Crave Me (The Good Ol' Boys #4)(61)

She hated it.

It was unreal how fast you could become attached to a person. Which was funny because all I ever wanted was to run away from my life and everyone in it, but there I was.

Wanting to spend an eternity in hers.

Briggs didn’t like to talk about the past. In fact, she refused to let me in to that part of her life, the part that led her up to this point in time. I respected her wishes but I didn’t like it. I figured over time she would open up to me when she was ready. I just had to be patient.

Her future was mine.

I knew I was her first real friend. She told me that often, and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t love that she chose me. Even though it made me sad for her, knowing how lonely that must had been. I was lucky in the sense that I grew up with Alex and the boys, even though we weren’t on speaking terms now. I still managed to send my parents and Half-Pint a postcard every once in awhile.

I knew Briggs worked for Alejandro Martinez but not because his name came out of her mouth. The business associates, as she called them, said his name often. It was hard for me to follow since they mostly spoke in Spanish. It was a nice f*cking surprise the first time I heard her speak it so damn fluently.

I jacked-off in the shower like a f*cking thirteen-year-old boy when we got back to the hotel that afternoon. Remembering the sexy-as-f*ck tone of her voice as she was talking to the men. I pictured her face the entire time and came so f*cking hard I saw stars.

One night, two months ago, after working with a construction company for a few days, I came back to the hotel and she was smiling like a fool. Of course I walked over to her and caught her expression in the air, placing it on my heart. That had become our thing. And it always made her smile even bigger, lighting up her entire face. It was the first time I ever saw her so f*cking happy, and I didn’t even know the cause, but I didn’t care.

The look on her face was all that mattered to me.

She pulled me on the couch next to her and told me I didn’t have to leave her anymore. I was ready to tell her the same shit I had been saying for the last three months. But she interrupted me, placing her finger over my lips to silence me. She continued telling me that she got me a job with Martinez. That I was officially her bodyguard and before I had any time to react to what she just shared.

There was a knock on the door.

A man named Pablo showed up with a suitcase full of clothes, suits, shoes, everything I needed and things I most likely wouldn’t ever wear. They were all packed neatly waiting to be used. He handed me an envelope with a letter from Martinez and then a briefcase. The letter stated that everything I needed was in the briefcase, including a business debit card that I had to use for everything. It already had twelve thousand dollars on it. He called it back pay for the last three months for protecting Briggs. He went on to say he would be paying me a thousand dollars a week on that card for my services of being her bodyguard.

All I kept thinking was that I would have continued doing it for free.

I opened the briefcase and found two passports, and the business credit card he mentioned before. There was some other shit in there that I wasn’t sure what to do with. What caught my attention though were the two 9mm guns. One was secured in a black leather suspender holster and the other in what seemed like an ankle holster. Both guns had permits that matched the names on the passports in the briefcase. Luckily, I knew how to use a gun.

Most Southern boys do.

Everything in that briefcase was a lie. Every last document was fake but looked so f*cking authentic. So f*cking real. There wasn’t a chance in Hell anyone would spot them as fakes.

Briggs was so f*cking happy. So, I didn’t think twice about it, I started working for Martinez because all I wanted to do.

Was keep her safe.

From that point on out we only stayed at five-star hotels. Partying with some of the richest, most corrupt people in the world and I was having the time of my life. Working for Martinez came with instant respect, money, power, everything I never had before.

But always wanted.

All of it was new and exciting. I didn't give my new job a second thought. All the luxuries outweighed the fact that I was working for a drug lord.

Although Briggs called it organized crime, she said Martinez was involved in everything and anything. It wasn’t just about the drugs. That what we worked in it was just an aspect of what he ran and controlled.

A new briefcase was waiting for me at each new location we traveled to, sometimes it would be in the limo that picked us up from the airports and other times it would be waiting for me in our room. Out with the old, in with the new every goddamn time. New clothes, new documents, new passports, new guns with permits, everything we needed without batting a f*cking eye.

Each day was a new day with Briggs by my side.

Life couldn’t have been better.

We were lying on the bed with our legs entwined, our bodies next to each other, watching a movie in the hotel. I kept blowing raspberries on her neck, she was thrashing around like crazy, shrieking from the pleasure and pain it brought her.

She loved it.

She just loved to pretend like she didn’t.

“Austin! Stop!” She laughed uncontrollably.

Desperately trying to hold back my face, knowing it didn’t matter. I would stop when I wanted to.

And I didn’t want to.

She sideswiped my arms and was tickling under my chin and around my neck before I even saw it coming.