Shameless - Sybil Bartel Page 0,4

I could so I could catch his profile.

His shoulders tight, one hand on his hip, he held the phone to his ear and scanned the parking lot once.

Then he did something I’d never seen any of the Luna and Associates bodyguards do over the years. He let his gaze drop to the ground.

A bodyguard never did that.

André Luna’s men were all different, but they all had a few traits in common, the major one being they were always on high alert. Scanning everything around them, rarely making eye contact, always looking for some threat, they never let their guard down. They didn’t even take a phone call and give their full attention to it.

Whoever Shade was talking to, I was sure it was a woman.

Probably his girlfriend or wife. Maybe an ex?

I hated to admit it, but I wanted whoever it was to definitely be an ex. I hadn’t gotten that kind of attention from him, not even when I’d pissed him off and he’d grabbed my jaw. Yeah, his eyes had been focused on me and his grip had been knee-buckling firm, but he hadn’t been one hundred percent committed, not how he was now with his eyes focused on his boots and his lips moving rapidly.

For a split second, a crazy thought filtered in.

What if I got out and went and stood in that space between his feet and his dropped gaze? What if I inserted myself between him and whoever was on that call? Would he push me away? Grab my jaw again? My core tingled. Would he shove me up against the Escalade? Acknowledge me at all?

“Jesus, Summer,” I whispered into the rapidly chilling interior of the SUV. “Get a grip.”

I was not going to be a cliché.

I didn’t care how hot he became the second another language came out of his mouth, a bodyguard should be off-limits, especially now that I didn’t have the excuse of being high. Just because I had no drugs to entertain me, and my core was pulsing like a needy bitch didn’t mean I had to act on it.

Besides, I didn’t change my phone number and have my dad and stepmom as my only contacts and suffer through months of bullshit rehab therapy only to fuck the first available prick with a dick I encountered five seconds out of rehab.

He was so damn hot and cold, I wasn’t even sure he would fuck me. Not that I wanted to screw an older bodyguard who probably couldn’t get any other job because of his shitty attitude. Not saying that I didn’t usually go for older guys, but still. What the hell was I thinking?

I wasn’t, which was exactly the problem.

I was looking at his ripped arms and the gun in a holster on his hip, and I was remembering the thrill his dominant grip had sent racing through my veins when he’d grabbed my jaw like he owned me.

Oh my God.

“Hello, my name is Summer Amherst and I have issues,” I whispered into the empty SUV, shaking my head.

“NO,” Shade growled into his phone, his voice carrying through the closed windows.

Screw it.

Telling myself I was only hungry for food, I pushed my door open.

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered, stepping out of the Escalade in my favorite Tom Ford boots.

“I LEFT HIM, AMORE MIO,” Cara breathed. “We can be together now.”

Jesus fucking Christ. If she actually thought she was going to pull this bullshit, she could go fuck herself. “That ship never even docked.” I may have fucked the woman in a moment of weakness, but I sure as hell never wanted to bed down with her.

“Don’t say that. I know you want me,” she argued. “I need you now. I need you to protect me, amore mio.”

She was out of her fucking mind. “Call me that one more time,” I warned.

“Sfumatura,” she purred. “Do not be like this.”

“Hanging the fuck up. Don’t call again.” Goddamn it, I should’ve changed my number months ago, but I’d been a fucking idiot. Not wanting to cut off all contact with her, I’d kept my phone in case I decided to risk getting my dick hacked off by her husband and fuck her one last time. But no goddamn thrill was worth the hassle of this stalking shit.

“Shade,” she cried. “Wait.”

Like an asshole, I didn’t hang up. “No pussy is this good, not even yours.”

“Do not be crude,” she scolded. “Just tell me where you are. I will come to you. My driver, he is—”

“Oh,