Page 69 of South Beach Bodyguards

Hugging a pillow to me and mindlessly watching an ancient Julia Roberts movie, I pushed Wester out of my head by thinking about my grandparents and Sundays at the beach. They would take Eva and I in our grandpa’s beat up truck the twenty minutes to the public beach where we would play in the sand and water all day, only pausing to snack on food my grandmother had packed for us. Those were the days of the simplest pleasures and we hadn’t even understood at that point how financially strapped my grandparents were and how little my mother had done for us.

Later, in our indulgent teen years, Eva and I had been very much aware of their poverty and we resented it, like total brats. We had schemed how to find and marry rich men, and for me, how to have a high paying career to support myself. Eva had never wanted a career. All she had ever wanted was to be taken care of. In retrospect, I wasn’t even sure she had been as materialistic as me. Her needs were to be loved, nurtured, protected, taken care of. Sadly, I didn’t think she had gotten any of that with Ricardo. Just the money. Which didn’t matter anyway. Whatever teen lust we’d had for possessions, I knew mine had dissipated.

This was the end result of marrying for money—a pampered prison.

But what was my need? I was no longer sure and that scared me because I always craved a purpose. I had to know my next move.

I wanted to finish my career and get a decent job. But that was a goal, not my needs. What did I need?

Wester’s eyes popped into my head and I groaned out loud. “You’re an idiot. A complete and total idiot.”

Yet when I finally fell asleep, exhausted from stress and terror, I dreamed about Wester.

We’re in love, he said. Remember that.

Even in my sleep, I felt an ache. A deep melancholy craving for what I could never have.

And I didn’t even know why.

A lizard stared me as I sat in the bushes waiting for the dawn. I had no plan. No big fucking plan other than to try to Rambo-style my way back into Benito’s house and rescue Olivia. I couldn’t leave her here not knowing what might happen to her. That would be the ultimate dick move. I had seen her abduction and it was my responsibility to make sure no harm came to her. And I couldn’t go back to Ricardo, who didn’t even believe Olivia had been kidnapped. He had also fired me, so it was dicey if he would even let me onto his property.

So I was sitting and thinking and staring at the lizard, who was a cute little green guy, zipping over the rocks next to my foot. I couldn’t get Olivia out of my head. She’d gotten under my skin, and that was the biggest surprise of all here, and unnerving. There was something so elemental about her. She was a mix of sweet and sour, strong and soft. A woman who would love with a fierceness and be loyal as hell. Some guy would be a lucky motherfucker one day.

I was squatting and my thighs were starting to burn. “This is stupid,” I told the lizard. “I should just be a dick and leave. Ricardo will ransom her.”

But I couldn’t do that and I knew it. Everything in me revolted against the very idea, and it had nothing to do with her being gorgeous and fascinating. It had to do with her being an unsuspecting bystander who had been dragged into something beyond her control that she didn’t even understand. She was not going to be collateral damage to a drug deal gone wrong on my watch.

I was confident that Benito wouldn’t let any of his staff fuck with her or hurt her for now, given my relationship with her. Or what they thought was my relationship. A flash of her beneath me crying out in pleasure popped into my head. Damn, she had been delicious. I didn’t think I had a lot of time though before someone in that house lost his patience.

The security cameras were strategically placed around the property, but I suspected they did a rotating sweep. The water side would be the least protected. It was also the most obvious and noisy. There was no way I could get out on a boat, even if I had one, which I didn’t. I’d come by car and had parked down the street. The only option was crash and grab.

As soon as she appeared anywhere out of that house I was just going to brazen my way in and haul her out.

Fucking suicide mission, that’s what it was. But I could hear Olivia sighing, her eyes glassy from her orgasm, and knew that if she had given herself to me like that based on my word, I had to do everything I could to get her out of there. She trusted me. With her body. With her life.

For once, I was going to be the man worthy of that trust.

I woke up with a start, a loud knock on the door. For a second, I had no idea where I was, but then I remembered. I was trapped at Benito’s house. Sitting straight up in bed, I didn’t respond to the knock, just listened. The door was opening. Yanking my robe over my chest, I braced myself to face the ugly bodyguard who had hit me. But it was a woman in her fifties, a smile covering her round face. She was wearing a maid’s uniform, her dark hair up in a bun. Relief coursed through me.

She had a bundle of towels and something else in her hand and I gave her a tentative, “Hello?”

“Good morning. Mr. Benito has breakfast for you on the lanai with the other girls. He sent clothes for you to wear.”

Um...other girls? Were there other prisoners here? Plus, she made it sound like I was just a houseguest. I should be grateful, yet it was all so freaking weird I didn’t know what to think. “Thanks.” I took the bundle from her.

The clothes he had sent for me was a bikini and a cover up. Seriously? It was black, with gold rings on each hip and one between the boobs. The sheer cover up had a cheetah print. Benito was most definitely a cliché in his drug dealer tastes. “Where is the lanai?” Sadly, I was actually grateful for the bathing suit. I wanted my vagina covered, even if it was just a scrap of black nylon. I was also hungry, which was ridiculous considering the situation. I should be too stressed to eat, but on the contrary, I was starving.

“I’ll show you once you get dressed.” She just stood there in the doorway. There was a man’s arm behind her, though his body wasn’t visible. My guard.

I didn’t say a word, just went into the bathroom and shut the door. I put on the suit and splashed water on my face and used the hairbrush that had been in a basket with other toiletries. Everything was new in manufacturer’s wrappings, and I thought it was nuts even as I yanked the brush aggressively through my hair. I actually welcomed the pain. It kept my focus.

Outside by the pool there were bistro tables clustered around a buffet table, which held a breakfast spread. There were three other women of various age and coloring sitting around, drinking from champagne flutes and noshing. What the hell? One waved to me and smiled. “Hi, do you want to sit with us? I’m Shelly.”

If she was a prisoner, she was hella cheerful. “Hi Shelly, I’m Olivia.”

“This is Sophia,” she said, gesturing to the brunette sitting next to her eating a bagel with cream cheese. “We’re Benito’s girlfriends.”

My eyebrows shot up before I could stop the reaction. I had never met a man with two girlfriends. It was none of my business and I could frankly care less, but it did catch me off guard. Also, my eyes wandered over to the third woman, who was sitting by herself.

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