by Loki Renard
He flicked on the light and for a second, saw nobody at all. The hair rose on the back of his neck. Then he heard an exclamation and a curse and his eyes were drawn to the leather couch where a skinny figure in tight black jeans and a ripped vest appeared to be locked in a life and death struggle with a couch cushion.
“Mattie?” He went toward her, scowling and ready to give her a piece of his mind. What was she playing at, sneaking into Cash’s suite? She wasn’t even supposed to have a swipe card. Miles made a mental note to have the code on the door changed as soon as he’d sent Mattie back where she belonged. She was making some very strange noises, grunts of pain. As he watched, she managed to disengage herself from the couch and flip over onto her back. When he saw her face, he realized that he wasn’t going to be able to just kick her out. One eye was almost closed with swelling and she had a thick, split lip. She’d clearly been in a fight and come off second best.
“Little girl, what have you been up to?” He growled the question as he went to her aid.
“It hurts,” she mumbled as he helped her to sit up.
“I bet it does,” he said, going for an ice pack and the first aid kit. “Who hit you?”
“People,” she said, pitching forward and just barely catching herself before she fell into the glass coffee table. “People….” she lifted a finger in the air “… with arms.” She laughed and simultaneously yelped in pain, clutching at her side.
Miles hurried back to her side and laid her back on the couch. “Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere,” Mattie groaned.
Miles ran his hands down her torso, stopping when she cried out as his fingers passed over her lower ribs. “Did you get hit here?”
“Don’t know,” Mattie mumbled, forcing him to peel up her vest. She was very slim, built on a small scale and as he pushed up her clothing he noticed the tail of a tattoo peeking out from under the line of her jeans. Her vest was caked with blood, sweat and alcohol, and underneath it her pale skin was smeared with similar substances. There was a hell of an abrasion on the left side of her ribcage, and imprints from the sole of a boot. Someone had clearly kicked her pretty hard; the area was starting to bruise dark black and blue.
“Stay still,” he said. “I’m going to call you an ambulance. You need medical attention.”
“No,” she mumbled. “No ‘surance.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Miles said grimly. “Kevin will pay for this.” He moved away to make the call, muttering under his breath “…in more ways than one.”
Chapter Five
Cursing under his breath, Miles made his way back to his room, picked up his phone and called Kevin. It took a good while for him to answer, but eventually his sleepy, groggy voice came over the line. “Miles what…”
“Kevin,” Miles interrupted him curtly before he could start complaining about the late hour. “I need you to get up and come over here now.”
When Kevin spoke again, he sounded much more alert. “Why? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Cash?”
“Cash is sound asleep,” Miles said. “But Mattie has been in some sort of fight. She’s pretty banged up. I’m about to call an ambulance for her. You told me she wouldn’t be any trouble. Well she’s a lot of trouble – and she’s in a lot of trouble. So get your ass over here, now!”
He hung up the phone, dialed for an ambulance, then returned to Mattie. He was horrified to discover that she was up on her feet and trying to get a drink from the bar, clutching at her side as she did.
“Would you cut that out!” He removed a bottle of vodka from her hand and guided her back to the couch, which was no easy feat given that she could barely walk straight. “You need medical attention, not a drink. Now stay put!”
Another light went on in the suite and Miles groaned. Cash was up. She came out of her room looking sleepy, concerned and gorgeous in a silk robe. “What’s going on?”
“Mattie’s just been in a little fight,” he said. “You can go back to sleep.”
“Mattie’s been in a fight?” She rubbed her eyes and came forward, clearly concerned. “Is she hurt?”
“Cash, baby, Cash,” Mattie slurred. “Hey baby.”
“She’s drunk,” Cash noted. “And she…” Cash blinked as she got closer. “Mattie, what happened to you?”
“…s… Fight,” Mattie elaborated.
“I don’t know what happened exactly,” Miles said. “I’ll patch her up a little and hand her off to the medics when they get here. We’ll find out the full story tomorrow.”
Cash went to Mattie’s side, a look of horror on her sweet face. “Mattie, what happened?”
“Just d’ s… was… a fight…” Mattie repeated.
“You’re not going to get anything out of her until she sobers up,” Miles said. “Go back to bed, you need your sleep, there’s no sense in you being tired.”
“What is wrong with you?” Cash exclaimed. “I’m not going to go back to sleep and leave her bleeding on the couch.” She turned to Mattie with a deeply sympathetic expression. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay with you.”
“You mean until the ambulance comes,” Miles said, deftly cleaning a few of the superficial grazes on Mattie’s exposed arms. Her forearms were a mass of bruises, they looked like defensive injuries. Someone had definitely gone to town on her. “She’s going to need x-rays on those ribs.”
“No, I mean I’ll go with her to the hospital,” Cash said, giving him a dirty look. “She can’t go alone.”
“I called Kevin, he’ll take her.”
By the time the ambulance arrived, Miles had already cleaned and bandaged most of Mattie’s minor cuts. The only thing of real concern was the injury to her ribs. Mattie, of course, refused to get on a stretcher and be carried down, and she couldn’t be forced, lest her ribs be further injured in the attempt. Kevin showed up in the midst of tying to convince Mattie to get onto the stretcher and promptly went to pieces. “Oh god,” he said, palming his face. “What… Mattie…”
Miles groaned inwardly. He’d wondered how Kevin was doing. Cash’s reference to him avoiding concerts because they were ‘too loud’ was an indicator that he was still struggling with PTSD. Clearly, seeing Mattie in a state of distress was too much for him. He was trying to hold it together, but his hands were trembling and his voice was tight. Miles realized that by calling Kevin all he’d really done was add another unstable variable to the situation. It was like trying to herd cats. Kevin was almost hyperventilating, Mattie was refusing medical treatment and Cash was insisting on playing a very misguided nursemaid, cooing reassuringly at Mattie’s every drunken mumble.
“Look Kevin, go home, I’ll deal with this,” he said. “There’s no point all of us being up at this hour.”
“We will deal with this,” Cash added, a look of determination set on her face.
“Yes, fine, we will deal with this,” Miles relented.
“As long as you’re sure?” Kevin was already halfway out the door, his visage still pale. Miles waved him off and focused his attention back on Mattie. By a small miracle, Cash had managed to convince her to get onto the stretcher and they were soon off to the hospital.
An hour later Mattie was beginning to sober up and with sobriety was starting to feel the pain. Unfortunately for her, the doctors were refusing pain management on account of her intoxication, so she was suffering quite a bit. It wasn’t any less than she deserved, but Miles still felt some sympathy for her. He knew what it was like to be injured without pain management – it wasn’t pleasant.
“What happened, Mattie?” Cash asked the question for the umpteenth time.
“I don’t know,” Mattie groaned. “I did this gig; afterward, some assholes decided to jump me. Never saw who it was.”
Keeping silent, Miles leaned against the wall next to the door with his arms folded across his chest. He was listening, but not getting involved in the little discussion. Mattie trusted Cash, she’d probably tell her a lot more than she’d t
ell him. It must have been a hell of a fight, the bruising and swelling along the knuckles of her right hand indicated that she’d gotten a few decent swings in at the very least. Sighing to himself, he lifted his eyes to the fluorescent lights and said a silent prayer for all their sakes.
*
It had been an exciting night for Cash. First the walk on the beach with Miles, then Mattie showing up all beat up. Now that was real rock n’ roll. Cash had never so much as broken a fingernail. Deep down, she wished she was more like Mattie. Especially as Mattie was going to be fine, just a couple of cracked ribs to show for her troubles, and a damn good story that Cash was definitely going to pry out of her as soon as possible.
She couldn’t help but notice that Miles was not in a good mood. He seemed tense and terse on their way back to the suite. Cash knew why, it was because he’d wanted her to stay behind. He’d wanted them both to stay behind and he’d wanted Mattie to go to the hospital all alone. But that wasn’t how Cash had been raised, and she wasn’t going to apologize for having wanted to help a friend.
They were almost back at the suite when Miles stuck out his arm, preventing her from getting any closer. “Something isn’t right,” he whispered. “The door is open.”
“We probably forgot to close it on our way out,” Cash shrugged, ducking under his arm. Before he could stop her, she’d pushed open the suite door and uttered a cry of dismay. The suite had been ransacked.
Everything was broken and smashed up and there were curse words, terrible, foul words smeared on the walls. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Miles had to hold her back to prevent her from rushing into the room. She felt his arms wrap around her waist. Her feet left the floor as she tried to lunge inside anyway. All her things were in there, all her personal effects, all the things that had sentimental value.
“You’re not going anywhere, Miss Raine,” Miles growled in her ear. “The intruder could still be in there.” He drew her away down the hall, ignoring her struggles.
“Everything I own is in there!”
“I’m protecting you, Miss Raine, not your belongings.”
Caught in a rage at having her personal space so violated, Cash continued to struggle in his arms. Tears began leaking from her eyes and ran down her cheeks as Miles hauled her back into the elevator.
“Listen,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “You can go back in there after the police have been and after it has been cleaned up.”
“You mean when the police have finished poking about in my things after whoever was already in there?” Cash tried to break free, but it only resulted in Miles grasping her even tighter.
“Cash,” he snapped. “Behave and do as you’re told.”
“No!” After a long, dramatic night, Cash was not in the mood to do as she was told. She wanted to make sure that nothing had been taken – though she was sure all her belongings had probably been ransacked. If she wanted them back she’d probably have to look on E Bay. Using all her strength, she squirmed until Miles could no longer keep a hold of her without hurting her, then broke free and ran back toward the suite.
Miles was forced to push the closing elevator doors open and give chase. He overhauled her in a few short steps and caught her before she got back into the suite. One arm wrapped around her waist and she was swept up off the ground, her slender frame pressed against his muscular body as a series of loud slaps echoed down the hall. He slapped her backside, not once as he had before, but several times, each additional slap compounding the heat and sting several-fold. Cash took in a long sucking breath as his hand landed hard and fast, then squealed like a suckling pig. It hurt like blazing hell, and she couldn’t believe he was smacking her, not when she’d just been burgled.
“I told you,” he said, slapping her bottom yet again. “You need to do as you are told, now are you ready to settle down and deal with this calmly?”
Cash was not ready to settle down and do anything calmly. Caught in his grasp and dancing around in a very unbecoming manner as he swatted her yet again, she felt small and angry and sore.
“Cash, I need to call the police, the longer you fuss, the more likely it is that whoever did this will get away. Now quit making me wrangle you.”
“I’m not making you wrangle me!”
He let her go and she rubbed her backside furiously.
“Call the damn cops then.”
Cash pouted as Miles dialed for the police. She pouted as he ushered her into the elevator and she continued to pout as he took her to the hotel bar and ordered her a non-alcoholic drink whilst the police came and investigated the breakin. Hotel management was incredibly apologetic, but Cash wasn’t mollified by their apologies. Even though she was sitting on a heavily padded bar stool, she could still feel the sting and heat from Miles’ treatment. She was angry. Angry at the break in and angry at being spanked like a brat when all she’d wanted to do… all she’d wanted…was to go running into a room that could have been dangerous. As she began to calm down, she started to see his point. It didn’t make her bottom hurt any less.
When Miles finished dealing with the police, he returned to her side and told her that they were going to be changing rooms.
“I don’t want to change rooms,” she said simply.
He frowned slightly at her. “You’re tired, so I’ll give you a pass for the moment, but you’re starting to try my patience, Miss Raine. I told you at the outset that having me as your bodyguard meant doing things my way.”
“Your way seems to get my rooms broken into,” she said, knowing the minute the words left her mouth that it wasn’t Miles’ fault that there had been a break in. If they hadn’t been at the hospital with Mattie there probably wouldn’t have been.
He responded to her accusation with a mild question. “How many people have room keys?”
Cash’s stomach tightened. She had a vague memory of Miles telling her not to give out any room keys, and the way he was asking the question told her that she was in trouble. The tingling in her bottom seemed to grow as she blushed and focused on her glass. “Nobody I think,” she lied.
“Mattie had a key,” Miles said softly. “I’m going to assume she didn’t steal it. Or did she steal it, Cash? Do I need to take her to task for that?”
“No,” Cash admitted. “I gave her one.”
“Who else have you given a key to?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I figured you had the cards changed anyway.”
“I did,” he said. “But if Mattie has one, you could have given one to someone else.”
Cash glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. His stern, hard gaze made her stomach flip. She was in so much trouble. She could feel it emanating from him. “I don’t know,” she said. The truth was that she’d lost a couple of suite keys since Miles had taken over. She hadn’t told him because she hadn’t much wanted to see him scowl at her. It was easy enough to get a replacement from reception, it wasn’t as if they didn’t know who she was.
“You don’t know if you gave a card to someone else? Or you don’t know how many people you gave cards to?” He pressed the point.
“I don’t know!”
“Cash. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.” Three times she lied. The silence that followed her third lie was heavy and seemed to make the air thicker so it was harder to breathe. She could feel him looking at her, seeming to grow larger with every passing moment.
“Look at me.” He spoke quietly and calmly, which was more scary to Cash than his earlier rumblings. She had the sense that she was in quicksand, stuck in lies that would surely drag her down to a sticky end. The only thing for it was to take the quicksand survival method, stay as still as possible and hope help arrived in time.
She glanced at him quickly, then looked away again. “I don’t want to look at you,” she said. “You just hit me for nothing.”
“I smacked you because you were being disobedient.”
She cringed, his voice sounded v
ery loud in the quiet space. “Keep it down,” she hissed. “Strangers are already going through my panty drawer. I don’t need the whole world knowing everything about me.”
A muscle ticked in Miles’ jaw as he stood and beckoned for her to follow. He didn’t even speak, he just crooked a long, muscular finger at her and she slipped off her bar stool. She knew she was in trouble, she could feel it in her bones – and in her bottom for that matter. As they left the lobby, Cash made very sure to stay behind Miles and not present the soft target to him until they reached the new room.
To Cash’s annoyance, it wasn’t anything like her suite. It was just a room, a large and well-appointed room with two king sized beds in it, but still a room. “What is this?”
“The best they can do at short notice, and easier to secure than an entire suite,” Miles explained.
“You can get some rest and tomorrow you can move back, once we’ve done a complete sweep of the place.”
Cash sat on the end of the bed. “This isn’t fair,” she complained. “I don’t want to sleep here.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not my room. It’s too small. I don’t like it.” She rattled off three reasons in quick succession, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You must be tired,” he said, giving her a wry smile that made her heart flutter in spite of her irritation and yes, fatigue. “You get grumpy when you’re tired.”
“I do not.”
“It’s time to go to bed, Miss Raine,” he said firmly.
“Where will you be?”
“There are two beds here,” he pointed out simply. “You can keep the one you’re sitting on. I’ll take the other.”
So she was going to be spending the night with Miles. In separate beds, but still spending the night in the same room as him. Cash’s spirits rose, realizing she was probably going to see him in his pajamas, maybe less. This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for, and break in or no, Cash was not the sort of person to turn down a chance to get what she wanted. “Well,” she said. “If you insist.”
