Proof (Targes Executive Protection Book 1)

One thing I hadn’t expected when it came to heaven was how fucking cold it was. And dark.

Maybe my father and his beloved Bible had been right. Maybe I was burning in hell, but the guys who’d written the book had gotten the description of hell wrong. I couldn’t decide which I preferred to spend eternity in—cold that was so cold it felt like it was burning my skin or actual fire.

I didn’t like the dark, though. I’d always feared that life after death was just darkness and nothingness. No other souls, no other voices, not even hearing the thoughts of those I couldn’t see. Just black, empty space and complete awareness that I was alone and probably always would be. No peace, no warmth, no burning, no bright lights. Just… silence.

“JJ, open your eyes.”

The sudden voice in my ear would have made me happy to know that I wasn’t actually alone in that dark place, except I knew that voice.

It belonged to the devil himself.

Okay, maybe not the devil but, at best, a fallen angel who’d been cast out of heaven to join me in the infinite nothingness.

The mere thought of angels had my mind tracking in a whole new direction. Did angels sin like I had? Did they make the mistake of not being who they were supposed to be? Were they cast into whatever version of hell I was in because they’d gone down on a guy or taken it up the ass like I had? Did angels even have sex? Were they even guys and girls?

“Damn it, JJ, wake the fuck up!”

Pain shattered my errant thoughts like delicate glass. Image after image tormented me.

A hill.

Running, heart pounding, a gun in my hand.

Some kid and his phone.

Another gun but not in my hand.

Blinding light burned my eyes as I tried to pull the trigger.

“Can’t see,” I called, though I wasn’t sure who I was calling to. “Get down!” I shouted because there had been that kid. He needed to get down because there was a gun that wasn’t mine⁠—

“JJ, open your eyes!”

I bolted upright at the sound of the familiar voice. “Cass!” I yelled. “Gun! Gun!” Fear consumed me as I tried to blink the light away. I had to warn Cass.

“Cass, can’t see. Gun! Gun! Cass, drop!” I begged. I needed him to hear me so a bullet wouldn’t take him from me.

“JJ, I’m right here. I’m safe. But I need you to do something for me, okay?”

I nodded. I was so relieved to hear him say he was safe that I slumped forward. Something hard but warm brushed against my cheek.

“Close your eyes again.”

Close them, open them, close them. Would the man make up his mind so he’d let me see him already?

I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut like a little kid who was trying to follow his parent’s orders to keep from seeing whatever surprise awaited him.

“That’s good,” Cass said. “Now I want you to listen. Tell me what you hear.”

That was easy. “You,” I murmured.

“What else?”

“Can we do this later, Cass? Tired. It hurts,” I complained.

“No, baby, we need to do this now, but I promise you can rest afterwards.”

I nodded because Cass was always right about things. Except the “baby” part. I didn’t know why he was saying that because I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I was all grown up.

Why did everything feel like it was covered in layers and layers of fog?

“What do you hear?” Cass asked gently. His words sounded like the softest of whispers in my ear. I focused on what he wanted me to do because I wanted to please him. All I’d ever wanted to do was please him.

“Dripping water… like from a faucet,” I said. My eyes felt heavy but thankfully there was no longer any blinding light.

“What else?”

“A fan. Above me. Can hear and feel it.”

“That’s good. Anything else?”

Between his words and trying to listen for things, the pounding in my head eased.

“Thumping,” I said softly. “Heartbeat. Someone’s heartbeat.” I paused before saying, “Your heartbeat.”

Something skimmed the shell of my ear. Something soft. It felt good. Hell didn’t feel good, so maybe God had forgiven me my sins even if I’d forgotten to ask Him to before I’d died.

“How do your eyes feel?”

“Scratchy,” I said. “Wanna open them.”

“Do it a little at a time and tell me what you see.”

I did what he said. I resisted the urge to just open them and be done with it. “Blue. Something blue,” I said. I allowed my eyes to open a bit more. A sea of blue flooded them, but when I moved them, other things came into focus. “Brown carpet, ugly curtains. It’s dark but not like before.”

I kept describing things until my brain was no longer trying to pound its way out of my head. I stopped talking and tested my other senses. Warmth enveloping me. A weird citrus smell. Lemons mixed with something woodsy.

Skin.

Soft skin brushing up against my mouth. My fingers tangled in soft hair.

Cass’s hair.

I could still remember it from when I’d⁠—

“What the hell?” I groaned as all of my different senses began to paint a picture. The last time I’d had my fingers in Cass’s hair was when I’d kissed him by his car.

I took a few seconds to take stock of where I was.

Sitting on a bed, my arms wrapped around Cass’s neck, my lips pressed against his throat.

What the hell?

I shoved Cass and scrambled away from him. My back hit something hard. The bed’s headboard. “Where are we?” I asked as I scanned the unfamiliar room. It was dark but only because the curtains were drawn. A sliver of daylight peeked through them anyway.

Cass was still sitting on the edge of the bed, but it was too dark to see his expression. It didn’t matter what the fuck his expression looked like. I needed to get the fuck away from him.

My head started pounding again as I began to remember the events that had transpired before I’d blacked out.

Jenna’s house.

Pursuing a guy down a hill and trapping him in an alley.

A kid and the guy aiming his gun.

Then Cass. Then Cass had been there, his smooth voice in my ear.

Bruce, cops, me switching…

I paused and closed my eyes to take in the rest. I’d switched my gun with Cass’s. I had done that, not Cass.

To protect him.

“No,” I said to myself as I shook my head. Why the fuck had I protected him?

The rest of it fell into place like the final pieces of a puzzle. Cass had shot the man in the alley. He’d shot him because I hadn’t been able to.

Cass had saved my life.

“Jesus,” I whispered. “Light. Can you turn on a light?”

I hated that I had to ask Cass to perform what should have been a simple task, but I was still trying to get my bearings. I was shirtless. I still had my pants on but no shoes.

The bed shifted and then dim light was flooding the room. I didn’t look at Cass. I wasn’t ready for that, so I stared at the bedspread covering my lap. It was the kind of blanket one found in cheap motel rooms.

His room. I’d asked Cass to take me to his place.

“Where’s my gun?” I asked.

“Here,” Cass said from somewhere next to me. “On the nightstand. Your phone is there too.” His voice held a note of disappointment. I waited until he moved away from me before looking up and searching out my gun and phone on the nightstand. I automatically grabbed my gun.

Cass let out a harsh, ugly little laugh that I hated because it didn’t sound right coming from him. I still couldn’t force myself to look at him.

“My gun’s there too if you want to be all ‘Billy the Kid’ style,” he said. I glanced up briefly only to see him walking away from me toward the bathroom. He was completely unconcerned about the gun. I quickly checked the clip. The gun was loaded, so why the fuck was he so confident? He’d been the same way when I’d confronted him on the canyon road. He’d walked right up to me until my gun had been pressed against his chest.

Daring me to shoot him.

It had been before he’d kissed me.

And I’d kissed him.

Fuck.

“There’s a T-shirt and a pair of sweats on the table if you want to change,” Cass called from the bathroom.

“Seriously?” I responded. “That’s what you have to say to me right now?”

“Isn’t wanting to know where her clothes are the first thing the woman asks in the movies when she wakes up half-naked in the good-looking guy’s arms after some traumatic event? I was just trying to speed things along so you can get the fuck out of here.”

“Asshole,” I muttered as I remembered the way I’d been curled around him less than sixty seconds earlier. I threw the blanket off and swung my legs over the edge of the bed until my bare feet were touching the floor.

“I think it happens in romance novels too,” Cass continued as if he was talking to himself, though I knew he wasn’t. The prick was just needling me to get the response he wanted.

I was glad he remained in the bathroom because I didn’t want him to see how unsteady I was even while just sitting there. My head was spinning, and I felt sick to my stomach. As I hung my head, I noticed that my pants were covered in dust and pieces of underbrush that had snagged the fabric as I’d been running down the hill.

Or climbing back up it.

After Cass had saved my life.

“And I suppose she’s usually all naked,” Cass said from somewhere behind me. “I figured we could bypass that particular drama if I left your pants on.”

I closed my eyes. Fear and anger whirled inside of me along with a busload of confusion. I hadn’t expected Cass to be there. I hadn’t expected the blinding light and searing pain at the exact moment I should have been pulling the trigger.

I hadn’t expected a lot of things.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked as I put the gun back on the nightstand and scrubbed my face with my hands in the hopes of clearing some of the lingering fog from my brain.

“There’s an icepack behind you,” Cass responded.

Of course there was. That explained the cold I’d felt when I’d started to wake up.

“And to answer your question, you told me to bring you here.”

“You’re lying,” I automatically said, even though I knew he wasn’t. I had asked Cass to take me to his place so Sully wouldn’t find out what had happened. Part of me had been hoping I’d dreamed the part about asking Cass to take me to his place.

“Does that surprise you, JJ? I mean, that’s what I do, right?” Cass drawled. His voice changed to something softer, more intimate. “Or does it upset you to know that for once, I’m not lying?”

“Why were you there? In the alley?” I asked because I wasn’t sure how to answer his question. Cass lied. He did terrible things.

“You know why.”

“God, can’t you just answer a fucking question straight for once?”

“Why do you think I was there, JJ?” Cass snapped. His momentary lapse in controlling his tone strangely made me feel better. Like he was still a little bit human and not full-on monster.

“You were following me,” I said. My head was starting to hurt again, so I glanced over my shoulder to find the icepack. There was no avoiding catching a glimpse of Cass. He was just outside the bathroom door.

And he was shirtless.

Dear God.

In addition to the pounding head on my shoulders, there was another head that was throbbing now too. Thank fuck Cass had left my pants on. The last thing I needed was for him to realize what his proximity was doing to me.

I nearly laughed because I’d never wondered about the character of any of the men who’d fucked me at Tank’s and yet, here I was trying to tell my dick that it wasn’t allowed to want this man, this murderer, no matter how drop-dead gorgeous he was.

The icepack turned out to be a plastic baggie with some half-melted ice cubes in it. “How long have we been here for?” I asked as I put the not really an icepack against the scar on my head.

“A few hours,” Cass responded simply. “It’s six.”

“Fuck, Sully’s gonna be pissed,” I muttered.

“Not half as pissed as when he finds out what really happened in that alley.”

I froze at Cass’s words. “Nothing happened,” I managed to say. “My gun jammed and your weird obsession with me put you in the right place at the right time.”

I cursed myself as soon as the words were out.

Weird obsession? Why the hell was I opening that particular can of worms?

“Would that be the weird obsession that makes me a murderer or the weird obsession that had you pinning me against my car and jamming your tongue down my throat like a drunken anteater?”

His words stung.

And proved how fucked up in the head I was.

There I was sitting in the motel room of a guy who’d murdered three innocent people before trying to take my life, and I was upset about his criticism of my inexperienced kissing.

“What, no snappy comeback?” Cass asked.

I could feel his presence as he moved around the bed. I just had to keep a straight face and figure out the quickest way to get myself out of the room. If I called Sully and asked him to come and get me, he’d wonder what I was doing with Cass. Of course, he probably already knew if the cops had called about getting our statement. Boone might have also told him. None of it would explain what I was doing in a cheap motel room with Cass, though.

I was surprised when Cass went to the door and opened it before shutting it again. Did he actually look relieved at the fact that the door opened? What outcome had he been expecting?

I dropped my eyes again because the muscles rippling along his back were way too much of a distraction.

As Cass moved toward the window, I realized he was going to reach the little stack of clothes on the table he’d laid out for me before I was. While I could live with my pants the way they were, I needed a shirt, and I had no clue where mine was.

I quickly stood so I could grab the clothes myself but immediately regretted it. The world spun crazily. I managed to stay on my feet but by the time I came to my senses, Cass was sitting at the table. He’d put a T-shirt on, though it wasn’t the one he’d set aside for me. His intense stare had butterflies dancing in my stomach and goose bumps dotting my forearms and the back of my neck.

I’d been in fight-or-flight mode from the moment I’d realized where I was and who I was with. I’d chosen to fight. Well, with words anyway. Now I was choosing flight. The state of my hardening cock was getting harder to conceal. Maybe if I went straight from wherever the hell I was to Tank’s, I could forget everything about today.

The idea of some guy shoving his dick into me made me physically ill, but not for the right reason. The true reason I didn’t want a stranger’s dick anywhere near me was sitting not five feet from me. I didn’t want some guy. I wanted Cass. My body didn’t care about what he’d done. All it knew was the taste of raw, unbridled need. It was painful and humiliating to finally understand for the first time what the force of true attraction really was.

I climbed to my feet more slowly this time around and took several steps forward so I could grab the shirt off the pile of clothes on the table. I had to keep my eyes on the prize because if I looked at Cass, I’d lose the ability to focus on anything but him. I managed to reach the table without looking at him even once but the second I reached my arm out, hard fingers wrapped around my wrist and held on with a steely grip.

“Let go,” I snapped as I yanked my arm back, but there was no escaping the hold he had on me. I was strong but I wasn’t Cass strong.

I could feel Cass’s eyes boring a tunnel through me.

“Is that it, JJ?” he asked carefully as he pulled me forward a few inches.

I opened my mouth to once again order him to release me, but before I could even get a word out, he was on his feet and walking me backwards until my back hit the outdated wallpaper behind me. He grabbed both my wrists and pinned my arms next to my head. I could have fought harder than I did, but I was too busy raging an internal war between my brain and my body.

“Has no one else gotten a taste of you?” he asked, his voice smooth and knowing.

I could feel tears stinging the backs of my eyes as shame, humiliation, and desire collided.

“I’ve been fucked by more guys than I can count,” I spat in a last-ditch effort to save myself. I swore I saw something flare to life in Cass’s stunningly blue eyes but then it was gone.

He dropped his head until his lips were nearly brushing mine. I felt like I was going to explode then and there.

“That’s not what I asked,” Cass pointed out. “Am I the first guy you’ve kissed? The first person?” His voice sounded growly and possessive. My dick wept with joy. God, if he shifted his hips just a little, he’d know a kiss wasn’t all I wanted… needed.

My resistance began to shred like threads of a rope that was stretched to its limit.

A really thin, weak rope.

“Cass,” I whispered in desperation.

But what was I more desperate for? For him to let me go or for him not to?

“Answer me,” Cass demanded.

I could feel the electricity firing inside of me but this time it wasn’t along the track the bullet had taken. No, that part of me was just fine. No blinding light, no stabbing pain.

“JJ—”

“Yes,” I croaked. “Damn you, Cass. Yes! Okay? Yes, you’re the first⁠—”

His mouth was on mine before I could complete my rant. A couple of the tears I’d been struggling to hold back slipped down my cheek as one and only one emotion swept through my entire body.

Joy.

Pure, undeniable, unforgivable joy.