Chapter 1 #2
“I'm surprised he didn't ask you what time you were returning to work,” Nash says, his eyes once again on the brunette playing in the sand as if it isn’t obvious that she’s vying for the attention of every man around her.
I have to laugh and look over at Nash. “If you think he cares if we're working or not, you're sadly mistaken. That man doesn't need us.”
I don't know why my eyes lock on the blonde, twenty feet down the beach.
I wouldn't consider myself a people watcher, although I do notice everything going on around me. It's a skill I've mastered and an extremely necessary one in our line of work.
I don't know that I've ever considered any twenty-something-year-old female demure, but that's exactly what she is. Maybe that's why she stands out.
Maybe that's why I can't seem to take my eyes off her.
I'm just glad that it seems like I'm looking in Nash's direction rather than staring at this woman.
Her one-piece bathing suit fits like a glove.
It leaves a lot to the imagination.
It makes me curious.
Every woman here wants attention, and they're getting it by wearing the skimpiest bikinis imaginable.
They don't care that there are families here.
They don't care that there are children playing in the surf and building sandcastles.
Family vacations and laughter don't matter to them.
A lot of these women not only don't give a shit about the people staring at them, but they also encourage it. They crave it.
They want the men to look at them regardless of their relationship status. If a man looking at them has a wedding ring on their finger, even better.
They want to know that their body, their laughter, the way the sun glints off their hair, and the way that the sand sticks to their skin makes an otherwise faithful man look in their direction.
It's the highest compliment, isn’t it? What says I’m the hottest girl on the beach other than a man, who should be paying attention to his wife and children, who's staring at them.
It's what makes men like the one I used to be want to snatch them up. It makes them want to break them. Makes them want to prove that they’re the ones in control.
Bad men desire women like the one in the white bikini.
It does something to their brain that tells them they have to have what she’s offering.
In their minds, it’s not only attention those women seek, and even if it is, they’re going to get that attention in whatever way the devious man decides.
A beautiful woman brings a lot of money on the black market.
The woman in the white bikini that Nash can’t seem to pull his eyes from heightens that instinct for me as well, but for some reason, the blonde in the modest bathing suit somehow does the same thing, but on a different level.
Almost anyone here can have the brunette.
The blonde? She's a challenge. It would take work to get that woman alone.
I can picture myself trying to break her, trying to make her scream, and that's dangerous. I’ve done well tamping down those urges over the last couple of years.
Looking at a woman that way puts me on the same level as the guys I kill while working. The guys that take liberties with a woman's body before they sell a woman into sexual slavery.
I never wanted to be that man, although every man walking the earth has the potential to abuse, to hurt, to rape.
I know for a fact I’m capable of it, and any man that denies he is, is a liar. Any woman who would argue it for the men in their lives just doesn’t know how the right situation has the ability to make anyone do things they never imagined.
The sight of her digging her toes into the sand—even in a bathing suit that doesn't reveal any cleavage, one that covers her entire ass on a beach full of half-naked women—makes me curious.
And curiosity is danger.
But I also know myself.
I know that if I don't get closer, if I don't learn more about her, I'm going to be obsessed with the idea of her. I can't allow anybody to have that sort of real estate in my head.
It leaves me distracted.
It leaves me open to making mistakes.
I hate making mistakes.
I pride myself on being able to work and accomplish the goals that I set out, on not looking back and wondering what I could’ve done differently.
When Nash's eyes dart in my direction, I refocus on the waves rolling against the shore, praying he didn't notice that I was watching her.
The last thing I need is for either of these guys to give me shit after Hollis gave Nash a hard time for paying attention to the woman in the white bikini.
Despite not looking at her directly, I still track her in my peripheral vision.
She's alone. She's not here with a group of friends. She's not smiling and bouncing around or even trying to get involved in the volleyball game that the girl in the white bikini is recruiting for.
“I'm about over this bullshit,” Hollis says as he pushes himself up from the beach chair.
I glanced down at his foot. Sand is spilling from the end of his cast as he raises his foot and tries to shake it free.
He's never going to get the sand out of his cast, and it's going to be a constant irritation for the next several weeks that it's still on his foot. This makes me smile, and I know it makes me an asshole. But they’ve both annoyed me today, and a little discomfort on his part is just the level of retribution I need to make it worth it.
“Leaving, man?” Nash asks.
“Yeah,” Hollis responds. “I've got better shit to do than sit here and get sunburned on the damn beach.”
I give him a half-assed wave as he turns to leave, praying that Nash will find something else to do so I can put my focus back where it seems to want to go.
The girl walks further down the beach, and there's no way for me to continue watching her without making it obvious, so I try to give up on the idea of her.
I feel Nash’s eyes on the side of my face, and reluctantly, I give him the attention that he's seeking because God knows how he'd respond if I ignore him.
“What?” I ask when he just grins at me.
He angles his head in the direction of the girl in the white bikini, and without looking in that direction, I sense her walking toward us.
His grin is wide as if he's won some sort of prize as she closes the distance with a volleyball in her hand. The man really seems like he’s won some competition, and I know the next time he sees Hollis, he's going to give him shit for even mentioning that he couldn't score this girl.
The man has to know that he hasn't scored her yet.
“Hey there, sweetheart,” Nash says, his fake country accent out in full force.
The girl walks up, bouncing on her feet, tits jiggling for the world to see.
“Do you want to play some volleyball?” She holds the ball out as if both of us are too stupid to know what she's referring to.
Nash doesn't respond immediately. He simply gives her a wicked smile, a knowing smile, an invitation that lets her know he’d rather she got down on her knees right now than play in the sand.
It’s a smile that I’m certain with her more-than-likely extensive experience she’s very capable of understanding.
“I won't go easy on you,” Nash says. “I'm a very competitive man.”
A glint fills her eyes, as if he's telling her that he will fight any man on this beach just to spend more time with her.
“You're not the only one who's told me that today,” she counters.
Nash stands from his beach chair, holding his hand out for the ball when she readily offers it to him.
He tosses it back and forth from one hand to the other as his eyes skate down her body.
“Don't say I didn't warn you.” He steps up closer to her. “No complaining if you don't like how this turns out.”
I hear the threat in his words. The man isn’t talking about the damn game they’ll play for a while as a pretense of the night he has planned for the two of them.
She giggles, a grating noise that I'm sure works on many men.
Nash doesn't even look over his shoulder as he walks away to join the group of people that she's gathered for the game.
With his attention averted, I'm now able to look around for the woman in the one-piece bathing suit, but I don't see her anywhere.
It’s better for all involved, I think as I stand as well.
I walk away from the beach because I feel like I've done my due diligence today. I've acted normal long enough.
Nash won't care that I'm gone. The only thing that man cares about is where he's going to spend his night, and more than likely from the level of attention he's got from the woman in the white bathing suit, it's going to end up exactly as he had planned.
I swing by the surf shop before heading to my SUV in the attached parking lot.
It's hot. I'm sweating. I'm fucking thirsty.
I never should have come today, but at least it kills a couple of hours before I go back to the house alone.
I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in coincidences.
Most all situations that seem like déjà vu are created.
They're generated by the people who are hoping to get the outcome that they're seeking. That’s always been my mindset. Someone is always controlling the narrative.
I give a passing glance to the two guys standing outside of the surf shop.
They aren't traffickers. They aren't the type of men that are here looking for trouble.
Despite the heat, they're both dressed in dark suits, completely out of place for a Texas beach.
They’re private security detail for someone they're tasked at protecting, and it becomes blatantly obvious exactly who they're here for.
When I see her again, she’s now wrapped in a coverup from her elbows all the way down to her knees, standing in front of the drink cooler, trying to make a selection as if it's a big decision.
I don't know who she is. I don't know if she's important. I don’t know if she's a B-list celebrity or if she's just some rich man's daughter. Hell, she could be some rich man's wife for all I know.
“Having a hard time deciding?” I ask as I step up beside her.
She doesn't even look my way, but I do notice the small, weak, fake smile on her lips. It seems rote, as if it's a habit, as if she has to smile when approached in public or there will be consequences.
I reach past her, pulling open the cooler door to grab a water, but I don’t step out of her way.
I don’t give her the common courtesy of distance as I turn around to face her.
A lot of men would probably chat or flirt as they hope for a first date, but at the end of the day, they're just taking steps to get lucky, to get laid, to not have to spend the night alone.
I've already established that I'm not a normal man.
She steps back when I step closer to her, her eyes raking down my chest as she assesses me, and I grin as she takes her time.
I know what she sees—blue eyes, blond hair, tan skin. Her eyes don’t linger on my eight-pack abs, nor on those muscles on the side leading down into my swimsuit that most women get lost in.
She doesn't care.
I don't know if this woman sees hot guys all the time.
But she seems indifferent.
And when her nose scrunches up, as if she smells something foul, as if she can't believe that someone like me would approach someone like her, it rankles. It annoys me.
It makes my mind go to places that my mind never should go.
“Excuse me,” she says, an air of aloofness in her tone
She steps to the side, pulls open the cooler door, and reaches in for a diet soda.
The woman doesn't spare me a second glance as she turns and heads to the cashier at the front of the store.
It took her seconds to assess me, to find me lacking, and to decide that I wasn't even worth a polite conversation.
I'm not Nash.
I'm not Hollis.
My ego isn't hurt or bruised by her dismissive attitude.
I'm annoyed.
I should focus that annoyance on where it belongs, and that would be on myself at thinking that I could just smile at this woman. I should be irritated at myself at assuming that she would be just like any other girl that I would encounter on the beach, but no, I need to blame her.
I need to direct that anger and irritation somewhere.
It doesn't belong pointed at me because I don't make mistakes anymore.
Annoyed, I shove the bottle of water back into the cooler and leave the store.
I'm seething inside, irritated to the extreme.
Thinking I'm done with this situation and knowing that I need to just go home and find something else to do, I can't help but linger outside of the store at a distance as not to alert the bodyguards and wait for her.
I watch.
I'm good at watching. I'm good at waiting. I'm good at reading a situation and knowing exactly how I need to respond very quickly.
This woman has caught my attention, and things are not going to end well for her.