6. Christian
CHRISTIAN
LA, May, 2 years ago
T here are two things I know for sure in life.
One: I’m not a good man. I’m crude. Chaotic. I’ve killed more men than I can count, and the list of unfortunate souls will probably get longer.
Two: Mila fucking Carpenter is going to be the death of me.
Fucking Carpenter women. I’ve gone toe to toe with some of the most sadistic motherfuckers in this country. Ruthless murderers, Bratva mob bosses, secret CIA “special” agents.
None of them measure up to the three LA princesses I’ve been charged with protecting.
Like wild rabbits, once you get one in the cage, another slips out behind you. In this case, I’m the idiot trying to wrangle them in, and Mila Carpenter is the fucking Houdini bunny rabbit that keeps escaping.
“I need a break, Mom,” Savannah snaps. “Mile gets to go to college. Why can’t I?”
This is the fourth time Savannah has had this same conversation with her mother this month.
The unfortunate part?
Monica doesn’t even remember. She’s usually halfway through a bottle of wine by this time of the night. Tonight is no exception.
“Because you chose to dance,” Monica says, her words slurring as she takes another sip of the dark berry wine in her glass. “So, now, you’ll be a dancer.”
I’m supposed to be dropping Savannah off at the dance studio in half an hour, but judging by the current conversation, I’m guessing she’ll ask me to cover for her again while she sees that little shit, Spike.
Spike is everything you don’t want your daughter dating, complete with a spiked collar—the irony is fucking stupid. I don’t believe Savannah’s actually interested in him, though. If anything, she found the shittiest man she could, just to piss Monica off.
It definitely worked.
“So I’m stuck with it for the rest of my life?” Savannah grits, cheeks burning brightly. “It’s exhausting.”
“Hard work never hurt anyone.”
“Then you do it,” Savannah challenges, and Monica just fixes her with a bored scowl.
“The answer is final, Savannah.”
“What about the apartment you said I could get?”
“When you’re ready,” Monica waves a hand, dismissing her.
“I’m ready now.”
“Are you still sneaking off to see that little trollop? Spam, or whatever his name is?”
“His name is Spike.”
His name is stupid.’
My phone buzzes in my pocket when they launch into the top five reasons why Spike is the biggest dumbass I’ve ever met. I pull it out, gaze narrowing at the name on the screen.
Stepping out of the kitchen, I lift it to my ear.
“Mila.”
It’s been three months since I brought her home and three months of pure fucking torture. She’s fucking everywhere, and I can’t get her out of my head.
What makes it worse is Monica has convinced her to see that little prick friend of Drew’s, Corbin. The kid pisses me off. From the way he touches her to the way he looks at her. Honestly, his being in her presence is bad enough.
A spoiled rich kid—Daddy’s money—who’s never been told no a day in his life. What she fucking sees in him, I’ll never know.
Not that I’m fucking bitter or anything.
He can have her. I can’t. Ironic, isn’t it?
My gaze goes to the family photo painted above the mantel. Mila’s light gray gaze stares back at me, a smile on her face. There’s a sniffle on the other end of the line, and I pause.
She’s crying.
“Where are you?”
“Umm . . .” she breathes, her voice shaky. I step outside into the night and go straight to the Bentley, idling in the drive, waiting for Savannah.
Looks like she’ll be getting her wish, after all.
“I don’t know, but . . . I want to go home.”
I swear, every time I see him, it gets a little harder not to put a bullet in his head.
I pull up my phone, opening the app that tracks her and her sister’s phones. Don’t hate me. Hate Monica. It was her idea to put trackers in them. Not that I’m arguing.
Like I said—Houdini rabbit.
“I’ll find you.”
Mila’s in a house down in Oakwood, and when I pull up, a house party is in full swing. She’s home from college right now for Spring break, and I can’t help but wonder why the fuck she would end up in a place like this.
Mila fucking hates parties.
I don’t believe for a second she cares for the little shit. Like everything, It’s just another way to please her mother.
I park at the curb, and before I can even text her to tell her I’m outside, she rushes out the door. Climbing in the back seat of the car, she wraps her arms around herself, refusing to look at me.
She never sits in the back seat.
“Mila.”
Over the years, I’ve learned how to read other people’s body language. It’s good to know what someone’s true intentions are, even if they’re not willing to share them with you.
She doesn’t look up at my voice, and irritation climbs up my spine. My palm itches on the steering wheel. My chest burns.
Stepping out of the car, I open the back door, gripping her chin and forcing her eyes to mine. Soft silver moons stare at me from red, tear-filled eyes.
“Can we just go?”
“We aren’t leaving until you tell me why you’re upset.”
Her teeth graze her bottom lip, and a shiver rolls through her.
“It’s nothing.” She attempts to pull back out of my grasp, but I hold her there, forcing her to face me. She blinks, a tear slipping down her cheek as those soft gray eyes work their way into my chest.
“Unless you want me to go in there are forcibly remove the dicks from every boy at this party, I suggest you tell the truth.”
She huffs, gaze narrowing on mine, but I don’t care. She can be mad all she wants. No one touches her.
“It’s stupid,” she grumbles, averting her gaze. “Corbin is drunk, and he tried to get me to do stuff. I didn’t want to . . .”
A deathly stillness falls over me.
“And?”
“And he tried to . . . feel me up in the bathroom.” She shakes her head, sawing her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m fine. Just embarrassed.”
For a moment, my ears ring in the silence that follows. I swallow the burning rage, a pit forming in the center of my chest that threatens to swallow me whole. Red creeps into my vision, blood drumming in my ears like war drums on a battlefield.
I’ll fucking kill him.
“Christian, wait!” Mila yells, scrambling to open the door when I slam it shut and start towards the house.
I don’t even look back.
“Get in the car, Mila.”
She makes no move to follow me, and I storm inside, ice slipping through my veins as the scent of weed and cheap beer fills my lungs.
I step through the front door of the house party, ignoring the gazes of the people nearby who stop to stare at me.
“Corbin Luck,” I tell the kid beside me at the entrance, and he just stares like a fucking idiot, trying to blink his way back to reality from whatever shit he’s fucked up on. When I turn to stare at him, he jumps.
“Upstairs. Second door on the left.”
I don’t stick around to hear what he has to say, making my way towards the stairs and weaving through a sea of bodies. On my way, I grab a beer bong from some kid’s hand, beer sloshing all over his face when I do.
“Hey!” he shouts, coughing and sputtering, but one look over my shoulder has him shutting the fuck up.
I take the stairs, ripping the funnel off the top of the hose and tossing it behind me before I stop in front of door number two.
Inside, grunts and moans are muffled by the door, and when I try the handle, it’s locked.
“We’re busy!” Corbin hollers, followed by the giggles of whatever poor, unsuspecting girl he’s got underneath him.
Not for long.
Grabbing the handle, I step back, shoving my shoulder into the door and splintering the wood when it busts open.
Pity.
“What the fuck, man?” Corbin grinds, pulling out of the little brunette underneath him and jumping to his feet. He shoves his dick back in his pants, and I nod at the girl, who takes the hint, wrapping her clothes around herself and running out underneath my arm.
Now it’s just him and I.
“Look, man, whatever she told you, I didn’t do it. She wanted to come tonight.”
I cock my head to the side, a cool, dark clarity slipping through me.
“You put your hands on her,” I say, stepping into the room, and Corbin backs up until his ass is pressed against the far wall. Not surprisingly, a roach climbs up by his head.
“She wanted it,” he explains, his voice filled with the fear I can feel him trembling with. “She keeps trying to get me to fuck her. I thought tonight would be the night.”
I snicker low under my breath.
“Do you have medical insurance, Corbin?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Good.” I nod, slipping the hose between my hands. “You’re going to need it.”
The moment he darts for the door, I’m there, grabbing him by the back of the head and shoving him to his knees. He struggles against me, but I’ve got at least six inches and a hundred pounds on him. Struggling is pointless.
—That’s evident when I tug his arm back, breaking it with a sickening crunch of bones.
“I know that has to hurt like a bitch.”
He cries out in pain, the despair in his voice music to my ears.
I don’t give him time to even register what’s happened before I shove him forward onto the dirty vinyl flooring underneath him, wrapping the hose in my hand around his neck and tugging his head back.
Kneeling over him, he chokes from the lack of air, his screams silenced.
Good. Maybe he’ll learn to fuck with someone his own size from now on. Not a little five-foot-three blonde with the sweetest fucking smile I’ve ever seen.
He’ll learn not to fuck with what’s mine.
“Wrong girl, Corbin.”
“Are you okay?” Mila asks when I slide into the driver’s seat five minutes later. I’m pleased to see she’s made her way to the front.
Again, Mila doesn’t ride in the back.
I don’t look at her because I know if I do and I see even a hair on her head out of place, I’ll go back inside.
“Never better.”
“You’re bleeding,” she gasps, reaching for my hand. Her fingers dance over the blood on my knuckles, and her eyes widen, brimming with tears.
“I’m fine, Mila.” I tug my hand back from her. Most of it’s not even mine.
“Did you kill him?”
“He’ll live,” I murmur darkly. “Put your seatbelt on.”
She swallows thickly, buckling her seat belt, and we pull away from the curb. The lights of Los Angeles flash around us as we make our way out of the city, down the road that will take us toward Malibu, where Parker Estate is located.
She’s quiet, staring straight ahead as we drive, and I can tell something’s on her mind. In the years I’ve been with the Parker family, I can’t even count the number of times I wished I could take a peek inside her mind. See what the hell’s going on in that pretty little head of hers.
“He doesn’t deserve your sympathy, Mila.”
“I know,” she says quietly, hugging her arms around herself. “I don’t feel bad for him.”
“Little liar,” I chuckle humorlessly, pulling through the front gates of the Parker Estate. The mansion sits back from the road on a cliff overlooking the beach below. It’s huge. Way too much for one family. A real California castle where the walls scream with the voices of all the people unfortunate to ever find themselves in the presence of Marcus Paker.
She shakes her head, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. She’s got a soft heart. Breakable.
“His breath smelled like bad cream cheese,” she says out of the blue, so quiet, I almost don’t hear her.
I pause before a laugh slips free.
She looks at me, and that soft gray gaze does something stupid in my chest. Something that’ll only cause problems in the long run. I can never act on it but fuck if it isn’t fun to fantasize.
Pouty lips, covered in drool as they slide down my cock. Soft hair wrapped around my fist, the little ringlets glistening in the moonlight on my pillow. Sweet, throaty voice moaning my name. That same soft heart in the palm of my fucking hand.
Fucking hell.
I brush the thoughts back, my thumb rubbing over my lip to hide the grimace there.
I put the car in park, and Mila unbuckles her seat belt, the scent of vanilla and honey in the air enough to steal my fucking breath away. I expect her to get out, but she doesn’t, her gaze coming to meet mine.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I know you didn’t like him.”
You want the truth? I don’t like any of the little shits she brings home.
I almost laugh. Almost because now that she’s in my space, the air is thick. Hard to breathe. Her breathing is shallow, matching my own.
It’d be so fucking easy to close the few inches between us. Press my lips to hers and get a taste of her. That’s crossing a line, though. One I swore I’d never go to with her.
Mila Carpenter wasn’t made for me. As much as it feels like it, there’s not a world where I could ever deserve her.
“Mila,” I murmur, my voice dark. I should tell her to go inside. I should get out of the fucking car, but her pretty eyes hold me captive.
“Christian,” she breathes, and I swear the sound goes straight to my fucking cock.
“You’re upset.”
She shakes her head, her gaze slipping down to my lips with uncertainty before coming back to mine. “I’m not.”
Her eyes lock with mine, half-lidded and hazy and so fucking pretty, shining in the dim lights through the front window.
“Do you really have a thing for Bailey?”
To be honest, her older sister is beautiful, but I’ve never seen her that way. I did my part, letting her think so, and even playing into the role a little bit to get closer, but it was just that. A role I was meant to fill.
Now that she’s flown off to New Orleans and found a decent man, that ship has sailed. Not that I’m not happy about it.
One thing about working for the FBI is they will use whoever they have to, to get what they’re after. Me. Bailey. Fuck, they’d use Mila if they thought they could.
I’ve done what I can to protect her from that in the last three years, but it’s times like these that make me forget the job I’m here to do, and how easy it would be to forget about it all, just for a little while.
“And if I said I never have?”
Her hand rests over mine on the center console, her fingers soft and delicate against my rough and calloused ones. She feels so good. So soft and warm. My cock throbs with the need to bury myself inside her and not come up for fucking days until she’s mine.
“And me?” she breathes. “If I asked you if you had a thing for me, would you tell the truth?”
“The truth?” I chuckle darkly. “The truth is a dangerous thing, little devil.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
She leans forward, pressing her lips to my cheek. She pauses, only an inch from my face, and time stands still when she turns her eyes to mine. I meet her gaze, both of us dangling on the edge of a cliff neither of us is prepared to climb out of.
For a year, I’ve been dreaming of the way she tasted, and now she’s dangling it in front of me like a caged animal.
“ Mila .”
Her tongue darts out to lick her lips, and my cock pulses.
Fuck me. What the fuck am I doing?
“Go inside.”
She pauses, and I swear I almost say fuck it and pull her into my lap when I see the disappointment flood her gaze.
Temptation never looked so fucking sweet.
“Did I do something wrong?”
She did everything right. And that’s the fucking problem.
I reach up, brushing my knuckles down the side of her face, but she turns away from me, her cheeks burning red under my hand.
Carefully, she falls back in her seat, refusing to look at me. When she reaches for the door, something hot and unpleasant settles in my chest.
“Mila.”
“Goodnight, Christian.”