Benson
Arnaud Barbier hid his daughters’ identities better than the US Marshals hid witnesses. After tucking Esme into bed with Parker, I’d needed a distraction or I was going to crawl in behind her and fuck her hard. But I refused to cause her more pain. If we’d known she was a virgin, last night would have gone differently.
How Parker hadn’t nutted when he’d seen her blood smeared all over his cock had to have been a miracle. I’d been seconds away from bursting when I’d seen those droplets running down her pussy and pooling under that gorgeous ass.
Nothing had been sexier. More beautiful. At first sight, she’d unlocked a possessiveness inside me that I’d never experienced before. At the sight of her naked body spread open for us, virginal blood spilling from her core, madness had taken over.
Once we got her back to our home, we hadn’t wasted time caring for her. She’d remained silent through it all, which bothered me and I wasn’t sure why. She’d been a bright flame all evening. Every man who saw her at Inferno couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Except maybe Trevor, which was a good thing. I didn’t want to have to kill my old high school buddy. Luckily for him, he’d been so enthralled with Esme’s friend, he’d barely glanced at my little obsession.
Washing her hadn’t been enough for any of us, but Parker had been insane with the need to care for her. Of the three of us, he was the one who was normally most in control of his emotions, but since the night we’d caught a glimpse of Esme, none of us had been ourselves. My friends didn’t know it, but I’d scoured the security feed at Ignite after we’d first seen her. I’d tried to find an angle that gave me a better view of her, her friends, anything that might lead me to finding her. But she’d stayed in the shadows, making it impossible to get a read with my tech company’s facial recognition programming.
We’d brought her home, because there was nowhere else she belonged more. Malcolm had set up a room for her after seeing her at Ignite. One with a football-field-sized bed, a bathroom made for pampering our woman, and a closet she could spend a billion dollars trying to fill, with room to spare. While he and Parker had gotten Esme ready to leave the club, I’d snatched the bloodstained sheets. No way did anyone else get to see the proof of how innocent our Esme was. They were a contract, a blood pact, our fucking promise to love, cherish, and protect our woman.
After leaving Parker to watch over our sleeping love in her bed, I went down to my office and started searching for her online. She needed sleep and time for her body to heal. Parker had ripped her badly when he’d unknowingly popped her sweet cherry, but it could have just as easily been Malcolm or me. Until she was fully healed, none of us was going to get inside her. But I knew my restraint was weak, so I needed to stay as far away from her and a bed as possible until then.
Sleep wasn’t an option either, which left work. Any attempts to do even the most basic of background checks on Esme were unsuccessful. If I didn’t already know Barbier had two daughters, I would have assumed they didn’t exist. But my security company had a contract with the man, so I had more access than most.
Yet not even my database could give me more than the bare minimum, and that was their names. Esme and Eloise. There were no passports in either daughter’s name. No medical history. No school records. That told me Arnaud used an alias for them. After six frustrating hours of searching, I was no closer to uncovering more details about the woman who had dropped into my life like the life-saving care package I so desperately needed.
She’d mentioned her sister, her nose scrunching up as she described the other woman. A few inches shorter. Blond. Brown eyes. Birthmark on the inside of her thigh. Supposedly Eloise. I’d known immediately who she was talking about and had had a moment of panic.
Of course, more than a few people had birthmarks on the inside of their thighs, but it was too much of a coincidence that I already knew someone who looked like she had detailed. Shit would get complicated fast and ugly if I didn’t figure out whether Esme’s sister was who I thought she was.
Squeezing the back of my neck with one hand, I dialed a number I knew well but wasn’t stupid enough to have programmed into my contacts. Ghost was the best of the best when it came to information-gathering. If he couldn’t do what his clients asked of him, then no one could. The man had shut down entire countries with a few keystrokes of a computer.
Ghost didn’t work for anyone, not private or governmental, so he could stay neutral. But I suspected he used his superpowers for good more often than evil, given the number of human trafficking rings that had been shut down by him. No one knew what he looked like or even what country he originated from, and I was certain he used a voice-altering app of his own making to further hide his identity.
“You have thirty seconds.” That was always how he answered anyone’s calls. Whether a person was done speaking or not, Ghost hung up after thirty seconds. No exceptions, ever. If anyone attempted to trace the call, it would send them on a wild chase across the globe, his GPS simultaneously pinging off cell towers around the world.
It took me less than half the time to give him a summary of what I needed. No sooner had I finished speaking than the line went silent. Tossing my phone aside, I got back to my own research. Ghost would take the money from my account whenever he was done. Whatever payment he wanted for this job, I’d gladly shell out. Knowing everything about Esme and her sister was crucial, not only to my own happiness and that of my two best friends, but Esme’s most of all.
When the doorbell blared, I pulled up the front door security feed on one of the four other screens connected to my computer. I saw two men in suits standing at the door. From their stance alone, I could tell they had a history in the military, but the stitching on their jackets was so detailed, I doubted an entire year’s worth of salary would cover the cost of their suits.
Zooming in on them, I noticed the communication devices in their ears. Secret service didn’t dress as poshly as they did, but that didn’t mean they weren’t in the private sector. I paid my men well, especially the ones who covered personal security. Babysitting politicians in war-torn countries so they could win the hearts of their constituents came with a hefty price tag.
But what the fuck were those two doing at our door?
Immediately, I thought about Esme. Being a Barbier came with risks. Even if Arnaud kept his daughters’ identities on the down-low, they would still require bodyguards.
Rolling my chair back from the desk, I stood and jogged through the house to the front door. Before I could reach it, the doorbell went off a few more times, becoming more insistent until one of those assholes was pressing on the button. As I swung the door open, I heard Malcolm stomping up behind me, his displeased grunts barely registering as I took in the two men on our front steps.
“Can I help you?” I tried to keep my voice neutral and diplomatic, but it came out as a bark.
The one on my right cocked a brow, a half smirk pulling at his lips, but otherwise, he didn’t respond, while the other adjusted his jacket before folding his hands at his waist. “We’re here to collect Esme.”
“The fuck you are,” Malcolm growled behind me.
Shifting, I got in my friend’s way so he didn’t get an assault—or murder—charge slapped on him. There were too many cameras on the buildings and light poles around the house. Too many eyes that could potentially peep through windows and witness the carnage that Malcolm could unleash. Our neighbors had as much money as we did, so there would be no paying off witnesses. Maybe with a little blackmail, but the mess would be too big to cover up before the cops showed up.
His weight hit me, but my legs were already planted, so he bounced back a step. “I got this, man. Let Parker know we have company, yeah?”
Malcolm hesitated, his breaths coming in snarls more than pants, but after a few seconds, he turned and stomped toward the stairs, while I kept my eyes trained on the two men still standing on the other side of the doorway. “Names?”
An amused huff came from the one who’d lifted his brows at me. “I’m Astro. This is my partner, Otto. We’re Esme’s security.”
Otto muttered something in French that caused Astro to grin before he spoke in English. “If you would let Esme know we’ve arrived, it would be appreciated, sir. She alerted us that she was ready to leave.”
“When the fuck did she do that?” I snapped. Suspecting she had security, I’d purposely left her phone back at the club after I’d pulled the sheets from the bed and picked up her torn clothes in case anyone attempted to track her.
Then I remembered her smartwatch and swallowed a curse. The band was made of platinum and decorated in diamonds, so I hadn’t given the device much thought. But it was most likely not just a pretty trinket as I’d first thought. Esme had me so twisted up inside, I was making rookie mistakes that would have gotten my friends and me killed during our service years.
Regrouping my thoughts, I stepped back. “Come in.”
Astro shook his head. “Thank you, sir, but we will wait here for Esme.”
“For now,” Otto muttered, rocking back on his heels while looking over my shoulder.
“You’re going to be waiting a while then, because Esme changed her mind. She decided she doesn’t want to leave. Or have you two as her security.” I already had two of my best female operatives in mind to protect my woman. “Don’t worry, though. You will both receive a generous exit package. Unless you want to work directly for me? I have a few spots on a detail going into Syria in a couple days.”
Otto ran his mouth again in French, which I only knew a few words of, but his tone was snarky as hell. Astro coughed to mask another laugh.
“Sorry, sir, but we will have to hear that directly from Esme. The sooner we see and speak to her, the faster we can get out of your way,” Astro said, turning his grin into a grimace. “We need verification that she actually wants to remain here and isn’t being held against her will before we leave her with you and your friends.”
They were fucking hilarious. The two clowns were so close to taking a bullet to the head, and they didn’t even realize it.
Reminding myself that I wouldn’t be able to hide two dead bodies and clean up a crime scene before the cops could be called, I nodded toward the vehicle double-parked in the street. “Is that your ride?”
“Yes, sir,” Otto answered.
“Might want to move it before it gets towed,” I cautioned. “It’s going to take a little while before Esme joins us.”
“There’s not much traffic on this street, sir. But even if there were, they wouldn’t tow us. The plates alone will send the cops driving the other direction. We have diplomatic immunity,” Astro said with a smirk.
Fuck their diplomatic immunity. At least twenty-five of my classified sniper kills had been of some diplomat who posed a threat to national security in one shape or another. They were all off the books. Those kills never happened. Twenty-five out of the seventy unsanctioned kills I’d been tasked with couldn’t be added to my body count. Those seventy tallies didn’t even make up half of the kills I could confirm, which would send everyone at the Pentagon and Langley into hysteria.
Despite the frustration gnawing at me, I calmly shut the door on them. They could stand out there all day and night if they wanted. What mattered was keeping Esme inside and in her bed.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I went straight for Esme’s room. Her door was already open, and I wasn’t surprised to find Malcolm pinning her to the bed. Parker dropped down beside them, his fingers combing her dark tresses back from her face while she moaned Mal’s name.
“You aren’t going anywhere with those two clowns, baby girl,” Mal told her before sinking his teeth into her shoulder. “Not without one of us to watch over you. We have to protect you from all the motherfuckers in the world who will try to steal you away from your daddies.”
“Malcolm,” she whined so prettily. “I’m so close. Please, fuck, please make me come.”
With a groan, he slid down her body, pushing the shirt out of his way so he could keep his mouth attached to her exquisite body on his way to her pussy.
As soon as his mouth latched on to her clit, she started crying in French. Unable to stay away another moment, I crossed to the bed and took the other side. Parker buried his face in her tits, sucking and biting. She clawed at his back with one hand, the other searching blindly until she felt me.
Sinking down beside her, I kissed her, stopping the frantic flow of words I didn’t understand. We were going to have to learn French so we knew what she was saying when she lost the ability to remember English.
She moaned into my mouth, twisting her fingers into my hair as she kissed me back. I would have given up all the billions in my bank accounts to fuck her, but that would only cause her pain. Getting off inside her wasn’t worth even a moment of her hurting.
“,” she whispered, pulling back an inch to catch her breath. “Parker.” Her body arched, bowing up from the bed, her muscles trembling as her release exploded through her. “Malcolm!”