The Alpha Bodyguards Books #4-6

Chapter Two

F our hours later, they were all drunk.

“Holy shit, y’all can drink.” Her eyes glassy, Mercy smiled.

Ty leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. His disapproving gaze took in his sister, but then he turned toward the bar for the seventh time to look at a blonde who was sitting with two friends. “Watch your intake, Merc.”

Rollins gripped Ty’s shoulder. “She’s fine, Staff.” Sloppy, he grinned at Mercy. “Totally fine.” He winked. “Aren’t you, sweetness?”

Rolling her eyes, Mercy stood. “On that note, I’m going to the little girl’s room.” No sway in her step despite the five beers she’d had, she wove her way between the tables toward the restrooms in back.

Ty slapped the back of my head. “Quit fucking staring at her ass.”

“I wasn’t.” I glanced at Rollins, who actually was watching Mercy’s ass. Shamelessly. “I was making sure she didn’t have a problem getting to the restroom.” The ratio of guys to girls in this bar was a joke.

“Hey,” Ty snapped at Rollins before glancing at me. “Both of you, listen the fuck up.”

We each looked at Ty. I was sober. Rollins wasn’t.

Ty pointed toward the restroom. “That is my sister.” He looked between us. “Either of you fuck her, or fuck with her, I’ll kill you myself. She deserves better than some asshole who’s one deployment away from an early grave.”

“Oh come on, Ty.” Rollins smiled, but his tone was tight. “Don’t you think it’s time to let Mercy make her own decisions? She’s a grown-ass woman.”

“ She’s my sister ,” Ty ground out.

Rollins leaned back in his chair. “That she is, and you taught her well. Seems to me, she can handle herself.”

“You better pray to God she doesn’t have to handle herself around you.” Ty pushed back in his chair. “I’m going to the bar.” He glared at Rollins. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll come with me.”

Rollins smirked, and Ty stood.

“I’m warning you both for the last time.” Ty glanced at me but tipped his chin toward Rollins. “Keep an eye on him.” He walked toward the blonde at the bar.

Rollins stared after him. “Do you believe that shit?”

“He’s right.”

Rollins turned to look at me. Studying me for a moment, he broke out in a grin. “Damn, Vos. Never pegged you as competition, but that was well played.”

“I’m not playing. I’m stating fact.”

A brunette walked past our table and glanced at me, but she smiled at Rollins.

Rollins smiled back and tipped his chin before looking my way again. “And what fact is that? That you don’t have a chance with Asher’s sister?”

Coming from the direction of the bar and not the restroom, Mercy set two cold beers and a water down. “He’s got more of a chance than you do, player.” She sank back down into the chair between us.

Rollins chuckled. “Burn, darling, burn.” He leaned forward, took the beer Mercy had just bought him and tapped it to her bottle. “Well played.”

I fought a smile for the woman who’d captivated my attention. “Thank you for the water.”

Looking at me, her voice softened. “You are most welcome.”

“Oh come on, what am I?” Rollins whined. “Chopped liver?”

She smirked before taking a drag of her beer. “By the way, Rollins, my brother told me to tell you to get your ass over to the bar. Seems he needs a wingman for all those blondes.” She paused for a beat, then dropped the Asher brand of honesty. “And he, like me, is on to your bullshit pickup lines.”

“Tell you what.” Smirking, Rollins pushed his chair back and stood, but then he leaned over to Mercy. “I’ll go smile, make small talk, pretend I give a fuck about those women hitting on your brother, then I’ll come back here, where I really want to be, and we’ll have a real drink before we close this place down and go home together. What do you say?”

Mercy looked at me. “Do you believe this shit?”

“No.” Yes. I’d seen it before. Many times.

She looked back at Rollins. “At what point did you become delusional?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one, baby.” Rollins amped up his smile. “The second I laid eyes on you.”

Mercy burst out laughing, and Rollins stood back up to his full height. With a wink, he sauntered off to the bar.

“Damn.” Still smiling, Mercy shook her head. “Let me guess, he’s always like that.”

Without fail. “Always.”

Her expression sobered, and she focused on me. “But you’re not.”

“Not in the least.”

“So what’s your story? You haven’t said five words all night.”

I watched Rollins at the bar with Ty and the three women. The blonde Ty wasn’t talking to said something, and Rollins threw his head back and laughed. Several people at the bar turned to look at Rollins and smiled as if his humor was infectious.

I glanced back at Mercy and wished like hell she wasn’t prettier every time I looked at her. “You can do better than him.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s it? I ask you about you and you warm me off your friend?”

“I never said he was my friend.”

“Cold, Vos.” She smiled. “But I like it.”

I liked her. A hell of a lot. Which only made me wish that Ty was wrong, but her brother was right. She deserved more than a Marine who was one deployment away from an early grave. Which made not engaging with her even harder. This girl deserved more than someone who’d show up for a weekend between deployments or not at all. She had a mouth like a Marine, but she was sweet and funny and she took no shit.

She was perfect.

But I hadn’t forgotten what’d happened before we came out. “You never told me why you were sad earlier.”

She shrugged in an attempt to be casual. “Nothing. I was just being stupid.”

“About?”

She sighed. But then she surprised the hell out of me and told me. “Recent breakup with a class A douche.”

“Sounds like you’re better off.” She was better off, but I chose my words carefully.

Taking a long drag of her beer, she shrugged.

Not liking the sorrow in her eyes, I changed my answer. “I’m telling you. You’re better off.”

She swirled her beer in a ring of condensation and was quiet for a long moment. “I thought I loved him.” Inhaling, she let it out slow. “I let myself believe he was the one.”

Irrational anger surged at the thought of her with someone else. “Is that what you want?”

“What?” She almost laughed. “The white picket fence, the two-point-five kids and a happily ever after?”

Her tone off, I couldn’t read her. “Yes.”

“I thought I did until the fucker cheated on me.”

Anger fisted my hand under the table. “A real man doesn’t cheat.”

Her voice went quiet. “You a real man?”

I turned to look at her and then I waited. When her gaze finally met mine, I answered. “Always.”

Her throat moved with a swallow. “And yet you aren’t hitting on me.”

“No, I’m not.” She wasn’t ready for me.

She looked down at the beer in her hand. “Why’s that?”

I waited.

She didn’t look up.

Shifting, I leaned closer.

She still didn’t look up.

Under the table, I put my hand on her leg. I had to know. “Is Mercy your real name?”

Her chest rose with an inhale. “No.”

Saying nothing, I stroked my thumb across her thigh.

“Kyrie Eleison Asher,” she said quietly before clearing her throat. “Kyrie Eleison. Lord have mercy. It’s what my mother said when I was born, and it’s what she named me after spending all night in labor then having three-year-old Ty acting like a holy terror in the hospital room the next morning.” She looked up. “Lucky me, huh?”

“Kyrie Eleison is a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

She blinked.

“I’m not hitting on you right now, because you deserve better.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Pres—”

“In two years when I’m not active duty, I’m coming to find you.” That was a promise. And I never made promises. To anyone.

Exhaling, she shoved my hand off her leg. “Two years is a long time.”

A lifetime or a blink. Perception was relative.

I said nothing.

She aimed at reason. “Just I’m pointing out the obvious here, but you’ll have time off in those two years.”

I didn’t work that way. I’d made a commitment to my country and the men I served with. “A distracted Marine—”

“Is a dead Marine,” she finished for me, looking unhappy. “Let me guess, my brother taught you that?”

Seeing men die in war taught me that. “Your brother is a smart man.”

She raised one eyebrow. “And you are?”

“Determined.”

Leaning back in her seat, she shook her head. “You, Preston Vos, are a handful.”