I FOUGHT THE RISING SURGE of bile and panic churning in my gut and focused on the only thing keeping me from having a heart attack. Warm brown eyes full of strength and kindness stared back at me, and for a split second, I wondered if I might actually make it out of this alive.
Then reality kicked in. “I’m already dead.”
“Chica,” he said quietly, squeezing my hand. “Same as mine, your heart’s beating.” His thumb stroked across my knuckles. “And I’m gonna make sure it stays that way.”
He couldn’t help me. No one could, not even Candle, because nothing would save me from my father. “Café Cubano. That’s all I want.” I pulled my hand back as his cell rang.
“Luna,” he answered.
Tyler’s voice boomed through the speakers. “We have a situation.”
“Report,” André demanded.
“I’m at the airport. There’re two Harleys parked in front of Roark’s plane. The door’s open.”
André pulled into the underground parking of his condo. “Stand down. Let it play out. I’ll call you back in thirty seconds.” He hung up and dialed another number.
“Yeah?” The Irishman answered.
“I hear you’ve got company. Tyler’s on standby. Should I send him on board?”
“No.”
“Lone Coasters?” André asked.
“Yep.”
André pulled into a parking spot. “They know anything?”
“I’m still on schedule. I’ll call you when I’m in the air.” The Irishman hung up.
André called Tyler back. “Roark’s good. Wait till they deplane, then board. Make sure you’re not seen.”
“Copy.” Tyler hung up.
André scanned the parking garage, then cut the engine. “New plan, chica.”
“Let me guess, no coffee.” I used every ounce of sarcasm I had to hide the anxiety crawling across my skin like a thousand fire ants.
A smile that came too easily to be real broke out across his handsome face. “Give me two hours, chica, and I’ll make you all the café Cubano you want.”
I could be dead in two hours.
He pulled the key from the ignition, checked the garage again and gave me a stern warning look. “Wait for me to come get you.”
In another lifetime, I would’ve loved the scene for what it was. A hot-as-shit alpha protecting me. And if I was being honest, it wasn’t that André Luna was Cuban or tall or had gorgeous brown eyes. It was that he was unfailingly optimistic, quick to smile, had more muscles than any of the men I’d grown up with, and he breathed each breath like he loved life. I didn’t know how to love life. I wanted what André had. I wanted to feel, just once, what it felt like to be on the inside of a smile like his.
He opened my door, and his scent became stronger as he offered a hand to me. “We’re gonna make this quick. Straight to the elevator, then we’ll change in the condo. You got any pants in this bag?” He tipped his head toward my duffle bag on his shoulder.
For the third time this morning, I put my hand in his. It was the most I’d ever held someone’s hand. “Most guys want to keep me out of pants.” I regretted the stupid flippant comment as soon as I said it.
His throat moved with a swallow, and his voice turned quiet as he pulled me out of the SUV. “I’m not most guys.”
No kidding. He was the only man who actually pretended he gave a shit about me besides Candle. But Candle only cared out of duty. He was driven by guilt, and we both knew it.
I kept my mouth shut as André ushered me to the elevator with one hand on the gun at his waist and the other firmly pressed between my shoulder blades.
He punched in a code once we were in the elevator, then stepped a foot away from me as the doors slid shut. “You need everything in this bag?”
My head spun as the elevator shot up twenty stories. “What?”
“For a week, can you pare down what you have in here?”
If I had a week. That’d be lucky, beyond lucky, not to mention a whole week with a badass ex-marine who smiled like an angel? Even luckier. Maybe I’d live another seven days, maybe I wouldn’t. I’d told myself three years ago that every sunrise I was still breathing was a gift. I’d made it long past what I’d ever hoped, so this was all gravy, right?
“Chica?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I can trim it down.” I didn’t need anything in that bag. I grew up wearing the same damn outfit for years. I never had makeup or shampoo or deodorant or underwear. I never even had a change of clothes I could call my own. Trimming down the clothes I’d thrown in the big duffle was nothing.
“We’re gonna share a backpack,” he explained as the doors slid open. “I’ll give you the bulk of it, but let’s keep it light.” He took two strides and used a keypad to unlock his front door as he kept talking. “Essentials only. We’ll pick up anything we need later.”
I wasn’t listening to him anymore. I’d followed him into his condo, and I was staring at the stunning view of the ocean from the floor-to-ceiling windows that I hadn’t seen in six months.
I loved this view.
Six months ago, I’d wanted to live for this view.
I’d wanted to wake up every day of my life and stare at a piece of the world that was so far out of my reach, it was comical. But this kind of life didn’t happen for people like me.
“Five minutes, chica,” he warned. “Then we need to be on the road.”
I touched a finger to the spotless glass. Despite the morning sun coming through, the window was cool to the touch.
Six feet two inches of muscle stepped up beside me and dropped my bag at my feet.
“It’s beautiful.” Aqua waters, white sands, there wasn’t a place on this earth I’d seen that was prettier than Miami Beach.
“Can’t disagree with that.” He inhaled, then let it out slow as he turned to me. “Chica.”
The soft tone to his voice made me look up.
As if he sensed my hopelessness, he grasped my chin and made me a promise he couldn’t keep. “I’ll bring you back here.”
Emotions I didn’t want to have stuck in my throat. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
His voice dropped, but a desperate urgency laced his words. “Who are you?”
For the first time in my life, I wanted someone to know. And not just anyone, but a man who was practically a stranger. A man who’d unwittingly shown me more respect than anyone I’d ever met. I didn’t want to just tell him. I wanted to show him. I wanted André Luna to see every broken piece of me, and I couldn’t understand a single ounce of that thought, but it was pounding in my veins stronger than three days worth of whiskey.
I stared at a man who could destroy me with a single phone call, and then I did the stupidest thing I ever could have done.
I grasped the hem of my dress and pulled it over my head.
André sucked in a breath and his gaze dropped to my breasts for one fleeting moment. “Kendall,” he growled.
I dropped the material to the floor, and his mouth crashed over mine.
Hot and urgent, his tongue swept across my lips before plundering into my mouth as his huge hands sank into my hair.
A groan, his, mine, cut through the silent condo, and I forgot why I’d undressed. His body curved around mine, and suddenly, I was just a woman. Soft flesh and feminine curves to his hard muscles and uncompromising strength. I wasn’t a hunted entity with a past. I wasn’t a hardened bitch who pushed everyone away. I was a woman being completely and utterly dominated by a kiss that made me forget every other kiss I’d ever had.
His hands tilted my head, and his mouth moved to my neck. “Jesucristo, woman.” He growled against the sensitive flesh of my neck and gooseflesh raced up my spine. “You do this now?” His hips made a slow, sensuous grind against mine.
“Now?” I couldn’t think straight. I gripped the back of his thick neck.
A string of Spanish cascaded out of his mouth.
His ear near my lips, I sucked the bitable flesh and caught only a few of his words—timing, body, sweet. “Kiss me,” I whispered.
He slammed his mouth over mine and took me harder and deeper than before. Shoving a leg between my thighs, grasping my hip, swaying as if his head was full of music, he rocked against me as he thrust his tongue deep and groaned into my mouth.
Oh God.
Bending his knees then thrusting up, he rubbed his huge, hard cock against my pussy.
Oh my God.
His hand slid over my hip, then his fingers grazed my lower back.
I froze.
Reality hit me square in the chest, and I did what I should’ve done the second his lips landed on mine. I pushed him away.
“Chica?”
I stepped back.
The soft edge to his voice disappeared and dominance laced his next question. “What’s wrong?”
I studied him because I wanted to remember this very second. His shoulders proud, his lips wet from our kiss, his desire straining against his pants…. I sucked in a breath. “You wanted to know who I am.”
I turned around.