Page 56 of South Beach Bodyguards

That did me in.

I shattered and for the first time ever, I fully let go. I gave her everything. All of me. Like a shot of whiskey as it pours down your throat. Feel the burn.

After a minute, I relaxed my arms and rested my sweaty forehead on hers, trying to suck in some air. “Am I still an asshole?” I asked, really damn glad I hadn’t walked out of the house the way I almost had.

“Yes.” She kissed me. “But you have all night to convince me otherwise.”

All night. In this bed. My old bed, which she had brought to her new apartment. Where I had slept growing up, lonely and angry. It seemed fitting she would break that pattern of sleeping alone, and here, of all places. A fresh start. The past and the present. It was right.

“Whatever it takes, sugar.” I fell on the bed and pulled her onto my chest.

She shrieked in surprise at the sudden movement. “Really? You’ll stay?”

I studied her beautiful face, running my hand over her silken strands of dark hair. They tumbled everywhere during sex and were in disarray now. God, I was a lucky motherfucker. “Really. I do love you, you know.”

“I love you too.” Isabel sighed and lay her head down on my chest. “Cue the music and fade out.”

Exactly.

break

BY ERIN MCCARTHY

one

I’m not a fuck-my-life kind of guy but when Ricardo handed me his French bulldog, Mariposa, all I could think was, hell no. “You want me to pet sit?” I asked him, grimacing at the weight of the dog in my arms. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a cute dog, because she was, but I don’t do cute. I didn’t get shot as a bodyguard to get stuck indulging an eccentric billionaire and his ditzy wife.

Hot, but ditzy wife.

Ricardo surrounded himself with beautiful women and expensive things, Eva being one of the first, Mariposa one of the latter.

Eva stood next to her husband in a yellow bikini, and bent over to rub the head of the dog in my arms. “Oh, sweetie baby, you’re so beautiful,” she crooned. “Pretty girl.”

Each rub of the dog’s head made Eva’s breasts bounce in her scrap of nothing bikini top. Her full, bronzed tits were inches from my arm. I could smell the body lotion she’d been using while tanning on the deck of her husband’s palatial compound overlooking the Biscayne Bay. Her blond hair fell over the dog’s flank and she batted her false eyelashes at the pooch, and I couldn’t help but feel a stirring down south. I’d have to be dead not to notice such a sexy woman.

Not my type though. Too sweet. Too simple. More hair than brains.

Yet, I hated her husband. And Eva liked me, that was obvious. If I were a dickhead, I could have the ultimate revenge by getting his wife naked and tasting her rich skin with my poor man’s tongue. I thought about the weakness in my shoulder from the gunshot wound that was Ricardo’s fault. I thought about the medical bills he had refused to pay. It was tempting… in this case revenge would be literally sweet.

I smiled at Ricardo over his dog and his wife’s hair extensions. His eyebrows narrowed. “This isn’t dog sitting,” he said, pushing his designer sunglasses back up onto his nose. There was a glare from the infinity pool so I couldn’t see his eyes. “I have every reason to believe certain individuals want to get back at me for reasons I don’t understand. But I don’t want my dog hurt.”

Drugs. That’s what he meant. He had crossed someone somewhere and now they were pissed off. I could have given two shits about what mess he had gotten himself in to, but it was my job. A job I needed desperately. Hence the fuck-my-life feeling.

“Understood.” Hey, I didn’t want a dog to get whacked, either. I just didn’t want to be the idiot stuck watching her. Not exactly an awesome assignment. I knew what my boss at Miami Security would say—it’s money. Take it. But it was fucking embarrassing.

“Don’t get yourself shot like last time,” Ricardo said and it was a scolding that made my blood boil.

The little prick was twenty-two. Twenty fucking two. Four years younger than me and he’d been born with a silver spoon up his ass. All that money? All those houses? Bought and paid for by his daddy. He’d never had to do an honest day’s work in his life. And for the record, it was his fault I’d been shot, not mine. The target had been Ricardo and I had shoved his ass behind me and taken a clip in the shoulder with zero thanks.

So I didn’t say anything. I just set the dog down and waited for Ricardo to get bored with our conversation and wander away. It took all of three seconds. He spotted his best friend Nick’s girlfriend, a Latina woman with banging curves, and he went off to ogle her. Eva didn’t seem to notice and stayed next to me.

“You’ll keep Mariposa safe, right?” she asked, chewing on the tip of one fake fingernail. “I’ll just die if anything happens to her. She’s my best friend. Well, besides my sister.”

What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? “Of course I won’t let anything happen to her.” Eva seemed like a nice girl. Too damned nice for her husband.

She got down on her knees on the travertine patio in the bikini to pet the dog some more. She was right in front of me, her head inches from my jock. I cleared my throat. I wasn’t sure if she had no idea how close to me she was, or if she were doing it on purpose to either flirt or make me uncomfortable. If that was the case, it wasn’t going to work. She could pull my dick out right now and start sucking and I wouldn’t so much as flinch or groan.

That was my job, to stay in control. I was good at it. I was hot though in my suit. Ricardo liked the swankiness of bodyguards dressed for success.

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