Chapter Six
Noemi
Having a brooding bodyguard boyfriend is the most fun.
It is a beautiful day to be living my life.
I am sitting on the patio beside the pool in a tiny lavender bikini.
He stands over me, pretending to watch the perimeter or take stock or whatever it is bodyguards do.
I happen to know he has adjusted himself about seven times because he is hard because his eyes never leave my body.
"I should ask you to lotion my back for me," I call sing-song playfully, tilting my shades down to peer up at him.
"If you shake that sweet ass at me, it's kitten spanked. I might even leave my handprint on it. Behave, little girl," he growls, adjusting himself again.
Laughing because this really is so much fun, I drop my shades back in place. He is pretending not to be turned on by me. Not to notice how I shift my hips or arch my back just for him to get a better view. Since that day in the garden, he has not tried hiding his focus being locked on me.
Except today is not just a day in the sun for us. Father is hosting a get together for some of his partners. I will be on my best behavior once they start to show up. I even told Neko I would change suits if he wanted. This purple two piece was something I ordered for him.
"Don't threaten me with a good time, Neko," I shoot back, turning on my stomach to do just what he warned me not to. Once I am prone, I give a shake of my ass. Just a little tease. It's fun to tease, I am learning.
Neko rewards me with that deep, low laugh he rarely allows.
It sounds rusty as if he forgot how to make the sound.
I imagine he might have. We've talked a little about our losses, but I fear there is more beneath his stoic facade.
Losing my mother, losing one of my aunts, it was traumatic, for sure.
Neko carries a loss with him that weighs him down.
"Do you intend to taunt me all night, baby?" He whispers low, moving close to crouch beside the lounger I am on.
Lord, I love when he calls me that. When he looks at me the way he is looking at me now. His gaze slides over me slowly, almost as weighted as a touch on my skin. He makes me feel beautiful, sensual. I've never felt any of the things this man makes me feel and this is just the beginning.
"I might. Unless you ask me to behave. I will go change, I will be a good little girl for you," I tease, pushing my shades atop my head.
"Somehow when you say that, it just turns me on. You're so fucking beautiful, princess," he husks, reaching out to brush some hair from my face. "I had no fucking chance when I took your detail, did I?"
"Mm, you might have. Until you snuck into my bedroom, then let me touch you," I tease, bouncing a shoulder then tilting my head to nip at his finger playfully.
"Hmm, you're not wrong. I sealed my own fate.
Look at me, princess," he commands, knowing I will obey.
"I mean it. You're so fucking beautiful.
It's not just those pretty eyes and that perfect mouth," he whispers, tracing a finger across my bottom lip.
"There is something so beautiful deep inside you...
something I couldn't ignore. Something I couldn't look away from. "
Yes, it is good to be living this life. I was so alone for so long. So locked away from the world. Not being touched by anything or anyone. An embrace on occasion from Clara or my auntie Thea. It was not an empty life before Neko, I laughed, I felt things, I experienced things.
Ever since Neko, it’s as if the world has suddenly turned vivid.
Everything feels brighter, more colorful.
Music sounds deeper, food tastes richer, and wine is sweeter.
One by one, he awakened my senses—starting with the first time he let me touch him, the first time he touched me back, kissed me, and made me come with his touch.
"Well, I think you're beautiful deep inside, too," I husk back, pressing my hand to his chest where his heart thumps.
Last night, he did not just come to my bedroom to watch over me. It was the first night he undressed us both and climbed in bed with me. His body looks as if it could be carved from golden marble. It's cut at his waist, thick at his thighs and shoulders, wide across his chest.
His skin is graffitied with beautiful tattoos which he let me touch and kiss all night as he told the story of why he branded them on his skin. Besides that artwork, he is marked by scars that I know run deeper than flesh. He would not talk about those, not yet, but he let me touch them, kiss them.
"I will be on my best behavior with eyes on you," he hums as his gaze drops to my mouth, his tongue coming out to swipe his own lips. "I can't promise anything, I haven't tasted you in hours, princess."
Heat floods between my thighs as I remember explicitly how he tasted me after he first saw me in the bikini. I stepped out of the bathroom earlier to find him waiting. I did buy the suit for him to see me in, after all. It stayed on my body for about ten minutes before I was laid out on my bed.
"I can't wait a moment longer," he panted against my mouth as he tossed the scraps of fabric aside. "I need to taste you. I won't survive sharing you with a crowd of people without the taste of you on my tongue."
"Neko, please," I whimpered as his mouth pressed hot, wet kisses down my throat, across my collar, between my breasts. I cried out as pleasure rocketed through me when his mouth closed around my nipple as his fingers stroked my damp folds open.
"So wet for me to touch you, to taste you, yes," he taunted, rubbing his fingers against my swollen clit.
I bucked beneath him, fingers tangling in his dark hair as he slid down my body.
Lower, lower, pressing kisses across my skin, nipping here, biting there.
Marking my skin where it could be seen in that bathing suit he had torn off me.
He wanted people to know someone had touched me—even they had no idea it was my bodyguard marking my body.
"Jesus, look at her. That pussy is so pretty," he hummed, rubbing his thumbs over the slickness there, spreading me open.
I could have been shy or hesitant, but I never am with him.
I want him to explore me, to learn me, because I want to learn and explore him.
"Tell me it belongs to me. Let me hear you say that perfect pussy is mine and mine alone. "
"Yes, yes, it is," I was the one panting now, arching beneath his touch, seeking more, aching for it.
"Say the words. Let that pretty princess mouth say what I want to hear," he grunted, lowering his head to swipe his tongue just once at my pussy.
"Oh, god. Yes, my pussy belongs to you. It's yours, Neko. I am yours."
"Ah, fuck, she knows it too. Look how wet she got for daddy," he hums, his tongue sliding through me in a slow, salacious lick. "Fuck you taste so sweet, baby. Let me get my fill of you for a little while, yeah?"
Not that I would argue if I wanted to, but he wouldn't let me speak.
Not in words. Just in pleas. In panted cries of pleasure as he sucked and licked at my clit, pushing his tongue inside of me then sucking loudly at the cream dripping from me.
It must be his new favorite treat because he didn't stop eating me until I came so many times, I had to beg him to stop.
"Do you think I forgot? Impossible," I whisper to him now.
Neko smirks, licking his lips as if he can still taste me on them. "I am going to need another taste soon. I am a patient man, just not when it comes to you," he muses, winking at me before he pushes back to his feet.
I go still too because his move is with intent. Someone saw us. Or he saw something he does not approve of. His powerful body is coiled tight as he stands behind my lounger again. All his focus has shifted, he is not my hot boyfriend, he is my brooding bodyguard.
Sitting up, I pull the floral shawl off the back of my lounger, covering up with it.
I can hear voices, heels clicking on pavement, laughter, and the clinking of glasses.
It happens this way sometimes. Father's events start somewhere else and end up here at the estate.
The Lane Estate is known for its parties, some of them have lasted for days.
I am never at these events,, so it was strange that father requested I show up tonight.
Covering myself, I regret putting the sexier two-piece back on earlier.
I was not thinking clearly after what Neko had done to me with his mouth.
Standing, I put on the smile I have been trained all of my life to wear, I grab my glass of wine, and I head for the slowly crowding patio.
"Stick close to me, princess," Neko barks. "He knows I am going to be one step behind all night. I want you closer but...behave," he says the last comment just for me, his hand swatting my backside gently.
He knows that I don't want to be here, on parade at one of my father's parties. I do not want to meet his bogus partners or their devoted, dull women. I am just doing what is asked of me. What I always do.
"Hello, darling," father calls once he sees me, looking to be about a bottle of wine in.
To his men, my father is a terrifying force, but he isn't that monster to me. I'm not blind to how dangerous he is, or that he's to blame for what happened to my mother—yet I still love him. Showing love has never come easily to him, but I still hold onto who he was before she was gone.
My father hiring Neko is proof enough of how much he cares. Whatever threat is lurking in my shadows, whoever is trying to scare—or hurt—me, it frightened him enough to break routine. He gave me Neko: the most capable, confident, and deeply caring man I have ever known.
Bonus: I am falling a little more in love with him every day.
"Hello, father," I call back, letting him draw me in to kiss my cheek.
"Looking lovely. Thank you for doing what you do, Neko," my father sobers to glance past me at the always present brooding figure.
"Doing my job, sir. Is there an expectation on her attendance tonight?"
"Oh, no. I wanted her to meet a possible suitor," my father teases, drawing the word out to show he is not truly partnering me off.
"I've got a partner from Colombia that has a son he wants to hand off to someone.
Meet him, smile, show him how out of your league you truly are, and you've done me a huge favor, darling. "
Neko says nothing but I almost laugh. Pressed so close, I can feel how my father's words upset him.
His entire body coils tight once again. As if this son of my father's partner could ever pose a threat to him.
It is laughable Neko cannot see how head over heels I have been for him since I first Iaid eyes on him.
"I will be polite father. You know how much I hate...these people," I mutter the words as if they're difficult to force out. Father laughs and presses a kiss to my forehead.
"I do indeed. I love you. I see your new keeper has taken a liking to you. How about we be careful with him, yeah?"
Pulling back, I beam at him. There is no way I plan to be careful with Neko Walsh.
I wanted to be reckless from the first moment.
I bite back a gasp of surprise when I feel Neko's hand pass over my hip.
It's gentle, light, just enough for me to know he is there, he is close, and he too has no plans to be careful.
We've long since passed the parameters of being proper.
To my surprise, father does not seem all that bothered by whatever he sees between the two of us.
His gaze shifts and I do not miss his little sigh, letting me know he is keeping his word and expects me to do the same.
"Ah, here he is. Isidro, please say hello to my daughter, Noemi.
Pinot is her favorite, find her a glass, yes? "
Just like that, he passes me off to a tall, dark, and handsome young man. I turn to greet him, uninterested but on my best behavior. Father asked me a favor so I will grant it. I will let this man get me a glass of wine, with Neko's watchful eye—and imposing presence—staying close.
I shift to let him take my hand, biting back a smirk when Neko makes an almost imperceptible sound at the contact. Isidro dips his head to press his mouth to the back of my hand in a chaste greeting. He is everything my father would want for me: polished, put together, and harmless on paper.
"I spoke with your father yesterday," Isidro says as he pulls dark shades from his eyes. I do not miss the once-over he gives me, or the follow-up growl Neko makes. "Mr. Lane said we would have plenty in common, Noemi, and that we should meet. He did not say how absolutely stunning you would be."
"Father loves to orchestrate things," I reply, offering a smooth, polite tilt of my head. I do take the wine he offers, but my pulse isn't fluttering because of the handsome man sitting across from me.
It’s fluttering because of the shadow hovering two steps behind my shoulder.
Neko hasn't moved since this young man touched me. He stands tall in all black, poised to attack if the situation requires it. In a crowd of bathing suits and board shorts he would stand out even if he was not trying to impose his will without saying a word.
"Do you think we..." Isidro pauses mid-sentence, his eyes flicking briefly past me before settling back on my face with a faint, uneasy laugh. "Your father doesn't skimp on protection, does he? He's... a bit intense."
"He's cautious," I say smoothly.
Behind me, there is a faint, bone-on-bone creak as Neko tightens his fists.
The subtle shift in his posture is like a storm gathering inside a small room.
He hates this. He hates the way Isidro’s gaze lingers on all my exposed skin—but mostly he hates that my father ever mentioned me to another man while a dangerous one is out there hunting me.
"Well," Isidro says, reaching out to brush a stray strand of hair from my face, "I hope you'll let me show that you don't need to be cautious with me."
I glance down at his hand, then raise my eyes.
Just past Isidro's head, in the dark reflection of a window, I catch Neko's eyes.
A muscle in his cheek twitches, his jaw set so hard it looks carved from granite.
His gaze burns through the glass, silently daring Isidro to bridge that last inch between us.
A sharp thrill runs down my spine—not for the man offering another glass of Pinot, but for the silent shadow at my back, offering a taste of the only future I truly want.