Proof (Targes Executive Protection Book 1)

The cool air and eerie silence should have felt good as I weaved between the trees and stepped over the various branches and rocks that threatened to steal my balance. Good night vision was another thing I had the military to thank for.

Too bad they hadn’t taught me how to deal with the lingering bitterness from my childhood. Of course, my upbringing couldn’t be called traumatic or anything like that. I knew many men and women who’d had it much worse. I hadn’t been abused, there’d always been plenty of food on the table, I’d been the most popular guy in my high school, and to cap off my rich kid blues, one of my father’s personal assistants had handed me the keys for an insanely expensive sports car before I’d even turned sixteen.

I might not have had the most supportive family in the world, but my grandmother, who’d pretty much raised me, had always watched over me, even after my father had taken over the Ashby empire and written me off as the “black sheep.” Sully, JJ, and Sean Ferguson had filled in the gaps by showing me what unconditional love really was. They were the only reason I’d had enough strength to join the military at eighteen instead of going for the Ivy League college education that had been purchased for me before I’d even gotten into high school. It hadn’t mattered that my grades had sucked or that I hadn’t even decided at that age what I’d wanted to do with my life. The Ashbys didn’t get the best of the best because of things like intelligence or strength of character.

Everything was bought and paid for, if not in advance, then afterwards when indiscretions needed to be covered up by buying victims off, or scandals needed to be kept out of the tabloids. Any attempt at exposing the Ashbys for who they really were was met with a swift and powerful response that left the lives of those doing the exposing in tatters.

JJ was the only one who’d ever gotten more than two words about my family out of me.

Both before the shooting and now.

He was the biggest threat to my future and yet he still held the most power over me.

And he had no fucking clue.

I paused my forward motion and pulled in a few deep breaths of the fresh, clean air before I started back toward the cabin. A full, bright moon made the journey back much quicker, though part of me never wanted to walk back into that place. If I knew JJ was waiting there to welcome me back in some way, I never would have left the cabin in the first place, but we were nowhere near that stage, and I doubted we ever would be. If by some miracle he determined that I hadn’t done what I’d been accused of, things wouldn’t magically become normal. We wouldn’t be able to pick up from the night we’d left off because he didn’t remember that night. And even if he did, we’d been at the very beginning of exploring our feelings for one another.

The shooting had changed all that for good. There was no way to come back from all the damage that had been done. I wasn’t a guy worth waiting up for at night, and I doubted JJ would ever feel comfortable around me no matter the circumstances.

Upon reaching the kitchen door, I took a couple more deep breaths as if I needed to store them away for future use. The light was still on and, thankfully, the door wasn’t locked or barred. I could see through the window on the upper part of the door that the files were still on the table.

No JJ, though.

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed. I supposed I’d wanted to at least see JJ digging into the files with enthusiasm. It would mean he was taking the situation seriously and not just coming to the same conclusion others had been feeding him for years.

It didn’t really matter, anyway. I knew I hadn’t killed anyone, but I’d already spent hours poring through the files and hadn’t found anything that would point to who’d actually committed the crime. I still didn’t know if I’d been framed or if JJ had been targeted for some unknown reason. My only hope was that JJ’s past as a cop and his natural ability to see problems where others couldn’t would pay off.

The second I stepped inside the kitchen, I knew something was off. I could feel it.

I opened my mouth to call out for JJ but froze when I heard my own name being spoken in the quietest of whispers.

“JJ!” I called when I saw him lying on the floor in front of the refrigerator. It took just seconds to reach him, but it felt like hours.

“JJ,” I repeated as I carefully ran my fingers along his temple. He was curled into a ball and little whimpers kept spilling from his throat.

“Talk to me, JJ,” I said, keeping my voice soft.

“Lights,” he choked out. I could hear the tears in that one simple word.

Tears of pain.

Deep, physical pain.

I jumped to my feet and slammed my hand down on the light switch, plummeting the kitchen into darkness. I had the sense to snatch a pack of frozen vegetables from the freezer before dropping down next to him. “Is it your head?” I asked, more to keep him talking than anything else.

I could feel the slightest nod against the hand I’d placed back on his forehead. He was hot to the touch.

Fuck, why hadn’t I considered the possibility that he could end up experiencing something like this? I’d told the truth when I’d said that the nearest road was miles away and it wasn’t an easy walk to get there. An ambulance probably wouldn’t make it up the steep, curving dirt road that led to the cabin.

“Damn it,” I snapped. “JJ, sweetheart, can you hold on until Sully gets here?”

I didn’t wait for him to respond. I needed to get to the safe and retrieve the special satellite phone that would have the reception to make the call.

“Don’t,” JJ croaked as weak fingers wrapped around my wrist. “Stay,” the young man sprawled before me on the cold kitchen floor breathed.

“Okay,” I said shakily. I lowered myself to a kneeling position. “I’ve got you,” I assured him as I wrapped my fingers around his. Although I knew I shouldn’t, I couldn’t resist the need to ease him into my lap so that his upper body was resting against mine. JJ whimpered several times but once I had him in my arms, he pressed his head against my shoulder. I wrapped both arms around him and held him as perfectly still as I could. I still had the frozen vegetables in my hand, so I pressed that against his forehead.

Then I started talking.

And talking.

And kept talking.

I lost track of what I was saying but it was mostly just nonsense. Silly stuff I remembered from some of the brighter times in my early childhood with my grandmother as well as stories about when I’d been restoring my car with JJ’s family and how he had helped every step of the way. The more I talked to JJ, the more panicked I became when he didn’t respond to me in any kind of way. Physically, I could see that he was sleeping, but in my mind’s eye all I could see was him lying in my arms in the middle of a cold, wet street, his life’s blood literally draining out of him.

I could still feel the heat of his blood as it dripped down my arm. I could hear his ragged breathing; I could smell the tar from the street’s recently repaired cracks and divots. My throat hurt from calling out for help that wasn’t coming fast enough, and my eyes stung from the tears I hadn’t known I’d even been shedding until long after the police had dragged me away from JJ’s body in cuffs and put me in a squad car where the last thing I’d seen before the car had sped off was the sight of JJ lying sprawled on the ground, his shirt open and paramedics jolting him with paddles in order to keep his heart beating.

“Cass…”

JJ’s faint voice had me catching my breath in disbelief. The blood, the tar, the tears—they were all a lie. A terrible nightmare from which I was finally escaping.

“Cass!”

JJ’s shout knocked the sleep right out of me.

He was gone. I knew it before I could confirm it with my eyes. My arms were empty. I was still on my knees on the kitchen floor, but JJ wasn’t there.

I was alone.

“JJ—” I croaked before my body shut me down. I couldn’t move. It was like someone had encased me in cement.

“I’m right here, Cass,” JJ responded. “Just open your eyes.”

Weren’t they already open?

JJ’s hand was on my cheek, his thumb rhythmically passing over my skin. I opened my eyes to confirm what I was feeling.

“JJ…” I managed to get out when I saw his gorgeous, mismatched eyes, one a warm brown color with flecks of gold circling the iris, the other as green as the pine trees around us. His dark hair had rays of sunlight washing over it, making the minuscule spots of the dust that danced between his hair and the sun’s rays more visible.

“Thank you,” I whispered to whoever was listening as I closed my eyes long enough to send the message of gratitude to whatever place the silent pleas, joyous celebrations, and everlasting gratefulness went.

“Can you move your arms slowly, one at a time? Slowly, Cass. You’ve been in the same position for a while now,” JJ warned, his soft words still managing to carry the strength of iron.

I didn’t even know if I was following the order until I saw JJ rubbing his hands up and down my forearms. Seconds later, reality knocked the breath from my lungs as one microscopic needle after another was jabbed into my skin from the inside of my body. The harsh awakening of the muscles in just those two limbs was enough to cause a cascade of agony to rush over my body as each part came alive. I would have loved to feel JJ’s hands desperately massaging different parts of my body to help get the blood flowing again, but all I could do was see him doing it.

God, karma really was a bitch.

The one time JJ was willingly touching me and I couldn’t feel it.

“Can you stand?” JJ asked as he moved behind me. Enough sensation had returned that I could at least feel his hands gently kneading the spasming muscles between my shoulder blades.

“Yeah,” I bit out even though I wasn’t sure I could do it.

It took several attempts, but as I shifted my legs, one of JJ’s arms went around my waist while the other carefully eased my arm around his shoulders.

“Okay, up,” he urged. The need to remain still and let the sharp needles return to wherever they’d come from was great, but the need to keep JJ from overexerting himself as he helped me off the floor was greater.

A few tries later, I was upright, gingerly shifting my feet back and forth to stimulate the blood flow. It felt like every muscle in my body was locking up tight, making me a prisoner in my own body.

JJ’s soft words of encouragement helped, but it wasn’t until he used his free hand to rub my chest and arms and anywhere else he could reach that I could feel the pain in my upper body beginning to ease as my muscles relaxed one by one.

My legs hurt like hell, especially my knees. When I’d pulled JJ onto my lap the night before, I hadn’t even considered that we’d end up in the position I’d chosen for more than an hour or two. Considering the sun was just coming up, the reality was that I’d been in a kneeling position for half a dozen hours. After having JJ in my lap, I hadn’t wanted to move him again, so I hadn’t shifted to a more comfortable position. I was paying for it now.

“I’m good,” I murmured when my upper body and limbs began to loosen. Unfortunately, as each one relaxed, my body felt heavier. The idea that I was good enough to stand on my own fell by the wayside when I tried to take my first step. My right knee buckled, but I didn’t hit the floor because JJ was supporting most of my weight.

“You’re doing good,” JJ said. For his sake, I hoped that each jarring step I took would make it so I didn’t have to rely on him to hold me up for too long.

“Your head—” I began to say before JJ cut me off.

“Is fine. Focus on each step, Cass. Try stretching each leg before you take a step.”

No way in hell was I going to do that because it would put even more weight on him.

“I said to stretch each leg before you moved forward,” JJ said curtly. He sounded more irritated than pissed. I probably shouldn’t have liked his bossiness so much. I always gave the orders. I never took them.

It took several steps before JJ’s suggestion—no, order—began to pay off. Feeling began to return to the rest of my muscles. The pain wasn’t terrible, but I still wasn’t strong enough to take my weight off him.

I limped across the floor as quickly as I could. I knew our destination was the living room couch, so I only had to get through a couple dozen more steps to reach the old, dusty piece of furniture.

Once we reached the cabin’s entryway, I started to go straight to enter the living room, but JJ shifted us to the left so that we were standing at the base of the stairs leading to the upper floor.

“We’re gonna take this slow, okay?” JJ said.

“Just put me on the couch,” I growled. Between my muscles all trying to remember how to work together and the heavy exhaustion that was consuming me, stairs were a level of humiliation I could do without. I really didn’t need JJ to see me hugging the thin banister as I climbed each step. “The couch⁠—”

“Shut up, Cass. It’s still my turn to talk, and if I want you to take it fucking slow when we go up these stairs then we’re going to take it fucking slow!”

There was that familiar stubbornness that was built into the DNA of all the men in the Ferguson family. Sully was the proverbial bull in a china shop when he wanted something, while their father had been a quiet kind of stubborn. Like Goldilocks, JJ had fit somewhere in the middle. He knew when to be the right kind of stubborn, and right now my JJ was being just that.

My JJ.

God, I missed thinking of him that way.

I was wise enough to keep the endearment to myself and spent the next several minutes focusing on the steps. Most of my cramping muscles began to relax, but I felt utterly drained.

And helpless.

God, I really fucking hated being helpless.

As grateful as I was that JJ was going to give me the only bed in the cabin to lie down in, I was more concerned about his need to rest. I had no idea how long he’d been in pain both before and after I’d found him on the floor the previous night. It didn’t really matter, though, because I’d seen the level of agony he was forced to endure when he had one of his episodes. It wasn’t even on the same spectrum as my own discomfort. He needed rest. Real rest. I just needed a few minutes to loosen up my body, pop a couple of ibuprofens, and I was good.

“JJ—”

“Cass…” he said in warning.

God, he was fucking stubborn, but it had been that determination, that fierceness, that had saved his life after the shooting. He’d had to use it all over again when he’d woken up afterwards only to find that he’d have to learn all of the most basic skills needed to live life every day. On top of that, he’d had to live with the knowledge that he’d lost pieces of his own life.

I’d take his stubbornness over his hatred of me every time.

“We need to keep moving,” JJ said.

He wasn’t encouraging me anymore. He was downright telling me what to do.

I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be like that in bed. After our first kiss the night before he’d gotten shot, I’d tagged him as being more of the submissive type. The way he’d kissed me on the canyon road had changed my thinking. His current way of ordering me around was waking up the one part of me that was never tired when it came to JJ.

Would he take control in bed? Would it be a battle of the senses to see who ultimately determined how and when we each found the prize of sweet release? I had the advantage of strength, but JJ had already proven he knew how to get what he wanted.

I was panting when we finally reached the bedroom but as soon as I headed toward the bed, JJ veered me off course and in an entirely different direction.

The bathroom.

There could be only one reason he’d take me in there and it was a humiliation I really had no wish to endure.

“JJ, I don’t⁠—”

“Are you fucking kidding me? What did I tell you to do with that mouth?” JJ asked in disbelief as he looked me dead in the eye, daring me to continue.

With my free hand, I made the motion of zipping my lips. If JJ wanted to stand me in front of a toilet, or worse, sit me on one, he’d have no right to complain about it later. At least the embarrassment would kill off my impending boner. Of course, his comment about him telling me what to do with my mouth was counterbalancing the whole needing his help to take a piss thing.

I didn’t object again when JJ shuffled me into the bathroom. I didn’t object when he turned his back on me. I didn’t even object when he turned the shower on, waited until the temperature satisfied him, and then turned back to me.

A certain part of me didn’t object at all when JJ reached for the hem of my T-shirt.

Okay, he’s helping you undress so you can piss and then shower. Get control of yourself, asshole.

The removal of my shirt was bad enough, especially when JJ’s fingertips coasted over my abdomen, but when he went for the fly of my jeans, I did open my mouth to protest.

This time, I wasn’t prepared for JJ’s warning to remain silent. I wasn’t prepared because his mouth was on mine before I could say anything. I couldn’t stifle the moan that erupted somewhere deep in my chest. His tongue slid against mine for a whisper of a second and then his mouth was gone.

He flipped the button on my jeans open but then stopped suddenly and crouched down. “Put your hands on my shoulders,” he ordered before he unceremoniously grabbed my boot and began pulling at it, forcing me to do as he said.

Shoes, right. He needed to take off my shoes.

Shoes.

Shoes.

Dear God, what was happening to me?

I could only pray that I wasn’t repeating the word “shoes” out loud because I’d come off as a maniac. Truth be told, my brain was too fogged over with lust to really care.

When he straightened, he once again reached for my zipper. As badly as I wanted him, I knew JJ would regret kissing me as soon as he was past the pity party he was throwing me.

“JJ—”

He kissed me again.

Harder.

Deeper.

Longer.

Much, much longer.

“Jesus,” I breathed when he broke the kiss.

“If you want my mouth back on yours, you’ll stop saying my name until I tell you to say it,” JJ said as evenly as if he were warning me I’d be put in a time-out.

That was what I needed, though.

A time-out.

Time.

I just really wanted time.

For time to stop.

For time to slow.

For time to go backwards so I could spot the danger long before the bullet could even leave the chamber of the gun firing it.

I also wanted time to fast-forward past all the shit that was yet to come so I’d never have to wonder if JJ felt about me even half of how I felt about him.

If only everything besides me and JJ could remain still for a while.

I closed my eyes but kept my mouth shut when he lowered my fly. It seemed to take him much longer than it needed to and a hell of a lot more touching was involved than was necessary. Since I wasn’t wearing briefs, JJ was greeted with undeniable proof of what he was doing to me.

“That’s better,” he murmured before he kissed me again. My naked back hit the wall between the doorframe and the bathtub that doubled as the shower.

Every kiss was longer and more searing than the one before. I briefly wondered if he planned on leaving me hanging in my state of unbridled lust like I’d left him when I’d put an end to the kiss in my motel room. I realized I didn’t care. I’d take any part of JJ’s sensual assault that I could get.

I remained against the wall when JJ once again ended the kiss. I no longer gave a shit about him seeing my hard-on. He already knew what he was doing to me. He knew the power he yielded. He had every right to do with it what he wanted.

Once my pants were gone, I fully expected JJ to order me to get beneath the spray of the shower. I just hoped he kissed me one more time before he did, though.

He didn’t kiss me again.

Not while he was slowly removing his own clothing.

Not while his eyes remained glued to mine as he stepped out of his pants.

Not even when he began stroking his own hard dick.

“Get in the shower, Cass,” JJ said, his voice uneven, his eyes hungry. I had no clue if there would be any more kisses, but I really needed to find out.

So I did exactly what he said.