Page 22 of Guarded

Evangeline begins to tell me how much she hates me. How I’ve ruined her life. Seconds later, I feel it. The scorching hot water that hits my upper chest.

A scream escapes me as my body jolts up. Her fist comes flying down onto my face, and I cry out.

I cry out, but nobody hears me.

I hatethat these memories plague me at the most inconvenient of times. I’d spent half my life repressing them, but it was inevitable to avoid the triggers of my trauma. What triggered this was different.

The look in Ariella’s eyes, the concern on her face. I never take my shirt off around anyone. Especially not women. I always feared the pity in their eyes. The women I associated with didn’t care about my past, though. They didn’t care if I took my shirt off. They only cared about the escape.

The orgasm.

Freedom.

Praise and release.

I heard Ari screaming and didn’t care about the fucking scars. Seconds were barely spared when I took off down the hallway. Finding a shirt was the least of my concerns.

Knowing Ari, she will eventually bring it up. It was in her nature. I’d cross that bridge when I got there, but vulnerability was not my strong suit.

“How can you be eating right now?” Jasper asks, pulling me from my inner turmoil.

This whole day had been a shit show from the moment I woke up. From not being any closer to finding Tala to finding Ariella in that apartment. I still have a million questions.

“Is there something else I should be doing?” I ridicule Jasper before taking another bite of the tuna sandwich.

Ari had been leaving a week’s worth of them for me since she noticed I had eaten one of hers. I was always hungry when I got home from the late-night gun runs. Expecting her to say something, I was surprised when she made more.

She did things that made me see her in a new light. Her family always sees her as naïve, but it’s just in her nature to be kind and to think of others before herself. After being around monsters my whole life, she is a comforting presence.

My dominant needs and desires pry on the inside of me every time she touches me. She was not one of the submissives I contracted to be a distraction. There was a line between us that I could not cross.

But it was things she did like this. Like a fucking tuna sandwich that made me want to return the favor. Praise her for all her efforts. Pleasure her. Barry myself deep into her while she cried out my name.

She has no idea what it does to me when she calls me Sir. The erotic images of her on her knees are the only thing driving my dick to get hard these days. I’ve convinced myself I was busy, and that’s why I hadn’t called an escort, but the truth was my dick only wanted one girl—the one I could not have.

Not just because there was a ten-year age gap but because she was about to be Preston Cuevas’s wife. The husband thing wasn’t my thing. Unless he wanted me to fuck her while he watched, then who was I to refuse my services.

“Hey, you got another one of those, brother?” Louie asks, eyeing the sandwich.

I was comfortable reclining back on the bike with my feet propped up while we waited for the Russians to meet us. However, the fact that Ariella made these sandwiches for me makes me hesitant to share.

Prospects were required to go on runs. I feel bad for the guy, though. His sister was an addict, and the state threatened to take her three kids. Louie stepped in, taking full custody until she got out of rehab. He was a good guy, and these night jobs were straining on him.

Dropping my feet, I get up and walk to the back of my bike. I reach in my saddlebag and then hand him one of the extra sandwiches I brought.

Reaching back inside the bag for my cigarettes, I freeze when Louie’s high-pitched voice starts to mimic that of a young girl.

“Nero, remember to take your vitamins. X-o-x-o—Ari.” I turn to see him reading the quote directly from the sandwich bag.

Fuck. I forgot she did that.

That woman wrote notes everywhere, on the bathroom mirror, on sticky notes, and on fucking sandwich bags. I shoot Louie with a glare.

“Haven’t you ever heard, ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’?”

I grab another sandwich and toss it to Jasper. He catches it and continues to stare at me with a smug look. I respond with my middle finger before pulling out my package of Marlboro reds. Louie’s moaning while he devours the sandwich.

“Dude, I don’t know how you aren’t walking around without a constant erection around her.” He says with a mouthful.

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