Page 25 of Reluctantly His

He lifted his hands in surrender. “Damn. Didn’t know it was like that.”

I took a long swallow of my beer. “It’s not like anything. It’s strictly professional.”

Fucking ironic.

As if pulling her over my lap and spanking her pert, naked ass was the height of dignified professionalism.

He gave me a hard look. “You’re not thinking of doing something stupid?”

Too late.

I tossed him an annoyed look as I took out my phone. “Of course not.”

He didn’t believe a word of the bullshit I was tossing around but changed to a safer topic and began talking about how some green asshole, who thought he was tough shit, had been assigned to the unit, but the second there had been actual gunfire, he’d cried for his mom.

“I’m not speaking figuratively.” Hunter laughed as he slapped his hand on the top of my shoulder and leaned in. “He literally cried for his mother. That’s what Boot is sending out these days. What happened to the process that took these motherfuckers out of the running? Why wasn’t he just sent to the army with the rest of the little bitches?”

Hunter kept talking shit about the newbie, which was fair. We had all gone through it. We had all done our time, made our mark, and earned the right.

And I’m sure if this guy was good enough to get through basic, then he’d eventually wise up, or he wouldn’t and he would find some way to injure himself or invent some mental illness that would get him medically discharged.

To be fair, I was also getting really tired of fuck boys playing Call of Duty for hours and thinking that was enough to make them Marine material, but most of those were weeded out long before they reached my teams.

Out of habit, I checked my phone again and pulled up the tracking app to see where Charlotte was.

It pinged at the exact same location in the house as an hour ago. She hadn’t moved. It would have notified me if she left, but I just had to check and make sure.

Hunter nodded toward my screen. “Party girls don’t leave the house without their phones, right? They need them to take endless, useless selfies of every drink and duck pout. So she’s secure for the night.”

“That’s the problem. This one isn’t like that.”

“You’re telling me you’ve managed to land the one daughter of a rich bastard who isn’t a pain in the ass, spoiled bitch? Lucky bastard. Sign me up for that cakewalk gig.”

I flicked through the reporting history for the evening on the tracking app. No movement. Unease settled in my chest as I answered without looking up. “Party bitches are easier. Predictable. Just follow their social feeds. This one took me almost an hour to find after she snuck off for some damn cello lesson.”

He laughed so hard he choked on his beer.

I slammed him on the back.

As he swiped his hand over his mouth, he said, “I’m sorry. Did you just admit that a nothing bit of a girl slipped your net while carrying a fucking cello?”

“Shut the fuck up. I’m serious.”

“What’s got you on edge with this one? Is there a legitimate threat?”

“The only threat to her safety is me.” I ground out. “There have been no stalkers, no letters, no demands, nothing. It’s just a babysitting gig.”

Since I’d signed an NDA with the involved families regarding her sister’s mock kidnapping and her brother-in-law’s fiancé’s real kidnapping by his own fucking mother, I didn’t mention it.

Besides, given the twisted circumstances, I didn’t consider those indicative of a possible threat to Charlotte.

And steps were being taken to mitigate the threat of the Irish mob. My sources in the New York Police Department’s Organized Crime unit reported the Irish were laying low and licking their wounds, after attracting the extremely dangerous, full attention of DA Harrison Astrid.

So at the moment, there was no cause for real alarm.

“What do you mean you are the only threat?”

“I mean, she pisses me the fuck off. Those gorgeous big brown eyes and the way she tosses her hair, giving tempting hints of her perfume. The way her lips pout when she wants to object, but she bites her tongue, and she practically begs to be spanked…” I stopped and took a sip of my beer to stop myself from saying anything else.

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