Proof (Targes Executive Protection Book 1)

I shouldn’t have done it. I knew that. I’d already crossed a line by lying to JJ about the way he’d kissed me back on that canyon road. I could only excuse that behavior as being a result of the frustration of his whiplash reactions to my presence.

But what I was doing now, it was so much more than a lie. I was taking advantage of the opening JJ had unwittingly given me as an excuse to taste him again. To feel his body against mine.

Granted, I had kissed him before the one we’d shared on that dry, dusty road high above the city.

Our real first kiss had been the night before he’d gotten shot. We’d been sitting in my car talking about everything and nothing. I had no idea which of us had made the first move, but I’d immediately known JJ’s experience with kissing had been limited at best. I hadn’t been complaining, though. I’d kissed and been kissed by plenty of guys, and I’d fucked even more, but nothing had prepared me for JJ.

He’d been stronger than me that night because he’d put an end to things before they’d really begun. He’d wanted to tell his brother about his sexuality and our budding relationship first so that we wouldn’t have to hide anything from him or anyone else.

What I hadn’t known about that first kiss was that it had, indeed, been his first kiss. He’d told me about the couple of guys he’d been with while I’d been overseas, but he’d never said anything about not kissing either of them.

The kiss we’d shared that night had been sweet and tame compared to the ones from the day he’d confronted me for the first time after I’d been released from prison. It was his inexperience during the rough, punishing kisses we’d exchanged that made me finally begin to suspect that he’d never been kissed before.

Except by me on the night of our last official date before he’d been gunned down right in front of me.

My promise to keep my hands to myself had been blown to hell the second he’d admitted I had been the first one to ever kiss him. Even if he didn’t remember our true first kiss, my brain and my dick had decided his admission meant that he hadn’t allowed anyone else to kiss him.

Which meant he really was mine.

Even now as I happily showed him how to move his mouth against mine, I let myself believe that deep down, JJ remembered something about us. Something that proved to him that there had been an us before that terrible night.

After we’d kissed on the canyon road, JJ had wiped his mouth as if trying to wipe away the fact that the kiss had happened. As good as it had felt to have his mouth taking control of mine that day, that one swipe of his hand afterwards had made me want to forget that kiss had ever happened.

This kiss, though… this kiss was one I didn’t want him to forget.

Ever.

This kiss was one of many that we should have been able to share the night he’d gotten shot. We should have been able to talk at the diner less than a block away and make decisions about what we wanted to say to Sully and when. We should have been given the chance to explore each other in any and every way we wanted. Our choices had been taken from us and in a cruel twist of fate, I alone had been left with the heart-stealing memory of our first kiss while JJ only knew what it was like to kiss Cass, the murderer.

I knew what I was doing now wouldn’t change that.

Kissing him was a selfish need. Making him admit that there’d been no one else to taste him besides me had been downright cruel and there was no excuse on the planet for it other than me wanting something that I’d lost… that had been taken from me.

So yeah, I was a selfish prick for taking advantage of the situation and I’d regret it later, but now all I wanted was to pretend that it was the night we should have had. One of many nights.

I tried to remind myself to go slow, but JJ’s need was pushing mine higher and higher. It was only the sensation of damp skin against mine that had me putting on the brakes.

Hard.

“JJ,” I said with a shake of my head as I realized that the wetness my cheek had briefly rubbed up against were tears. “JJ, I didn’t mean those things I said. I’m so sorry⁠—”

I was in the process of releasing his wrists as I spoke, but before I could let him go entirely, he linked his fingers with mine. “Don’t stop,” he whimpered. “Please, Cass, don’t stop.”

The need in his voice broke me. I knew he would hate me for anything that happened, but he already did, so it shouldn’t have mattered.

It did, though.

Because it was still a lie, and the JJ I’d known before the shooting wouldn’t have forgiven me for what I was doing now.

“JJ, I can’t,” I grated as I tried to get my lust under control. I wanted to do so much more then taste him. I wanted to touch, to tease. I wanted to know what his skin felt like when I wasn’t in a state of complete panic because I didn’t know how to help him with his physical pain.

The reminder of why we were even in my motel room was enough to force my fingers to unlink from his. It wasn’t until I put some space between our bodies that JJ snapped out of his lust-induced haze. His eyes were glittering with emotion and need, and his body was wound tight. He was trembling just as badly as me.

“I’m sorry,” I said with a shake of my head.

There was no missing the moment his hatred returned. It happened as fast as a switch being flipped. JJ shoved past me and snatched his gun and phone off the nightstand. He also took the shirt I’d offered him from the table, but he was out the door before he even put it on. I didn’t realize he’d taken something else until I heard my Mustang roar to life.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I realized I’d left the keys on the table next to the clothing. The keys for the rental car were in my pocket.

“JJ, stop!” I called as I grabbed my own gun. He was already racing out of the parking lot before I got outside. I didn’t give a shit that he’d taken my car. What I was worried about was his state of mind. Muscle cars and raw emotion didn’t mix well.

It seemed to take forever to get the rental car on the road. My Mustang was long gone, and I had no hope of catching up to JJ even if I floored it on the rental car. He’d be back in the city long before me.

I reached for my phone so I could warn Sully about JJ, only to realize I’d left the damn thing in the motel room. “Fuck!” I bit out as I slammed my hands down on the steering wheel.

There was no way I was turning around for the phone, so I just had to hope Sully was wherever JJ would end up—their house or Sully’s office.

A sudden, terrible thought invaded my mind like the most painful of parasites.

“No,” I whispered as fear, anger, and pure, unadulterated jealousy consumed me.

The club.

The one JJ went to every night after work. The one where Sully had said JJ let guys⁠—

“No!” I shouted and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. Desperation had me praying to a deity I didn’t really believe in that I was wrong.

There was no way JJ would go to Tank’s after what had happened between us. He’d want to nurse his wounds in private.

Except JJ didn’t do that. Not this version of him. Sully himself had said JJ was trying to lose himself in places like Tank’s… with men who used him like he wasn’t worth more than a broken toy.

It felt like hours before I reached the club that was just south of the city and about five miles from JJ and Sully’s house. I hadn’t even bothered to drive by the home in the hopes of seeing my Mustang parked in the driveway or even somewhere along the block where Sully wouldn’t see it. My gut was screaming at me that JJ was exactly where I didn’t want him to be.

Fuck, how had this gotten so messed up? Two weeks ago, I’d wanted vengeance for something JJ hadn’t even done. I might not have been directly responsible for what had happened to him two years earlier, but I was the one hurting him now. I was the one playing games with his head.

Despair and torment ate away at my insides the second I saw my Mustang parked across the street from the club. I slammed my rental to a stop in the loading zone in front of the building.

I forgot all about my fear of dark, enclosed spaces as I barreled through the front door of the club. “JJ… where is he?” I snarled at the bartender. The huge man looked me over for several painfully long seconds.

I was about to find JJ on my own even if I had to rip the place apart when the bartender, who I could only assume was the Tank the club had been named after because that’s how he was built, said, “Alley out back. Better hurry.”

The last two words nearly killed me on the spot.

My logical side would have argued that JJ was an adult who could make his own decisions, but logic had flown out the window about two minutes after he had stormed out of the motel room. Maybe I could have come to terms with the idea of him fleeing me to go hook up with some stranger, but I knew that wasn’t what he was doing.

I knew it like I knew I hadn’t been the one who’d shot him. I knew it like I knew how helpless it had felt to hold a dying JJ in my arms and not be able to do a damn thing about it.

I could do something this time. I didn’t care if JJ hated me for the rest of his life, even if by some miracle he did someday remember us.

As I worked my way to the back of the club, guys moved out of my way without needing to be physically or verbally warned, so I must have looked like a raging bull. I wanted to vomit when I reached the back of the club and saw the door that presumably led to the alley. There were several men crowded around the inside of the door trying to get a look outside.

To see the show, no doubt.

I didn’t bother with a verbal warning. I just began shoving guys out of my way until the smell of garbage hit me so hard it nearly knocked me right back into the club.

There was no preparing myself for what I saw as I pushed past every asshole in the alley who was blocking my view.

JJ was pressed up against a dumpster, his ass on full display, his dirty trousers bunched around his ankles. He made no effort to put up a fight as the guy behind him released his dick from his jeans. JJ had a bottle of alcohol in his right hand. He took intermittent swigs of the liquid as he rested his head against his other arm which was braced against the dumpster. Some fucker was in front of him, his hand wrapped around his own dick. He pointed to the ground at the same time he spoke to JJ and to my horror, JJ began to lower himself to the filthy asphalt.

I reached the trio just as the guy behind JJ started to nudge his bare dick against JJ’s ass. I grabbed the man by his greasy ponytail and yanked him backwards. A kick to the nuts had him screaming in agony. The guy in front of JJ was too wasted to realize what was happening. I reached him before he could tap his dick against JJ’s half-open lips.

I knocked the man on his ass, watching as two of his teeth went flying and his head hit the concrete hard enough to knock him out. “Go!” I snarled to the dwindling pack of men who were either watching the action or stroking their own dicks as they waited for their turn.

I didn’t watch to make sure the men had heeded my order. Instead, I bent down to pull JJ to his feet. I took the bottle of alcohol from him and threw it aside. JJ didn’t appear to recognize me as I pulled his pants up and secured them. He was clearly drunk and in no state to consent to anything, let alone being gangbanged in a fucking alley with garbage strewn everywhere.

When I turned so we were facing the door leading into the club, I saw that a few men had remained to watch what was happening, but they quickly made themselves scarce when the big asshole, Tank, appeared in the alley doorway and slammed a metal bat against the brick wall. I thought he was there to prevent me from taking JJ, but instead, the man held out the keys to my Mustang.

“Took ’em when he came in. Figured it wasn’t his.”

“Maybe you should have been more concerned about a man getting gang-raped on your property,” I snapped.

Tank tossed me the keys. “And maybe you shouldn’t have done whatever you did to send him back here,” he returned. “I’ve been waiting too long for the day that boy stopped coming here, and it seemed like he had his foot out the door the last few nights when all he did was come in for some fucking club soda and nothing or no one else. My guess is you’re the reason for both those things, so fuck off. Go around the corner to get to your car. It’ll be faster. And if you don’t want that piece of shit you rolled up in towed, then give me the keys!”

Tank’s words felt like bullets ripping through me. Had I really been the reason JJ hadn’t wanted to use the club to satisfy his needs anymore?

I didn’t have time to think about it. I reached into my pocket and grabbed the keys. I flung them at Tank and then wrapped my arm around JJ’s waist. I placed his arm behind my shoulders and held his hand so I’d have more leverage to offer him once I got him moving.

“JJ, can you hear me?” I asked, my voice cracking with so many different emotions it made my stomach churn.

JJ threw up in response. I helped him bend over but made sure he stayed on his feet. By the time I got him to my car, he’d vomited three more times. In between, he was murmuring sporadic things, but I didn’t know if he was trying to say something. My car was unlocked, which I wouldn’t have really cared about except that he had left his gun and phone sitting on the passenger seat for all the world to see.

I moved the gun and phone before lowering JJ into the seat. I wished I had some water to offer him because he was dry heaving, and it had to be hurting his throat and stomach.

God, how had we gotten to this place?

Lies.

That was how.

One lie after another had spiraled into this fucking knot that would take a lifetime to undo if we did somehow get the chance someday. It wasn’t even the lies that lay between me and JJ. There was a whole other knot that I hadn’t even begun to deal with.

I slid into the seat behind the wheel. JJ was slumped against the passenger door, his hands covered in God only knew what kind of shit. Vomit was sticking to his shirt, pants, and shoes. It was an all too familiar scene.

This time, though, I knew taking him home and trying to stay out of his life while I attempted to figure out who’d tried to kill him wasn’t an option. I couldn’t do this alone. I needed help and I needed a plan because one way or another, I was going to tell JJ the truth.

About everything.

I was going to rip the fucking knot of lies apart even if I had to do it string by string.

I got the car started and grabbed JJ’s phone since I’d left mine back at the motel. I dialed and put the phone to my ear before reaching out to link my fingers with JJ’s limp ones. Tears stung my eyes as I took in the sight of him.

“JJ?” Sully asked worriedly on the first ring.

“No, Sully, it’s me,” I said, my voice cracking just a bit. I forced myself to release JJ’s hand so I could focus on what needed to happen next.

“Where are you?” I asked Sully. As he responded and then began lobbing one question after another at me, I wiped my forearm across my eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve got him with me. He’s safe,” I said as I glanced at JJ. “We need to talk,” I cut in as Sully demanded to talk to JJ. I threw the Mustang’s gearshift into drive and glanced over my shoulder before pulling the car into traffic. I ignored Sully’s order to put JJ on the phone and spoke the handful of words that I’d promised myself I’d never say again from the moment I’d been charged with murder and not even one single person who’d known the real me had stood up to defend me.

“I need your help.”