Chapter 40: Chapter 40

JACE ‘JR’ ASHER/ TRIGGER

LAY LOW, COOL HEAD, DON’T FUCKING POKE at Amato’s business lest I wanted the whole mission to be in jeopardy.

The way I saw it the whole mission might as well have been in jeopardy right at this fucking second. Not even the taste of tobacco on my lips could smooth the tension that was so damn palpable in my car.

The thought of putting on music soured through my head but immediately died down. Last thing a princess like her needed was heavy rock music making her shiver far more than she was at the moment.

Because that’s what she had done. Fifteen minutes, thirty—make those thirty-one seconds and her thighs scrunched together. Her eyes…dark filthy orbs lingered out my window every five seconds and her hands tried to grasp reality by clutching her Gucci purse so damn tight her nails were an inch from breaking.

I could hear her breathe… messily, angsty, afraid. I had never been the sort that did emotions. The sort that calmed down a person let alone a woman when things went shitty. Seeing your parents’ die did that to someone.

Being closed off, not being a people person, not having the guts to talk about every shitty thing running through your body.

I gazed at her—tenth time in the night and some shit pulsed through me. To calm her down like I had done when her body blended into mine, stroke her back as her tears stained my chest, have her hair…peach scented hair near my nostrils…I wanted to do all that.

See her at ease, act like one of those romantic boyfriends that showed women they were beautiful and treasured and so fucking worth it.

Because she was beautiful, so damn beautiful my hands felt like they had had the pleasure of touching gold…rare, sophisticated gold. And then my blissful-laden ass had felt like a teenager all over again, like I had touched a woman for the very first time, like I was exploring a woman’s boobs and pussy for the very first time.

The feeling had been replaced with disdain on my part. I was the wrecker of all things good.

Cassie. I wrecked her for sure and there was no going back.

My father? I had been so selfish as a kid and maybe if I had worked fast that day. Looked for something to break the chains that held my mom and dad maybe they would have been alive and I wouldn’t be this.

Fucked up Jace Asher. Hungry, craving for a woman who deserved way more than a good for nothing ruffian who craved a good long fuck.

And that’s what it really was.

Lust. For her, a goddess with a serial killer for a dad and clueless to how the real world was.

I had seen it in her eyes when the sketchy bag of bones threatened her with an unloaded gun. She had never been threatened before, never had to face a situation as such, had been weak in the face of such a situation.

My cell rung, she glared at it, startled by it.

“My daughter? Is she safe? Did you find her?”

Nicolas Amato barked through the phone.

I gazed at the said daughter who had already cant her head to stare at me with those glassy eyes.

“She’s safe”

The old man sighed on the other end of the line; I didn’t break eye contact with the princess.

“Good, bring her home”, he said sternly hanging up.

“Thank you”, came her voice pliant, grateful and soft as fuck. I placed my cell on the console, eyes up ahead.

Get it together, Trigger. Get it fucking together.

“My papa—he’s protective of me. If he learnt of what happened today, he would never let me out of the house again”

Obedient. Check.

I flexed a vein on my neck.

How caged was she? How long had Nicolas Amato confined this beauty from the world? How long had she been this—

“Do you always do everything your father tells you to?”

Yes. Obviously.

“He’s my papa, he wants what bests for me”

“Wrong”, I corrected smoothing the escalade into the next street.

“What?”

“The shit you just said. No one knows what’s best for you except you”

She pondered over my statement for a second before she turned to me with,

“I—I don’t know what’s best for me most of the time. I could have died tonight because I wanted a taste, a glimpse of the real world, to see what I had been missing when I wasn’t with my papa. Instead I-almost got kidnapped-“

“Almost”, I corrected.

“That doesn’t make it any less true”

“Shit happens every time and that’s called a life. You can’t stop living because of one misstep”

“In my life, I can’t afford missteps”, she replied coolly.

“Right”

“Not all of us can enjoy the freedom you have”, she muttered nonchalantly, I tried not to say squat.

As far as bodyguard-clientele relationship went, I had already said too much to her…I didn’t do that with clients, never gave a shit about the kind of life the client had.

“And what freedom is that?” I asked, she turned to me, slender fingers wrapped around her purse, that damn short dress riding an inch her thigh exposing another swathe of brown lick-able, bite-able skin.

“The freedom of having friends, moving around in the world without anyone calling me an Amato, a princess, a gem. The freedom of being normal”

The escalade came to a slow heady halt at the iron gates with the A insignia buttressed at the top and inside those gates was her tower. Her prison. A million-dollar white mansion surrounded by lush estates of fake grass and expensive shit like golf courses, plastic flamingos, ice sculptures and what not.

“My friends killed a man for you and I’m on the way to dispose said man, my life is far from the normal, princess”, I gave her the truth.

She reclined in her seat with slight terror and a certain modicum of mannerism rich girls like her did.

“Ooh I—your friends, thank them for me. Not that I wanted anyone dead. I didn’t want him to die”

“He had a gun to your waist, he had it coming. You are an Amato whether you like it or not and that’s the only shit making me act normal right now”

“Normal? H—how would you act around me if I wasn’t an Amato?”

Her eyes were expectant now, her lips formed a small suggestive smile that told me this was the longest she had ever conversed with a stranger, with a person, with a man? And she was enjoying it. Enjoying my company and whatever bullshit atmosphere this was.

And I was being Jace Asher, the limp dick that had a hard on thinking of how her skin would feel against mine, how she sounded when she reached her peak, did she moan, scream?

“I’m not a good man, never had been since birth. I like honesty and if I’m being honest, you are not what I thought you would be”

“What I would be? What did you expect? A spoilt brat?”

“A fucking innocent woman who’s cluelessly hot and so damn sweet for my liking. You being a princess, being an Amato is the only thing preventing me from reaching underneath that dress, pulling down whatever panties you have on and glancing at that pussy till my dick feels better. Goodnight”

Her side of the door was already open before I said anything else.

The princess ran to her gates, to her mansion, to her world, I watched her ass jiggled with the knowledge that I would be having a long cold shower tonight right after I took care of the mess Ontario created.

I told him to shot the guy holding the princess in the fucking arm, psychotic Ontario went ahead and shot the fucker between his damn brows.

A fucking boner, a princess I wanted to fuck rather than protect, fuck my life!

LUCIA AMATO

HEART BEATING, pulse tick tocking every passing second, a shiver racing from my spine to my center. The center that had never had the opportunity to be touched, to be pleased, to feel this building sensation, where you felt like you were drowning but on land?

Like you were throbbing with need, thrashing for something feral, craving for something you couldn’t even utter lucidly.

Glancing at that pussy till my dick feels better.

Trigger had said, had uttered shamelessly without any guilt, without any hints of it being a joke in his eyes and I had—I do believe I ran. Ran like a little mouse inside the house, been deaf to my father’s scolding and had rushed to bed running circles at my clit to push away every bad thought that crossed my mind and every tinsy detail of me actually wanting him to see me...naked.

Twenty-four hours later, he was here. In front of me, in all black.

Only difference was the Trigger I met yesterday was different from the Trigger that was standing a few feet from the pool talking to our driver Marius without acknowledging I existed.

Black boots, black cargo pants, a tight t-shirt that clung to his muscles, he was devastatingly handsome. Add in that dark slightly wet hair and black shades and he was everything a woman could dream of.

All brawn, all serious, all sculptured but that’s the thing…he wasn’t my man. Wasn’t…a good man, a prince charming nor my fiancé and I had to force myself to look away.

At the brink of summer, my feet danced in the water, the aqua blue liquid sloshing in the pool as I took a dip.

The water was cold and soothing and it left me feeling better than I had yesterday. It somehow washed away the events of last night, the events of a surly man holding me at gunpoint.

Going for one last swim, I got out of the pool carelessly dripping water to the nearest pool chair until I snuggled a towel on my shoulders. My hair wet, my heart breathless, the feeling of scorching tormenting eyes watching me poked at my back and I didn’t have the strength to look behind my shoulder to guess Trigger was watching me.

And that was his job—I had to remind myself. He was watching me like a hawk because it was his job not because he found me riveting or enchanting or whatever my feeble heart conjured up yesterday whilst riding high on wild fantasies.

Did I even want him to find me alluring? No. I didn’t that was asking for trouble.

I picked up my paint brush glancing at the sky-blue canvas in front of me.

I had always liked to paint, something I picked up from my mother. She would always hold me in her lap as a kid teaching me what creating a world with a few colors felt like.

What day dreaming felt like. And when she had died, a car accident, I never stopped painting mostly because it reminded me of her and mostly because it taught me to dream.

To imagine a world that was built for me, a world where I was free to be me, to act like me, to do what I loved and not just be forced to do what I didn’t want to.

I tossed my brush in the black paint. I never used black colors…nothing saddening, nothing too serious yet today black called to me and I was painting the edges of my canvas with splotches of black.

More black, more beautiful, a splash of brown, a touch of—

Warm hands wrapped around my wet body, his chin landed on my shoulder, the left side of his face scratched my cheek and awareness shot in my body like fire recognizing fuel.

He stood up, I turned around all giddy, all surprised and I got up to my feet jumping in his arms like crazy.

“Kade”, I squeaked, barely recognizing the desperation in my voice.

He came. He was here. He came to visit me.

“How are you doing princess?”

His velvety voice washed down on me and I clung to his chest harder taking in that patchouli smell that had me intoxicated, enchanted, liking him so bad.

Standing stark still, his hands found their way to my waist and only then did I realize my towel had lazily fell to a heaping mess where we stood. His fingertips were cold, shivering, electrifying whipping my nerves with lashes of profound tingles.

Then as soon as the hug lasted, his hands drifted to my forearms and he held me in place, his brown eyes searching mine.

“I heard what happened. Are you hurt? Are you okay?”

Oh God, it felt good having him stare at me like that. With want, with concern, with love.

“I’m okay. I came looking for you at Deluxe but you weren’t there”

“You should have never gone there in the first place, Lucia. That’s the last place I would want you to be”

His voice came with an edge. The same edge my father used when he told me what to do, when he treated me like a kid doomed to be under his wings forever.

“Nothing happened, okay? I-I thought you would be happy to see me…we are engaged Kade and I barely see you”, my voice came out whiny, Kade’s face didn’t change for a second as he peered at me, hard.

“I’m swarmed by work most of the time, you know I can’t visit you everyday”

He never visited. Not since he verbally asked for my hand in marriage. No ring, no diamonds, no nothing.

He must have noticed the disappointment in my face because his hand landed on my chin lifting it up with his finger.

“A date. We can go out right now, get to know each other and do anything fun you like”

I couldn’t help blushing. Couldn’t help being overwhelmed by the happiness bottling inside of me.

“Really?”

“Anything for you, princess”

Princess. Kade called me that like it was name, like it was a brand stapled on my forehead and Trigger he called me princess like I was some enigmatic beauty he had come across, like I was—

“Go get dressed”, Kade barked leaning down so that his eyes would catch a glimpse of me, at my nervous self, at the eyes screaming love, need, want, longing, desperation.

My heart soured in the air anticipating what was to happen next, my throat went dry as saliva from my mouth tried its best to cool the parching, I breathed out, he breathed in.

Our breaths mixed and finally, his lips smashed into mine and I rose on my tippy toes, goosebumps peppering my skin, my black skimpy bikini feeling hot against my skin.

My first kiss was happening. With Kade, the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. The man that made butterflies flutter like crazy in my tummy, the man that—

“We’ll be late if we keep this up princess. Get dressed”, his voice fanned my trembling lips and I nodded stunned by the kiss and kinda disappointed it hadn’t lasted longer.

Disappointed I never got the chance to kiss him a little longer. To know how he tasted.

“Okay”, I obeyed.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An expensive seafood restaurant.

I had told Kade about wanting to try something new and he had brought me here.

And I should have been thrilled as the mouth-watering lobster stared at me from my plate but I wasn’t because Kade had been glued to his phone all day.

My eyes drifted to the table behind us, the one where Trigger sat in, a glower on his face as he skimmed through the menu.

Did he not like seafood? Why had he followed me all the way here if he didn’t want to come here? Right, the job. Follow the client, protect the client at all times.

I turned my gaze to Kade.

“Everything alright?”

“Kade?”

“Kade?”

“It’s work but everything’s taken care of, sorry about that”

“No—It’s okay, I’m used to—”

His phone rung in his hands, he gazed at the caller ID like he had been expecting a call all day.

“What? I told you not to—I’m on my way”, Kade grunted already standing up, dropping a few bucks from his wallet before he turned to me and said,

“I have to go Lucia but I’ll make it up to you. Promise”

A kiss to my cheek. A small forced smile and he was gone.

I was left alone well before Trigger occupied Kade’s seat.

“That’s the fiancé?”