Chapter Twenty-Six
M y arm around her waist went taut as some greasy-haired poser walked right up and into her personal space as he leaned close to her face.
Not taking her last night or this morning in the shower had been its own brand of torture. But watching every fuck with a dick, including her asshole assistant, Harrison, hit on her for the past two hours at the opening was hell. Every asshole who looked at her, I scrutinized, wondering if it was him. The current asshole excluded. He looked too damn high to rub together two sticks, let alone set off a car bomb.
His eyes crazy bloodshot, he shook his head at Calandra. “Dude,” he exhaled.
Calandra stood perfectly poised in her low-cut dress that was driving me crazy. “Hello, Franklin. Thank you so much for coming out to support your art, and for being a part of the opening this evening.”
He shook his head harder, like he was trying to clear the fog away. “Listen.” He glanced on either side of him. “I think someone is like, looking at Cecile.” He abruptly stepped back a foot, made a detonation sound with his mouth and spread his hands out in a mock explosion arc. “This could be baaaaaaaaaad.”
Suddenly on hyperalert, I dropped my hand from her shoulders, ready to pull my piece.
“Franklin,” Calandra placated. “The paintings are very good. People are going to want to look at them. We talked about this.”
Franklin stepped right back in Calandra’s face. “But someone was looking at Pussy. Up close. ” His eyes went wide as fuck .
My arm shot in front of him, and I pushed the fucker back. “All right, big guy, you made your point. Step back from my woman.”
My height, my size, my tone, it had zero effect on him.
His head pivoted and his stoned-out gaze focused on me. “Dude.” Leaning into my hand on his chest, he shook his head once. “Did you see the bro getting right on up in Cecile’s business? He like…” He held his hands up, palms flat and facing each other, and made a pressing motion without actually touching his hands together. “His face was this close to her pussy… On Pussy. Like, right on the painting.” He slapped his hands together. “He could’ve touched it .”
What the absolute fuck?
“Jesus Christ,” Collins muttered in my ear through the comm. “How fucking high is he?”
“He’s not the one,” Sawyer chimed in.
No shit. “Step back, Franklin.”
His head started shaking like a damn bobble toy. “You don’t understand.”
“Franklin,” Calandra cut in. “What exactly is the problem?”
Franklin whipped his head to look at her and put his hand right in front of his face. “This guy got this close to my Pussy.”
She smiled politely. “He was enjoying your craft, Franklin.”
“No, no, no,” he insisted, dropping his hand. “You don’t understand. He got that close to her to do you know what.” He looked pleadingly at me. “I can’t have dudes that close to my woman’s pussy.”
Okay, hold up. “You painted a picture of your woman?”
His face distorted into a caricature of confusion. “Who else would I paint?”
“And you painted a”— fuck —“picture of her naked?”
His eyebrows were still halfway up his forehead. “Yeah.”
Jesus. “Up close?”
“Super. Like…” He held his hands out about two feet apart. “ That up close. ”
Jesus fucking Christ. “And then you gave the painting to Ms. Paradis so she could show it?”
“Dude. Is this leading somewhere? Because you lost me.”
“Definitely not the dude,” Collins said in my comm.
“What did you think would happen when you gave permission to have your paintings displayed at an art show?” I stupidly asked.
His hands hit his face, he stumbled back and the head shaking resumed. “ Dude .” He abruptly stepped back toward Calandra. “Why is he harshing on Cecile?”
“Franklin.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “People love the paintings.”
Like the flip of a fucking switch, he stood up straight, his eyes bugged the fuck out and his mouth popped open. “They do?”
She smiled. “Yes, Franklin, they really do. Your paintings are exquisite.”
Christ. Pussy paintings were exquisite ?
I moved my hand to the small of Calandra’s back. “Nice talking to you, Franklin. Calandra needs to mingle. See you around.” I guided her away and waited until we were out of earshot. “Who the fuck is that?”
She forced a smile at some older woman across the room and waved. “He really is a very talented artist.”
“He’s seriously painting his woman naked, up close and personal?” I’d been standing in this gallery for hours, scanning every inch, every fuck who walked through the door, and not once did I notice a fucking pussy painting.
She gave a small smile. “He’s an abstract artist. You would never know what you were actually looking at if he didn’t title his pieces with… extreme detail.”
Jesus. Now I was curious. “How much detail?” I scanned the room again. Her fucking assistant was taking a credit card from an elderly couple. Still none of the guests fit the profile.
She walked toward a red painting. “You can read for yourself.”
I glanced at the painting that looked like a red tunnel with about a dozen different shades of brown speckled over everything in a random pattern that could’ve been the inside of a flower. Then I looked at the title.
Cecile’s Rank Red Cunt #5
“You have got to be shitting me.” I stared at the painting a second longer.
Collins chuckled in my ear.
“What’s the title?” Sawyer asked.
“Mixed company,” I muttered. “I’m not repeating it.”
Calandra looked up. “Excuse me.”
“Comm,” I explained.
She nodded.
“Friendlies,” Collins murmured. “On your six.”
I turned and blinked. Then I smiled. “What the fuck are you doing here?” I held my hand out to Talon Talerco, the hospital corpsman assigned to our Marine unit for a couple tours in Afghanistan. He was a relentless flirt with the women, but he knew his shit on the battlefield. He’d saved more of us than I could count. “Not that I’m not happy to see you.”
Talerco shook my hand, but he reached for Calandra, leaning in to kiss her. “What’s happenin’, sexy? Rumor has it you’re sportin’ a new man,” he drawled in his southern twang.
“Mr. Talerco.” Calandra smiled. “So good to see you.”
Wait. She fucking knew him?
Neil Christensen, a Danish Special Forces guy we’d served with, stepped up behind Talerco.
Talerco slapped the back of my shoulder and laughed. “Take a breather there, Rower. I don’t know her like you know her.” He winked at her. “But she’s a beauty.”
“Watch it.” Fucking prick. I hated the nickname he’d given me after the video had gone viral. I tipped my chin at Christensen, who was the single scariest motherfucker I’d ever met, both on and off the battlefield, but I didn’t offer my hand. Neil Christensen didn’t shake hands. “Christensen.”
He made eye contact but didn’t say shit before turning to Calandra. “Ms. Paradis.”
“Mr. Christensen.” She smiled, but not as much as she’d smiled for Talerco.
Okay, fuck this. “I give. How do you all know each other?”
“Mr. Christensen buys art from the gallery for his properties.” Calandra smiled again at Neil. “We have several new pieces today, if you’re in the market.” She glanced at Talerco. “And Mr. Christensen graciously introduced me to Mr. Talerco. How is the new house, by the way?”
Talon grinned. “Full of art, darlin’, thanks to you.” He turned to me and his smile dropped. “Rumor has it your girlfriend’s got a fuckin’ pyro after her with a penchant for water approaches. Anythin’ we can do?”
I wasn’t surprised Talerco knew what was going on, he and Luna were close friends, but I didn’t want to make Calandra any more tense than she’d been all day. “Everything’s under control.” For now. But I was edgy as fuck about the after-party.
Talon glanced at Neil, and Neil barely tipped his chin. Talon smiled at Calandra and held out his arm. “Why don’t you show me whatcha got, darlin’.”
Not fucking pleased to have her more than a foot away from me, I let Talerco walk her off. He’d keep her safe, but more importantly, I’d picked up on the look he and Neil had exchanged.
Christensen didn’t waste any time. The second they were out of earshot, he looked at me. “The assistant,” he clipped.
Watching Talerco walk off with Calandra, I frowned. “Harrison or Genevieve?”
“The male.”
“He’s clean.” I’d gotten the intel from base last night after she’d fallen asleep in my arms. He’d checked out. Just like every other fuck that was here .
Neil didn’t respond.
I glanced up at him. The fucker was six and half feet and built like a damn Viking. “What do you know?”
He didn’t answer. His steel gaze cut across the room, and I followed it to where Harrison stood. Then he looked back at me. “Look deeper.”
Shit . Neil was a lot of things, but wrong was never one of them. “You get that, Collins?” I spoke into the comm.
“On him,” Collins answered.
“I don’t want him making it to the party when he leaves here,” I warned. “Do what you have to.”
Collins moved to the corner behind Harrison. “Copy.”
“Calling Luna to see what he can find out,” Sawyer interjected. “Ask Christensen if he has any other intel, anything specific.”
I didn’t fucking ask. Sawyer didn’t know Neil. If Neil knew anything more, he would’ve said. I nodded at Neil. “Thanks.”
“You are welcome,” he replied in his Danish-accented English as he stared after Talerco and Calandra. “Take care of the princess.”
I glanced up at him again. Christensen didn’t ever use extra words. “You knew who she was before today.”
“I always knew.” He kept staring straight ahead.
The fucker was omniscient, I’d give him that, but he never did anything without a reason, and he certainly never said anything without a reason. I picked up on what he wasn’t saying. “Why are you really here?”
“I know her father.”
Holy fucking shit. “Does she know this?” I wanted to know how he knew her father, but Neil Christensen wouldn’t tell you shit he didn’t want you to directly know.
“No.”
In other words, don’t fucking tell her. “Why you telling me?”
“She is the daughter of a friend.” He leveled me with a look only he could give. “Do not hurt her.”
I stared right back. “You spend a lot of time on Naximos?”
“Never been. ”
I waited, seeing if he would fill in the blanks.
Even though his expression never changed, Neil looked at me with complete irritation. “One of the men I served with is now one of his personal bodyguards,” he added.
Damn. “Small world.”
“It grows smaller with each person you meet,” Neil stated.
Keeping one eye on Harrison, still trying to wrap my head around the information Neil had just dumped, I nodded. “Just so you know, I’m not gonna hurt her.”
Neil didn’t have time to respond.
Talerco came back with Calandra and grinned. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen a group of paintin’s named with such enthusiasm.”
“The artist is very talented,” Calandra defended.
“Talented at somethin’, all right,” Talerco added with a chuckle.
“Heard back from Luna,” Sawyer interrupted through the comm. “He ran the background on Harrison again, did it himself this time. He’s says it’s clean, too clean… Hold.”
I glanced across the space. Sawyer met my gaze as he hung up, then shook his head once.
“Alias,” he said quietly thru the comm. “Luna’s still digging. He sent Tank to his place to do recon.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. How the hell did I miss this?
Pissed off at myself for missing the shit that was right under my nose, I glanced briefly at Neil and tipped my chin, then did the same to Talon. Keeping one eye on Harrison, I reached for Calandra. “Time to wrap it up and get you out of here.”
Talerco and Christensen moved, taking up position on either side of us.
I scanned the gallery again. “Collins, Sawyer, we’re wrapping it up. Crowd’s thinned, we’re out.” I needed to get her out of here ASAP.
“I can’t leave yet,” Calandra protested, not noticing yet how Neil and Talon had positioned themselves.
“Your assistant’s here. He’ll handle it.” I barely kept my voice civil. “ Time to check on Genevieve anyway,” I added, hoping she’d take the bait. She’d left Genevieve in charge of the party until she got there, and that woman was a hot mess.
Calandra glanced around at the couple dozen people still milling about, then looked to where Harrison was standing. “I’ll let him know I’m leaving.”
“Me and Vikin’ll take care of it, darlin’.” Talon smiled reassuringly. “Besides, I might wanna part with some of my hard-earned cash on my way out. And you know Vikin’s always got a new high-rise goin’ up.” Leaning down, he kissed her cheek. “Have fun with Rower. Don’t break his pretty boy heart.”
“Rower?” Calandra asked.
Talon chuckled. “You must not have seen the video yet.”
Calandra’s cheeks flushed, but she ignored his comment. “Yes, well, thank you both for coming. As always, I appreciate your patronage.”
“Nothin’ doin’, darlin’.” Talon smiled, and he and Neil went toward Harrison.
Putting my arm around her shoulders, I led her toward the back exit. “Sawyer,” I murmured through the comm. “You’re coming with us.”
He was already moving. “Copy that. On your six.”
I led Calandra toward the back exit, and this time she didn’t protest. Stopping next to the door, I waited and Sawyer bypassed us, heading out first.
Fifteen seconds later, he spoke through the comm. “Clear.”
I hustled Calandra to the SUV as Sawyer got behind the wheel of the Escalade behind us. Opening her door, I took her hand to help her up and cold metal hit the back of my head.
“ Don’t move.”