Beneath Your Beauty Page 13

  It was time to go and find my girl.

  After leaving the bathroom, I’d immediately searched for Kayden. Trying to maneuver through the crowd and reaching the deep-toned music outside, I couldn’t wait to get her in my arms, so I could kiss her, dance to a few songs, and get the fuck out of here, away from my fucked-up life and back to hers. I’d even thought about changing our flight from tomorrow night to tonight, but I hadn’t. Stopping and chatting for a few seconds here and there, my destination had grown closer.

  My feet had hit the multicolored slate floor, and I’d froze. I’d blinked a small number of times, believing my eyes were playing tricks on me. Never had I thought that I would find her where I had. Even worse was what she had been doing.

  Arman’s words presently screamed in my head, That’s what I said about Mara in the beginning.

  Boiling blood ran through my veins. “What in the fuck are you doing?”

  I hadn’t given her time to answer. “Get your fuckin’ ass out of the pool—now,” I expressed to her furiously, through clenched teeth.

  She looked dumbstruck with black briefs hanging from that now tainted sweet mouth. I heard the whispering voices around me, but I was so fuckin’ beside myself that I passed over them.

  Kayden’s mouth opened, and the black material fell, floating in front of her.

  “She’s just having some fun,” Chris said.

  “I don’t fuckin’ give a damn,” I told him while I unbuttoned my shirt. “You’re lucky that I’m not pounding your skull in right now.”

  Kayden made her way up the steps, and I met her, handing my shirt over.

  “Put this on now.”

  She did, wrapping it around her dripping wet body. “Steele, I was just playing,” she said in a small voice.

  My arm swung out, and my voice rose as I said, “This what you want?”

  “I…I just…” she stumbled.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “I…” she started, her eyes blinking fast.

  I shook my head, looking at the ground. My insides twisted into a maddening knot, firing heat coursing through me. “I never expected this from you,” I said lowly and disgusted. “I never expected you—you of all people—to act like a slut.”

  Kayden

  My body jerked back as if he’d kicked me in the gut. “Excuse me?” I huffed a hatred chuckle. “Me, a slut? What about you?” My voice started rising. “You’re the one who has sex with women for money, and I’m the slut?”

  I heard a few gasps around me. Most people here were in the same profession as him.

  Does that mean I just called them all sluts?

  I felt the need to run, but as much as I told them, my feet wouldn’t move.

  A soft woman’s voice chimed in, “Hey, I take offense to that.”

  Yep, I was right.

  “Yeah…well…” I was at a loss for words. I was losing the fight in the hazy alcohol battle in my head.

  Steele’s eyes averted from mine. He looked back and forth between her and me. I saw something flash across his face. It was the same look I’d seen just this afternoon.

  I asked the first thing that came to my drunk mind, “Have you slept with her?”

  She spoke again, “Yeah, we did. As a matter of fact, it was this afternoon.”

  I froze.

  Steele ran a hand through his hair and puffed out a deep breath. I watched his eyes slowly come to mine. A silent affirmation crossed between us. That was why he’d come home and performed like he had. I’d been dress shopping with two bimbos for his wrap party that I hadn’t even wanted to go to in the first place, and he had been fucking another girl.

  Oh my God…

  My stomach plunged right into my toes. Then, it came back up and didn’t stop. I proceeded to vomit tequila shots, margaritas, and little bacon-wrapped shrimps onto the expensive sparkly slate floor. The minute I was done, I raised my head. I had never been so mortified in all my life. I clasped the shirt tighter around me. I wiped my mouth across the wet sleeve. The silence in the air became deafening. My blurry vision looked to Steele for some kind of comfort. I felt as if I were a small child lost in a sea of people. My body swayed, and I gripped the chair to my right.

  I need someone.

  I need him…

  My Steele…

  The Steele who was left back in Florida.

  Steele glared at me as if he were looking right through me, like he didn’t know who I was. But he did. He knew me better than I knew myself. In these short days together, he had seen me, the real me. He folded his strong arms across his naked chiseled chest. His action caused me to feel alone, more alone than I had ever felt in my life.

  My body began to tremble with embarrassment, fear, and abandonment. Bile rose into my throat, and I forced it back down with everything I had in me, which wasn’t much. I was crumbling on the inside. I recognized it would only be a matter of time before my body gave out and I ended up in a heap of a lifeless form in my own puke.

  I viewed all the faces watching me. “Sorry,” I said in a small voice, walking backward. “I…” But I didn’t know what else to say. This wasn’t my territory. This was his.

  “Kayden,” Steele said softly, uncrossing his arms, as his expression formed with concern.

  A tear slipped from one eye as I choked out, “I’m really sorry.”

  My head swung back and forth. I spotted my purse on a nearby table and snatched it. A short man in a well-tailored suit that screamed money and power grabbed Steele by the forearm. His head swayed to the man and then back to me. Steele took a step forward, but the man stopped him.

  “Let her go,” the man said while holding Steele back.

  Those three words stilled my feet. I didn’t know why they did. Maybe it was my subconscious or my body hoping that Steele wouldn’t listen. Then again, maybe it was the extreme hurt currently roaring through my body. I didn’t know, but I didn’t move.

  Let her go, reverberated in my aching head.

  I held Steele’s eyes, and he held mine. I silently begged him to come to me, to take those steps and close the distance between us.

  Move.

  He didn’t.

  Say something.

  He didn’t.

  I took in the beauty of the man that I knew I had fallen for. I looked deep into his beautiful blue eyes, eyes that I would never forget and never want to, begging him to do or say something.

  He didn’t.

  He let me go.

  Kayden

  My phone chirped. I groaned, rolled over, and pulled the blankets over my head. I heard the French doors open, and I smiled. “He’s late today,” I mumbled under the covers.

  I stretched my arm out and blindly reached for my phone, smacking the nightstand until I found it. Pulling it under the covers with me, I silently said a prayer and hit the button. The screen lit up, and 7:13 glowed into the darkness. My heart picked up a few beats, anxiety setting in, and I quickly hit the Message button. I sighed in relief. It wasn’t the text I’d thought it was. Then again, I didn’t know if it was a sad sigh or a happy sigh.

  That was still to be determined.

  I read the text and then read it again before flipping back the covers and sitting up. It was the message I’d been waiting for for three days. I did a happy bounce and then hopped out of bed. I ran for the bedroom door, never even stopping to do my morning business. I flung the door open, causing it to smack the wall behind it.

  I yelled, “Bull!” I made my way through the house and headed for the back porch. “Bull…”

  He met me at the French doors, and I slammed into his big, burly hard chest with an oomph.

  “Slow down, girl.” Bull deeply chuckled. “What’s wrong?”

  “I got it…” I breathed heavily. “I got the loan.” I squealed and jumped at Bull.

  He wrapped his thick, muscular arms around me. “Congratulations, girl.”

  Even though he praised me, the enthusiasm wasn’t in it. Then, when I
thought about what had just transpired by getting the loan, I lost mine, too. I squeezed him, and he returned it.

  Bull worked for Marco. He’d been assigned to watch over me for the month. He had taken the place of the two schmucks—Marco’s words, not mine—that had first been assigned to Steele and me. As soon as Marco had gotten word that we had spotted them that night on our way to Hunter’s, Marco had pulled them off the job. I still didn’t know how he knew we had seen them.

  We drank our morning coffee on the back porch, soaking up the rising sun and listening to the singing birds, as we had done every morning for eight days straight. We enjoyed each other’s company, laughing and planning our day together, but today felt like the first morning after I’d returned home. A somber presence hung in the dewy air behind the silent morning.

  Bull broke the stillness, “You know this doesn’t have to change anything.”

  Not meeting his eyes, I agreed, “I know.”

  Despite the fact, we both knew it would. It just wasn’t going to be the same now that I had been approved for the loan.

  “Gonna go shower,” I grumbled, rising from my chair.

  Bull seized my wrist. I stopped and looked into his deep brown eyes. His thundering, heavy voice said, “Smile, pretty girl.”

  I did only because he’d asked me to.

  Once I got into the bathroom, I turned the handle to hot, shimmied out of my baby-blue cotton shorts, and pulled the matching tank top with little red flowers on it over my head. Bending down, I picked up the shorts and flung the clothes in the direction of the hamper, never glancing over to see if they’d made it. I stepped into the scalding spray, hopeful that this was the morning I could burn the images and feelings from my mind and body, as I’d tried every morning.

  It’d been eight long days since my life fell to pieces. Or as I looked at it, it had been seven nights and eight days or precisely one-hundred-and-ninety-four hours.

  But who’s counting anyway?

  In the shower was the only real time I would let myself think about that awful night. It was probably because this was the only place where Bull wasn’t with me—well, and when I’d use the restroom, too, except for that one time. He’d brought me to a biker bar he frequented, and I’d gotten really drunk. It hadn’t been on tequila since I banned it from my life. I had to pee really badly, and the line for the ladies’ room was backed up.

  Really, who puts one restroom in for women?

  Anyway, he’d taken me into the men’s room, cleaned off the seat, and turned around while I did my business.

  That had happened on the second night after I’d returned home. I had hoped the alcohol would numb the pain, but it had only made it worse. I’d cried for an hour straight while Bull cradled me in his arms until I fell asleep.

  Day three had consisted of a lot of yelling and screaming at Bull. I had even told him to get the fuck out of my house, and I had never said that to anyone. But that day he’d caught me with my laptop with videos of Steele with other women splashed across the screen, while I’d been crying. Bull had taken it from me, and he wouldn’t give it back. After the fit of wrath that lasted most of the day, he’d told me it was for my own good, and he was right. I hadn’t relayed that information to him. I’d just popped in Jerry Maguire and curled up next to Bull’s warm body on the couch. As he’d wrapped an arm around my shoulders and held me near, I snuggled closer, and I had hoped he took this as a silent apology, because it had been.

  I thanked the Lord every day that Bull had snatched me up because I didn’t know how I would have survived on my own.

  When I had ran from the party and out the door, I stopped for a brief second, hoping that Steele would come barging through, scoop me up into his arms, and tell me that everything was going to be okay and that he loved me. He never did. Besides, I blamed all those romance novels I’d read for making me believe that shit happened in real life because it didn’t.

  Damn books.

  I had grasped he wasn’t coming to claim me and that I was truly on my own in a state I had never been to. Also, I’d been surrounded by snickering and gawking people, so I’d started to severely panic. I’d sprinted down the long drive of lit trees—until a huge, muscular black man had scooped me up and placed me in a car. This was when I’d truly started to freak-out, thinking I was being kidnapped.

  However, it was Bull, and he’d saved me that night.

  Bull had tailed us for days, and he’d followed us all the way to California. Steele and I hadn’t even realized we were being followed. Of course, that was until Bull had lifted me straight off the ground, like it was nothing, as I had been running for my life.

  After he’d settled me in the car, he’d handed me a bottle of water and told me to take small sips with deep breaths in between. At first, I’d thought my kidnapper was really nice. He had then quickly gone on to tell me who he was and whom he worked for. My panic had subsided a little, and then a new dread had arisen. I’d thought that maybe he was going to kill me. My mind had whirled out of control. A month couldn’t have passed.

  My first words to him had been, “I can’t die, and it hasn’t been a month.” Although after what I had just run from, dying hadn’t sounded all that bad at that moment.

  He had laughed a deep belly-thundering chuckle. I’d looked at him sideways, believing this huge, burly bald-headed black man was off his rocker. When he had seen the look on my face, he started talking. He’d told me that Marco had him on me to make sure I hadn’t taken off to some third world country. His admission had made me chuckle on the inside. It was hard to believe that Marco had been so worried about a measly little baker taking off, it only had me thinking there must’ve been more to his and Mary’s connection.

  Bull had grabbed a bag from the backseat while navigating California streets as if it were second nature, and handed it to me. In it had been sweatpants, a T-shirt, a towel, and flip-flops.

  “I’m always prepared when watching over women,” he’d said.

  I hadn’t known how to take this new information, but I thanked him and dressed. I’d balled up Steele’s soaked-through button-down and thrown it in the bag.

  We had gotten a flight out that night. Well, Bull had actually insisted we get on a flight that night. And a man who stands at six-four with all beefy muscle and a thundering, deep voice would get a flight when he wanted and first class, too.

  He’d been by my side ever since.

  After I’d gotten home, everyone had asked where Steele was. I hadn’t felt ready to go through the story of my humiliation, so I’d lied and pacified some with the explanation that he’d had to stay back and take care of some business. Hunter had read me with piercing eyes, but when I’d sat there with a straight face, he hadn’t questioned my explanation. His next concern had been who the hell Bull was.

  I’d lied again.

  I’d told Hunter that Bull was a friend of the family, who was staying with me for a while. Hunter had been happy with this answer and welcomed Bull into our circle without any further inquiries. This had frightened me a little, and it had also made me question Hunter’s police skills.

  Afterward, I had gone home and called the boys, giving them the same story before Hunter could grill them about Bull being a part of the family. The boys had taken the news okay. They had asked a few questions about Bull and how I knew him. I’d surprised myself at how quickly I was able to make up lies. I’d also gathered that this lying shit was tiring and by no means understood how people could keep up with it.

  The day Bull and I had gone to the park so that he could have a picnic with his two daughters and three grandchildren, I’d known I’d made the right decision not to rat him out to Hunter. That morning, he’d helped me bake cookies. He had said he needed to stop by the store to pick up some treats to bring along.

  I’d slapped him and said, “Never say store bought treats to a baker in her own home.”

  He had laughed, and then we made peanut butter cookies for him to bring. I
had to sit on a bench on the other side of the park within seeing distance of him. He didn’t mix business with pleasure, but he also hadn’t wanted any of the other guys to watch over me on his day off. Therefore, I’d sat in the park and read. It wasn’t until his grandson had approached me with a cookie that I knew my observations of Bull had been spot-on.

  “Excuse me,” the little boy had said, and had gone on to tell me, “My grandpa said that you looked like you could use a cookie.”

  Later, I’d found out his name was Trevor, and he was six, being Bull’s oldest grandchild.

  “Thank you very much.” I’d taken the cookie from him. “You tell your grandpa that he was right,” I’d whispered to him.

  Trevor had leaned in and whispered back, “Grandpa says he’s always right.”

  Then, he had ran off. I’d laughed, and that was the first time since the night I was humiliated I really had laughed. When I had looked up, Bull was smiling a huge, warm grin at me. In that moment, I’d felt the love of a father wash over me, and I had started to quietly cry. It had been a happy cry though since Bull had literally picked me up and dusted me off, just as a parent would do.

  That had been on day four, and it was the day I’d known with all my heart that Bull would be in my life forever.

  Steele had called, left voice mails, and texted. I had ignored them all. They were the usual I’m sorry, Please talk to me, I miss you, You’re all I think about, and I was an ass. Then, there were the You mean the world to me, You’ve changed my life, and I’ve never felt this way before.

  Blah, blah, blah—like every woman hadn’t heard all that shit before. I’d also received daily flowers, usually with a card explaining how sorry he is. I threw them out every day.

  I had done what any other normal girl would do. I’d licked my wounds.

  Then, on day six, all communication stopped.

  Steele

  My lips grazed over the flower tattoo that decorated the tanned flat stomach of the woman lying before me. Her gorgeously shaped body squirmed beneath my touch. The whimpering sounds spilling from her deep-red lips echoed through the room.