I can barely see with the water and stars in my eyes, making my vision hazy. I can hardly hear either, with the constant thump thump thump in my ears.
But somehow, the loud crack and my father’s cringing scream rips through my haze.
I try to shake my head clear as the two monsters release my father and walk out, laughing. “We’ll see you tomorrow,” they say as they leave. “And you better have more than just rotten tomatoes.”
My father rolls off the desk and slumps to the floor, clutching his good arm, which is now his second broken arm.
We crawl toward each other and meet somewhere in the middle, until we’re clutching one another and crying helplessly.
It’s not a good feeling.
My father has always been such a proud man and what really hurts is to see him so broken and demasculinized. That hurts more than my throbbing eye.
This won’t end until my father is dead.
The restaurant is not getting busier. The money is going out more than it’s coming in.
My father has carried us so long, ever since my mother died eight years ago when I was ten. Maybe it’s time for me to step up and help out.
Maybe I can take care of his debt so that he can enjoy his golden years on a golf course in peace.
I have to try.
When we finally get up, close the restaurant, and get in the car to head to the hospital, I’ve made up my mind.
I’m going to go see Cormac Connolly tomorrow.
And settle this debt for good.
Chapter Two
Cormac
“But I’m the best earner in six counties!” the little bitch screams as Brock pins his arms behind his back.
I’m sick of this guy. What kind of piece of shit sells drugs to kids?
Sammy screams as Brock tightens his grip.
This piece of shit.
“By selling to kids,” I say as I walk out from behind my desk with my eyes locked on him. “Only the lowest of the low sell product to children. You sell for me. That means you’re making me sell product to children. Am I the lowest of the low?”
Sammy shakes his greasy head in a panic. “No. Definitely not.”
I reach into his jeans and pull out a wad of cash. There’s at least three grand in here. I toss it on my desk and it explodes into a mess of hundred dollar bills.
“Relax,” I say when I see his legs shaking. “I’m not going to kill you. I should but I’m not. You’re still my best earner even if it because you’re a piece of shit.”
Sammy’s eyes drop to my shiny shoes. He’s terrified of me. As he should be.
I wouldn’t think twice about ending his pathetic life.
I reach into my pocket and pull out my switchblade. Sammy’s eyes go wide when he hears the click of the blade popping up.
He shivers as I place the tip under his chin and guide his head up until he’s looking at me. “Sell to one more child and see what happens.”
He can’t move his head with my knife pinning him in place but the intention is clear in his petrified eyes. He won’t disobey me.
Nobody does.
Or, nobody alive does.
“I won’t,” he says, staring into my eyes. “I promise.”
I don’t need his promises. I need his fear. And I have it.
“Let him go, Brock,” I say, as I close the blade and stuff the knife back into my pocket.
Sammy takes a breath of relief as the brute releases him.
“Thank you, sir,” he says, clasping his hands together in front of him as he grovels. I fucking hate grovelers. “I won’t let you down.”
I glance at Lynch and he nods, moving fast as he grabs the greasy mutt. Brock opens the door of my office and Lynch literally throws him into the hallway.
Brock and Lynch are my two best men. All brute and no brains. They do what I say and are loyal as can be. They get people to pay up, they watch my back, and after me, they’re the two most important people in my organization.
“Watch him,” I say after Brock closes the door. “If you hear that he’s back at the playgrounds, you bring him to me.” I want to be the one who snuffs him out.
A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door. It’s so soft and timid that I barely hear it.
Brock opens the door a crack and starts laughing when he sees who is there. I tilt my head to the side, curious and trying to get a look but I can’t see with Brock in the way.
“Who is it?” I ask.
Brock looks over his shoulder with a grin on his face. “Just a little mouse,” he says with a smile. “Want me to crush her?”
He’s got my curiosity peaked. “Move.”
He does as I command and reveals the most beautiful sight that I’ve ever seen as he steps to the side.
It hits me like a train slamming into my core. A force grips my soul and threatens to end me unless I make her mine.
She’s the most gorgeous thing that I’ve ever seen.
Big red hair that waves like flowing lava. I’m so mesmerized that I’m afraid if I touch it, I’ll get burned.
Her bright eyes are impossibly blue with a gorgeous sprinkle of freckles dotted across her smooth cheeks. I swallow hard as I take in her luscious pink lips, desperately wondering if they taste as good as they look. I vow at that moment to do anything to find out.
My heart is thumping in my chest, slamming against my ribcage. All I can do is stare at her in disbelief. Disbelief that a girl can make me react like this.
She’s wearing a yellow shirt that makes her face shine like the sun, which is completely fitting because it feels like the sun has been removed from the center of the universe and she took its place. She’s the center of my universe now.
My hands are shaking. Shaking! My hands never shake. I slip them under the desk so that no one sees.
I’m completely frozen in my chair, like the clouds opened up and an angel descended from them into my office. I stare at her, transfixed with my palms sweating. Everything I know about life and love and need is gone. I live for her now. I love her intensely with every cell in my body. I need her like I need the air that is so hard to breathe with my chest burning so tightly.
“Back for more?” Brock says, laughing.
Rage burns through me. He’s laughing at her. He’s a dead man.
But I can’t move. It’s like the world has been flipped upside down. I can barely breathe in her presence. She hasn’t said a word but I already know that I must have her.
Our souls were made for each other and I feel a dark need growing inside of me; a need to possess her completely.
“Mr. Connolly,” she says, looking right at me with those devastating blue eyes. A warm shiver flows through me when I hear the sweet sound of her voice.
Anger mixes with desire. I’m angry that this beautiful angel existed in this world and nobody brought her to me. How much time was wasted without her by my side? It makes me cringe to think about it.
She’s here now. And she’s never going to leave.
“Mr. Connolly,” she repeats when I just sit here, staring at her in shock. “I would like to talk to you about my father, Arthur Walsh.”
Every hair on my arm is standing straight up like an army on alert as she speaks. She’s so brave and courageous. I know what she must have heard about me. I have a reputation of being ruthless and violent. It was all done by design. Yet, she is in my office standing straight and looking me in the eye.
She looks so young and innocent. She can’t be older than eighteen, yet here she is, holding her own as she talks with the most powerful man in the city.
I take a deep breath as I wait for her to go on. I don’t feel very powerful now. I feel like she could shatter me to pieces simply by walking out the door. She could crush my heart with just a look of pain.
“He owes you money, I believe,” she continues when I don’t say a word. I couldn’t even if I tried.
My mind is racing, already imagining how soft and supple she would
feel lying under me, wondering what I can do to make her mine forever.
I clear my throat and sit up, never taking my eyes off of the stunning beauty standing in front of me. “He does. Are you his daughter?”
She nods.
A dark thought flashes through my mind. I want to take her and lock her in my room. I want to rip off her clothes and cum in her to make her mine. I want to plant my seed in her young womb and never let her go.
“My father can’t pay you,” she says, her voice trembling. It breaks my heart to see her so upset. I could easily wipe away her father’s debt to me with a stroke of my pen but I won’t. I can use that to bind her to me, to lock her into my life. I’m a selfish prick but right now, I would kill God himself for a single kiss of those lips.
She raises her chin and meets my eye with a fierce determination that makes me light-headed. “I would like to take on his debt.”
Brock bursts out laughing but the violent look I shoot him shuts him up real fucking fast.
My greedy eyes wander down her young innocent body, taking in every glorious inch. “And how are you going to pay me for his tremendous debt?”
She gulps but holds my eyes. She’s so beautiful.
“By working for it.” She pulls out a paper from her pocket and unfolds it as she steps forward. “I can pay you five hundred dollars a month for the next ten years and that should cover it.”
I can’t help but admire her courage as she places the paper on my desk. It’s written in pencil on a ripped out paper from a notebook. I imagine her using her school books to calculate how she can take over her father’s debt and the thought fills me with a flood of warmth.
“This is not enough,” I say, looking down at the paper. The financials work, she even took into account the interest, but it’s still not enough. I only want her.
I want to keep her. I want to protect her.
I want to slide my cock into her tight pussy every morning and every night and hear her moan my name on those sweet lips of hers.
And I won’t stop until I make that a reality.
“I’ll pay you every penny,” she says, her blue eyes sparkling. “I give you my word.”
I was so captivated by her blue eyes that I didn’t notice the darkness on her skin. I dart around the desk in an instant, stopping right in front of her as she leans back in shock.
I take her cheek in my hand and tilt her head up as I examine her left eye. She’s covered it with makeup but I know it’s there: a black eye.
Murderous heat rushes through my body as I lick my thumb and wipe away the cover-up on her soft purple skin.
“Who did this to you?” I demand a name. I’m already fantasizing about what I’m going to do to him as my body tenses and my pulse races.
Her pure innocent eyes drop to the floor. “I fell down the stairs,” she mutters.
My eyes dart over to my right hand men, Brock and Lynch. Maybe they know who the soon to be dead man who touched her is.
Lynch looks at the wall, the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at me. His cheeks are burning red as he swallows nervously.
Brock’s worried eyes are on Lynch.
He’s a dead man.
I want to rip his heart out of his chest immediately but I’m not going to do it in front of her. She’ll never have violence in her life again. As long as she never tries to leave.
It takes everything I have to release her soft cheek. “Did you do this to her?” I demand of Lynch as I step toward him. He’s larger than me but I’m not scared of him. I’m not scared of any man.
He gulps as he shakes his head, staring at me with guilty eyes.
“It’s okay,” she says, placing her hand on my forearm. “I fell down the stairs. It’s the truth.”
I pry my eyes off of Lynch and turn back to her. Her face is like porcelain. It’s perfect.
I could stare at her face for hours, for days.
Her lips are hypnotic when they move. Utterly spellbinding when they’re still.
Her sparkling white teeth are straight except for one crooked one that makes her mouth that much better. A flaw that’s not a flaw. A flaw that makes her that much more perfect.
I’m wondering what her smile looks like when she takes the paper off of my desk and hands it to me. “Please, Mr. Connolly. My father is tired and he tries really hard. He’s just an Irishman who is down on his luck. Please let me take on his debt.”
She looks so worried. Someone as young as her shouldn’t be burdened with problems like this.
I want to hold her and tell her that everything is going to be okay. I want to take care of her and provide her with whatever she needs until the day I die.
“Chin up, Buttercup,” I say, taking the paper from her. I don’t know her name and I don’t know why I call her that but it’s fitting. Maybe it’s the yellow shirt or it’s the brightness that she brings to my dark and dreary world but that’s what comes out. “Everything is going to be okay. Go home and I’ll take care of everything.”
She takes a breath of relief. “Does this mean?”
“It means we’ll figure it out,” I say, staring into her eyes.
She stares back at me and her face softens. “Thank you.”
I should handle this now. I should do everything that I can to keep her here and put my baby in her, binding us together forever but I can’t.
Lynch hurt her and I won’t be able to breathe until I put a bullet in his head.
Brock opens the door for her and I watch with a tight chest as she leaves. My anger just increases when she’s out of my sight.
I turn to Lynch with an unstoppable rage burning through me. It makes me furious that she’s out of my presence and it’s all his fault.
“You okay, boss?” Brock asks nervously as I slowly walk over to his friend.
Lynch gulps as he watches me approach. He knows that he’s in trouble, but he doesn’t realize how much. If he did, he’d be lunging for the door.
I’m usually so calm. So composed. I run my organization with my brain, never letting my temper get in the way of decision making but today is different.
This girl is unraveling me.
She’s consuming my thoughts.
Her sweet candy scent is still in my nose, making me crazy.
“You. Hit. Her?” I ask, glaring up at Lynch.
His cheeks turn a guilty red and it’s all the proof that I need. I kick his kneecap, dropping him to the ground and land three hard punches on his face.
I may not be a young pup anymore like I was in my old boxing days, but I’m still tough as nails and can still fuck someone up.
Lynch grabs his crooked nose that’s bleeding like a leaky faucet as I slowly walk behind the desk and open the top drawer.
Brock’s eyes are wild and alive as they dart from me to Lynch back and forth, back and forth.
I grab the handgun that’s sitting on a pile of papers and cock it as I walk back to the dead man who starts begging as he holds his broken face.
I’m not interested in hearing any pleading. He touched my girl. He gets a bullet in his head.
Bang.
Brock jumps at the noise. I turn to him as Lynch’s lifeless body slumps to the floor. There’s a exit wound in the back of his head, bleeding on my expensive carpet.
“Boss,” Brock says, stepping back as he shows me his palms. “That was a good move. He deserved it.”
“You let him touch her,” I say, raising the smoking gun. “You let it happen.”
“No,” he says in a panic. “I wasn’t in the-”
Bang.
He drops to the floor to join his friend in hell.
Nobody touches my Buttercup. Ever.
She’s mine now and under my protection.
It’s time to go tell her that.
Chapter Three
Bree
“You’re going to have to learn to eat with your feet,” I joke as I feed my father some spaghetti. Both of his arms are in casts now so I have to do
pretty much everything.
But I don’t mind. He could use a break.
“I’m so sorry,” he says when he’s finished chewing. He looks devastated and has barely been able to meet my eye since the goons came into the restaurant last night and broke his arm. “You didn’t deserve to see that.”
“And you didn’t deserve to have it happen,” I say, wiping sauce off of his chin with a napkin. “What doesn’t kill us can only make us stronger, right?”
He nods but he doesn’t look like he feels any stronger.
I start to think back to this afternoon as I feed him. It was both terrifying and thrilling to be standing in front of Cormac Connolly, the head of the Irish mafia. I was so nervous.
My legs were shaking and I was sweating so much when I walked in, but standing in front of him so close as he towered over me with those sexy dark eyes started to do something else for me.
My nerves turned into desire. My fear turned into want.
I didn’t expect him to be so gorgeous. I had seen him around town before but never up close. My father always taught me to drop my eyes and hurry away whenever he was in the area so I always did. He would freak out if he knew that a few hours earlier, I was standing in his office, negotiating with him.
He looked so big and powerful as he stood over me, oozing out a dark, dominant energy that threatened to consume me whole. He’s a pure alpha male and seeing that, feeling the power that he had over people, including the two huge men who hurt my father, woke something carnal and primal within me.
I’ve never been attracted to older men but this older man is different. How can I not be attracted to him?
His dark eyes were on me, staring at me fiercely like I was the most important thing in the world. It was the first time that I ever felt like I was being seen. Truly seen by a man.
My father loves me but he doesn’t count and the boys at school always teased me about my red hair. They were much too immature and spoiled to ever hold my interest.
Cormac Connolly is different. Looking into his eyes was like looking through a window into his soul. His dark, domineering soul. Ever since I left, I’ve been wanting another peek.
Guarding Her Body Page 7
