Broken Hero Page 6

  “Atta girl,” he said, taking the empty bottle from my hands.

  I began to come back to it. I could make out the individual cars in the blur of traffic, and my breathing grew steady.

  “Where we headed?” came the woman’s voice from the front of the car.

  Garrett told her my address.

  Then I felt the pressure of a hand on my leg. I looked up to see that it was Garrett’s.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like I just saw two guys get the snot beaten out of them right in front of me,” I said. I turned my eyes to Garrett. “That was amazing,” I said.

  I didn’t care that I sounded like a wide-eyed kid who’d just met a superhero—it was true. Garrett had taken down two massive men right in front of me, and not only that, he’d saved my life in the process. It was incredible, a display of physical ability that I was still trying to wrap my mind around.

  But Garrett didn’t appear moved one way or the other by my compliment. Instead, he continued to regard me with a deathly serious expression.

  “Are you feeling OK?” he asked. “You don’t look hurt, but I need to know if you’re together up here.” He pointed to my head.

  “I’m fine up there,” I said, taking another slow breath.

  “Good,” he said. “Don’t mean to talk to you like you’re a kid, but I’m guessing that’s the first real violence you’ve ever seen up close. Some people get shaken up for weeks after they see something like that for the first time.”

  I closed my eyes, the sight of Garrett’s fist coming down like a hammer on the thug’s head appearing, blood and all. It was disturbing, sure, but I wasn’t feeling like I’d just stormed Normandy Beach. Garrett had done all the hard stuff.

  “She looks like a tough cookie,” came the woman’s voice from up front.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think.”

  I glanced up at the driver’s seat and saw the outline of a pretty woman with a pixie cut of dark, ink-black hair.

  “That’s Kate,” said Garrett.

  “This one of your ‘men’?” I asked, allowing myself a half-smile.

  Garrett chuckled. “Easier that way,” he said. “Beats having to say ‘men and women’ all the damn time.”

  “Kate Elliot,” she said. “I do all the driving. You sign on with us, and I’ll be taking you wherever you need to go.”

  “She’s the best driver in this city,” said Garrett. “And good with a pistol. You won’t need to worry about anyone giving you trouble in traffic with her behind the wheel.” Then he got back to the matter at hand. “Tell me how you’re feeling,” he said, concern in his voice.

  “I’m good, I think,” I said. “I just can’t believe that actually happened.”

  “Tell me,” he said as we turned a corner. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  I got the impression that he was doing some kind of post-trauma therapy role he’d learned in the service. But it was fine. He seemed like he genuinely cared about my well-being. It made me feel good, safe, even.

  “Not even getting into the violence, this whole Joey thing has been like some hazy thing in the distance. I guess part of me thought I’d be able to ignore it forever.”

  “But now you can’t.”

  “Now I can’t.”

  We arrived at my building, and Kate brought the car to a stop.

  “What’s the call, chief?” asked Kate.

  “Should be good for the night,” he said. “I doubt Joey’s going to pull two capers in one night.”

  “You got it,” she said.

  “Tell the team great work and that I’ll be in touch with our next moves.”

  “We going to be doing protection for her?” asked Kate, nodding her head in my direction.

  “We’ll have to see about that,” said Garrett.

  We got out of the car and made our way back up to the apartment.

  “I need a drink,” I said. “What about you?”

  A look of hesitation flashed on his face. “Sure,” he said. “One of whatever you’re having.”

  “I’d say you’ve earned it,” I said as I prepared us a pair of whiskey sours. “And the least I can do is make one for you.”

  I stepped over to Garrett, my eyes tracking over to the balcony.

  “Some fresh air sounds freaking great right about now,” I said. “But what you said about the balcony…”

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  My brow crinkled in confusion.

  “I mean, it’s probably fine,” he said.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because I know how guys like Joey operate. This is the first real move he’s made against you, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “He sent a couple of low-level goons after you as a warning. If I hadn’t been around they’d have probably thrown a bag over your head, tossed you into the back of a van, and done their best to scare the hell out of you.”

  The thought wasn’t all that reassuring, but I understood where he was coming from.

  “That means no snipers on the rooftops?”

  “For now, at least.”

  It was strange—I got the impression that there was something Garrett wasn’t telling me. He seemed to be very confident about what was going on. But I didn’t think about it for too long. He was a professional, and this case, despite how off-the-rails it was for me, was likely just another day at work for him.

  “Then outside it is,” I said.

  Drink in hand, I made my way out to the balcony. The evening air was fresh on my face, and the first sip of whiskey hit the spot like nothing else.

  I shook my head as Garrett stepped up to my side.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “How the hell did I let my life end up like this?”

  “Not your fault,” he said. “It’s like beating yourself up for letting your car get broken into. Sometimes crime just has a way of finding you.”

  “I should’ve known better,” I said. “Should’ve had my guard up like I normally do. No, I had to convince myself that it’d be fun to date a guy who was so different, as though it’d get me out of my comfort zone or some stupid thing like that.”

  “What’s done is done,” said Garrett. “Any second spent thinking about things like that is a second wasted.”

  Garrett’s gaze was fixed off into the distance.

  “I get the impression that you don’t do much looking into the past,” I said, raising my drink to my lips.

  “Nope,” he said. “Present in the moment, always. When you’re in my profession, that’s how you have to be.”

  “Can’t argue with results,” I said. “I’m standing here in one piece because of you.”

  “It’s what I do,” he said, turning his attention back to me.

  Even in the low light of evening, his eyes were sparkling and brilliant. I couldn’t look away from them.

  And after what had happened tonight—I didn’t know if it was the adrenaline or some weird primal thing at seeing him do what he did to protect me—I knew I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel an attraction to him, one I couldn’t resist.

  OK, fine. The attraction had been there from the second he walked into my office, all sharp-suited and muscular and gorgeous. But now the feeling was insistent, something I couldn’t ignore for any longer.

  I stepped closer to him and took another sip of my drink. The whiskey was sharp on my tongue and Garrett’s scent intoxicating. There was something special in the way he smelled, like a musky scent from the exertion he’d just been through.

  Garrett noticed how close I was to him. He glanced down, his eyes still on mine.

  “This isn’t exactly a professional distance,” he said.

  “You afraid of breaching some kind of client protocol?” I asked.

  A small smile formed on his lips. “Something like that,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, bringing my lips closer and close
r to him. “I haven’t signed on the dotted line just yet.”

  “Hmm,” he said, appearing to give the matter some thought. “I think that does give us some flexibility.”

  “I think you’d better show me what you mean.”

  I didn’t need to make it any clearer. He kissed me, and kissed me hard.

  Chapter Ten

  NATALIE

  He tasted so good that I wanted to scream. His flavor was coffee and cocoa and whiskey and pure sex. I wanted to bottle it up and get wasted off of it.

  But before that, I had other, more pressing matters. Like the thing below his waist pressing against me, for example. I could tell already, despite it only being half-hard, that the gun he carried tucked at the small of his back wasn’t the only weapon he was packing.

  Judging by how passionately and intensely he kissed me, I could tell that putting his lips on me had been on his mind just like it had been on mine. And that was how I wanted it. Garrett put his hands on my hips, squeezing my curves through my gown. A little moan of delight slipped past my lips as he did.

  Despite everything that had happened tonight, it was the perfect place for a first kiss. Such a thing had actually been on my mind when I bought the place, but all my hours at the office had made any such passion nothing more than a fantasy.

  But with Garrett kissing me, his athletic body looming over mine, his grip solid, I was ready to make up for lost time and missed opportunities.

  He reached down, one hand slipping into the slit of my dress and taking hold of the soft skin of my inner thigh. I did the same to him, rubbing his now-fully-solid cock through his pants.

  “Damn,” I moaned. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  Garrett took his lips from mine and spoke. “You OK over there?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just feels really good. Really, really good.”

  “Is that right?” he asked. “And we haven’t even gotten to the fun part yet.”

  “It’s all the fun part,” I said.

  “Can’t argue with that,” he said.

  We went right back into the kissing, and his hand kept right on moving. Soon his touch was directly over my pussy through my panties, and a shudder of pure pleasure ran through me. My knees felt weak, and I had to grip onto him tighter just to keep myself from collapsing into a heap at nothing more than a slight graze.

  It had been a while, and it was becoming painfully obvious.

  But Garrett blew past it, rubbing my clit through my panties and making me wetter and wetter by the second. I wanted him inside me so fucking bad that I almost felt ready to come apart at the seams. Between his kiss and his touch, I was in pure freaking heaven.

  The only thing to decide was whether or not to let him have me inside, or right there on the balcony.

  Garrett made the decision for me, slipping his arm under my ass and lifting me off my feet. I let out a happy little squeal as he did and was surprised to hear something so girlish come out of my mouth.

  He had an effect on me. That was for damn sure. Actually, it was more like he was casting a spell.

  Garrett carried me inside, holding me like I didn’t weigh more than a pound or two. And I loved it. I loved how strong he was and how I felt in his arms, my feet dangling by his waist.

  Once we got to the living room, however, he stopped in his tracks.

  “What’s the holdup?” I asked.

  “Just that it’s a big apartment, and I have no idea where your bedroom is.”

  I let out a chime of a laugh.

  “Down the hall,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll steer you in the right direction.”

  He headed down the hallway, and I rested my head against his solid chest as he carried me. Being in his arms was wonderful. I had never imagined myself to be the kind of woman who was into such unbridled masculinity like that, but it was just what I was in the mood for. I chalked it up to the insane evening and brought myself back to the moment.

  “Right here,” I said once Garrett had reached the large, white double doors that led to my bedroom.

  He reached forward and turned the handle, the door slowly opening.

  “Damn,” he said, taking a look around as we stepped in. “Nice pad.”

  I wasn’t about to correct him. I didn’t spend a ton of time at my apartment, but I had to come back to sleep at some point during the workweek. So, I had spared no expense with the bedroom. It was a space that was both expansive and cozy, light colors dominating.

  The windows looked out over the southern side of Manhattan, the view extending all the way down to the Financial District. Among all of the windows of my apartment, I had a three-sixty view of the city, and I loved it.

  But at that moment I was far, far more interested in the huge bed against the back wall. And so was Garrett. He carried me over and tossed me right on top of it. Once I was on the bed, my hair splayed out all around my face like a wreath, Garrett took a second to look me over.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just wondering how the hell I’ve been able to keep my hands off you all this time.”

  “It’s only been a day, big guy.”

  “Yeah,” he said with an impossibly sexy smile. “I know.”

  Not like I had any room to talk. I kicked off my heels and let them drop onto the floor as Garrett slipped out of his suit jacket and went to work on his tuxedo tie. Soon it was dangling undone around his neck in that casual way I loved, like he was Frank Sinatra.

  “Come here,” I said. “I can’t stand any more waiting.”

  “What the lady wants, the lady gets,” he said.

  “You’ll go a long way with that attitude if we’re going to be working together.”

  He pounced on me with the speed and fluidity that wasn’t surprising from a man like him. He locked his lips onto mine and swept one hand under my dress and the other onto my breast.

  “As good as you look in this dress…” he said, taking his lips from mine long enough to say the words.

  He didn’t need to finish his sentence. I arched my back high enough to get at my zipper. The movement caused my breasts to nearly pop out of my dress, something that wasn’t lost on Garrett. He leaned in and covered my cleavage in kisses, my nipples going hard right away.

  I quickly unzipped the dress and peeled it down my body, exposing the lacy underwear I had on below. Once I had it down to my hips, Garrett took over.

  “Damn,” he said, drinking in the sight of my body as I shimmied the dress down my legs. “So fucking sexy.”

  “You’re not the only one who hits the gym,” I said, more than a little pleased that he was enjoying the sight of my tight, toned physique.

  “Yeah,” he said with a smirk. “You’ve got the body to prove it. Now let’s see if you’ve got the stamina.”

  “Is that a challenge?” I asked.

  “You could call it that.”

  He locked his lips onto my body again as I undid the clasp of my bra, my breasts pouring out of it as I took it off. Once I had that removed, I set to work on Garrett’s buttons. My hands were shaking with excitement by this point—I wanted him naked, and I wanted it fast.

  One by one I undid them, exposing more and more of his impossibly sculpted torso. When I had the buttons undone to the waist, Garrett did the rest. He pulled the shirt off and tossed it into the corner of the room.

  He was exactly as toned and perfect as I’d been hoping. His pecs looked cut from stones, his shoulders were round and strong, and not a drop of fat clung to the outlines of his shredded abs. There were more than a few scars here and there, but I found them as attractive as the rest of him.

  I slipped my thumbs into the waistband of his pants, right above the notches of his hips. Almost frantically I pushed them down. Garrett, still kissing me along my neck, lent a hand. Only a few moments later he was down to nothing but a skintight pair of boxer-briefs, his thick quads barely constrained.

  But that wasn’t good enough. I needed him do
wn to nothing.

  He must’ve had the same thought, as right when I went for his underwear he went for mine, and we stripped each other down at the same time. My eyes went wide at the sight of his cock—hard and long and thick and dripping, all just for me.

  I took in everything about him as he positioned himself between my legs, the head of his prick only a few inches from my soaking wet cunt. His body was solid and warm, his scent was intoxicating and manly, and the way he looked down at me with those gorgeous blue eyes made me want to melt into a puddle of pure sex.

  “You ready?” he growled, his mouth close to my ear, close enough that I could feel the heat of his breath on my tingling skin.

  “So ready.”

  He didn’t need to hear any more. Garrett quickly opened up the condom he’d surreptitiously taken into his hand and rolled it down his prick. Part of me wanted to feel that glorious-looking cock bare, but I had the presence of mind to be safe.

  Once he was sheathed, he placed his head between my lips, my cunt already so soaked that I knew I’d be able to handle him. I dug my fingers into the thick skin of his back in anticipation, and he slowly, slowly entered me.

  “Oh fuuuck,” I moaned, savoring each of his many inches as he penetrated me.

  I sank my nails into his skin, a flash through my mind reminding me that I needed to be careful if I didn’t want to draw blood. Then again, something told me that a guy like Garrett would be able to handle it.

  Seconds later he was fully inside, my pussy clamped around his thick, pulsing cock. He held fast for a moment, letting me get used to the feeling of his enormous length and girth inside of me. When I was ready, I signaled it by wrapping my slender legs around his waist and guiding him into me.

  Garrett pulled back and drove into me hard, the feeling so intense and pleasurable that I thought I might come right then and there. And I knew I would, again and again.

  Garrett propped himself up on his thick, ropy arms and began fucking me hard. It didn’t take long before he was in a steady rhythm, his prick driving into me again and again. I winced my eyes shut as he pounded me, opening them just enough to glance down and watch his cock disappear into me over and over.