by Anthology
“Lucan…Gio,” I whisper, and the pain I feel in my chest slowly begins to diminish as the darkness takes over.
EPILOGUE
Three weeks later
Thamar
“I SWEAR TO all that is Holy if you don’t leave right now, I am going to kill you!” I scream at the top of my lungs, trying to keep from laughing at my friend.
Gio doesn’t let up, he continues to belt out his very unique and horribly inaccurate version of “Count on me by Bruno Mars.” Holding my hands over my ears, I look over pleadingly at Lucan, but all he does is laugh.
Big freaking help you are.
Both Gio and I have been in holed up in the hospital since the incident. While Gio suffered multiple fractures to his ribs, a collapsed lung and broken arm, I’d been shot square in the chest, somehow missing my heart by only a few centimeters.
I don’t have much memory of anything after my father pulled the trigger, but from what everyone has told me, I don’t need to ever worry about him again. I had been living in a world of ignorance where he was concerned and not only me, but Gio as well.
Shortly after Lucan managed to get Gio and I a shared room, Gio came clean that my father had approached him years ago under the guise that he wanted to reconnect with me. He’d asked Gio to keep and eye on me and report to him monthly.
Apparently, when Gio told him about Lucan, things just spin out of control. With Lucan already in hot water with my father, the thought that I was…screwing with his enemy made my father see red.
A loud knock on the door shuts Gio up and I am thankful to whoever it is, because a singer Gio does not make.
“Come in,” Lucan says, his body on alert.
Lucan has been by my side since the very first night I was rushed in. We still have a lot to discuss and work out, but I am learning more and more that he is a wonderful man. Though, I think he might suffer from some form of Stockholm syndrome.
Some days he’s glad that his men had shot and killed my father, but other times, it seemed as if he mourned his death. I didn’t understand it completely, but I tried to be there for him.
One of the nurses comes in and walks over to where Gio is laying down, a scowl on her face. “Mr. Rodriquez, there are other patients in this ward who would prefer not to be awoken by your…singing.”
“Oh, they love. You don’t listen to them Nurse Mary. I know I’ve got mad skills,” Gio says with confidence.
The nurse shakes her head and checks his chart, “Well, let’s give them a break anyway all right. It’s time for your physical therapy.”
She helps him into the wheelchair and I watch as he is rolled out of the room. I don’t know what I would have done if my father had killed Gio, or Lucan for that matter.
“What is on that pretty little mind of yours?” Lucan asks when he catches me staring at him.
I smile shyly and glance away, “Just how lucky I am. For you and for Gio. What more can a girl ask for?”
Lucan smiles down at me and scoots close to my bed, and picks up my hand. “I will never understand why you don’t see how special you are, Thamar, but it is I that counts myself lucky to have you.”
Tears prickle at the corner of my eyes, as he brings my hand to his lips. And I can’t help but ask him the only thing I need to know.
“Are you sure? About us? About my condition and well now with knowing how and what my father was?”
He shakes his head and dips down so that his lips are close to mine. “Marry me.”
DILLION
By: Susan Ward
Prologue
I’M THE GUY you don’t see—well, at least not the first time you look at the pictures in the tabloids. But there I am. Dillon Warrick, ex-Special Forces and part of an elite security team hopping the globe with the rich and famous.
I still do a double take when I see myself in the newspapers. Those pictures don’t match with the one I carry in my head: combat fatigues, buzz cut, and surrounded by my brothers in uniform. My shoulder-length, tousled blond hair and stark black shirt over black trousers still look strange to me. Hell, the only things close to familiar are the black utility boots I wear every day, the firearm in the holster beneath my jacket, and the backup piece strapped to my leg.
Oh, and being the guy you don’t see. Yep, that’s familiar to me. The last thing a member of a special-ops unit wants is to be the guy you see. It’s no different being a bodyguard with a security team.
I’m the guy you don’t see, but I am the one he leans on, trusts, whispers those lascivious quips he will never share with his adoring fans, the voyeur to his sexual exploits, the keeper of his secrets, and there to protect him from every kind of danger seen and unseen—top of the threat list: you.
That’s my face an inch behind those broad shoulders. My lips in a tight line sharply contrasting to his legendary smile. My piecing blue eyes staring at you with his mesmerizing black orbs from that tabloid glossy. My features rugged and handsome, though not as perfectly male as the ones belonging to my employer and the ultimate rock god from hell: Alan Manzone.
I’m the guy you don’t see, you’re not supposed to, and it makes me more dangerous in all ways—more dangerous to you than even him.
And oh yeah, Alan Manzone is dangerous—at least to every woman on the planet, and he did prove dangerous to me, one of those unseen threats you can’t prepare for—but we’ll get to that part of the story later.
Five years ago I laughed when my best friend, Graham Carson, also ex-military special ops, asked if I wanted a gig with his private security team. Career soldiers didn’t leave the military for trite shit like this—protecting overly inflated egos with overly inflated bank accounts from screaming girls who only wanted to toss pussy at them—even if Graham already had twelve months working security under his belt because a bullet in the leg forever destroyed his combat-fit status.
Unlike my best friend, I came home from our last mission together no worse for the wear. I was still in top form, 240 pounds of breathing and thinking killing machine. Definitely not the time to leave the service. And what the hell would be the fun of life with no guns, no bullets, and no wars? I hadn’t lived a civilian existence since I’d join the military right after 9/11. I didn’t even know if I could still live in the straight world.
Yep, I laughed in Graham’s face when he offered me this employment opportunity. Then he told me who the “asset” was we’d be protecting, what the position paid, and the chuckling stopped. Two days later, I’m on a plane to the UK, and not just any plane, a private jet owned by my new employer. Alan definitely turned out the welcome for me since I was going there only to talk to him and was still on the fence about joining the team. The flight attendant onboard—there solely to take care of me since I was the only passenger—served more than food and drinks.
Hooah.
She gave me the best blowjob I’ve ever had, soaring above the Atlantic during our fourteen-hour flight from California. The fuck that followed wasn’t bad either. She had me ready to sign on the dotted line of the contract before it was wheels down at Heathrow.
Five years and I haven’t looked back once. Who would? I’ve seen and experienced things other men can only dream about. I live my life a breath from one of the most famous rock stars ever, with all the perks and pleasures generously shared with me, closer to him than almost every other person on the planet. It’s like guarding the president—a heartbeat away—but oh, this is better.
Especially if you’re thirty-five years old and in your physical prime. I’m circling the globe smack dab in the center of the world of the beautiful, the rich, and the amoral in an unending whirl of synthetic and carnal recreation, moving lockstep with the most ruthless sexual predator on the planet. There is no other way to describe Alan.
Sure, I fuck the leftovers and rejects of a rock star—what man wouldn’t?—though I do score all the pussy I want on my own. That the women were his, or wanted to be his, adds to the turn-on and I figure I deserve a taste
now and again since I’m the guy who sits up with him on those nights he’s drunk, listening to him babble about the woman he loves, lost, and is afraid to go after.
Even the world’s greatest sexual predator, and Alan is that, has prey elusive to him. Those nights when he talks about her almost make him human—sorry, I’ve omitted her name because, fuck, he may be a repulsive man at times, but strangely he isn’t when it comes to her and I would never violate my NDA with Alan. The asshole does have a way of earning loyalty, I’ll give him that—and since you want me to be honest here, I admit there are times I’m not sure if I like him. I’ve definitely had a few of those moments when the thought of taking a bullet for him is revolting. But, hell, there hasn’t been a single moment I’ve thought of quitting. After more than a decade of devoted service to my country, I could never find another gig making this kind of money and where getting laid as many times a day as I have the spunk for would be considered a job perk.
Graham taunts that I’m pistol-whipped; I’ve sold my honor for the wants of my dick. He’s just joking. He’s an irritating prick that way, and he definitely can’t take the moral high ground since he’s sucking every cock he can the same way I’m devouring every luscious cunt opening up for me.
We just say shit like that to each other, but in truth, that last deployment got fucking crazy, fucked with our heads, cost Graham his commission, and we’re both just trying to fuck our way out of the darkness of where we’ve been. And you’ve got to admit, there’s no better place to fuck your way out of the darkness than on tour with a hard rock band.
Graham doesn’t mean anything with all the shit he spews about me falling low and becoming a deplorable human being. His criticisms are just bullshit from a guy who understands me, has been where I’ve been, and is still trying to work through the same fucking shit we both saw before we left the military. It’s all part of him having my back like he always has. But even knowing that it pisses me off a little—fuck, deep down inside I still believe in all that God and country shit—but it doesn’t piss me off enough to quit and reenlist.
I served my country.
I did my time.
No one has a right to fucking judge me. And shit, a warm, wet pussy is better any day than whacking one off in a country where if you touch a woman they stone her to death…
Chapter One
I’D BEEN ON the road fourteen months straight this time and, if we’re talking honestly here, things had gotten a little out of control for me this leg of Blackpoll’s worldwide tour. The four months’ hiatus before the final leg was probably a good thing.
I hadn’t seen home in over a year and the three-day hops crisscrossing Europe didn’t lend to traveling to Sacramento. Not that I minded. Sac Town was far from an exciting place, even if it was the capital of California, and the tour schedule was a comfortable grind of work I’d grown accustomed to and preferred as a lifestyle choice.
There were no complaints about the direction I was going—well, not from me—and yet something different was roiling inside me this past year that nipped at my conscience and warned that the status quo of my existence at any moment could crash and burn if I didn’t get my shit together real soon.
There’d been a wildness inside me this year I’d only ever felt the nights before deployment on a special-ops mission. Like I had the possibility of dying, or some such shit, so I’d better make the most of living now. An extreme hedonistic kind of mindset, like the limits didn’t apply and if they did, well, then fuck them.
I’d been that way since my last visit home, though I wasn’t really sure why, but I doubted I needed a reason. It was like that on the road. Shit just got crazy all on its own. I’d been through this drill before and had always come through without a scratch.
It wasn’t the first time I’d fucked more and drank more than the human body should probably let me. British hard rock musicians can party like there’s no tomorrow and still get up the next day to work, which pretty much explains why the entire security team is US ex-military guys, because we can party like there’s no tomorrow and get up the next day to kill things. It wasn’t the first time I’d left in my wake five-star hotel rooms trashed beyond what a fleabag motel deserved. It wasn’t the first time there were holes in my memory, PTSD-induced blanks spots of things I’d done and couldn’t recall. And it wasn’t the first time I’d screwed more of the beauties crowding the concrete corridors backstage than my shitty memory could remember.
It was pretty much SOP, at some point, for me on the tour. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll were the philosophy and religion that filled the void where patriotism, country, and God used to live.
Sure, I’d done things along the way I’d probably regret later, but that was nothing new. I’d done a lot of things in my life I’d regretted and I’d come to terms with the realization that wasn’t going to change. Only this time Graham was worried about me, thought I should pull back some, exercise a modicum of self-control, that I was being careless and running too close to the edge.
He’d started to have that first-alarm tingling on his nerves he used to get in combat that warned him of danger before it hit. He’d saved my ass from more than one tricky situation in the field, but logic told me to dismiss his warning since it was hard to figure out what sort of grave threat could be out there waiting for my sorry self living only a decadent life and not a dangerous one. And I might have been able to completely brush off his concerns, only the second he said it I felt a chill run my nerves the way I had in Kandahar and, shit, a guy doesn’t shrug off a warning that makes you feel that way.
I know. I know exactly what you’re thinking: what the fuck is wrong with you, Dillon? You’ve got more booze, pussy and money than any one man deserves. Grow some balls and stop letting your gay friend spook you. Graham is just messing with your head. Big and little head.
But the problem was it didn’t feel that way, like another one of Graham’s obnoxious Dillon observations. The second he started grumbling about my reckless behavior the apprehension settled in my gut, though it didn’t change anything. I mean there wasn’t anything I could do to stop how out-of-control I’d become—especially not here—so I might as well do what I wanted and enjoy myself to the hilt.
Right?
What man wouldn’t?
I couldn’t think of a single reason to say no to any opportunity that caught my eye.
I had nothing on the line.
Nothing at risk.
So why try to change any of it?
It wasn’t like I was married or even had a girl waiting for me in Sacramento. Hell, I didn’t even have friends there—except Rachel, and, in fairness, technically I wouldn’t call us friends but rather ex-sweethearts turned casual fuck-buddies—for all that I kept a high-rise condo in my hometown more out of sentimentality than anything else. A home base, though why I wanted one I’m not really sure since I never went home more than once a year. I wouldn’t even be making a stop home this year if Graham hadn’t wanted to go to California to see Zac—his preferred sex partner du jour—before jetting off for the UK and another four months of hopping the globe.
I felt a change in the airplane telling me we’d started reducing our speed and elevation and would be landing soon. I lifted open the window cover and stared down at the ever-expanding greater Sacramento metropolitan area. The fucking place grew and grew and somehow never changed.
After five hours trapped in a first class seat beside Graham, I couldn’t say I was excited to be on a commercial flight home for the first time this year. About all I could say was that I was relieved the trip had passed uneventfully. One look at me that morning was all it took for Graham to know that something fucking out-there had happened with me in Manhattan.
Out-there.
A fucking understatement.
A stupid-ass, shit move if I wanted to keep my current employment gig.
A mistake in every way.
It wasn’t like I’d planned to fuck Alan’s ex-wife. I was in
New York. Shyla called, all emotional over the divorce being final and claiming she needed someone she trusted to talk to, so I went. She can tug at your heartstrings one minute—she’s cunning that way—and in the next minute latch on to your dick so you can’t escape.
Graham warned me my first day working for Blackpoll never to be alone with Shyla. Fuck, he was right. Why didn’t I listen? I could lose my job over this. Alan may have divorced her, but he’s an unpredictable man and even after five years with him I’m never completely certain what he thinks about anything.
Shit, I shouldn’t have gone to her place when she called. I should never have forgotten Graham’s warning my rookie deployment with him: it’s not the unknown threats likely to kill you; it’s the ones you know, are prepared for, and forget.
He wasn’t talking about Shyla, but he might as well have been.
Known threat: yes.
Prepared for: I thought so.
Did she make me forget: she sure as hell did.
The first hour alone with her had been chill. She’d been sweet and all doe-eyed as we talked and drank in her penthouse. Sure, how she looked and was dressed made my cock twitch with anticipation even as I tried to comfort her through loud, overly dramatic, no doubt bullshit tears. I went there with honorable intensions, but after the first five minutes I’d lost the focus of my mission—family employee acting as surrogate sympathetic friend to newly divorced friendless woman—and should have probably gotten the hell out of there.
I might have left if I’d been thinking clearly. Or if Shyla’s relentless flood tide of sobs and words didn’t have the strange power to make me want to shove my dick in her mouth or bend her over a chair to fuck her right there. Or maybe it was just the booze. She tosses the drinks down almost as quickly as Alan and we were both pretty shit-faced shortly after I got there. Then next thing I knew, she had my cock in her mouth and there was no turning back for either of us from there.
