey, you two. Didn’t expect to see you together.” Berkeley is practically shining with excitement for her friend, excitement that I’m pretty sure I can’t live up to. Dare gives me a silent nod, his expression mirroring what I’m thinking.
Sighing, I take a seat beside my best friend and Mea takes a chair beside hers. It just so happens that hers is two seats away from mine, and the loss of her warmth beside me when she goes is monumental. Meeting my eyes across the table, hers turn down at the corners, and I’m wondering if she feels it, too.
I shoot the shit with Dare and Grisham, asking them how work is going. They’re both security professionals on Greta’s father’s tactical team at his company, Night Eagle Security. It’s a pretty sweet arrangement, especially coming from military Special Forces backgrounds like they both do. Grisham was a Navy SEAL until he lost his foot to a bomb in Syria. It was rough for him at first, adapting to life back in the States knowing he was going to have to leave his SEAL days behind. But then he got together with Greta and met her dad. Everything sort of fell into place from there.
I’m glad they both love the job, but I wouldn’t trade my garage for any of it. I left my Special Ops days back in the desert, and the only mission I want to be a part of now is one that involves chrome and grease.
I can’t help watching Mea across the table. She’s chatting quietly with Greta and Berkeley, all three girls’ heads put together. Long blond waves, glossy raven locks, and wild, wild curls all put together in one spot. They’re a beautiful sight. But almost like she can feel my gaze, Mea glances up, and when her eyes meet mine a flame ignites inside me and shoots off like fireworks. She smiles, not her usual bright and shiny smirk, but an almost shy grin that tells me she’s feeling all kinds of emotions she doesn’t understand when it comes to me, just like I am when it comes to her.
I toss her a wink, and her tongue darts out to lick her lush bottom lip. That’s all it takes to send visions of her lying naked in my bed spinning across my vision.
Grisham leans over, his voice quiet. “Sparks are flying. You for real when it comes to her?”
I frown, glancing away from Mea to meet his gaze dead on. “I don’t know what this is yet. But I’m not planning on bringing more hurt into her life if that’s what you’re talking about.”
His blond brow lifts. “More hurt?”
There it is. After the way I saw Mea the night she was trembling from nightmares and tangled up in my sheets, I knew right then and there that something in her past had hurt her. Had changed her. Had made her into the strong, yet closed-off girl she is today. But no one else knows what I saw that night. There’s no one she’s let in to that degree. Not even her best friends. So I know that I won’t be someone who causes her to fall apart again. I could never do that to her.
“You don’t have to worry about her,” I tell Grisham, my voice gruff. “When she’s with me, she’s safe.”
He nods once, my admission clearly enough for him.
The thumping tones of a song that the girls love, something popular on the radio, begin, and they jump up to dance. Mea exchanges one last fleeting look with me before she’s swept away, and I zero in on her in the crowd. Around the hazy conversation of Grisham and Dare, I watch Mea as she shimmies her stuff on the little circle of wood. When a crowd of college-aged dudes begins to crowd in around our ladies, both Dare and Grisham start to pay attention. Our conversation drops as we take in everything that happens on the dance floor.
The girls are oblivious at first, just dancing in a circle and laughing at whatever silly move Berkeley dishes out. Mea’s the true dancer of the group; her body seems to move like a sultry snake to whatever rhythm the music plays, and it’s a damn sexy sight. The problem is, it’s a sexy sight to more than just me. One guy in particular, all decked out in his collared shirt and backward baseball cap, doesn’t seem to know any better. He swerves behind her, looking for his best way in. When Mea puts her arms up over her head to sway to the beat, he steps into her personal space and places his hands low on her hips. She instantly freezes.
Now usually, I’m not a jealous guy. I’ve honestly never claimed a girl as my own, so there’s never been any re
ason for the envy to take over. But the memory of what happened when the guy at See Food grabbed her, combined with a spark of rage at another man’s hands on her body, have me out of my seat before I know what I’m doing.
It takes me about four strides to eat up the distance between me and the dance floor, and then I’m forcibly stepping between Mea and the college D-bag.
“Fuck you, dude. I don’t see your name written on her.” College boy clearly isn’t happy with the way things are going down. His friends are nowhere in sight, and Dare and Grisham are standing right beside me. Not that I need ’em.
I flick my hand back toward the tables. “You should have looked a little closer, then.” He opens his mouth to spit back, but then I pull myself up to my full height and advance on him. He looks up at me, and then out at the sheer width of my body before taking a couple of steps backward.
“It’s cool, man.” He raises his hands and turns away.
Berkeley is grinning from ear to ear at my streak of green, but Greta is eyeing Mea with concern.
“You okay?” she asks over the thump of the music. “You don’t look so hot.”
Glancing down at Mea and stooping a bit so I can see her face, I notice that she’s lost some of her color. When I rub my hands down her arms, they’ve broken out in goose bumps, and I can feel the slightest shiver in her muscles.
It’s so similar to the reaction she experienced at See Food, and my brain rockets into overdrive to try and compensate for it.
“You ready to go?” I ask her, my voice low and close to her ear so that she can hear me.
Looking up at me with wide eyes, she nods.
I bark a quick good-bye to Dare and Grisham, while Mea gives a weak smile and wave to the girls. Then I’m grabbing her hand and making our way out of the bar as quickly as I can without picking the little thing up and running with her.
Once we’re seated in the Challenger, the quiet is eerie compared to the noise of the bar. But I can finally really assess her without all of the distractions. Her face is glowing orange in the light from the dashboard, and when I gently take her hand in mine, she doesn’t pull it away.
“Are you ready to talk?” I ask, keeping my voice quiet so I don’t startle her.
A thousand emotions cross her face all at once, and every single one of them makes me want to pull her into my arms and never let her go. I don’t know where this protective instinct is coming from. I mean, sure, I served in the army where it was my job to protect people. But this is different. It’s my personal mission to make sure that at any given time, Mea isn’t hurting or feeling pain. I carry her happiness on my shoulders, and it’s a load I know I can bear for miles.
“I think…” In the silent car her whisper screams at me. Or maybe it’s because I’m so completely tuned in to her that to me, her whisper will always seem like a shout. “I think that when I’m ready to talk about it…you could be the one I tell.”
We stare at each other for a long minute after that, neither of us speaking, but her hand clutches mine.
“Can I…” She trails off. Her eyebrows knit together and the little frown lines on her forehead tell me she’s reconsidering what she’s about to ask.
God, at that moment, with her eyes so big and bright in the darkness of my car and her hand so tightly squeezing mine, I’m pretty sure I’d swear to give her the world.
“Anything, sweetheart.”
“Would you sleep beside me again tonight? The nightmares are coming…and when they do, I don’t want to be alone.”
If you had asked me a year ago how it felt to have your heart broken, I would have told you some sad story about growing up with a mom like mine. And then about how it felt to know that I left her by herself as soon as I could get out. It’s been eating me up alive since her death, knowing that maybe I could have done something to change her life, but I didn’t. I just left and never looked back. Made something of myself, but didn’t reach back to pull her up with me.
But now…hearing Mea’s request?
I’m shattered.
This…this is how a heart breaks.
And I’ll deny her nothing.
12
Mea
Wow. This place is super nice.” I turn in a slow circle in the living room, stopping to focus on the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lush and fancy Forsyth Park.
The three-story, white brick home Berkeley’s parents rented for us is right in the heart of the Savannah’s historic district. The picturesque street is lined with huge old oak trees draped with Spanish moss. The streets are always occupied, either by cars, people, or horses and carriages. It’s my first time in this city, and its energy is invigorating me in a way I essentially needed.
As a group, we take a tour of the house. Our shoes echo across the maple hardwood floors as we take in the ornate walls covered in colorful hues of wallpaper, the gorgeous, comfortable furniture, and the accented ceilings. On the ground floor is a large eat-in kitchen with a center island. The cabinets are white and detailed, and there are stainless steel appliances for all the cooking we won’t be doing over the long weekend. There’s also a great room with a flat-screen TV above a redbrick wood-burning fireplace. Comfortable seating lines the room, and there is one wall of bookshelves filled to capacity. A dining room completes the floor, laid out to the max just like the other rooms.
The second floor has four bedrooms, each one beautiful. I find myself falling in love with the “lavender” room. The huge four-poster bed is lined with a lavender and white patchwork quilt. White wallpaper with small purple flower buds just gives me a feeling of whimsy—something brand-new and exciting.
I want to do so much yoga in this room.
“Mine.” I sigh, rolling my suitcase in with me and flopping backward on the bed.
Berkeley laughs and scans the room. “Yeah, this is perfect for you. Want to stay here and get settled while the rest of us pick our rooms?”
I nod, sitting up on the bed and perching cross-legged. The rest of the group files out of the room. All except for Drake, who leans against the walnut wood doorway with the coiled, quiet confidence that makes him so damn sexy. He studies me.
We were a three-car caravan on the way down to Savannah. I rode shotgun in Berkeley’s Escalade, with Greta, Grisham, and Berkeley’s friend Olive, who works with her at the interior design firm. Also squeezed into the third row with her was Dare’s friend Ronin Shaw, who also works special security services at Night Eagle. Ronin and Olive were smushed in pretty tight in the backseat, considering all of the luggage, but neither of them seemed to mind. They were either giving each other sideways glances or talking quietly together. It was kind of cute, and it makes me wonder if maybe there’s some chemistry between them that will one day catch fire.
The car in front of us, Dare’s big red Ford F-250, housed the rest of the guys. Drake rode up front while Jeremy Teague, another security specialist and ex-army dude from Night Eagle, and Dare’s brother Chase rode in the back. Chase’s wife, Shay, would have come, too, except she’s very busy taking care of their toddler at home.
After everyone else is gone from my room, Drake sizes me up. “You want me gone too, sweetheart?”
Ohhh, Lordie. Every single time the word sweetheart rolls off his tongue, shivers roll up and down my body like they’re riding a current of heat. His deep, dark voice just does something sinister to my insides, and it’s not the kind of sinister I want to run from. It’s the kind I want to dive into and roll around in.
“Well, I dunno, Drake. What’s everyone gonna think if we share a room?” I grace him with a coy smile from my spot on the bed.
Like a stealthy predator, he moves farther into my new bedroom. “Don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, baby. Only care about making sure I’m the one warming your bed at night.”
Drake in my bed…the thought brings flames of heat creeping into my cheeks. I like him there…he’s been there for me a few times since the night I asked him to sleep beside me.
It doesn’t matter who’s bed we’re in…I feel comfortable sleeping beside him. Safe. Protected.
And it scares me to death. Depending on him could be dangerous…but I haven’t been able to stop myself from walking right into his arms.
I suck in a breath, and creep backward on the bed. I’m still not sure I’m ready for everything this big, sexy, deep and dark man is willing to dish out. “I have an idea. Why don’t you go and pick a room. You can keep your stuff there, and I’ll keep my stuff here. But if there’s ever a time during the night that we want to be together, well…” I trail off suggestively.
I want to be with him in the worst way. But that’s what scares me most. Being with Drake, giving him all of my mess-up bits and pieces, might pull me so far apart I’ll never be put back together again. And my head’s a mess, thinking about the possibility of having to see my father again. I still haven’t given my aunt an answer about whether or not I’ll attend the parole hearing. I’ve been wanting to talk to Drake about it, but I haven’t found the right words. And now the hearing is only two weeks away.
Drake backs up. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you later.”
He disappears from my room, and I sigh a sigh that could be heavy with either disappointment or relief.
I’m just not quite sure which.
I spend a little bit of time unpacking and admiring my room until the evening sky tells me I should be getting dressed for dinner.
For the first week of March, it’s unusually warm. It’s not a surprise, considering the easy winter we’ve had down south. So I put on a little black dress. I leave my hair free flowing and wild, and apply a bit of makeup. Mostly bronzer, to give my face a slight shimmer for the evening in Savannah.