Sweet Recovery (Ex Ops Series Book 4) (3 page)

Clenching my fists at my sides, I spit back at him through clenched teeth, “You’ve got no idea what I fuckin’ regret. Now move out of my way.”

I took a step forward to walk around him, but Chase only stepped back in my path, holding his hands up as if he could keep me from what I wanted most.

“Chill out for a second and look at the two of them.”

My left eye twitched in aggravation. What the hell did Chase think I had been doing before? Not watching them? I had gotten an eyeful, and now I was ready to put a stop to this asshole with his hands on my girl.

It didn’t matter that Ginny had no clue I was even in the room. A dying man didn’t give up on salvation when it was within reach. He fought for it with every iota of his being.

My salvation was only feet from me, yet it felt more like a hundred battlefields separated us. It didn’t matter. I would cross land fields for that woman, face an entire army alone if it meant she was waiting for me on the other side. There was only one thing I couldn’t do in my life right now, and that was let her walk out again. That was why both Chase and the Goliath she was talking to needed to stop being obstacles between me and my prize.

Friend or foe, I would burn the whole world down to put that woman by my side.

I put both of my hands on Chase’s chest to push him out of my way, intent on my goal until one sound cut through all the madness of the room and stopped me.

Laughter.

Ginny’s sweet laughter to be specific.

Silvery, breathy … and a new sultry quality that I had never heard from her before. It was possibly the most sublime sound I had ever noted in my life, and it was aimed at another man.

There was only one thing that kept me from pulling my gun right then and there, but it sure as shit wasn’t Chase. It was another, sudden, new quality I had never seen in the girl I had grown up across the street from: attitude.

Not just a bit of sass, but more of a full-blown spit fire, ready to knee you in the junk, haughty hellion.

As I zeroed in on the sight of Ginny’s face tipped up, sardonically smiling at the man holding her, I realized there was only contempt in her smirking lips. When the hell had Ginny acquired all the attitude and why?

As I watched the man set Gin on her feet and wait until she was steady, an uneasy feeling washed over me. What in the world could turn a girl who had been shy, quiet, and sweet as a mouse into whoever this was who was trashed and ready to start a riot in a club? I couldn’t fathom what it might be, but the churn in my stomach told me that I undoubtedly wouldn’t like the answer.

The giant man watched her with sharp eyes as she walked away from him. Never once did he move his gaze from his target, even when another shorter and sketchy looking man walked up, laughing at something and slapping him on the shoulder. I’d had no idea there was third person in their party. Who the hell was he? A friend of theirs?

Turning my head to catch her trajectory, I realized she was heading to the ladies’ room, which was tucked just around a corner and down a hall, across the room from whoever the big man with the watchful eyes was. Fortune did seem to be shining on me today.

“Go.” Chase’s voice was rough and urgent. “Do what you’ve got to, man. I’ll keep big and ugly distracted.”

He went to push me away, but I was already moving toward my goal, watching as her blonde, curly hair bobbed and weaved through the crowd until she was at the mouth of the hall. Then she disappeared.

It didn’t matter. I was hot on her trail like a heat-seeking missile.

As I made my way through the crowd, shoving more than one horny dipshit out of my way, I snorted at the analogy. In a way, it wasn’t far from the truth. Without her in my life, I felt as cold as Alaska in the middle of its six months of darkness. She had always been the sunshine in my life. Maybe now she could thaw out my heart.

It didn’t take me long to cross the distance of the club, and then I was standing outside the door to the women’s restroom, forcing deep breaths in and out of my body, my mind focused on the most important mission of my life: getting my girl back.

Chapter

2

Ginny

Who did Dexter think he was?

I think you’ve had enough to drink, little girl.

And I think you have a telephone pole for a stick stuck up your ass, Dexter. How ’bout that?

I was seething as I wobbled out of the bathroom stall to the sink to wash my hands. Just who the hell did that guy think he was besides ridiculously muscled and scary? I didn’t care if he did work for my father. Call me “little girl”? Just because he was older and three times my size, it didn’t mean I was a little girl by any means. I was twenty-seven freakin’ years old! Not twelve.

Dexter, schmexter. I should have showed him how this little girl could pick up a chair and knock him upside the head while he was staring at one of the strippers out there.

Looking myself over in the mirror, I made the decision I wasn’t going to let that oaf ruin my night. I had come here on a mission: to get laid, be wild. And there was no way in hell I was going to let that overgrown pain in the ass ruin it for me.

I straightened up my makeup and hair then filled myself with the resolve to play a role I had never been a day in my life: the seductress, a woman who didn’t have a care in the world. I would become the chick who could sleep with a random stranger with no regrets as long as he didn’t turn out to be a one pump chump.

Perhaps I should have been a little worried that the room was starting to spin. It felt like I was on a boat in the middle of a hurricane. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that last drink … or three. Whatever. I refused to let myself regret them. Those deliciously potent things had served their purpose, liquid courage and all that.

After drying my hands off, I made my way to the bathroom door. I grabbed the door handle, and I stopped to take a deep breath.

I can do this.

I could throw caution to the wind … or my panties at a hot hunk of man flesh. Either way, it was time to wipe the slate clean on my girlie parts and let them see some action. There was no way I could go into a loveless marriage when I had only slept with one guy who had broken my heart. Karma, fate, or whoever it was behind the curveballs of my life couldn’t possibly be that cruel. Surely, some divine power would agree that it was time to cut me a break, right?

Pulling the door open with determination, I put a little extra “oomph” in my walk and sashayed my ass right out of the women’s bathroom … and into a brick wall.

At least, that was what it felt like.

Bouncing off said wall and tipping unsteadily backward, I felt strong hands reach out to grab my flailing arms, steadying me and slowly pulling me back into an upright position. My mind swirled, along with the room again, and I couldn’t help wondering,
Since when do walls have arms?

“Whoa! Slow down, angel,” a deep voice rumbled in front of me.

Holy shiitake mushrooms! The wall can talk!

Everything was so confusing. For instance, why was everything black?

“Because you have your eyes shut?” the dark voice answered me, sending a chill down my spine. Not because I felt like an idiot once I cracked my eyelids a peep and realized I was staring at fairly large men’s boots, but because that voice slid through my body and down to my girlie bits in ways I didn’t know were possible.

Never in my life would I have thought a man’s voice could affect me like that. It was throaty and low, making me wonder what he would sound like while making love to a woman.

Would he growl like an animal as he thrust in fast and hard from behind? Or would he croon sexy sounds while he undulated like a strong, steady machine in and out of my body with my feet on his shoulders?

Speaking of feet, I realized I was still staring down at his big-ass pair. It made me wonder if that saying about big feet being proportional to a man’s penis size was true. I mean, his were huge, as in ginormous. I had no clue feet could be that enormous! For some strange reason, that old television show tune popped into my head: “
Flipper, flipper, flipper, king of the ocean …
”

“Just how toasted are you, babe?”

You know, this whole thing with Bigfoot reading my mind was starting to get seriously freaky. And why was the room turning upside down?

“The room’s not turning upside down, and I’m not reading your mind.”

I snorted. That’s what he said, but his boot covered Bigfoot feet were swaying in front of my eyes, rocking back and forth as if we were on a boat in the middle of an ocean during a hurricane. Back and forth, back and forth. Oh, Lord, my stomach was starting to feel sea sick.

“Is there any chance I can get you to stop calling me Bigfoot?”

My lips were incredibly numb, which meant I couldn’t feel them enough to open them and answer Bigfoot’s question. I shook my head from side to side, instead, hoping his seriously impressive mind reading skills would help him interpret the move. What I didn’t count on was how the movement would pitch me over from slightly sea sick on our nonexistent boat to totally hurling all over his Bigfoot feet.

“What the fuck?” Bigfoot’s delicious voice shouted as he finally let go of my arms.

That caused me to start giggling because it was positively absurd that he could still sound sexy after I had heaved a horrible mixture of alcohol and strawberry puree all over him.

“Sorry, Bigfoot. I’ll just be going now.” Giving him a consolatory pat on his brick hard chest, I sidestepped him and took my first wobbly steps back to the main room of the strip club.

Part of me felt bad that I hadn’t even looked Bigfoot in the face when I apologized for upchucking all over him, but for some odd reason, my neck didn’t really want to hold my head up anymore. Maybe Dexter the schmexter had been right, and I’d had too much to drink, not that I would admit that to him. Lord knew I had drunk myself to sleep at home more times than I could count, and none of those drinks had ever hit me quite the way these ones had. Honestly, I would have thought I could handle more than this before I was anywhere close to passing out.

Putting a hand out, I used the wall to steady myself as I did my best to wobble away from Bigfoot the talking wall in these damned heels that had seemed like such a good idea when I had gotten dressed.

I had made it exactly one step and a sideways stumble into the wall when the song changed in the club. Hey, I knew that beat. I totally loved this song! Bigfoot needed to get out of my way so I could go dance to my jam before Dexter the schmexter took my drunk ass home.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going, Ginny?”

The sound of my name on Bigfoot’s lips stunned me.

Hugging the wall, I made a very dangerous and tricky three point turn on the death sticks women called high heels to face Bigfoot the talking wall.

Pointing an accusing finger at him, I snapped, “You liar!”

His head snapped back, making me notice for the first time that the dude had dark hair down to his shoulders, a lot like I imagined the infamous sasquatch would probably have. I couldn’t be sure due to the fact that he was really blurry and possibly wiggling like a worm, but he seemed to look confused.

“Liar?” he asked as he put his fists on his hips.

Jabbing my finger back in his direction, I let him have it. “Yeah, you said you couldn’t read my mind, but I never told you my name, so you’re a big-footed, super hairy liar!”

“Angel, are you telling me that you’re so shitfaced you don’t recognize who the hell I am?”

Rolling my eyes in frustration at the sasquatch wall that just wouldn’t seem to leave me the hell alone, I tried to ignore the spinning room and make that tricky three point turn to head back toward the main room of the club so I could dance to my jam.

I didn’t make it very far before a hand on my arm pulled me back until the sasquatch dude was so close I could feel the heat from his body.

“Snap out of it, babe. It’s me, Lucas.”

The words didn’t compute to me. There was no way the talking wall that was Bigfoot with psychic abilities could be my Lucas. I hadn’t seen him in five years! This was totally my mind messing with me because I had tried to come down to Miami to get laid to wipe away the memory of him. There was no way fate could be that mean to bring the very person I was trying to forget to the same exact place I was using to attempt to forget him.

The banging beat of my song picked up in front of me, giving me renewed determination to make it to the dancefloor for one last dance.

Pulling forward, trying to shake the hand off my arm, I slurred back to him, “No … You can’t be h—”

Shaking me by the arms in aggravation, he snapped, “If you weren’t so wasted, you would know damn well that I am Lucas.”

“You didn’t have to break my heart!
” I belted out, joining the song. And how appropriate was that line for this moment?

The hell with it. Even though wannabe Lucas slash Bigfoot still had me in his iron tight grip, I started swaying the rest of my body from side to side in time to the beat. I wasn’t going to let this jerk ruin my moment.

“Jesus, Ginny, keep it the fuck down.”

Ignoring him, I belted out the next line,
“Pretending to love me through the night and then leaving in the morning.”

“Are you serious right now?” his low voice ground out.

“I’ll be strong enough not to need your love! But you left me with all these scars that I hate so much.”

I was spun in a fast circle, almost twisting my uncooperative ankles in the process. That didn’t stop me from looking the lying, wiggling sasquatch right in the face and wailing, “
You didn’t have to hurt me so!”

While Bigfoot was still blurry, I could make out enough of his features to watch him as he sucked his bottom lip in annoyance then gritted out between clenched teeth, “Gin, babe, as happy as I am to fuckin’ see you, if you don’t pipe down, I’m gonna have to take drastic measures.”

I snorted a laugh. I wasn’t afraid of this guy. In the back of my mind, a small part of logic told me I probably should be, but apparently, enough alcohol could shut logic up in a jiffy.