Best Friends Forever_A Marriage Pact Romance

by Jess Bentley

  If only anyone was there to see it.

  Mick’s career choices precluded traditional relationships and made starting a family nearly impossible. MI6 sent him all around the world bringing bad men to justice, and he bore the scars, physical and emotional. The headaches were a recent development, but the ache in his right shoulder had been with him since a particularly vicious tackle playing in a rugby match at seventeen. The scar on his right thigh was left by a bullet, but it had healed nicely and fortune had smiled upon him when it missed his femoral artery. He’d been deep in the bush in Liberia when it happened, miles and worlds away from any proper medical care.

  He expected to retire from the British spy agency, but after being shot and losing his brother and father in short order, he decided he needed a change of scenery and career.

  He moved to the United States, bouncing from place to place, trying to, as the Yanks call it “find himself.” He’d gotten rid of his accent in his previous career, often posing as a Canadian to throw off suspicion. Nobody anywhere had a problem with Canadians.

  He didn’t intentionally leave it behind when he started life anew in the States, but unless he was back home in Sheffield, or talking to someone from the U.K., it just slipped out on certain words.

  After a spell in New York City and some time in Miami, Mick wound up in Las Vegas, working first in corporate security and then as a personal bodyguard to William Watterson, the hotel and casino mogul. When William went into semi-retirement and turned the day-to-day operations over to his only son, Winston, Mick switched over to guarding the new face of Watterson Gaming.

  He was grateful that Winston had taken his new responsibilities seriously and left his hard-partying days behind him. Mick hated the club scene, and he’d lost count of the times he’d had to endure a night in some dark, jarringly-loud nightclub assessing risk and coming up with scenarios to keep young Winston safe for when he inevitably decided to spend a night out with his entourage of gold-diggers.

  Just the thought of it made his migraine throb. But the thought of one particular scouting mission made something else throb.

  He recalled that night at…what was it called? Scant? Scald? That was it, Scald. Typical in so many ways; music so loud it made his teeth rattle, douchebags wearing way too much Axe body spray making it hard to breathe, and darkness that triggered claustrophobia left over from his time in confined in what amounted to a coffin outside Lahore, Pakistan, while a warlord decided his fate.

  The planned execution took place, but instead of Mick being beheaded, he’d overpowered his captors and turned their swords and guns on them before making his escape. The body count on that mission definitely contributed to his migraines.

  Mick thought about that night at Scald, and how many times he returned there after that night, looking for the girl. He knew it was fruitless, nobody dancing in a Las Vegas nightclub lives in Las Vegas, and she’d undoubtedly returned home to Dallas or Minneapolis, or wherever she called home.

  But that one night… fuck.

  He reached down to the impressive slab of man muscle swinging between his legs, and he gave it a slow tug. Then another. Before long, he’d reached full, majestic attention, standing there in the window. Morning traffic filled the Las Vegas Strip thirty stories below.

  He braced himself with one hand against the glass, setting up a steady rhythm, ignoring the dull pain in his shoulder.

  He’d been sitting at the bar when he first spotted her, all blonde hair, blue eyes, and the most refreshing, easy smile he’d seen on all six continents he’d visited.

  The way her hips swayed inside her painted-on blue dress when she walked past him was captivating, and when the shiny sheen of sweat appeared on her brow as she danced, he imagined how she might flush when she…

  Mick grunted and increased the pace of hand on cock.

  She danced so freely, laughing with her friends. There was nothing forced or sloppy about her, not like so many of the girls there that night, and every night at places like Scald. She wasn’t trying to be “cool” or “sexy,” she was just effortlessly mesmerizing. Mick nursed his import beer as he watched her, unable to take his eyes off her spinning, undulating form.

  Her ass in that dress. Her legs. Hell, her everything.

  He’d watched her leave the dance floor and approach the bar. Her friends split off, and she was alone. Mick had never been good at opening lines, but he figured if he sat down, offered to buy her a drink, and introduced himself, that might be enough to not get laughed at, or flat turned down, anyway.

  Before he could act, however, the two Arab guys approached. Saudi? Qatari? If he could hear them speak, clearly, he could identify their dialect and probably tell them, with reasonable accuracy, where they’d grown up, within a few hundred kilometers.

  Mick sat back to watch their flirtatious efforts unfold, but when he saw the man produce that capsule and slip it— so quickly even he almost missed it— into her drink, he knew he had to act.

  He wasn’t in a Watterson Gaming property, so he knew to expect zero leniency from Scald security. He hoped to avoid confrontation altogether, but he doubted the cocky, gold-clad assholes would back down without a show of force. He intervened, and as expected, immediately came under attack. Messy, but definitely an attack.

  Pounding them into the ground would have been fun, and probably therapeutic, but he needed things to end quickly and to melt away, maybe with the girl on his arm. No police, no questions from hotel security.

  The first man, charging forward in a blind rage, went down easily. The second was larger and a bit more calculated in his approach. Mick fell for neither of his two feints, however, and when he got past the man’s flailing fists, he executed a textbook uchi mata, judo’s “throw of kings,” applying just enough extra mustard to the throw to make sure his opponent wouldn’t recover quickly.

  Being a fugitive, even if only from nightclub security over a minor scuffle, gave Mick the familiar jolt of adrenaline, and he fell right back into old habits. He took the girl by the hand and slipped into the sea of bodies on the dance floor. When they got a safe distance away, he tried to calm her, although being so close to her, smelling the floral scent on her hair and losing himself in the depths of her ice-blue eyes, made rational thought difficult. When he noticed a yellow-shirted rent-a-cop getting too close, he made the decision to hide in plain sight. To plant a kiss on this girl he’d just met, this beautiful, fresh-faced angel, and hope that if she didn’t exactly respond, that she’d go with it long enough for the heat to blow over.

  The “heat,” however, rather than blowing over, became a conflagration. An inferno.

  The heat between Mick and Ayla, that is.

  Mick expected the kiss to surprise her, and she did tense up for a moment, but she didn’t attempt to withdraw, and began to fervently return his passion. To all the world, they must have looked like long-term lovers, kissing and grinding and groping in the middle of the dance floor, when in reality they’d just met. Or not even officially met, actually.

  The kiss lingered, with stops and starts, changing positions and angles as their bodies pressed close and Ayla could feel what seemed like an angry, throbbing beast in his pants, struggling to be set free.

  When they finally, mutually came up for air, Ayla and Mick stared at each other in shared disbelief. He lifted the back of his hand to his bottom lip and wiped it, breaking into a smile. Ayla was dazed and breathless, but filled with a hunger like she’d never known.

  Back in the window of his condo, Mick braced himself against the glass pulling furiously on his cock as he thought of the way she filled out that dress… how she tasted… how soft the back of her thigh felt when he reached down and cupped her ass, pulling her in tight. She yelped into his mouth when he took possession of her body like that, and she shuddered as she ground her hips against his thigh.

  Fuck it. Mick thought of her climaxing, right there on the crowded dance floor, and he came. His cock pulsed as he gritted his t
eeth and emptied himself against the window.

  As he finished, Mick stood up straight and stretched both arms over his head. He lived in a world filled with wealthy men, which meant beautiful women. But there was something about that girl from the club, all those years ago, that he always came back to. Her beauty, her… purity.

  There was something fresh about her. She wasn’t at all need or desperate like so many of the women who filled the clubs he’d spent time in all over the world. She didn’t have an agenda or motive. She was an innocent as it got in his world.

  Although as unknowing as she appeared, she turned out to be anything but.

  Once they’d slipped out of the club and back out into the casino and found that quiet corner atop the parking garage, and they were as alone as they could be in the middle of one of the most action-packed miles of real estate on the planet, she demonstrated a fiery sexuality that almost overwhelmed him.

  But if Mick spent too much time thinking about that garage roof, he’d never leave his condo and make it to his boss’s first appointment of the day, with the casino magnate who’d flown in from Macau to discuss a potential partnership with Watterson Gaming. Mick wasn’t needed on such occasions, per se, but Winston preferred to do business with his entire “team” nearby, legal advisors, financial people, and the muscle; Mick Merryweather.

  After a shower and cleaning up the mess Ayla had inspired him to make, Mick donned his black suit and went to work.

  Chapter 4

  Preston had a meltdown at drop off, making one last plea for his mom to pass on work and take him to the water park. Then, the energy drink Ayla had been drinking on the car on the way to her job fell out of the cup holder when she had to make a sudden stop, soaking the entire right leg of her pants.

  She was already running late, so there was no time go home and change. She used some Chipotle napkins from the floor behind the passenger seat to dab herself as dry as she could, but she was doomed to spend the first part of her shift wet and sticky, not to mention lacking the boost the rest of the can would have provided.

  By the time she reached the time clock, it was 10:02, and her boss was waiting when she arrived at her desk.

  “Late again? Sorry, but that’s an occurrence,” Teri reminded Ayla. As if she needed to be reminded. And as if she was actually sorry.

  “That’s your third this quarter. That’s a write up.” The way Teri said “write up” with that scary grin on her face made Ayla want to punch her in her stupid Botoxed face.

  Teri Palermo was in her early fifties, but she’d had so much work done in an attempt to look young and lure husband number five that she had a permanent Joker-style smile. “Next time you’re late is a suspension. And that’s back from lunch or break or anything. That would really suck to have to suspend you for something so stupid. Maybe you should take your job here a little more seriously. Your numbers haven’t really been that great lately anyway, right?”

  Ayla swallowed hard and dug the thumbnail of her left hand into her palm until she almost drew blood. Teri would stand there until Ayla responded, she knew that from unfortunate past experience. The two women made eye contact, seething Ayla vs. smug Teri, and the stare down lasted a heartbeat past becoming uncomfortable.

  “Sorry,” Ayla muttered under her breath and sat down at her desk, punching in her password.

  “I’ll bring that paperwork over for you to sign in just a little while,” Teri began to walk away but turned back. “Ayla, have you stopped going to the gym? You look like you’ve put on, I don’t know, five pounds? My trainer could probably squeeze you in if you want his number.”

  What. The. Fuck.

  Ayla’s eyes opened wide as she stared at her monitor. She’d taken all she was going to take. She looked back over her shoulder at Teri. “No, thanks, I don’t think your trainer has an impressive enough portfolio for me.”

  Teri scrunched up her face, as best the procedures she’d had done would allow, and digested the dig. Ayla had already donned her headset and turned her attention to work, so Teri let the matter drop and went to find somebody else to bully.

  At her first break, after a morning of being berated over the phone, Ayla checked her cell and found four text messages waiting for her.

  Randy, her boss’s boss at the shipping company, asked her to find him in the morning when she got to work. Undoubtedly to talk about her reliability and punctuality.

  Desiree checked in and apologized if she’d been short with Ayla in the morning and wanted to check on her and Preston.

  The third was from Amy, Ayla’s older sister in California. Amy’s husband had gotten two free Dodgers’ tickets for their Saturday afternoon game from a friend, good seats, and wanted to invite Ayla and Preston to use them if they could make it down to L.A. for the weekend.

  Finally, some good news after a dreadful morning.

  Weekends were when Ayla caught up on sleep and enjoyed some quality time with her son, and they squeezed in as much fun as she could afford. They loved hiking in the desert, exploring old ghost towns, and taking trips to Southern California to visit her sister and Preston’s cousins.

  Amy felt bad for Ayla and wished she could be there to help, but she wasn’t in a position to relocate. Amy’s husband, Noah, worked as a session musician, playing guitar at several Los Angeles-area recording studios, and he helped to care for his own sister, Melissa, who was stricken with cerebral palsy. Amy and Noah had two small children of their own, a boy and girl, and their life had enough stress without worrying about Ayla and Preston.

  Noah had inherited a large house down in Orange County, with a guest bedroom larger than the master in Ayla’s rental house. It came complete with its own bathroom, large flat screen TV, and small fridge. Being there was just like being on vacation. Preston would be excited to hear about the Dodgers game, and maybe they could squeeze in a trip to the beach while they were there.

  The final text message was from Ayla’s babysitter, Lupe. A flimsy excuse about having to watch her niece, but nothing which would have precluded her from calling Desiree or Ayla to let them know she might not be able to make it. Ayla figured she’d spent the night at her boyfriend’s place, been up late, and slept right through her alarm, if she’d even set one.

  The search for a reliable person to watch Preston early in the morning would evidently have to resume.

  Once she was back on the clock, Ayla’s work was interrupted by Teri with her paperwork. “I have two, one for your persistent tardiness and one for your insubordination,” Teri explained, setting the papers down on the edge of Ayla’s desk. “Just sign here and here.”

  “Insubordination?” Ayla asked.

  “That nasty remark about my trainer,” Teri explained. She leaned in close, so only Ayla could hear her. “Challenge me and I’ll burn you to the ground. You’ll be out of here. Don’t forget that boy of yours. You need this job.”

  Ayla balled up her fists in a fit of rage. She needed a drink. Or a massage. Or to get fucked. Or all three. She’d settle for a glass of wine and a few chapters of the new Nora Roberts novel she’d downloaded the previous evening. The guy on the cover had almost melted the glass on her Kindle, so she had that guilty pleasure to look forward to.

  She scribbled her name on the two lines Teri had pointed to and slammed the pen down on the desk before putting her headset back on and turning her back to her manager.

  The rest of the day was uneventful, and Ayla looked forward to giving Preston the news about the Dodgers and watching him enjoy his ice cream.

  Ayla’s Spanish wasn’t great, but she’d given Preston a few phrases to try with the boys at daycare. He’d tried them, and the boys seemed pleased, but they responded with full-speed Spanish, and Preston was immediately lost. The making of daycare lemonade would be a work in progress. Lupe’s family was from Honduras, and Desiree had taken four years of high school Spanish. In fact, Desiree’s brother-in-law was from Ecuador, so Ayla knew she could eventually get her son pointed
in the right direction. And hopefully she could get Lupe to show up consistently on time.

  He was ecstatic about the trip to California, and although baseball wasn’t his favorite sport, going to the big stadium was always fun. Staying up late with Mom watching movies on Aunt Amy’s Netflix was pretty cool, too.

  Once Preston was full and showered, Ayla drew a bath and poured herself some wine. Staying up to enjoy some “me time” would cut into her already small sleep window, but she needed to destress in the worst way.

  The steam from the romance novel was even hotter than that rising from the bathwater, and before long the wine had helped dissolve Ayla’s tension. When she got to a particularly wicked scene involving the heroine and her father’s best friend, an MMA fighter, Ayla’s hands wandered all over her own body.

  In her mind, she imagined the man she always did – the man in the green shirt from Scald.

  For a long time, she felt shame at how she’d acted, what she’d done, how eager she’d been for him to have her and take her and use her. But nothing got her going like the memory. She climaxed easily, straightening her legs hard against the end of the tub and tossing her head back.

  Rather than satiating her, the release was a trigger, and she stayed in the tub until the water was lukewarm, coaxing all the pleasure she could from her lush body. By the time she staggered to her bed and collapsed, it was after midnight. She was due at work in less than four hours.