Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“Classified,” he said, giving me a shit-eating grin, knowing that not telling me was worse than telling me.
“Asshole,” I shot back, signaling the waitress for another round.
She was pretty, curvy in all the right places, and had bright red hair. Under normal circumstances, I would have flirted with her all night.
I would have taken off my leather jacket so she could see my ink, and she would have fawned over them and asked about them. And I would have regaled her with stories of fighting for our country overseas.
Hunter would have backed up the exaggerated stories of death and honor. We never shared real war stories with hook-ups. Those were personal.
We would entertain her and whichever girl Hunter’s eyes landed on, and by the end of the night, I would have had her hair wrapped around my fist in the bathroom while she got on her knees to thank me for my service.
Despite the aching weight in my balls and the need to release the stress and frustration of the day, I had no interest in the waitress or any other woman in this bar.
No, my cock ached because of one pampered doll with mink-colored eyes, and I wanted her to be the one to fix it, whether in person or in my mind, while I spent in my hand like a fucking teenage boy.
“So, how have you been?” Hunter asked, eyeing the waitress.
“Same private security bullshit, except this time the protectee is my boss’ twenty-something daughter.”
He whistled. “Nice. So is daddy’s little darling hot?” he asked with an almost predatory smirk.
My fingers curled into a fist as I fought the urge to break the nose of one of my oldest and closest friends.
“Don’t speak about her like that,” I fumed, throwing him a warning look.
He lifted his hands in surrender. “Damn. Didn’t know it was like that.”
I took a long swallow of my beer. “It’s not like anything. It’s strictly professional.”
Fucking ironic.
As if pulling her over my lap and spanking her pert, naked ass was the height of dignified professionalism.
He gave me a hard look. “You’re not thinking of doing something stupid?”
Too late.
I tossed him an annoyed look as I took out my phone. “Of course not.”
He didn’t believe a word of the bullshit I was tossing around but changed to a safer topic and began talking about how some green asshole, who thought he was tough shit, had been assigned to the unit, but the second there had been actual gunfire, he’d cried for his mom.
“I’m not speaking figuratively.” Hunter laughed as he slapped his hand on the top of my shoulder and leaned in. “He literally cried for his mother. That’s what Boot is sending out these days. What happened to the process that took these motherfuckers out of the running? Why wasn’t he just sent to the army with the rest of the little bitches?”
Hunter kept talking shit about the newbie, which was fair. We had all gone through it. We had all done our time, made our mark, and earned the right.
And I’m sure if this guy was good enough to get through basic, then he’d eventually wise up, or he wouldn’t and he would find some way to injure himself or invent some mental illness that would get him medically discharged.
To be fair, I was also getting really tired of fuck boys playing Call of Duty for hours and thinking that was enough to make them Marine material, but most of those were weeded out long before they reached my teams.
Out of habit, I checked my phone again and pulled up the tracking app to see where Charlotte was.
It pinged at the exact same location in the house as an hour ago. She hadn’t moved. It would have notified me if she left, but I just had to check and make sure.
Hunter nodded toward my screen. “Party girls don’t leave the house without their phones, right? They need them to take endless, useless selfies of every drink and duck pout. So she’s secure for the night.”
“That’s the problem. This one isn’t like that.”
“You’re telling me you’ve managed to land the one daughter of a rich bastard who isn’t a pain in the ass, spoiled bitch? Lucky bastard. Sign me up for that cakewalk gig.”
I flicked through the reporting history for the evening on the tracking app. No movement. Unease settled in my chest as I answered without looking up. “Party bitches are easier. Predictable. Just follow their social feeds. This one took me almost an hour to find after she snuck off for some damn cello lesson.”
He laughed so hard he choked on his beer.
I slammed him on the back.
As he swiped his hand over his mouth, he said, “I’m sorry. Did you just admit that a nothing bit of a girl slipped your net while carrying a fucking cello?”