Tempted (erotic) (#4, 101 Nights)

Chapter Two: George

Without another word, I walk into the hallway, senses alert for any sign there are more people waiting to attack.

A glance over my shoulder confirms Alisha’s trailing, her eyes darkened from mascara and tears. She’s got a look on her face that tells me she’ll probably make a run for it when we hit the alley behind the Tenley tenement building.

As usual, I absently take a few seconds to decipher what the hell she’s wearing. Striped, knee-high stockings that extend over hunter green, cropped leggings, fuchsia shoes, poplin shirt beneath a jean jacket with the arms clearly cut off by someone unfamiliar with using scissors. Her manner of dress is as uncivilized as her candidness and behavior.

I was raised in a noble English household, and Alisha is the opposite of every polished, fashionable, stylish, reserved woman I grew up around.

It’s one of the reasons I liked her on day one. Her constant disarray charmed me the moment I saw her wearing a bright blue painter’s jumper with a suit shirt and bowtie. She’s unique, different, a breath of fresh air and sunlight in the grey world where I operate.

She’s gorgeous despite the visual chaos. She’s got the caramel skin of her Puerto Rican heritage, large, soft brown eyes, a button nose in a heart-shaped face and dark hair in braided pigtails. Every time I see her, I experience the same sense I did when we first met: that this cannot be the woman who outsmarts me at every turn. Not only does she give off the air of being the quirky girl next door, but she’s young, around twenty three, and well, sweet. Not a hardened criminal at all.

She’s also about to lose it. Trembling and scared, she’s following me through the hallways but is wisely keeping her distance. She’s clutching her messenger bag. It appears to weigh more than it should if it contained only her laptop and purse.

“Stay close,” I tell her. “They’ve likely placed someone else nearby to keep an eye out for the fuzz.”

“Fuzz.” She gives another half-giggle, half-sob. “You’ll go to jail, too, for killing those men.”

I could tell her the truth, that I disarmed four and only killed one. My job is to keep my best friend and employer – Elijah – safe, along with his family and staff. It can mean taking lives, when warranted, and as a last resort. Chances are, if I kill you, you deserved it. But I hate the invasion of privacy that follows, the lawyers, investigations, paperwork and court appearances. I’m a very private person who prides himself on restraint – until some wanker points a gun at a woman, like the guy in Alisha’s flat did.

Weapons, and hurting defenseless women and children, are the pressure points that make me disregard the restraint I normally show. I saw things in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa as a special forces soldier in Her Majesty’s service that permanently changed my view of killing and weapons. Both are necessary at times, except when it comes to those unable to fight back. In that case, neither is warranted. Ever.

She doesn’t need to know that. For now, it benefits me for Alisha and pretty much every one else to think I’m some sort of sociopathic, murderous thug. The more she and others fear me, the less likely they are to cross me, which means those I protect are even safer.

“You’re bleeding,” Alisha ventures.

I glance down at my arm. A knife cut has soaked through my suit jacket. “Indeed,” I reply offhand, unconcerned.

“Indeed,” she mocks in a deepened voice. “You Brits don’t feel pain?”

She doesn’t look like the smart ass she is, either. It was kind of a surprise to find her so spirited and completely oblivious to whom she was dealing with. Most people who meet me have the sense to either keep quiet or speak carefully, even before I say anything. Over six and a half feet tall, I’m solid muscle and know about two dozen ways to kill a man with my bare hands. I take shit from no one.