Accidental Protector: A Marriage Mistake Romance Read online

  She’s clearly asking me that, even though she already knows the answer. Yes.

  And I don't regret it. Not one fucking bit.

  “Eli? From Aruba?” she snarls, more pieces falling into place.

  Very slowly, I nod. I knew Aunt Judy told her about my old buddy. No cure here except honesty.

  I wave a hand toward Charlie boy in defense, hoping she understands I was just trying to protect her – help her – and say, “He’s a prick. Never would've let you walk away without a stink, darlin'. You didn't need that. Nobody did.”

  “Nobody, huh? I can't believe this.” She throws her arms in the air. Her green eyes flash with anger as she says, “And, well, he was my little prick, Noah. Not yours.”

  “Yeah!” Charlie boy perks up, trying to salvage his balls. “I’m her little –”

  “Shut the hell up!” both of us shout simultaneously.

  He backs up, shocked, and lands on the cushions again as the back of his legs hit the couch.

  She’s coming at me next, hands on hips, steaming. “How could you?”

  I’m the good guy in all this. I think.

  I'm not about to take the blame for Charlie boy's actions, even if I crossed a few lines laying him low. “He was fucking his secretary.”

  “And? In case you hadn't noticed, I already knew that, Noah!”

  “And I gave you the proof you needed. Proof, Lucky, not just stories you'd have to feed to a cold audience.”

  “For what?” she asks. “Why? Why in God's name would you –”

  Speechless for a brief second, I shake my head. “So everyone else knows and finally –”

  “What? Gets off my ass? So I had a reason for calling off the wedding? So I had a reason other than I finally decided I didn’t want to marry him? Or that I never did?” She slaps my arm. “I didn’t need proof, Noah.”

  Pointing at her chest with one finger, she continues, “I already had it. And I'm the only one who needed it. I'd finally decided I didn’t give a damn what anybody else thought, or what they wanted.”

  She's seriously pissed at me. Incredible. All over this cheating piece of dog shit sitting on the sofa, enjoying us ripping into each other.

  I hold up both hands. “Fine. Stay mad and marry your little prick.”

  Her jaw drops, then she spins around, and her shoulders rise as she draws in a breath. “I’m not marrying him.”

  “But, Mindy,” Charlie says. “You have to marry me. My mother already sent the invitations! The ones with the real gold seals! Do you have any clue how much that cost?”

  His whining voice is like nails on a chalkboard, yet I take advantage of it. “There you have it,” I say.

  She whirls back around, and her eyes narrow. Leveling a shrewd look directly at me, she says, “I can’t marry you, Charlie. I can’t marry anyone.”

  “A-anyone?” he asks. “Why?”

  I know where this is going, but don’t attempt to stop it. Don’t want to.

  “Because,” she says, eyes still narrowed, blazing into me. “I’m already married to this impulsive Neanderthal.”

  For a few seconds, the room is silent like a funeral. Then Charlie bounds off the sofa. “What? Married? To him? When? How?” He gasps. “Oh my God! Your mother, she's going to –”

  In that split second, when realization hits, Lucky goes white. I jump forward, but she’s already in recovery mode. Or is it what-the-fuck-have-I-just-done mode?

  She grabs Charlie boy's arm and gives him a hefty shove. “Get out. Get! Out!”

  He stumbles forward. She goes after him. Pushing him along with both hands. “Get out of here, I said! Leave. Now.”

  As crazy as it is, he looks toward me, as if I’m going to help him. I merely step aside, giving him a clear path to the door.

  He tries to reason with her, saying something about not leaving, even as each of her whacks sends him closer to the door. I could step in, but she doesn’t need my help, and I sure as hell won’t help him.

  A second later, the door slams shut, asshole Charlie finally on the other side.

  Slowly, she turns around, and I bite back a smile.

  Despite the meltdown near the end, I’m proud of her. Happy and impressed with how she handled his sorry ass. Maybe even me.

  Huffing out a breath, and still looking thoroughly pissed, she stomps forward. Right past me, and then grabs a pair of black men's dress shoes from beneath the coffee table. I hadn’t noticed them. Or the empty pizza boxes and other trash on the table.

  Charlie's refuse. Half-eaten junk food – a hell of a lot of it for one scrawny man – partly the source of the stench in the building we'd whiffed earlier.

  When she’s back at the door, she yanks it open, then tosses out the shoes and slams the door without a word.

  When she turns around this time, I take a step forward.

  The finger she points at me stops my second step.

  “You can get the hell out, too.”

  17

  Cleaning Up (Mindy)

  I'm so mad. So flipping mad I could scream, and then scream some more, until I can't.

  Even though my throat hurts from all the screaming I’ve already done. And the swearing.

  I’ve never dropped so many f-bombs in my entire life as I have since arriving in Reno. One more thing I was never allowed to do. Too much of the wounded beast-man rubbing off, the caveman who's looking at me right now.

  “Me again?” Noah asks. “What did I do?”

  I don’t bother even glaring his way as I stomp to the kitchen to get a trash bag so I can clean up the mess Charlie left behind. That’s what I’ve always done, cleaned up after him. I used to stop by his place practically every day. Picking his socks up off the floor. Doing his laundry. Cleaning up his empty take-out containers. Making his bed. Scrubbing his floor.

  Meanwhile, he never did a thing for me. Not a solitary thing except stab me in the back.

  The box of trash bags falls on the floor as I rip a bag off the roll. That asshole had to have been here all day, waiting like a snake in the grass.

  God. No wonder my mom asked if I’d heard from anyone.

  I grab the box of bags off the floor and shove it back in the cupboard, doing my best not to slam it shut. The last thing we need in the middle of this shitshow is damage to Martha's cabinets.

  “Like you really don't know?” I yell, giving Noah the evil eye.

  He stands there. Suddenly Mr. Silent.

  “Pictures?” I snap at him, heading back into the living room. “Pictures, really?”

  He shrugs. “Thought it would help the situation.”

  “How? By proving I can’t do anything by myself?”

  “No.” He gathers up some of Charlie’s trash, miscellaneous soda cans, stuffing them in the bag. “I just wanted you to have solid evidence in case you needed it. Evidence that you were right. That you deserved better. Couldn't stand the thought of that prick bawling his eyes out, making your family put you on trial over him.”

  It dawns on me that I’m more hurt than mad at him.

  Holding the bag open so he can drop in the trash, I swallow back an assault of mixed emotions. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to think I was interfering. I mean, I figured you'd find out anyway, but at least your folks would get off your back.”

  He sounds too sincere for me to look at him right now. I don’t have my shit together enough for that. I grab the empty pizza box and shove it in the bag. “Even though you were interfering. In my mess. Funny how that only goes one way.”

  I reach underneath the cabinet and find a few air fresheners I'd seen before, changing the scented cartridge on the plug-in.

  “I should've told you,” he says. “I’m sorry, darlin'.”

  I still can’t look at him, and I also hate this selfishness that’s trying to pin the blame on anyone but myself. That’s where the truth lies. I’m the one who told him about Charlie. I'm the one who kept coming back for more p
unishment.

  Is it really such a surprise he stepped into my crap uninvited? Even if he's totally at fault for actually doing it. I'm not going to beat myself up over this, or him.

  “I thought about telling you,” he says. “Figured you’d question things after Aunt Judy told you Eli lives in Aruba. Then we'd sit down and have a level talk about it. 'Course, it didn't pan out that way. Shit got crazy when you tried to leave.”

  I toss in the last bit of trash and tie the bag shut. “Judy never said Aruba, FYI. She told me he lives on some island in the Caribbean that she couldn’t remember. I just made the connection a short time ago.” Carrying the trash into the kitchen, I silently admit that I may not have made the connection even if she had remembered the island's name.

  Charlie, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, wasn’t even in my head that night. Not after spending hours in a living fantasy in Noah’s bed, letting him screw my soul out of my body.

  I drop the bag on the floor, knowing he’s right behind me.

  His hands cup my arms, and I close my eyes as he slowly turns me around.

  I still don’t look up at him. Can’t. I’m too afraid. Too sick at heart.

  I can pretend all I want that this is about Charlie, about some stupid sex pictures, but it’s not.

  It’s about what I did.

  My big mouth practically handed my rat ex a ticket out of his own scandal. I let the cat out of the bag and there’s no putting it back in when it's all claws, hissing up a storm.

  Charlie’s probably on the phone right now, calling his mother. Telling her I’m married.

  We’re married. Me and Noah. The only man who ever made me feel real.

  Or whole.

  Or happy.

  I keep my eyes closed as Noah forces my chin up with his damnably gentle, yet firm touch.

  “Darlin', I'm sorry. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he says quietly. “But I'll tell you point-blank, I'm not sorry about the pictures. Not sorry I defended your reputation, your word, and your choice. That’s why I contacted Eli, asked him to send me some pics so others would know – know, beyond any doubt – that you were in the right all along. He was the sniveling, weak, lying little fucknut in the wrong.”

  Drawing a deep breath, I release it slowly. My heart isn't in this argument anymore.

  How can it be? Trying to ignore the bewilderment of having someone support my decision so fully, I focus on the deed. “What did you actually send, Noah? Do I want to know?”

  His smirk is half-mocking, half-indulgent. “Him and his secretary, beautiful. Debbie what's-her-face.”

  I’d assumed as much. More curious than I should be, I finally ask him, “Were they really so lewd?”

  Noah’s fingers stroke the backside of my arms. “I can’t believe he wanted his mother to see them.”

  My insides lurch and I press the back of my hand over my gasp. “His mother?” I shake my head while trying to dowse the painful humor a part of me wants to indulge. “God. You didn’t...you didn't really send them to his mother? Right?”

  “Only one. Naughty parts redacted.” Noah shifts his weight, a heavy sigh rippling out of him. “We gave him a choice. I had Eli send him an anonymous email first with a few pics attached, telling him to lay the fuck off you and your family, or else. Charlie boy never responded.”

  That almost makes it better. If better exists in the same universe as this unspeakable craziness.

  For Carol Pratt's sake, the horror she must've endured on seeing a gross picture of her oh-so-perfect son compromised, I scrounge up some compassion, and relief that it was no more than one photo.

  “The rest, I sent to his old man.” If Noah were holding a mic, it'd be on the floor. Dropped.

  “No!” I whisper against the back of my hand.

  “Yeah, darlin'. I did,” he says. “Not all of them. Just a dozen or so.”

  Charlie’s screwed.

  I have to bite back a giggle. So, so screwed.

  He couldn’t do anything wrong in his mother’s eyes, but it was the opposite with his father. Which is why Carol begged, pleaded with me, every time I’d tried to break up with him. I shouldn’t feel this giddy. This satisfied. This amount of justice served flashing through me when I have every right to follow my better instinct: walk away and not worry about any of it.

  But Charlie’s the one who made this mess, and for once, I don’t have to clean it up.

  “Do you want to see them?”

  I snap my head up, fully prepared to say no, until I see the shimmer in his eyes. The passion that hovers just below the surface, ready to leap to life at the simplest sign.

  “Do you?” he asks again, frowning slightly. “Lucky, just say the word and –”

  “No,” I answer, no longer caring. “What's done is done. And I don't think I ever need to see Charles Pratt naked again.”

  His arms, his lips, everything about him, has become so familiar, so encompassing, I no longer try to fight the allure that’s held me captive since waking up next to him that first morning.

  He knows where my mind has gone. I can tell by the blue heat in his eyes. He tries to act aloof, but I know him. He’s not far behind me. Never is.

  A thrill shoots through me, sizzling and hot, landing directly between my thighs. A well-known chain reaction starts. I want him. Will have him. Will put this all behind us in some animal way deeper than words.

  “You’re sure?” he asks.

  I loop my arms around his neck and step closer. “Certain.”

  Pretending we're both still talking about pictures, I nuzzle the skin next to his lips with the tip of my nose. His body tenses deliciously, a growl leaving his throat as he wraps his huge arms around me.

  “You ask the silliest questions sometimes. Why would I want to see a picture of my disgusting ex when I can have the real thing? A much...” I kiss his bottom lip. “Better....” I kiss his top lip. “Option.”

  He grasps my hips and pulls me tight against him, so I can feel his erection. He likes doing that to me, showing me how hard, how ready he is. I like it, too, and rub against him expectantly.

  Noah lifts the back of my dress and slides one hand inside my panties. “When would you like the real thing?”

  My lips go dry. I have to wet them before I can say, “No time like the present, Hercules.”

  His hand goes deeper inside my panties, caressing my ass. I want to spread my legs, but at the same time, I like the way he works me, coaxes me, reminding me he's in charge of my body.

  “I like your way of thinking.”

  His mouth captures mine and takes me on a wild race to some imaginary kissing contest finish line. When we hit it, we're both gasping for air, raw, real heat steaming out of us.

  I’m wet. Pulsing. Aching to lead him to the bedroom.

  His smile says he knows what I’m thinking.

  He grasps the hem of my dress and lifts it up. I hold my hands over my head, twisting slightly, so he can fully remove it.

  “Fuck. Unless your pal Martha has a stash around here, we're gonna have to improvise,” he says, tossing my dress aside.

  Too far gone to understand what he’s talking about, I ask, “A stash of what?”

  “Rubbers.”

  Crap.

  A cold shower of disappointment washes over me. “You don’t even have one in your wallet?”

  He pulls the straps of my bra down, over my shoulders. “No. Used it the other day and haven’t replaced it.”

  “Why not?”

  He runs his thumbs inside my bra, teasing my hard and overly sensitive nipples.

  “Don’t look so sad. I said we’d improvise, darlin'.”

  Too needy to worry about details, I cup the front of his jeans. “Fine. Let's do it your way.”

  Laughing, he lifts me up, twirls me around, and settles me on the table. Then he pushes the centerpiece, a basket of fake flowers, onto the floor and takes a seat in the chair.

  “This is improvising?” I ask. />
  “Closest to the real thing as you can get.” He grips the waistband of my panties. “Maybe better when I make you squirt.”

  Oh, hell.

  Fully game, I lift up so he can pull off my panties. He puts one of my legs over his shoulder and then the other, then pulls his chair closer.

  His gaze is hot. Electrifying the air like lightning. I can feel the tingle from my toes to the very top of my head.

  “Open up for me, Lucky. Show me that sweet pussy.”

  If I’d had clothes on, they'd have melted off me at that very moment. I plant my hands on the table and spread my legs.

  “There. Good girl.” He runs a hand along my inner thigh, then licks a finger and rounds it around my entrance, teasing me. “Skipped dessert at the restaurant for a reason.”

  I’m throbbing, wet, ready for him. Anticipation ramping up so high my legs quiver.

  “Closer, Lucky. Bring that pink here.”

  I scoot forward, toward the edge of the table, so, so ready for the heat of his mouth.

  “Aw, fuck,” he growls, inhaling me with his ragged breath, lazily swirling his finger around my clit, then up one side and down the other of my opening.

  It’s driving me insane. Wonderfully mad.

  He blows on me. The heated air is the bastard love child of pleasure and torture.

  “Noah,” I whimper, not sure how much more I can take. Grabbing his shoulders, I hold on tight, my knees now jelly.

  He slips a finger inside me, moving it slowly, then quicker. Faster.

  “Is that what you want? To squirt all over my hand, darlin'? My tongue?”

  “Yes!” I arch forward, trying to draw his finger in deeper.

  He slides it back out, then presses the thumb of his other hand against my clit. I’m leaning forward, watching, gripping his muscle for dear life. His speed amplifies, focused on one spot deep inside me, his knuckle moving like this focused knot of energy,

  “How 'bout now?” He adds another finger. “You like that shit, Lucky? You ready to come so fucking hard and sweet I practically shoot off in my pants?”

  “Yes,” I moan, a groan rumbling in my throat. “Yes, please, yes!”

  He leans forward, licking one of my nipples. Then the other. “Glad you like it, gorgeous, because that’s what's happening. Gonna fuck you with my fingers, and lick you, and suck on your tits and your angry little clit, and then I'm gonna eat you till you come so hard you don't even know what's happening.”