SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

Ironically, the man who hasn’t ever harmed a soul is now a murderer, while Tee, the very definition of violence, is a cowed, meek little mouse, who even now is so frightened that she nearly jumps out of her skin when the nurse touches her arm.

  “What the fuck happened?” I hiss at Heath when he spots me and jogs over, his face a mask of cold fury.

  “One of her patients lost his mind and pulled a gun on her. I came in after I heard something topple over and heard him threatening her through the door. It was bad, man. Tee was frozen. In shock. Incapable of defending herself,” he whispers, his gaze turning soft when he looks back at where she’s staring off into space, oblivious to the world around her. “We need to do something. With Paris and Sin’s wedding coming up, and with Mindy still out there somewhere, there’s no certainty. Tee needs to feel safe, Ares,” he tells me, his eyes going hard when I shake my head.

  “That’s the very last thing she needs—trust me, Heath. I may not be on her top five list of people to like, but I know Nefertiti Sweet better than anyone on this planet. She needs to be shaken up and forced out of her fear.”

  “She’s not ready for anything like that, Ares. You weren’t there, man. She was frozen. Numb. So out of it that I only got her to talk to me after we reached the hospital. I thought she was having some sort of episode before she finally blinked!” he whispers fiercely, the sadness that fills his eyes when he looks at Tee so stark that I feel my own throat go dry and tight when I glance at her.

  She isn’t looking at anything, her eyes glazed over, and she doesn’t so much as blink, not even when the nurse swabs at the crook of her elbow before shoving a needle into her vein.

  “What’s going on? Why are they taking blood? I thought they were treating her for shock,” I hiss, stalking forward to stand beside Tee as the vial fills with her blood.

  The sight reminds me of the night that I shadowed them to Sin’s burned-down apartment and found the one security guy who’d gone with them unconscious and bleeding out on the floor outside the door. I almost had a stroke as I called for backup, and I nearly lost it when I heard Tee cry out, the muffled sound of distress and fear spurring something in me that I hadn’t realized was there.

  Violence.

  It was an emotion so strong that even now, weeks later, I lie awake at night staring into the darkness, replaying that moment over and over until it drives me nearly insane. I killed a man, used his own gun to shoot him dead, and I feel no remorse for doing it. Worse, moments after he was lying there dead and staring sightlessly up at me, all I felt as I grabbed hold of Tee was a sick curl of satisfaction and pride.

  I saved her, but at what cost? I ask myself, as I watch her slip away further and further into her own mind. I took something from her, I think—something vital that made Tee who she was. Brave, kickass, chaos-driven Tee, who thrived on terrorizing those around her.

  “Tee? Honey?” I coax gently, my hand cupping her cheek when she doesn’t respond immediately and just keeps staring off into space. “Babe, you need to snap out of it and talk to me,” I murmur, frustration filling me when her eyes remain fixed on some spot off in the distance, and her mind somewhere I can’t follow her, even if I want to.

  Which I don’t. That’s the problem lately. I don’t want to delve into her mind too closely because if I do, then I’ll get sucked into it and possibly never come out. Tee is like a drug. She gets into your head, into your blood, and before you know what’s happened, you’re craving her like a junkie craves a fix. We slept together, once, and it’s an event that I’ve been avoiding with everything I have ever since. Somehow, we’ve managed to avoid any awkward talks about it, and I’m sick with relief that she doesn’t seem to be into dissecting what went down between us the way most women do.

  She was cool. Woke up the next morning, took one look at my panicked face, and laughed so hard that she snorted. Then she left without a backward glance, which would have been the end of it for me, except that I saw the sheet on my bed before the housekeeper could launder it. There are only two reasons that a woman leaves a bloodstain on a sheet the morning after sex, and one of those reasons makes my gut clench just thinking about it. Since I had my mouth on her sex for nearly half the night, I’m almost positive that the one reason I prayed for, isn’t the reason at all.

  That leaves me…adrift, and—

  “He was going to kill me,” Tee murmurs, dragging me out of my thoughts to see her swallowing and blinking rapidly before her eyes come up to meet mine.

  The glazed, distant look is gone, and in its place is an emotion that I never thought that I would see in this woman. An emotion that guts me to the core and makes me wish I were a better man, the kind she could lean on, seeking comfort.

  “Tee—”

  “And I froze. I couldn’t move. I tried to move, but I was so scared that I couldn’t do a damn thing,” she continues, her expression remaining as clear and impassive as a sheet of marble.

  “Of course you couldn’t do anything, Tee! The asshole had a gun,” I whisper, stroking my thumb over her soft cheek once before I force my hand to fall away and shove it in my pocket. “You’re okay.”

  “No. No, I’m not,” she says tonelessly, her eyes growing wet with unshed tears that she blinks away fast. “I’m not okay. Twice now, I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun, and twice, I was helpless to do anything about it. I couldn’t have saved myself if the president himself had stormed in and barked out an order for me to move. I was paralyzed with fear.”

  “That’s normal,” I say, feeling helpless when she flicks her eyes to mine and smiles sadly with a shake of her head.

  “Not for me. I once tackled the captain of the football team, while he was wearing full gear, to prove to Cleo that all that protective gear doesn’t mean jack shit. I faced down my principal and laughed in his face when he threatened to expel me. Hell, I met my biological parents when I was eighteen, just to show my mom and dad that I didn’t see them as anything important enough to avoid,” she says softly, her lips quirking when I shake my head, at a loss for words. “I’m the fearless one. I’m supposed to be the one you call when you’re in deep shit and need hairy balls the size of Texas to come take care of things for you. I’m not supposed to freeze up and cry.”

  “You’re in shock—”

  “No. I’m not. I’m so far into reality that it isn’t even funny,” she counters, her eyes going to Heath, who steps forward as if pulled by a string, like a puppet she’s got full control over. “I’d like to go home now.”

  “You haven’t been discharged, Tee. Let the nurses—”

  “I already know what they’re going to say,” she whispers, a soft smile on her face before she closes her eyes and tips her head back, clearly searching for calm. “I want to go home, Heath . To Jack and Honey’s.”

  “Tee.”

  “Thanks for coming out. As always, you’ve been a real rock for me to lean on, but I need to skedaddle.”

  Tee

  I’m silent as Heath drives, his eyes darting from mirror to mirror while I curl up on the seat beside him and stare at the passing cars and the blurring white lines on the asphalt. I’m sick to my stomach with disgust, heartache, and a little thing I like to call, “Get real, loser; he’s not into you.”

  If I’d thought for even one second that Ares Hart wanted more from me than a silent cold war relationship based on mutual dislike, he just proved me more than wrong in that hospital emergency room. What was I expecting, though, honestly? That he’d rush in there the way a man in love would, sweep me into his arms, and whisper that everything was okay because he’d protect me?

  Truthfully? I kinda was. Silly, silly me. Here’s the deal, though: I wanted him to, needed him to, and prayed for a stupid moment that he would, because I felt like I was falling apart from the inside out, and that somehow, just those assurances would pull me back together.

  The unpalatable facts are that I am, and have been, in love with Ares Hart ever since we slept together. Hell, I gave hi
m my cherry, my first time—something special that I’d been keeping for that special someone because, in my heart of hearts, I wanted that moment to be about more than fumbling hands and sexual release.

  I’ve lied about my sexual status for years, and I’ve played a good game when it comes to backing up my reputation as a modern, sexually liberated woman. The truth is, though, that I was always too afraid that I’d do something I’d regret, and so I held on to that purity of body in the hopes that some man would sweep in and prove me wrong about romance and all that happily ever after bullshit.

  But that stuff doesn’t exist. Just ask my sister and my other cousins, all married to, engaged to, or nearly owned by the Hart men. They love each other to death, and yet Cleo, my cousin, still sabotages her weddings to Adonis, a man she’d walk over broken glass for. Alex, married to Chilli and the mother of his children, gave him a black eye just the other day because she’s pregnant and hormonal, and for some reason, “his smirking face just pissed me off.” Her words. Rosetta, married to Zeus and pregnant with their first child, still takes the odd night once a week to stare at him while he’s sleeping, because she knows that it scares him when he wakes up to find her looking at him with that speculative gleam in her eye. According to Rose, who is not all quite there in the sanity department, you need to keep your man on his toes in order to get the best results. And this is coming from a woman who would literally kill for her husband and unborn child.

  Love isn’t a rosy, perfect, bump-free carriage ride like the books say, and that’s okay. I guess that I just wanted, for once, to see something as flawed as all those relationships for myself, and to feel more than this…restless fear that fills me.

  I want love, just like every other woman on the planet, and for once in my miserable life, I chose wrong when it counted the most.

  “Talk to me, Tee,” Heath says softly, his eyes landing on me for a few precious seconds before he goes back to watching the road and our surroundings, his alert watchfulness making my gut clench with renewed nerves.

  “About what?” I ask tiredly, straightening up in my seat to look at him, because I owe him more than a sulking slump against the door and some offhanded shrug.

  Heath and I are friends. I’m friends with all the security guys because I’m the only Sweet woman left unattached thus far. Most nights, I end up with at least four of these guys in my apartment, watching TV, playing poker, or just chilling out. Heck, Grange sleeps in my bedroom on the loveseat near the window, and I’ve seen my fair share of male morning wood in the last few weeks, thanks to the male invasion that has become my life.

  Because Ares isn’t there anymore—not since…that night.

  “About anything, baby doll. Tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours,” he urges, his mouth pulling into a frown when I shrug and sigh loudly.

  “Why do you guys do this job?” I ask, avoiding the question because I don’t want to talk about my stupid feelings.

  It used to be that I could go weeks without anyone asking me how I felt, because they were always completely sure that I was okay. I’m the tough Sweet, goddammit, not soft like Cleo or unhinged like Sin, who veers between kindness and madness in the blink of an eye. Even Alex doesn’t have anything on me in the tough department, and she’s been known to lose her mind every now and then—like with Chilli’s black eye, for example.

  “Tee—”

  “No, seriously. I mean, you’re always working your asses off, watching out for everyone, and you hardly have a life. So why do it?” I ask, worrying my lip with my teeth when he sighs and leans back in his seat, his body language going softer when two black SUVs pull in beside us, caging us in protectively.

  “I like my job, honey. I was an Army brat, enlisted when I was eighteen, and then got my ass blown up after two tours and a stint in the Rangers. There was never a doubt in my mind that I could come back stateside and just live as a civilian. This job is my balance. I get to be the man I am and still live a decent life. And it isn’t a bad one, either,” he says softly, smiling when I frown. “I got no family left. My mom died of breast cancer when I was twenty, my pop went a year later—just dropped down dead from a heart attack one day while working—and I have no other family to speak of. The Harts are my family, and now you girls and your folks are included in that list.”

  I feel sad for him. I’ve always had more family than I knew what to do with, and there hasn’t been a day in my life that I was alone, no matter what I was doing or where I was. Hell, my cousin Rosetta is as crazy as two badgers caught in a snare, fighting for the bait that drew them to the thing. I know she watches us, spies on us regularly, and has been known to hack into our lives with not an ounce of shame to show for it.

  Hearing Heath tell me that we’re all he has, reminds me that my life isn’t as sad and lonely as it feels lately. I just wish that the reminder could fix this hole that I have eating away at me.

  “And we love you, too,” I sigh, smiling when he snorts and casts me a look of surprise.

  “Did the great, violent, ‘feelings are for losers’ Tee Sweet just say she loves me?” he teases, his eyes twinkling when I huff and curl my lip.

  “Screw off.”

  “Or screw you,” he purrs, making me snort again and shake my head.

  The security guys flirt like crazy, and my cousins briefly dated one or two of them when they made it known that they were more than willing to be used as rebound partners when the Hart men were being assholes. They don’t flirt with me, though, and not because I’m not hot, because I freaking am, but because I’m more of a sister to these big, gruff men. We spend a lot of time together, and I am the unofficial queen of poker nights and lazy pizza Sundays, Grange’s newest invention because I don’t cook well.

  “Oh, please. Don’t give me the bedroom eyes, asshole. I’ve seen you use that look on waaaay too many women for it to work on me.”

  “It’d work if you saw my dick. Its huuuuge. Just look at it once, and I promise you, you’ll lose that sisterly act so fast that your lady parts will explode with want,” he taunts, his lip twitching when I giggle and pretend to puke.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “No, I’m adorable, and you like me, but that’s not what we’re talking about. What’s up, Sweet? What was all that about at the hospital?” he asks, his eyes boring into me when I gulp and chew at my lip.

  “What was what about? I was in shock, remember?” I tell him, chewing at my lip again as thoughts bombard me.

  What I’m thinking isn’t sane or logical, and I can’t explain why I feel this way right now, but I do know that no one else is going to understand it. Hell, I hardly understand it myself, and it’s my brain and emotions doing the talking.

  “Yeah. But you’re still you, Tee, and after you snapped out of it, and Ares walked in, you were good to go.”

  “I was not! I’m still in shock,” I protest, flushing when he casts me a sideways look of amusement before looking back at the road.

  “Ares Hart is your safe place.”

  “No. He is not. He’s an asshole who shows up like clockwork just so that he can make me feel like shit about myself,” I remind him, referring to a few months ago, when Sin and I got our asses landed in lockup for getting drunk and vandalizing her ex’s house and brand new Porsche.

  God, what is it with these Hart guys and that make of car? I wonder, shaking the irrelevant thought away when Heath chuckles softly.

  “He was just worried. It’s not every day that you have to threaten a prosecutor with legalities because your girl got her ass thrown in the can.”

  “I am not his girl,” I grumble, folding my arms with a defiant hiss that isn’t at all genuine. “He’s an idiot—”

  “Who you slept with,” Heath cuts in, his knowing gaze cutting right to the heart of me.

  “So? It was just sex. Terrible sex,” I lie, my mood brightening a little when he snorts and chortles.

  “Yeah, right. I’ve been on his detail mor
e than once, and I’ve stood guard at his apartment one too many times while he was giving it to some random chick.”

  Freaking prostitute! Gigolo. Man-whore. See? This is why I can’t care about Ares Hart. He’s a pig of monumental proportions. One that I cannot let myself care about, because he just doesn’t care about me. We’re oil and water. Gasoline and fire. We don’t mix, and, if we do, bad shit happens. Usually to me and my dumb feelings.

  “Yeah? Well, I can honestly tell you that I regret sleeping with the asshole more than anything I have ever done in my entire life,” I tell him, my nails digging into my palms.

  I haven’t been with a man since, and given that he was the first, I’m going to freely admit that I’m pathetic. I should have boned at least a dozen guys by now, and I could have. Trust me—I get offers all the time.

  “Why?”

  “That’s none of your damn business,” I retort, snorting when he smiles and shakes his head.

  “Is it because he pulled a one-and-done on you and hurt your feelings?”

  “Fuck off, Heath. I’m not that kinda girl,” I mutter, my palms tingling where my nails are breaking the skin.

  “See, that’s the problem, Nefertiti. I don’t know what kinda girl you actually are. All the men I’ve seen you with are friends at best, and lately, the only people you talk to or hang around with are us security guys. You don’t go out anymore, you don’t sneakily plan things the way you once did, and the last time I saw you take someone home, I heard him crying through your apartment door and telling you about his girlfriend.”

  I grimace at that, the memory of Chad and his broken heart enough to put me off men forever. I mean, my God, I didn’t know a man could cry that much, or whine about some chick who keeps giving her used-up meat locker to other guys. But Heath is right. They’re all just friends, not that I’m some innocent little woman with no experience. I’ve been in relationships before, if that’s what they can be called, and my boyfriends never suffered from blue balls. I give a mean hand job, and I am not averse to a good blowie, provided I get something out of the bargain as well.