Page 42 of South Beach Bodyguards

“Don’t worry about it,” I told Mickey. Then in case Isabel was listening I added, “I’ll handle it as soon as possible.”

“You sound like you’re up to something,” Mickey said. “Let me talk to Isabel.”

“She’s talking to Kim.” That was my assumption anyway. She’d said she wanted to talk to her mother.

“No, she’s not. Kim is lying in bed right next to me.”

Too much information. “Oh. Well, she’s on the phone talking to someone. I’m not going to interrupt her.”

I was staring at her though. I couldn’t seem to help myself. She looked so cute and sleepy and well-loved. I wondered what she was thinking. Feeling. I wondered how soon I could sink inside her again. Holy hell, she’d been tight. I shifted on the chair, my dick getting hard. She looked over and caught me checking her out. She picked at her shirt, but it didn’t prevent it from clinging to her breasts.

She had been speaking but she trailed off, clearly flustered.

I should look away, give her privacy. But I couldn’t seem to make myself do it. I was going to have to leave her here. Walk out, stay the night at my apartment. I didn’t want to hurt her. But I couldn’t be what she wanted me to be. I shouldn’t put the burden of my lust for her onto her. Yet I couldn’t seem to turn it off either. You couldn’t build a bonfire then douse it with a teaspoon of water. I wasn’t finished getting what I wanted from Isabel and that must be written all over my face.

She actually looked scared of me. The big hulking ugly man looking at her like he wanted to eat her couldn’t be comforting.

I reached over and cupped the back of her head with my hand. She quickly shifted her own hand over her phone and I kissed her, a demanding aggressive domination of her mouth. I broke away and stared into her eyes. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Work. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

That was a lie, but she’d be asleep by then.

Her eyes widened but she didn’t say anything. She just nodded, then went back to talking to whoever it was. “Yeah, I’m here,” she said. “No. Don’t worry about it.”

It felt like a dismissal. Which was stupid. I was the one fucking leaving. But it still bothered me. Damn it, everything was bothering me. Since the minute I’d walked into my apartment and found Isabel naked and soaping herself up, I’d been bothered. Hot and fucking bothered.

I went into the hotel room and got dressed, feeling pissed off and not even sure why. I jammed my gun into my back pocket. I wasn’t going to get Isabel’s dog, which I would do if I were a nice guy. Nor was I going to work like I’d told her. I was going home to sleep alone on my sketchy sheets. Maybe I should tell her that. Maybe she needed to know that I was no hero, that she should never have put me in the role of strong, silent, and sensitive. I wasn’t sensitive at all. I was a prick, the product of two assholes. Asshole Junior, that was me. Because for all my vows to respect women and only get with women who knew the score, when it came down to it, I was as selfish as the next guy.

I hadn’t wanted anyone else to take Isabel. So I took her.

Justification wasn’t going to change that little fact.

Without a glance back, afraid I would tell her everything or worse, tell her nothing, just make her mine again, I got the fucking hell out of the hushed room at the Fountainbleau. On the way down in the elevator I decided to text Alejandro.

**What are you doing?

I’m heading out in SOBE. Hit da club with me?

Normally that would hold almost zero appeal. Now? It seemed like the perfect way to avoid everything I was feeling. I wouldn’t have to think if I was in a club with pounding bass and pulsing lights.

I’ll meet you there. What club?

The elevator doors dinged and I stepped out. I probably should have showered. Nothing like going out with a dirty dick. But I had needed to get out fast before I did something even stupider than what I’d already done.

Handing the ticket to the valet attendant I stepped outside to wait, crossing my arms over my chest. The air smelled good, clear, crisp. As crisp as the air can get in Miami. It felt refreshing on my hot skin. Maybe I should have worked out first before going out. Sweat my tension out then hit the scene. But I would have to go upstairs to get my workout clothes and I wasn’t doing that.

So with adrenaline pumping through my veins I got into my car the attendant brought and hit the gas, pulling out onto A1A at fifty miles an hour. It felt like all of Isabel’s expectations and my unworthiness were chasing me.

twelve

Everyone always underestimated me. No one thought I could handle anything and that because I was shy, sometimes painfully so, I was also slow to pick up on things. That I couldn’t comprehend deviousness or lies or manipulation. But I could and I did and I sat there on the balcony wondering why in the hell Ryan thought I was stupid enough to believe that he was going to work. Mickey had assigned Ryan to bodyguard me. He wasn’t going to tell him to leave me alone in a hotel and go off and do some other random project at eleven at night.

“Brandy, I need to go,” I told my best friend. She was talking on and on about some guy she’d met at her job at the café and I wanted to care and be a good friend but I couldn’t focus. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel good.”

Her voice turned solicitous. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you okay?”

I had tried to call my mother but she hadn’t answered her phone. I had called Brandy because I had needed to avoid Ryan for a few minutes, collect my thoughts. I hadn’t expected him to bolt and now I had a pit in my gut. He wasn’t coming back. I knew it. Like he knew it. It had been written all over his face. My tears had scared him.

“I’m fine. I just haven’t felt right since I fell and I kind of have a headache.” I felt like a jerk lying to her, but I couldn’t tell her the truth either. There was something just totally mortifying about admitting even to my best friend that the guy I had hand-picked as the one to lose my virginity too had bolted fifteen minutes after he pulled out. It was just not something I wanted to say out loud right now. I’d tell her in a day or two after the sting of humiliation had worn off.

---