Chapter 1
one
I’m not a fuck-my-life kind of guy but when Ricardo handed me his French bulldog, Mariposa, all I could think was, hell no. “You want me to pet sit?” I asked him, grimacing at the weight of the dog in my arms. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a cute dog, because she was, but I don’t do cute. I didn’t get shot as a bodyguard to get stuck indulging an eccentric billionaire and his ditzy wife.
Hot, but ditzy wife.
Ricardo surrounded himself with beautiful women and expensive things, Eva being one of the first, Mariposa one of the latter.
Eva stood next to her husband in a yellow bikini, and bent over to rub the head of the dog in my arms. “Oh, sweetie baby, you’re so beautiful,” she crooned. “Pretty girl.”
Each rub of the dog’s head made Eva’s breasts bounce in her scrap of nothing bikini top. Her full, bronzed tits were inches from my arm. I could smell the body lotion she’d been using while tanning on the deck of her husband’s palatial compound overlooking the Biscayne Bay. Her blond hair fell over the dog’s flank and she batted her false eyelashes at the pooch, and I couldn’t help but feel a stirring down south. I’d have to be dead not to notice such a sexy woman.
Not my type though. Too sweet. Too simple. More hair than brains.
Yet, I hated her husband. And Eva liked me, that was obvious. If I were a dickhead, I could have the ultimate revenge by getting his wife naked and tasting her rich skin with my poor man’s tongue. I thought about the weakness in my shoulder from the gunshot wound that was Ricardo’s fault. I thought about the medical bills he had refused to pay. It was tempting… in this case revenge would be literally sweet.
I smiled at Ricardo over his dog and his wife’s hair extensions. His eyebrows narrowed. “This isn’t dog sitting,” he said, pushing his designer sunglasses back up onto his nose. There was a glare from the infinity pool so I couldn’t see his eyes. “I have every reason to believe certain individuals want to get back at me for reasons I don’t understand. But I don’t want my dog hurt.”
Drugs. That’s what he meant. He had crossed someone somewhere and now they were pissed off. I could have given two shits about what mess he had gotten himself in to, but it was my job. A job I needed desperately. Hence the fuck-my-life feeling.
“Understood.” Hey, I didn’t want a dog to get whacked, either. I just didn’t want to be the idiot stuck watching her. Not exactly an awesome assignment. I knew what my boss at Miami Security would say—it’s money. Take it. But it was fucking embarrassing.
“Don’t get yourself shot like last time,” Ricardo said and it was a scolding that made my blood boil.
The little prick was twenty-two. Twenty fucking two. Four years younger than me and he’d been born with a silver spoon up his ass. All that money? All those houses? Bought and paid for by his daddy. He’d never had to do an honest day’s work in his life. And for the record, it was his fault I’d been shot, not mine. The target had been Ricardo and I had shoved his ass behind me and taken a clip in the shoulder with zero thanks.
So I didn’t say anything. I just set the dog down and waited for Ricardo to get bored with our conversation and wander away. It took all of three seconds. He spotted his best friend Nick’s girlfriend, a Latina woman with banging curves, and he went off to ogle her. Eva didn’t seem to notice and stayed next to me.
“You’ll keep Mariposa safe, right?” she asked, chewing on the tip of one fake fingernail. “I’ll just die if anything happens to her. She’s my best friend. Well, besides my sister.”
What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? “Of course I won’t let anything happen to her.” Eva seemed like a nice girl. Too damned nice for her husband.
She got down on her knees on the travertine patio in the bikini to pet the dog some more. She was right in front of me, her head inches from my jock. I cleared my throat. I wasn’t sure if she had no idea how close to me she was, or if she were doing it on purpose to either flirt or make me uncomfortable. If that was the case, it wasn’t going to work. She could pull my dick out right now and start sucking and I wouldn’t so much as flinch or groan.
That was my job, to stay in control. I was good at it. I was hot though in my suit. Ricardo liked the swankiness of bodyguards dressed for success.
It was like Eva heard me. She started fanning herself and running her fingers between her breasts. “It’s so hot today.”
“Good thing you have a pool.” I refused to step away from her. Let her move back. Let her husband glance over and wonder what the hell was going on between us.
She gave a tinkling laugh. “So true. You must be burning up in the suit.” She glanced up the length of my legs and torso. “You should borrow trunks from Ricardo and take a swim.”
“I don’t think he’s paying me to go swimming.”
For whatever reason that made her frown. “How come Mariposa has a bodyguard and I don’t?”
For some reason, the na?ve hurt expression on her face bothered me. “I don’t know. Maybe you do and you don’t know it.” Or maybe her dickhead husband cared more about the dog than his wife.
Eva slipped back onto her tight ass. She wasn’t curvy below the waist at all, just firm and slim. She glanced at Ricardo who was massaging oil into the shoulders of the Latin woman. “He’s cheating on me, you know. With her.”
The rich and their problems didn’t normally give me pause but damn it, I felt kind of sorry for her. She looked genuinely heartbroken. “I’m sorry. Then why don’t you leave him?” I cast my gaze over the scene. The ridiculous opulence of this house, the whole backyard a sexy garden and pool oasis, with the pool house, the private boat dock, the outdoor kitchen and bar. The handblown glass balls that glowed at night and the massive cascading waterfall. In the middle of it was Ricardo in his robe, twenty thousand dollar watch on his wrist, gliding his oily fingers over his friend’s girlfriend, her bikini top untied, side boob on full display. The house rose up behind them, a massive Spanish style hacienda worth twenty million bucks.
The money. That’s why Eva stayed, clearly, if her husband really was so blatantly cheating on her.
“Because I love him,” she said, and her voice was so plaintive, so aching, I actually believed her.
For a guy who didn’t want attachments, I had to admit I was feeling sorry for her. “Guys like Ricardo are used to getting whatever they want. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. You’re his wife.”
She turned back and gazed up at me again. “What’s your name?”
“Wester.”
“You have very beautiful eyes, Wester.”
I just nodded. My entire life women had been fascinated by my eyes. It was my chick magnet. My hypnotist trick. And I’d just been born with them, the result of a mix of races and cultures producing my pale ice-blue eyes.
“If he cared about me, he would actually have sex with me. It’s been three months. And I’ve never had an orgasm.” There were suddenly tears in her eyes.
Whoa. Hey, now. This was getting hella personal. What guy would be married to a woman who looked like Eva and not want to fuck her every night? It was mind-boggling. “Mrs. Davis, I don’t think you should be telling me something like that.”
She took a shuddering breath and wiped at the corner of her eyes. The tip of her tongue dragged across her bottom lip. She was still too damned close to me. “I’m sorry. I just… want to know what it feels like.”
My mind was suddenly blank and I frowned at the bulldog sniffing my pant leg. “How what feels like?”
“An orgasm.”
My eyebrows shot up. What the fuck? She was saying she’d never had one? That was inconceivable. Unnatural. “I…” I, what? I didn’t even know what to think, let alone what to say.
I was saved from further stammering by Ricardo calling out to her.
“Eva, get your ass over here! I need a drink.”
She sighed, her shoulders slumping briefly before she started to pull herself to her feet. I reached out and gave her a hand to pull her up off the tile.
She pasted a smile on her face as she glanced back at her husband. “Just a sec, baby.”
“Hurry up, and turn the misters on. It’s fucking hot today.”
Tell me about it. I was wearing a goddamned suit. I tried to smile at Eva but it felt forced. I wasn’t turned on by her confession like I’m guessing some guys would. I felt sorry for her. She was a bird in a fucking gilded cage. And she wasn’t even getting laid.
“Thanks for being nice to me,” she said.
That made me frown even deeper. What the hell? I hadn’t even been nice to her. I wasn’t exactly the guy known for massive amounts of compassion. I was sometime charming, something cold and aloof. I flirted, I had fun, but I never let anyone get close and I wasn’t the guy you ran to with your problems. I didn’t know how to help this girl and I didn’t know why I should care that I couldn’t.
But I did know that if I ever found her alone without her douchelord of a husband around, I was going to get her off gigolo style. She had earned it and Ricardo could suck it. Pay it forward. That’s what I was going to do. No adult woman should have gone through life without knowing the pleasure of a screaming hot orgasm and I was just the man for the job. I wasn’t known for random acts of kindness, but this? I could do this.
“I could be really nice to you,” I said, giving her a smile my mother had said would charm the devil.
“Thanks, Wester.” She started to back up but she blew me a kiss. “I think I’d like that.” Then she spun on her heel and started to head for the house, walking quickly.
“I’m an idiot,” I murmured to Mariposa the bulldog. “I just offered to bone my boss’s wife and I think she just said yes.”
Mariposa squatted on my shoe and pissed on me. Gritting my teeth I shook my foot and told her, “Show a little respect for the man guarding your life.”
She yawned.
I couldn’t help it. I grinned down at her. She was pretty fucking cute. Like Ricardo’s wife.
I stared at my identical twin sister and fought off the urge to shake her by the shoulders repeatedly. But I couldn’t do that. I could never do that because Eva was the sweetest, most genuine person I had ever known and she didn’t understand my frustration. “Just leave the asshole, seriously.”
“You know I can’t do that, Olivia. I love Ricardo.”
Ricardo was currently on his boat with two brunette beauties and I had no doubt he was not giving them lessons on nautical knots. I rubbed my temples and curled my feet under my legs on Eva’s massive king bed. I hated this. I hated that I had to share my time with my sister with Ricardo and all his minions. I could tolerate all the extra bodies though if she were happy and he treated her like she deserved. But the reality was he took her for granted and she was miserable, despite claiming that she was fine.
“How can you love someone who treats you like shit?” That wasn’t me. It had never been me. But then again, I was fondly referred to as Bad Twin growing up. A heart like a steel box, my grandfather had always said. Why was it that when you refused to be a doormat people thought you were icy?
If I had spent half of my childhood scowling it was because I was worried about people taking advantage of Eva’s kindness. She had always been generous, caring, and gullible, which made her a target for users and lazy people. For every friend she’d made in grade school who had borrowed crayons and never given them back. The high school boyfriend who conned her into waiting on him like a servant. Every time I had stepped in to set them straight, it made me the bitch. Whatever. I was okay with that label if it kept my sister from being mistreated.
Yet, she wasn’t listening to me this time around. Usually I could persuade her. But not now. I couldn’t fight her feelings for Ricardo. She really did seem to love the little creep.
“He doesn’t treat me like shit. He’s very generous.” Eva was sitting at her dressing table, idly fingering her perfume bottles.
Fresh out of the shower, I had damp hair and was wearing a fluffy robe. There was no shortage of fluffy robes in Ricardo’s mansion. I sighed, feeling guilty. I had just gotten there, having been picked up in a car by Ricardo’s driver from my apartment in the Gables after my last class. I was spending my spring break from classes at the University of Miami at the Love Shack, as Ricardo liked to call his private compound. I didn’t want to ruin my time with my sister by telling her what I had already told her a hundred times. So I relented.
“He is generous, that’s no doubt about that.” Being free with money had even extended to me. He frequently invited me along on their vacations, had co-signed for my apartment, and had given me a Prada purse for Christmas, which I was too afraid of getting dirty to ever use. But part of me felt like it wasn’t his money anyway, it was his father’s.
Eva turned to me. “This was the plan, remember? We always said you were the one who would get an education and I was the one who would marry a rich man, and together, we would rule the world.”
That twisted my heart. Things had been rough growing up in Jacksonville, our mom a drug addict who had taken off and left us with very loving, but very poor, grandparents. “We were fifteen, Ev. It’s okay. You don’t have to stay with him for the money if you’re not happy. I’m almost done with grad school. It’s all good. It will be fine.” Though I would advocate for a settlement for her if divorce were really on the horizon.
She just waved her hand and laughed. “I’m not leaving him.” She stood up and came over to me and sat on the bed. “Did you see the new bodyguard? He seems nice. You should flirt with him.”
My eyes rolled before I could stop myself. “Ew. I don’t want to date one of your husband’s bodyguards. What is his name, like Big Louis or something like that?” I pictured a massive guy with arms the size of marlins and a cranky look on his face. If I had time to date, which I didn’t, it wouldn’t be some silent giant.
“His name is Wester and he has blue eyes.” Eva winked at me. “So cute.”
Wester. A nerd bodyguard? “Is he Ricardo’s bodyguard or yours?”
“He’s Mariposa’s.”
For a second I couldn’t even process what she was saying then I burst out laughing. “He’s guarding the dog? Oh, my God, now that is some funny shit.” I’m sure the mysterious Wester was thrilled to no end.
Eva gave me a grin. “I know, right?” Her phone buzzed on her vanity table and she glanced down at it. “Ricardo is back. He wants to see me.”
She was going to jump up and run to him. I knew she was. It made me seriously frustrated, but I just bit my tongue. When she brushed my cheek with a kiss and said, “I’ll talk to you later,” I nodded and gave her a smile.
My guest suite was down the hall so I pulled opened her bedroom door and checked both directions to make sure no random people were hanging around. There was a serious lack of privacy in Ricardo-ville. I did see a figure slip into a bedroom but I couldn’t tell who it was. It was too early to go to bed and I felt bored, restless. I’d been feeling that a lot lately. My life was routine. Classes, study, waitressing at a bar that specialized in Spanish karaoke. Classes were challenging, since I had bitten off more than I could chew frankly with a chemical engineering degree, but I had ambitions that involved never having to be dependent on a man like my sister. The waitressing was actually fun and the source of my only social life these days, but even that was the same scene, different faces every night.
With my phone in the pocket of my robe, I decided to go outside and enjoy the fall weather. We had finally crossed that magic moment in South Florida when at night the temperatures dipped down into the seventies and you actually felt like you could breathe without needing a dehumidifying mask over your mouth.
As soon as I slid open the glass doors to the pool that collapsed in on themselves, I could smell the water from the bay. I thought I actually heard some dolphins splashing around, too, but that might have been my imagination because the water features in Ricardo’s garden were loud as hell. Being at school I was landlocked most of the time. Twenty minutes from the beach and the water, but never any time to get there. Not to mention traffic blew in Miami. That was just a fact. So I did enjoy the connection to the water when I got to visit my sister. Padding over the travertine, I dropped down into a chaise lounge and sighed as I leaned back.
“A girl could get used to this,” I murmured to the glowing glass ball sculpture thing perched a foot away from me. Eva had married Ricardo nine months earlier in an insanely over-the-top wedding. I had said then I could never imagine getting used to this life. But I could certainly see the appeal. Working for a living was monotonous. I’d been going hard for six years and I was tired, I had to admit.
A man appeared in the doorway, scanning the property, probably wondering who had opened the doors. He had a gun in his hand, I suddenly realized. Yikes. I sat up straight and pulled the robe tighter around me. “It’s just me,” I said loudly, not wanting to get shot for needing a moment of privacy.
The gun disappeared under his suit jacket. I swallowed hard, relieved. Maybe I should have requested yard access or something. He started moving toward me and I realized Mariposa was padding along side of him. Well, well. This must be Wester the dog guard. It made me snicker in the dark. It was so silly and pretentious of my brother-in-law to hire protection for his pet, yet so typical.
“Is it potty time?” I asked. “Which is like Hammer Time but for dogs.” It was a dumb joke, but I didn’t think it warranted the frown he gave me.
“I’m not qualified for this,” he said. “I don’t know anything about dogs.” He sounded cranky as hell.
But then he stepped into the light directly in front of me and I forgot all about his saltiness. Eva was right. Wester was… delicious. He was tall and broad, but still lean, filling out his trim suit perfectly. He had the build of a MMA fighter, with a tapered waist and not an ounce of fat. His jaw was strong, his cheekbones dramatic. But it was his eyes that arrested me. That made me suddenly very much aware of the fact that I was naked under my robe. That I had no panties on. None.
Those eyes were the color of the Caribbean Sea, when the waves crashed over the bleached sand, washing out the cerulean of the blue to an icy crispness. He was fucking beautiful. There was no other way to describe him. He was sex on a stick and I wanted a bite. Why hadn’t I made more time to date? Because now all I could think was that I hadn’t had a boyfriend in six months, which meant on average, I was missing out on thrice-weekly sex. So six months times four weeks times three orgasms meant I had a deficit of seventy-two orgasms. That was no joke. A little self-love once a month hadn’t done shit to ease the ache I was now feeling just from being alone in the dark with a hot guy.
“I think Mariposa is fairly independent,” I said, realizing I needed to respond to his comment. “She’ll set the lead for you.”
He shifted on his feet, looking as restless as I felt. “Yeah, well, this isn’t normally my job.”
“What is?” I was curious. He looked like a man who was simmering under the surface with any number of emotions. I didn’t know men like Wester, despite my occasional visits into my sister’s strange new world. I spent my time around college students and bartenders. Aging Latin men who smiled when they sang karaoke. Not dangerous, brooding men who had excess energy that seemed ready to burst forth at any given second.
It was hot. It definitely was hot, and I was like any other woman when faced with a bad boy—I was completely intrigued and attracted to him.
He gave me a slow, wicked grin. “Protecting the not-so-innocent. Mariposa is too sweet for me and my usual clients. Though maybe I shouldn’t be insulting Ricardo.”
I couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes. “There is nothing innocent about Ricardo.” I watched Wester pace a little, the caged animal in a sharp suit. “Do you want to sit down?” I patted the chair next to me.
Glancing back at the house, he seemed to ponder the concept. He studied the dog, who was sniffing her way around a potted banana plant. “Sure.”
That surprised me. I had actually thought he would either disappear back into the house or continue to stay standing. A bloom of pleasure spread over my body, the heat settling into my cheeks, my inner thighs. Embarrassed, I pulled my robe tighter as my nipples tightened beneath the terry cloth. There was no way he could know I was literally hot under the collar, but I would die if he did figure it out.
But he didn’t sit on the lounge chair next to me. He gracefully dropped down onto my chair, his hand brushing over my bare knee to shift my legs out of the way. What the hell… I cleared my throat as he undid the button on his suit coat and spread his legs. His body crowded my space, and I studied his profile in shock and interest. I couldn’t figure out his background. He looked to be a blend of white European, Haitian, Latin. I wasn’t sure. Whatever magical combination of ethnicities, it was a combination that should be repeated over and over again because he was just fucking gorgeous. There was enough lust coursing through my veins to rival a fourteen year old boy with the Victoria’s Secret Christmas catalog. What a beautiful package.
He turned and caught me staring. He smiled, his teeth pearly white but slightly crooked. “What?” he asked.
“You’re very pretty,” I told him, unable to prevent myself from blurting out the truth. God, I sounded like Eva. She was always the one who spoke with such simplicity. She was like the little kid who said “I like your face” to the old man in the grocery store. People actually loved that about her, but it wasn’t normally me. I kept my thoughts to myself, unless they were sarcastic. Snark I can dole out all day long.
Wester just winked at me. “So are you.” His hand shifted onto my knee and he stroked my bare flesh. “You are very, very pretty.”
Oh, God. His voice was low, sexy, hypnotizing. I heard myself sigh and I moistened my lips, wondering what the hell was happening.
His hand fell away. “But Mariposa kicks both our asses.”
That made me laugh, relieved to have the sexual tension killed. I couldn’t figure out if he was flirting or just being friendly. Or sucking up to the boss’s sister-in-law. “I can’t compete with a squished face.”
“No one can.” He flicked a finger over my book. “What are you reading?”
I lifted the cover up to show me. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Let him think I was a nerd. I didn’t care. I loved Harry Potter and was on my third reread of the entire series. It was an awesome brain break from labs and studying.
“That might have been my favorite because you’re seeing Harry wrestle with the temptation of the dark side. I think he understands Valdemort more than he did as a kid in the earlier books.”
I stared at Wester. He was suddenly now the most sexiest man on the planet. I wanted to give an astonished “you read these books?” kind of declaration but that was rude. I knew nothing about him. There was no reason to think that just because he was a bodyguard he didn’t read in his spare time. “Agreed. Also, we have the hints of there being more to Snape than just pure bad guy as well. Plus it becomes obvious Dumbledore has secrets. How do you know who is good and who is bad in a world that has shades of gray?”
“That’s the horcrux of it all.”
No, he didn’t. Laughter spilled out before I could stop myself. “Very punny. You’re a clever guy, Wester.” A thought occurred to me. “Is that your first name or last name?”
“It’s my first name.”
I was about to tell him my name but his hand was suddenly on my leg. It had traveled from my knee up my thigh and was most definitely underneath the fabric of my robe. This was unexpected. As was the fact that his opposite hand came up to my cheek and cupped my flesh, his callused thumb stroking gently. His eyes were unreadable.
“I would like to kiss you,” he said.
Um… okay? This never happened to me. Gorgeous men in suits didn’t just sit down next to me, call me beautiful, and ask to kiss me like it was actually important to them. If he had been joking and laughing and flirting in a traditional manner, then I would’ve taken his hand, pulled it down, and told him to slow it down, Don Juan. But his intensity had me speechless.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I murmured, even as my gaze dropped to his lips. I wanted to nibble on his flesh and I wanted his firm body to cover mine. I could smell the hint of his musky cologne and every inch of me was tingling with anticipation. But I had to at least offer up a token protest.
“There are no good or bad ideas. Just experiences.”
Then he closed the distance between us and moved his mouth over mine.
And I let him.