Keeley's Fight (The Protectors Series) (9 page)

Nodding her head she finally looked at him. “Will you be gone long?”

“No baby doll, maybe an hour or so.”

“Ok,” she whispered back. Kissing her cheek and heading for his truck, he starts the short drive to work. Pulling up outside of their building, which is basically just an old warehouse that they had renovated to fit their security firm’s needs, he saw Julia kept her word about calling in Cooper. Coop was an old Marine buddy they hired about two years ago, when he and his best friend Dane left the service. Closer than brothers, those two always stuck together.

Chuckling at the scene before him, Cooper with scratches down his face, and the viper, Tawnya, in a headlock, he couldn’t help but be slightly amused. “What’s going on, Coop?” He asked, like this was an everyday occurrence, which lately it’s been happening frequently enough that it almost could be.

“Same old, same old, man. Just taking out your trash.”
And let the screeching commence in 3…2…
“Ahhhhhhh, I am not trash, you… you oversized ape!!! Let me go this instant, or I’m calling the police and pressing charges for assault!!!”

“Do it, you slick little viperous leech! They’re on their way now to arrest YOU for trespassing and assault on poor Cooper,” was Julia’s smooth reply. It only knocked the wind out of her sails for about ten seconds before she started spewing her crap again.

“Cooper, you best let me go before I scream rape! And Ty, baby, how could you do this to me, to us? You, Nate, and I are soul mates. We’re meant for each other!” She practically whined, only embarrassing herself further.

Getting sick of her shit, and tired of always playing nice, Ty exploded on her. “We fucked you one time Tawnya, one miserable fucking time, and honestly it wasn’t even that memorable. You need to get over yourself. Accept the fact that Nate and I were done with you as soon as the condoms were off. Move the fuck on, we sure as hell have!”

“What?” She whispered venomously. Shit, he thought. “What do you mean you’ve moved on? You’re fucking somebody else? Who the hell is she? I’ll…” Cutting off her words as the police arrived, she managed to get out of Cooper’s hold and was walking towards her car when the cops stopped her.

“Miss, you’re going to have to come with us, please.” The first officer said, while his partner was talking to Coop. “I don’t think so, Officer… Adams,” she purred while running her finger up and down his shirt. Thankfully the officer obviously wasn’t falling for her slutty act. Slapping a cuff on one wrist while grabbing the other hand, he had her turned, cuffed, and in the back of the car in a matter of seconds. Shaking his head, the officer climbed into a very noisy car as Tawnya won’t stop cussing up a storm.

With a twinge of regret for how truly fucked up that woman is, Ty walked over to Cooper and the other officer, just catching the tail end of their conversation. “…Nah man, I’m fine, just get the psycho viper out of here.”

Chuckling, the officer started walking away and said, “You got it, guys.”

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Frustration ate at
him as Nate was running his eighth mile on the treadmill. He wasn’t sure what to do about Keeley and her fears. He knew things were bad, but the way she just turned her emotions off scared him. He worried that maybe she couldn’t open up to them, tell them what has her so skittish and sad. He truly worried for her piece of mind. Twenty years old and she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. He hoped one day she would trust them enough to open up about her past.

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, he started to slow the treadmill to a steady walk. Looking up, he gave Keeley a welcoming smile and motioned her the rest of the way down with a wave of his hand. “Hey, sweet Butterfly, how are you feeling?”

Shrugging her shoulder she stepped up to the treadmill next to him, and asked with her eyes if she could go on. “Go ahead, do you know how to work it?” Shaking her head no, he stopped his and hopped off to help her turn it on to a nice steady walk. Getting back on his, they just walked, side by side, listening to the pound of their feet on the belts.

Damn, did Nate sure wish he knew what she was thinking?

A little while later, Nate could hear Ty open the front door. Keeley had to be into some deep thoughts, because she didn’t move when he walked in and started coming down the stairs. It wasn’t until Ty was at the bottom, and moved into her field of vision that she startled and jumped and nearly fell. Nate’s quick reflexes and grabbing her upper arm is all that stopped her.

“Deep thoughts?” Ty asked her, noticing her preoccupation until she had jumped.

Shrugging again, she just said, “Not really, just thinking about what I’m going to do.”

Getting an idea of where her head was at now, Nate asked her, “What do you mean? You’re staying here and coming to work with us in a couple of weeks. We talked about this yesterday, Butterfly.”

“I know, but I don’t want to be a burden or take advantage of your kindness. I’m just…” Cutting her thoughts off, they waited to see what else she was going to say, but she just stopped.

“You just what, darlin’?” Ty tried getting her to open up.

“You guys are you; kind, open, and come from what I assume is a nice family. And I’m just… well… me… There’s nothing to me. I’m nobody. I can’t even remember the last time someone has been so kind to me.” She whispered that last part with a huge amount of shame in her voice. “What if I fail you? Or you finally realize I’m just not worth all the effort you’re trying to put into me? I’ll be more broken than I am now.”

Never in his life had Nate felt as hopeless as he did in that moment.

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Hearing those words
from her mouth nearly gutted Ty; he didn’t know what to say. So he did what any red-blooded Texan would do—pulled her off that treadmill she hadn’t stopped walking on since he startled her, and slammed his mouth down on hers. Slipping his tongue in her mouth at her gasp of surprise, he took it easy and did a slow sweep of her mouth. Leaving no crevice untouched. When she melted against him and grabbed his biceps, he knew he could finally plunder the way he wanted. She tasted like the richest chocolate, and her coffee from this morning. Putting one hand under her hair at the back of her neck and one in the small of her back, he pulled her body up and closer. Feeling her soft curves against his hard body just made his cock harder, but when she moaned and whimpered, he felt like a king.

Feeling her tense slightly, he was going to slow down and pull away until he heard Nate whisper in her ear, “You look perfect moaning into my brother’s mouth Butterfly, now turn around and give me some of that sweet surrender.” She didn’t even hesitate, just turned and did Nate’s bidding. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she whimpered and started gyrating on his brother. Pressing himself closer to her, Ty buried his face in the side of her neck and just breathed her in. She was intoxicating. When she started pulling away from Nate they let her, not wanting to overwhelm her by forcing her to do something she wasn’t ready for.

“Wow.” She breathed out.

“You alright, Butterfly? We didn’t push you too far did we?” Nate asked her while running his hands through her dark tresses.

“No. I mean, it was nice.” She smiled.

“Keeley, I need you to know that what you said, it’s not true. Not to us or anybody that knows you or has ever met you. You’re special. You have an inner light that’s just dying to break out, but what your parents did, whatever it was, that’s on them not you, never you. Ok?” Nate explained to her, cupping her cheeks and staring deeply into her eyes so she knew the words he said were one hundred percent truth. She nodded her head at him, but Nate still saw the doubt in her eyes. With that though, he saw something else, too. Something he had yet to see in her… Hope.

“C’mon, let’s go make some lunch. I can hear your stomach rumbling, and Ty can tell us what was so important that he had to go into work, when we aren’t due back for a few more days.” Missing Ty’s look of apprehension, Nate grabbed Keeley’s hand to pull her upstairs. Getting her settled on a stool by the breakfast bar, Nate started pulling deli meat and everything to make a double decker sandwich out of the fridge, and put it on the counter. Grabbing a beer from the fridge he looked at Ty. Tossing it to him at his nod, Nate grabbed one for himself. “Alright Ty, start talking. What was up?”

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Watching Nathaniel work
in the kitchen was one of the sexiest things Keeley had ever seen. It was only sandwiches, but watching him do something so domestic was as alluring as anything she’d ever known. She was so into watching him that she hadn’t felt Tyler move in behind her until he wrapped his arms around her waist, after putting his beer bottle on the counter. Looking back at him and smiling, she went back to watching Nathaniel make lunch while Tyler told them what happened to make him go into work.

“So Julia called, and umm, Tawnya was there,” Tyler revealed a little apprehensively before continuing. “She said she was going to sick Cooper on her viperous ass if I didn’t hurry up.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Ya, dude, but that’s not what I said when I got there. Coop had her in a headlock, with scratches down his face. Lord knows how that happened.”

“Ok, so what happened? You weren’t gone too long, so I assume the cops were called.” Nate mused.

“The Lyme disease riddled bitch tried to seduce her way out of cuffs. Didn’t work, thank God. But Coop didn’t want to press charges, so I’m not sure what they’re going to be able to do other than a restraining order.”

Laughing softly at Tyler’s description of the woman they’re talking about she asked, “Who is she?”

Looking nervously at her, Nate put her plate with the sandwich on it down in front of her. “She was a woman we were with once, more than a year ago. She didn’t mean anything to us then and she certainly doesn’t now. She’s a cold-hearted bitch,” he said truthfully.

Tilting her head to the side and studying Nathaniel’s face she said, “That seems cold. Like you used her?”

“No, sweetheart, she used us. Yes, we slept with her, but after? She lost all illusion of what we thought we saw in her, and she was nothing but greed. Demanding we give her money and buy her things. That’s not what we want in a woman. Let alone one we want to spend our lives with. And no we did not, at any time, want to spend our life with her,” Tyler reassured her. Shockingly, she believed them.

“She sounds like a real twatwaffle then,” Keeley mumbled before taking a bite of her sandwich. Nathaniel and Tyler just stared at her in complete shock before chuckling. “What?” She asked.

Clearing his throat and taking a drink of his beer, Nathaniel just smiled and went to get his and Tyler’s plates before sitting down on her other side.

“A little surprised to hear you say something like that I guess,” Tyler said before taking a huge bite of his sandwich. “You’re coming out of that shell of yours and you don’t even know it,” he told her and smiled over to Nathaniel.