Page 42 of Damaged Desires

Even stunned and upset with me, she looked damn good. Good enough that I wanted to take off the summer dress she had on, lay her down on the marble, and make her say my name in a whole different tone, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not again. Not for all the reasons we’d been a bad idea before, on top of the fact I was now in her presence wearing my SEAL brain and hat. Security for her and the damn country singer was my priority.

From the room behind her emerged Brady and a tall, skinny man with glasses.

The skinny man walked forward, grimacing at the four goons I’d tied up, and stuck out a hand. “I take it you’re Wellsley?”

I nodded. “It’s Nash. Or Asshole, but definitely not Wellsley.”

He smiled. “Your initial assessment to Garner looks pretty apt. I’m not sure we should stick with him at all. You have a team you’d recommend?”

“I’m pretty sure you couldn’t afford the U.S. government rate,” I told him.

“What the hell is going on?” Dani asked, stepping forward, hands on her hips, drawing attention to every curve that I’d kissed only weeks before. It felt like a lifetime ago already, while on the other hand, it hadn’t been enough time to get the scent of her out of my blood.

“Not sure what a Navy SEAL has against my bodyguards,” Brady said dryly, looking over the four men with something like pity. They were gagged, tied, and not going anywhere until I said so.

“You call them bodyguards again and I might have a problem with you,” I told Brady. “Their boss sent me down to provide some assistance. Help improve their shitty-ass security measures. This is me showing them some of their gaps.”

“Their boss?” Dani’s eyes narrowed. “How do you even know Garner, Nash?”

“Never even talked to him until today.”

“Who sent you? Mac, my dad, or my grandad?” she asked, whipping out her phone, fingers flying across the screen as she sent off a flurry of texts in seconds.

The suite door opened, and I moved swiftly, pinning the new suit to the door and disabling his weapon. “Goddamnit,” the new guy swore. “I’m Tanner. I’m head of this team. Garner just let me in on your arrival.”

His tone was cold and angry, and I didn’t give a shit. I let him go but kept his gun. He eyed me and the stash of weapons around my belt with a glare that didn’t bother me in the least.

“You’ve made your point, frog,” he growled, trying to get a rise out of me.

I knew better. “You haven’t earned the right to use that nickname,” I told him, twirling his gun in my hand and watching as he stepped forward, face flushed, reaching for it. When I didn’t give it back, he lunged, and I did the only thing I could, which was to put him back up against the wall with an arm on his neck to immobilize him.

Dani

CROWDED ROOM

“Engulfed in the flames,

Engulfed in the shame.

Betrayed by your imagination,

In over my head, but that's alright.”

Performed by Selena Gomez w/ 6LACK

Written by Rexha / Lambroza / Valdez Jr. Valentine / Gomez / Wilcox

My body was shaking. It wasmostlyfrom anger that Nash was even here. That he’d been sent by my family as if I were a child needing rescuing. When Tanner lunged for him, Nash responded swiftly, smoothly, silently. In a way that was slightly terrifying and also slightly intoxicating. I had to tell my body to back down. I had to remind my body it had already had its one and only time with the SEAL who thought he belonged to someone else.

When Nash didn’t let up on the arm he had pressed against Tanner’s throat, I moved over and pulled on his arm.

“For Pete’s sake! Stop. I think we all get it.”

Nash let Tanner go with a small push before backing up. If you didn’t know him quite as well as I did, you would think he was relaxed, almost carelessly nonchalant, but I’d been Nash-wise for a while now. I’d had my body tucked up against his when it was truly relaxed as well as asleep, and this was definitely not it. He was still on high alert.

The tension between all the men in the room was brittle and sharp, ready to crack. Marco and Trevor were pissed, ready to commit murder as soon as they were untied. It was not a good situation. Leave it to Nash to antagonize everyone in a mere five minutes. It was Lee, ever the good negotiator, who broke the silence and the swirl of hatred going around the room.

“Tanner, I think you can see we’ve got some gaps which need to be closed. That’s all this is about. Making sure we deal with the threats so there are no more incidents like last night,” Lee said.