Damaged Desires: A Frenemy, Military Romance

by LJ Evans

  “What the hell, Mac?” I said, finding my voice while watching as a supposed security detail swarmed to put the blond country singer in the car before it shot away with a squeal of tires.

  A female voice came on over the clip. “This video arrived in our email early this morning with a message from the attacker stating that O’Neil couldn’t replace her and win…”

  She went on, and I’d already tuned her out, turning to face Mac, my entire body on red alert, ready to take action. “Is she okay? Have you talked to her?”

  Mac took me in, my pounding veins and my concerned face, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, she’s okay.”

  “What the hell kind of security allows someone to get that close?” I asked. The relief of knowing Dani was okay did little to loosen the stranglehold that had taken over my heart.

  He was nodding. “Right? Fucking morons. She needs a better team.”

  He was texting on his phone before I could say anything else. “I’m asking Granddad what private security services they’ve used in the past for the Matherton rallies.”

  It was five in the morning, the sun barely starting to wake up, and we were huddled in the living room of their condo while, somewhere in Miami, Dani was dealing with another attack. An attack that hadn’t been meant for her but had certainly hit her all the same.

  Had she handled it in normal Dani fashion, acting as if it wasn’t a big deal? Or had she crumbled apart as it triggered thoughts of an asshole who had assaulted her a year ago? God damn, someone needed to be there to protect her. Someone who knew the holes that had been evident in a twenty-second clip.

  “I’ll go.” I said the words before I’d even thought them through. Mac looked up from his phone.

  “What?”

  “Tell me who the fuck owns the security company. I’ll have a chat with them, and then I’ll head down to Miami.”

  “You can’t work for a security team. No way the command will approve it as a second job, temporary or not,” Mac said.

  “I’m on leave. I’m not suggesting I pick up a paycheck. I’m suggesting I go down there as a nonpaid consultant and tell them where the hell they went wrong.”

  “While, on the one hand, I know I could trust you with my sister’s life, she’ll be pissed,” Mac said, but his face turned into a wry grin. “Really pissed.”

  I shrugged but thought he was likely right for more reasons than he knew. I’d hurt her, and a dance at a wedding hadn’t fixed that. I wasn’t sure I could ever fix it. I wasn’t sure I should. My body sure as hell wanted her to forgive me. But as screwed up as I seemed at the moment, it was even more reason to not be in any kind of relationship. It was more reason than Mac wanting to hang me out from a balcony by my toes for trying anything with his sister. But all of that didn’t mean I could stand by while she got hurt because some stupid-ass security team didn’t know what they were doing.

  “What’s she gonna do?” I asked, forcing my normal cocky smile back on my face. “Get me fired from a job I’m not getting paid to do?”

  Mac chuckled. “Don’t put it past Dani.”

  He still hesitated.

  “Look,” I said, hand coasting over my scar. “It’ll keep my mind off of all the things I can’t control at the moment.”

  Putting my arms around a mission. An op. It seemed like the perfect solution to keep me from losing my shit altogether, and I’d damn well make sure nothing touched her again.

  Mac nodded. “Let me see what I can find out.”

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  Several hours later, I got out of the CarShare in front of a five-star hotel in Jacksonville where Brady and his team were holed up for the next two nights. According to Wayne Garner, who owned the private security company working for the country singer, the next concert would be at a venue in town the next day. They were all supposed to be sitting tight after a rehearsal at the stadium earlier this morning.

  Garner and I had talked for a long time. He was a retired Army Ranger, and I had a shitload of respect for Rangers. The feeling was normally mutual, but when I’d pointed out the holes I’d seen in his security team after rewatching the news clip, he’d been pissed and embarrassed. When I’d offered my services for free, he’d agreed, and we’d decided I’d come down without his team knowing it, do a further assessment, and then work with him and his lead agent to fix it.

  As I stepped from the car, I easily spotted the bodyguard at the door of the hotel. He was idly watching the people in the lobby. His earpiece was on display, and he was grinning at a beautiful set of legs that walked by him. I could have disarmed and disabled him in a thousand different ways. He was a joke. Worse, it was pure laziness. Laziness was about the biggest enemy to a SEAL there was.

  I wanted to knock the crap out of the stupid-ass man just to wake him up. Instead, I took pictures, not even trying to be subtle. The guy actually stretched out his wide shoulders and peacocked a little when he saw me snapping shots.

  I hit the elevators, getting off on the floor below the penthouse. There was no security there. Nothing at the stairs; the alarm didn’t even go off when I opened the emergency exit. When I jogged up the final steps to the top floor, there was still no security. The door was locked—normal hotel protocol—but I jiggled it open with my knife and slid it open with no one stopping me on the other side. When I got to the actual doors of the penthouse, I encountered two more men. Both in suits. One was on alert, scanning the hallway and meeting my eyes with his sunglass-covered ones as soon as I rounded the corner. The other one was on his phone—texting, playing a game, who the fuck knew. It took him the amount of time it would have taken for me to slit his throat to finally catch on that I was still approaching them.

  Alert-guy put out a hand. “I’m going to have to ask you to stop right there.”

  In less than thirty seconds, I’d disabled them both, zip-tied them together, slapped duct tape over their mouths, and was walking them through the penthouse doors with their weapons in my hand. On the inside, there were two more hulks—these in black from their T-shirts down to their heavy-duty boots. They sprang into action to help their buddies. They were a little more on top of things, and it took a relatively good scuffle before I had them zip-tied and duct-taped on the floor with the first two.

  The brawl made enough noise that a shut door off the entryway opened.

  “Nash?!” Dani’s voice had me freezing in the middle of dumping the clips out of the weapons I’d retrieved from the last two men.

  Even stunned and upset with me, she looked damn good. Good enough that I wanted to take off the summer dress she had on, lay her down on the marble, and make her say my name in a whole different tone, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not again. Not for all the reasons we’d been a bad idea before, on top of the fact I was now in her presence wearing my SEAL brain and hat. Security for her and the damn country singer was my priority.

  From the room behind her emerged Brady and a tall, skinny man with glasses.

  The skinny man walked forward, grimacing at the four goons I’d tied up, and stuck out a hand. “I take it you’re Wellsley?”

  I nodded. “It’s Nash. Or Asshole, but definitely not Wellsley.”

  He smiled. “Your initial assessment to Garner looks pretty apt. I’m not sure we should stick with him at all. You have a team you’d recommend?”

  “I’m pretty sure you couldn’t afford the U.S. government rate,” I told him.

  “What the hell is going on?” Dani asked, stepping forward, hands on her hips, drawing attention to every curve that I’d kissed only weeks before. It felt like a lifetime ago already, while on the other hand, it hadn’t been enough time to get the scent of her out of my blood.

  “Not sure what a Navy SEAL has against my bodyguards,” Brady said dryly, looking over the four men with something like pity. They were gagged, tied, and not going anywhere until I said so.

  “You call them bodyguards again and I might have a
problem with you,” I told Brady. “Their boss sent me down to provide some assistance. Help improve their shitty-ass security measures. This is me showing them some of their gaps.”

  “Their boss?” Dani’s eyes narrowed. “How do you even know Garner, Nash?”

  “Never even talked to him until today.”

  “Who sent you? Mac, my dad, or my grandad?” she asked, whipping out her phone, fingers flying across the screen as she sent off a flurry of texts in seconds.

  The suite door opened, and I moved swiftly, pinning the new suit to the door and disabling his weapon. “Goddamnit,” the new guy swore. “I’m Tanner. I’m head of this team. Garner just let me in on your arrival.”

  His tone was cold and angry, and I didn’t give a shit. I let him go but kept his gun. He eyed me and the stash of weapons around my belt with a glare that didn’t bother me in the least.

  “You’ve made your point, frog,” he growled, trying to get a rise out of me.

  I knew better. “You haven’t earned the right to use that nickname,” I told him, twirling his gun in my hand and watching as he stepped forward, face flushed, reaching for it. When I didn’t give it back, he lunged, and I did the only thing I could, which was to put him back up against the wall with an arm on his neck to immobilize him.

  Dani

  CROWDED ROOM

  “Engulfed in the flames,

  Engulfed in the shame.

  Betrayed by your imagination,

  In over my head, but that's alright.”

  Performed by Selena Gomez w/ 6LACK

  Written by Rexha / Lambroza / Valdez Jr. Valentine / Gomez / Wilcox

  My body was shaking. It was mostly from anger that Nash was even here. That he’d been sent by my family as if I were a child needing rescuing. When Tanner lunged for him, Nash responded swiftly, smoothly, silently. In a way that was slightly terrifying and also slightly intoxicating. I had to tell my body to back down. I had to remind my body it had already had its one and only time with the SEAL who thought he belonged to someone else.

  When Nash didn’t let up on the arm he had pressed against Tanner’s throat, I moved over and pulled on his arm.

  “For Pete’s sake! Stop. I think we all get it.”

  Nash let Tanner go with a small push before backing up. If you didn’t know him quite as well as I did, you would think he was relaxed, almost carelessly nonchalant, but I’d been Nash-wise for a while now. I’d had my body tucked up against his when it was truly relaxed as well as asleep, and this was definitely not it. He was still on high alert.

  The tension between all the men in the room was brittle and sharp, ready to crack. Marco and Trevor were pissed, ready to commit murder as soon as they were untied. It was not a good situation. Leave it to Nash to antagonize everyone in a mere five minutes. It was Lee, ever the good negotiator, who broke the silence and the swirl of hatred going around the room.

  “Tanner, I think you can see we’ve got some gaps which need to be closed. That’s all this is about. Making sure we deal with the threats so there are no more incidents like last night,” Lee said.

  “No one could have been ready for last night,” Tanner growled.

  “If you’d had someone on the roof, someone at the door of the limo, and bodies inches, instead of feet, from your client, Dani sure as hell wouldn’t have taken the hit.” Nash spoke calmly, but there was a warning in his words.

  I couldn’t understand why he was here at all. It was the last thing I needed.

  “Dani isn’t my client,” Tanner hissed.

  But that was the wrong thing to say, because Nash had him shoved up against the door again. “Brady’s entire team is your client. They get hurt. He gets hurt. You feel me?”

  Tanner struggled to push away, but Nash had not only a tactical, but a physical advantage. It wasn’t until Tanner gave a frustrated nod that Nash let up again, stepping away, looking for all the world like he was just waiting for a seat at a restaurant.

  Tanner’s phone rang, and he stepped away to take the call which was obviously from Garner because they were already in a heated discussion.

  “Want to untie the rest of the gang?” I said, waving at the four men who were still glaring at Nash as much as I was.

  “Maybe they should figure out how to get out of it themselves.”

  “This isn’t BUD/S training, Nash,” I said, my anger flaring through me again. He was so damn arrogant, and I understood it. Most SEALs were, but there were times that it was a detriment. Like now. I bent to gently rip the tape off each of their mouths, grimacing as it pulled at the scruff on Marco’s face. “Sorry.”

  Nash handed me a knife which appeared in his hand like magic from who knew where. I pulled it from his grip but didn’t thank him. I wasn’t going to thank him for being here or for stirring up a hornet’s nest. I cut the ties on the four bodyguards’ hands and feet. The men stretched out their fingers and legs before standing and squaring off against Nash.

  Tanner hung up and came over. He swallowed hard and said bitterly, “Garner insisted we go over our entire detail with you.”

  You could tell each word cost Tanner a piece of his pride, and Nash didn’t help it by ignoring the man as if he hadn’t spoken at all. Tanner strode to the door. “My room has been acting as our headquarters. We can start there.”

  “This one”—Nash pointed to one of the men whose name I hadn’t learned—“needs to be gone. He was playing on his phone. There’s no excuse for that. If you leave anyone outside this door, it should be these two, for now.”

  He waved at Marco and Trevor who didn’t look like they appreciated his half-assed respect. The man Nash had just insisted be fired looked like he was ready to shoot Nash. It was probably a good thing Nash still had all their weapons.

  Nash looked at me as if he wanted to say something, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. I handed his knife back to him and walked away with his eyes following me.

  My phone was ringing in response to the text I’d sent. Before picking it up, I watched as the entire detail left with Nash easily eclipsing all of them with nothing more than his attitude. As soon as the door shut, I moved out onto the balcony to take Mac’s call.

  “Don’t start,” he said as if he’d known what I was going to say.

  “What the hell did you do?” I asked, irritated but also not irritated at the same time. I couldn’t really be upset he’d seen the lack of security and sent help. I was just wishing it wasn’t a broody SEAL whom my body couldn’t seem to stop wanting.

  “Whoever that was just sent a clear message. They aren’t going to stop. Not yet,” Mac said. “I just want to make sure you aren’t caught in the crosshairs. Nash was here, and he suggested it.”

  It took me a moment to process the fact that Nash had suggested he come down as well as him being at Mac’s place. None of it made sense. He’d been very clear the day I’d left Tristan’s. He’d screwed up. We’d both screwed up, and being around me was the last thing he wanted. The last thing either of us wanted. Our apologies to each other at Mac’s wedding had been the last time I’d expected to see him for months.

  I couldn’t say any of that, so I said the only thing I could. “Why was Nash at your place? And isn’t the Navy going to want to know where he’s wandered off to?”

  “They put him on leave—some stupid game the psychologist is playing with him—and Tristan tossed him out.”

  My heart stuttered. His entire world had just fallen apart, and instead of picking up the pieces, he’d come down here to keep mine from doing the same.

  “Why’d Tristan kick him out?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t talk about it. You know Nash. He doesn’t talk about anything meaningful. He keeps it all inside.”

  “Could be why the psychologist is having issues with him,” I said dryly.

  Mac chuckled and then sobered.

  “Hey, I’m due in a briefing in two minutes. But I wa
nt you to know, I’m glad he’s there. The whole family is glad. We owe him, big time. Promise me you’ll listen to him. Promise me you’ll be safe.” Mac’s voice got clogged with emotions that choked me up as well.

  “I’ll be fine. It’s Brady you should be worried about,” I said, ignoring his request because I wasn’t sure I could make any promises regarding Nash. I seemed to break vows to even myself when he was around.

  “Promise.”

  “Everything is going to be fine. I love you, Squirter,” I said, and if he hadn’t had to run, I knew he would’ve kept going until the assurance came out of my mouth. I was thankful I didn’t have to lie to him.

  “Love you, too, Gooberpants.”

  I went back inside, determined to finish the press schedule we’d been working on before Nash had disrupted our world, determined to put him out of my mind completely and just focus on my job. But it was pretty much impossible. After I completed my meeting with Brady and Lee, I returned to my room and dialed Tristan’s number.

  “Hi,” she said after one ring. I looked at the clock, realizing Hannah was probably napping. It was the only time she got in the studio, and I felt bad for interrupting her.

  “Hey to you, too. Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “Okay is a wide range. I’m here. I’m surviving. Will that do?” she asked.

  “What happened with Nash?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  She sighed. “Let me guess, he went from my couch to Mac’s?”

  I laughed. “Well, technically, I’m sure he was in the loft, but now he’s here in Jacksonville.”

  Silence for a moment. “He is?”

  “My brother sent him here like some overprotective mama bear after the incident last night.”

  “What incident?” Tristan asked.

  I rubbed my finger along the wood of the desk. “Brady’s stalker threw a bunch of firecrackers at him as we were leaving the venue. It was on the news, so I thought maybe you’d seen it.”