Burn: A South Beach Bodyguards Book (15 page)

I wanted Isabel with me, in the luxury of an iconic hotel. Tonight.

“What?” she laughed. “Ryan, that’s crazy! We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because… we’re not on vacation. We live here.”

“So? Famous people do it all the time. Let’s go have dinner, hang out at the pool, sit on a balcony and watch the ocean. We can’t do that at either one of our places. We can order room service in the morning.”

She looked intrigued by the idea. “That sounds expensive.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, like I was some total baller. A hiphop star, a drug dealer, a mob hitman. “I’ve got it.” Technically, I probably could afford it. I didn’t spend a lot of money, because my needs were pretty damn simple. Protein, vegetables, beer, and new multi-packs of gym socks a few times a year were about the extent of it beyond rent and my car. “I want to do this.”

“But…” Isabel looked like she knew she should continue to protest, but didn’t quite have it in her. She wanted to go with me.

“Please?” I leaned over and kissed her sweet lips. “Pretty please?”

I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist that and she didn’t. She sighed. “This is crazy.”

“What’s crazy is how we ended up laying here on the beach. Taking this to a hotel isn’t really that nuts in the grand scheme of things.”

She gave me a faint smile. “True.”

I had never been one for fantasies. It made real life to hard to stomach. I was the guy who stayed grounded, who kept my nose to the grindstone and did what I needed to do. I was satisfied. Fantasizing, daydreams, they all created hope that I couldn’t afford, because what was going to change? Nothing. I liked my life. I liked my job. There was no need to crave things I couldn’t have and make myself miserable.

But for once, I was going to make an exception. I was going to play the game. Pretend to be someone else, with a different life, a money man with a beautiful girlfriend. There was no harm in one day. One night.

“So why Julia?” I asked Isabel. “Do you remember anything at all?”

I knew the whole drunk-name thing from Brandy, but I wanted to hear it from Isabel. I was still trying to pick through who she really was. What was real, what was not.

“Julia is my alter-ego,” she admitted. “It’s a joke Brandy and I use when we go out. But I don’t remember anything, just a hazy memory of walking around eating pizza.”

Rolling onto my side, I propped my head up with my arm. “You’re beautiful,” I told her. “And you have no idea how sexy you really are.”

“Oh, my God, stop.” She shielded her eyes and shook her head slightly. “You don’t have to flatter me on top of everything else, Ryan. You’re already doing enough.”

Cursing my stupid comments in front of Alejandro, I decided to shut the hell up and just go with my strengths. I wasn’t a big talker. Never had been. I was the strong, silent type. I let my muscle and my actions speak for me and trying to be all poetic or romantic or whatever wasn’t my style. I couldn’t score points trying to get to know her, or giving her flattery. I sounded like Rocky on his awkward-as-hell first date with Adrienne. Since Isabel loved movies so much, she had me thinking in movie metaphors.

No offense to Rocky’s wife, who came into her own, but Isabel was way hotter than Adrienne was back in the day. She had been solid in nerdy librarian territory, and somehow looked forty when she was eighteen. Whereas Isabel dimmed her sexuality by her shy demeanor, but she could never hide that banging body or her beautiful face. She didn’t look she was as attractive as her mother, but Kim had an overblown beauty that was perfect for pole work. But Isabel had a sweeter beauty. Tiny nose, proportionate features, delicate lips that were a natural fullness.

Lips without fillers that I wanted to kiss. Since I had no clue how to be romantic with my words, I just reached out and cupped her cheek with my big, clumsy hand. It enveloped the whole side of her face. I didn’t think much about my size most of the time other than just to acknowledge that it was a fact, but with Isabel, I felt clumsy and huge, yet at the same time grateful that I was so much bigger than her. It made me feel intensely protective of her and turned on by the fact that she was so feminine, so petite, next to me. I studied her face, watched the way she realized what I was going to do, and swept her eyelashes downward, in the sexiest modesty I’d ever seen.

Isabel was a mystery to me, her brain a well of thoughts and emotions she kept to herself, but I knew one thing for damn sure. She wanted me.

So I covered her mouth with mine, lightly, then pressed harder, taking the kiss deeper. Isabel responded eagerly, opening her mouth for me, and without much thought for where we were, I teased my tongue between her lips, wanting to taste her. She gave a sigh, and her hand gripped my bicep. There was something about her enthusiasm, her total lack of hesitation, her openness, that drove me crazy. The kiss got heated, and I got hard. Pulling her over on top of me, I sank back into the sand and enjoyed the feel of her body sprawled over mine, all those curves and warm skin pressing against me, as we continued to kiss, more fervently now.

Her belly was against my cock, and it wasn’t satisfying at all. It was almost worse than being nowhere near her, because it was not nearly enough. I wanted to take, to thrust, to nudge, to rub. I wanted to use it the way nature intended and right fucking now. She broke off the kiss, gasping for air, her eyes glassy. My sunglasses had been knocked off kilter and I took a deep breath, fighting for control. She was going to destroy me. I wasn’t going to walk away from this shit with a bounce in my step whistling. I was going to be left wanting more. If I had an ounce of common sense, I’d pull the plug on this right now.

But how could I do that to Isabel? I couldn’t.

More to the point, even knowing I would regret it, I couldn’t stop myself.

“Pack your stuff up,” I said gruffly. “Let’s get a room.”

I didn’t want to move. Ever. This was all I had wanted- me laying on top of the hard shelf of Ryan’s chest, feeling small and sexy and desired. His eyes were hidden behind the sunglasses, but there was a set to his jaw and a tightness to his voice that told me he was as crazy turned on as I was. Not to mention that there was a hell of an erection pressed against me.

When I ignored his command, he gave me a light slap on my ass. “Isabel, move.”

There was an edge to his voice that was highly satisfying. I smiled down at him. “Give me a second.” Then I wiggled a little, wanting to settle in more closely on all his hard muscles.

Ryan made a sound in the back of his throat and before I could even react, he spilled me off of his chest and down onto the sand next to him. “You’re really asking for it.”

“I know.” I bit my lip, trying not to laugh. I loved being near Ryan. I liked his company, I liked his respectfulness, I liked his body. He was everything I wanted and I knew without a doubt that in a day or two when he insisted we couldn’t see each other again, which he would, I would cry. That even knowing what I knew, I would still cry. But that wasn’t going to stop me from enjoying the here and now.

I should fall and hit my head more often if this was the end result.

Ryan made lots of grumbling sounds and did a whole bunch of head shaking, like he was annoyed, but I knew he wasn’t. He packed up our stuff quickly, while I was still pulling my shorts on over my bathing suit. “We never even went in the water. I thought you wanted to go swimming.”

“I have other needs that are more urgent.”

Yum. I could see the outline of his erection through his swim trunks. I was about to make a joke, but he pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead to rub at the corner of his eye. What I saw in his expression made my breath catch and I had to look away. He was so earnest, so serious. An ache gripped my chest and I felt things I had no business feeling.

Cramming my feet into my flip flops I looked away. Those hazel eyes held mysteries I didn’t think I could solve. What did Ryan want from life? What did he crave? I didn’t know. I only knew that he lived a ridiculously sparse lifestyle for someone whose father was wealthy and that he was never without his gun. I wondered what he really thought about his mother and if he missed her.

I wondered if he knew that I was about a hair-breadth away from falling in love with him. I wanted to shower him with all the affection and love he had never gotten.

But he didn’t want it. Not from me. Probably not from anyone.

Enjoy the moment. That was it. Nothing more.

When we valet parked at the Fountainbleau I tried not to feel like a little kid arriving at Disney World for the first time. But I couldn’t prevent a “holy crap” from slipping out as we took in the overblown grandeur of the hotel.

“This is no joke,” Ryan commented. We had gone back to his apartment and I had put on a sundress, him a pair of long pants and a black shirt. He looked even more gangster than usual.

It also seemed incredibly obvious to me that he had a gun in his waistband, but he assured me it was totally legal. I wasn’t sure that made it safe, but I knew there was no arguing with him. I reached for his hand instinctively, because I wanted reassurance. I had a backpack as my overnight bag and it felt ridiculously out of place among the designer luggage sets being tended by the bellmen. The doors opened for us and the lobby was a swath of white marble with black accents that I knew were a nod to the original bowtie architecture of the hotel, before the renovations of the past decade or so. I was also too awestruck to remark on it to Ryan.

He gave my hand a squeeze, but then let it go. He put his hand on the small of my back to encourage me forward. I moved tentatively but he strolled with confidence. Glancing up I was surprised at how at ease he looked. Maybe it was his line of work. He had to blend, to fit in, to look intimidating. He did. People noticed him and they averted their eyes immediately, like they didn’t want trouble. It was a good talent to have, scaring people. I couldn’t scare a kitten.

At school, on my turf, I had felt incredibly self-conscious of Ryan’s stolid appearance and need to protect me, but here I was grateful for it. This was more his arena than mine. I wasn’t living anything other than an extremely ordinary life. I stood at the front desk and let Ryan handle checking in. There was a lump in my throat and I seemed to have lost my voice. This had turned into an event. It was like a wedding night, minus the wedding. My palms were sweating and I was equal parts excited and nervous.

“Enjoy your stay,” the suave desk clerk said, his voice somehow deferential and pretentious all at once.

“Thank you,” I managed.

“Let us know if there is anything we can do for you. We can secure dinner reservations for you, or a taxi.”

“All we need is the pool and a bed,” Ryan told him.

That about summed it up.

I smiled back when the guy smiled at me. But then I wondered what he thought when he saw us together. That I was a wealthy heiress who had hired a gigolo? Or a bodyguard? That had to be a movie plot.

“What are you thinking?” Ryan asked as he led me to the elevators, an amused look on his face. “You always get this expression that unnerves me, because it is clear you have more running through your brain in sixty seconds than I do in an entire day.”

“I doubt that. I was just thinking that the desk clerk probably thinks I hired you.”

Ryan stopped walking. “Hired me to do
what
?”

He looked so shocked I laughed. “To be my bodyguard.”

“Oh. Do I look like a bodyguard?”

“You know you do.”

He made a face. “You’re right. I do know that.” As the elevator opened he put his arm across the door so it wouldn’t close on me. “Do you think I’m scary?”

That he could think that was ridiculous. And cute. And adorable. And freaking sexy as hell. I stepped in the elevator and turned back to him, heart soft and squishy. “No. I don’t think you’re scary at all. I think you’re the man I can trust to always do the right thing. I don’t think you’re ever hurt me or put me in danger.”

He let go of the door and moved in close to me, using both hands to cup my cheeks. His body crowded me, and I loved the way that felt. “I would never put you in danger.” Bending down he kissed the top of my head.

It didn’t escape my notice that he didn’t reiterate that he wouldn’t hurt me.