Shameless - Sybil Bartel Page 0,19

emotions picking at my conscience, not the least of which was anger, I didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t.

Because my tongue suddenly got caught in my throat, and my arms snaked around his neck without my permission, and for the first time in years, I felt safe. Really safe. Then something so obscenely horrible happened, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

Giant, silent tears dripped down my cheeks.

Before I could swipe at my embarrassment, his sharp gaze cut to my face.

Turning away from his dark, knowing eyes, I focused on the Escalade as my bodyguard carried me like it was nothing.

My bodyguard.

I was such a cliché, I hated myself.

Stopping in front of the passenger door that was still open, he set me on my feet, but instead of letting me go, his huge hands cupped my cheeks as his fingers gripped the back of my neck. Dark eyes that’d seen more years and more war than I’d ever understand searched my face, and suddenly I felt like the teenager he’d been accusing me of.

“Sorry,” I whispered, embarrassed about crying and talking shit to that Cara woman and having to be picked up from rehab and everything else that’d led me to this point in my life.

His rough thumbs swept across my wet cheeks, and his expression softened marginally, but not his eyes. His dark, beautiful eyes looked like they’d seen too much war to ever let their guard down again.

“You’ll be fine,” he quietly reassured.

For two heartbeats, I stared back at his high cheekbones, full lips and serious expression, and I allowed myself to believe him. Not just about his psycho mafia ex or her vengeful husband, but about everything reeling through my mind.

That I wouldn’t drown in my past the second I stepped foot in my penthouse. That my father and I would somehow, someway, have a relationship one day. That my stepmother would forgive me. That anything surrounding me would ever be normal.

That one day I would have a life outside the insanity I was raised in.

Wanting to believe what he’d said, no matter how he meant his words, I inhaled. Distant car fumes from the highway, cracked asphalt mixed with earth, damp grass—the scents all around us mixed together with the seductive aroma of protective bodyguard, and a dangerous perception swirled into my head.

This right here, this heady bouquet of life, it was what I’d been waiting for.

Not the hot afternoon briny scent of Miami Beach, not late-night sweating bodies on a club dance floor, not the chemical tang of an illegal drug being snorted up my nose—I didn’t want the charade of those fragrances anymore.

I wanted the real scent of life.

Simple.

Pure.

Honest.

The exertion of two bodies.

The wind carrying the scent of rain.

The air uncomplicated by the color of wealth.

I wanted all of these things, but I wanted something more.

I wanted to stand in the protection of a man who’d pulled me out of my own spiraling thoughts on a broken, deserted road fronting the highway.

But I was no longer high on designer drugs and lying to myself about everything. I knew the man in front of me would never give a teenage princess the time of day.

So, I did the only thing I could think of.

Fueled by desperation for a new kind of life, frantic for the one thing that felt real—I threw myself at him.

SHE LAUNCHED HERSELF AT ME.

Arms around my neck, tight body slamming into mine, her tongue swept at my mouth.

Out of my fucking mind, I let it happen.

That’s where shit should’ve ended. Fuck, I was a Force Recon Marine. I saw it coming. I knew her intent before she’d made up her mind. A single tactical maneuver, and I could’ve avoided the whole damn thing.

Except I didn’t.

And I sure as fuck didn’t let her kiss me.

Grabbing her hair and fisting, I growled against her lips and did what any self-respecting Marine would do.

I fucking kissed her.

Driving my tongue into her mouth, I claimed her like I had a right to. Her body, her will, they bended, and for one sweet, submissive moment, I forgot she was nineteen.

Until she kissed me back.

Tangling her tongue with mine, biting my lip, taking what she wanted, she didn’t kiss like a nineteen-year-old.

Despite her body pasted against my chest like her brand of submission was made for me, she didn’t just keep up with me, she gave as good as she got.

Bullshit possessiveness hit me like the fucking IED blast that took out my military career, and