Scandalous Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Sybil Bartel

  Cover art by: CT Cover Creations

  Cover photo by: Michael Stokes Photography

  Edited by: Hot Tree Editing

  Formatting by: Champagne Book Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Warning: This book contains offensive language, alpha males and sexual situations. Mature audiences only. 18+

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Books by Sybil Bartel

  Scandalous

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Sybil Bartel

  The Alpha Bodyguard Series

  SCANDALOUS

  MERCILESS

  RECKLESS

  RUTHLESS

  The Alpha Escort Series

  THRUST

  ROUGH

  GRIND

  The Uncompromising Series

  TALON

  NEIL

  ANDRÉ

  BENNETT

  CALLAN

  The Alpha Antihero Series

  HARD LIMIT

  HARD JUSTICE

  HARD SIN

  The Unchecked Series

  IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE

  IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE

  IMPOSSIBLE END

  The Rock Harder Series

  NO APOLOGIES

  Join Sybil Bartel’s Mailing List to get the news first on her upcoming releases, giveaways and exclusive excerpts! You’ll also get a FREE book for joining!

  SCANDALOUS

  Bodyguard.

  Babysitter.

  Chauffeur.

  Not what the hell I thought I’d be doing with my life.

  Especially not for a spoiled Hollywood actress on location in Miami Beach. But triple pay and carrying a gun had its advantages. I’d shove away paparazzi and screaming fans for a lot less. The Marines trained me to be Force Recon—intimidation and crowd control was child’s play compared to four tours. This assignment should’ve been easy money.

  But the doe-eyed starlet with the perfect ass dragged me down her rabbit hole. Living for the spotlight, she leaked the perfect scandal. I warned her making headlines wasn’t in my job description, but she kept smiling for the cameras.

  Now she was going to find out just how scandalous a bodyguard could be.

  *SCANDALOUS is a sexy new standalone book in the Alpha Bodyguard Series.

  The Alpha Bodyguard Series:

  SCANDALOUS

  RECKLESS

  MERCILESS

  RUTHLESS

  For My Family

  CROSSING MY ARMS, I LEANED against the beach wall and watched her naked ass run across the sand.

  “Goddamn it,” Tyler cursed through the comm. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Halting before the water, she threw her arms out and shook her head dramatically before backing up.

  She had a huge rack, but she was skinny as shit. “That a rhetorical question?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tyler muttered. “I thought she was passed out.”

  “You seriously that naïve?” He’d been at this bodyguard gig as long as me. He knew better.

  “Fuck you.”

  Ignoring him, I scanned the beach. “You better grab her.” A crowd was growing.

  “You do it,” Tyler snapped.

  Hell no. “I’m not her handler.” I was, however, gonna stand there and watch the fuck outta her naked, tight ass.

  Tyler growled in frustration. “Why the hell does Luna keep assigning me these crazy-ass bitches?”

  “What’s wrong, pretty boy, didn’t get your dick wet tonight?” The female clients always went for him. He looked like a goddamn GQ model and smiled like a saint.

  “Again. Fuck you,” Tyler bit out. “Unlike your unprofessional ass, I don’t sleep with the clients.”

  I smirked. “Who said anything about sleeping?”

  Tires screeched and I glanced to my left. “Time’s up. Paparazzi. Three o’clock.”

  A couple photogs spilled out of a van, yelling, “Dreena! Dreena!”

  Audrina “Dreena” MacKenzie.

  Hollywood’s hottest actress.

  Running naked as fuck across the sand in South Beach at—I glanced at my watch—oh-one-hundred, while her bodyguard, my coworker, stood watching.

  I tossed the toothpick in my mouth and pushed off the seawall. “What the fuck you waiting for, Tyler? An invitation?”

  “Fucking hell.” He sighed. “Here goes nothing.”

  I watched him approach her sweet ass.

  “Miss MacKenzie,” Tyler clipped. “You need to come with me. Right now.”

  The second her name left his mouth, I knew he’d made a crucial error. “Wrong approach,” I warned.

  “Ohhhh.” Dreena turned on him. “Hurry! They’re drowning.” She flailed her arms.

  “No one’s drowning, ma’am.” Tyler took another step toward her.

  “STOP!” she screeched, her arms going straight out in front of her, hands up.

  “Told you,” I said into the comm. “Wrong approach.”

  Tyler turned his head slightly. “What the fuck do you want me to do?” he whisper-hissed.

  “Pick her ass up.” Fireman style.

  “Fuck you, Tank.” He looked back toward the spoiled actress. “It’s time to leave, Miss MacKenzie. The paparazzi are here. You need to get back to the hotel and put some clothes on.”

  Her fuckable mouth opened and she let loose at the top of her lungs. “We’re all drowning!”

  The paps rushed across the beach, and a crowd came out of nowhere. Camera phones, flashes, shouting. Dreena! Dreena MacKenzie! Oh my God, she’s naked! Is she drunk? Dreena!

&nbs
p; “Fuck this shit.” Tyler finally threw her over his shoulder.

  The spoiled little actress let loose with a bloodcurdling scream.

  I shut off my comm for a second then turned it back on when I saw she’d stopped screaming.

  “I’m drowning! We’re drowning! You have to row!” Her cries carried across the beach.

  “Ma’am,” Tyler ground out, ignoring the cameras pointed at them, “we’re not drowning.”

  “YOU HAVE TO ROW US TO SHORE.”

  If I wasn’t watching the shitshow unfold with my own eyes, I wouldn’t fucking believe the spectacle I saw next.

  Tyler started rowing. Legit mime paddling with the arm not hanging on to her.

  “We’re rowing, ma’am, we’re rowing.” Tyler’s arm kept going like a fucking fish outta water. “Almost to shore. Hang on. I got you.”

  I cracked a smile. “Fucking priceless.”

  “Coming at you, Tank.”

  “No fucking way.” I shook my head.

  “Your vehicle’s closer,” Tyler argued.

  “Keep rowing!” the hot mess of an actress screeched.

  Tyler rowed some more. “Open the back,” he ground out.

  I crossed my arms. “I’m off duty.”

  “Open. The motherfucking back!”

  Half to fuck with Tyler, half to take in the hot mess over his shoulder, I stood there a moment and watched him carry her toward me. Her long hair tangled and hanging everywhere, her bare ass over Tyler’s shoulder looking like it was made for sin, her legs long enough to wrap around my waist—I’d fuck her.

  “Now!” Tyler bellowed as he passed me.

  I hit the key fob, and a few yards behind me, the back of the SUV opened.

  “We made it, ma’am. We’re safe on land.” Tyler threw her ass in and slammed the back shut as the paparazzi descended on us like a fucking swarm of gnats.

  I got behind the wheel, and Tyler jumped in the passenger seat. The paparazzi’s camera flashes kept going off like a red carpet event, lighting up the interior despite the limo-tinted windows.

  I cranked the engine and floored it, pulling into the nighttime traffic in South Beach.

  For two whole seconds it was dead quiet in the back, then movement in the rearview mirror caught my attention.

  She sat up and looked around like a caged animal.

  “Round two,” I warned.

  Tyler turned in his seat. “Oh fuck. Lock the doors, quick.”

  She reached for the back release as I hit the lock button. When she realized she couldn’t get out, a keening filled the car and she started to thrash.

  Tyler looked at me like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

  “Bad day at the office, dear?” I deadpanned.

  “You’re not fucking funny.”

  I smirked. “Says the asshole who rowed his way across South Beach.”

  He tipped his head toward the back. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? I can’t carry her into the hotel like this.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror again. “Why the hell did you let her out of your sight in the first place?” Seeing her tits bounce around like she was being fucked made my cock twitch.

  “I was tired, okay? We’d been up since three a.m. for a last-minute scene retake she had to do that wound up taking all day. She kept powering Red Bulls, then switched to alcohol, and by ten p.m. she was fucking hammered at Club Frenzy, dancing her ass off. A couple hours later, when she finally told me she was done, I got her in the Escalade and she started acting weird. I asked what the fuck she took, but all she said was she needed to sleep.”

  She let out a loud-as-fuck animal noise, like a horse neighing.

  Tyler raised his voice and spoke over her like this shit was normal as fuck. “She was a stumbling mess on the way to the room. I got her in bed, she looked like she passed out face-first, so I shut the door. Five minutes later, I was on the couch with my eyes closed and the door to the suite bangs shut. By the time I threw my boots on and called for backup, she’d streaked down the hall to the elevator. The doors closed before I could grab her, so I ran my ass down twenty flights only to see her sprint through the hotel lobby and take off across the street toward the beach. That’s when you showed.” He looked over his shoulder, shook his head, then slumped in his seat. “Why the hell are you here if you’re off duty?”

  “I was just leaving the office when your call for backup came in. Thought I’d come by and watch the sideshow.” I shook my head. “Which, by the way, was epically fucked. Hundred bucks says you’re viral by tomorrow.”

  His groan was drowned out by the actress who’d graduated to roaring like a lion.

  My cell rang through the car’s Bluetooth. I turned up the volume and answered. “Tank.”

  “Jesucristo, why the hell am I seeing naked photos of our client all over the fucking internet?” André Luna, our boss and owner of Luna and Associates, practically yelled. “Wait. Did I just hear a lion?”

  Tyler rubbed a hand over his face. “That’s the client, boss.”

  “She’s making animal sounds?”

  Tyler glanced at me as he answered Luna. “Yes, sir.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Luna asked, incredulous.

  Tyler sighed. “Acid, I think, sir.”

  Luna swore again in Spanish. “First, we’re gonna discuss this shit tomorrow. Second, contain this mess, Tyler. Contain her, contain whatever the hell you have to. Your ass is already all over social media. Get out of sight, you hear me? Your face plastered all over the internet makes you useless to me.”

  “Copy that,” Tyler answered, sounding exactly like you would when you’d had your ass handed to you by the boss.

  “Tank,” Luna snapped. “You’re up.”

  Fuck that. “Not unless you wanna pay me overtime.” I’d just come off another job.

  “I’m charging her agent triple for this shit, and I’m calling her publicist. I don’t deal with fucking junkies. Keep her behind closed doors until we can unload her ass tomorrow. And yes, you’re making overtime on this, plus the overage I’m charging her agent.”

  I wasn’t an idiot. I’d take the money. “Done.”

  “Congratulations,” Luna said sarcastically. “You got a new client.”

  I CIRCLED THE BLOCK HER hotel was on a few times. By the fourth pass, the paparazzi were gone and the actress had apparently run through all the animal sounds she knew. She was quietly staring out the back window.

  Tyler glanced at her. “At this point, I don’t know if we’re lucky she’s quiet, or if we should be concerned as fuck.”

  The latter. “Next pass, I’ll drop you off.”

  “Copy that.” He fished a key card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “It’s the west penthouse. Her schedule’s on the desk. She’s done shooting, but she has press engagements. She’s got something at noon today, but I don’t know how the hell she’s gonna make that.”

  I took the card. “I’ll handle it.”

  “Fair warning, not that you couldn’t already tell, but she’s a fucking handful.”

  I glanced at the naked twenty-three-year-old in the back who’d been acting since she was a kid. She was too fucking young for me, and she was goddamn mess, but her long honey-blonde hair and sexy-as-fuck body had my damn cock half-hard.

  I drove into the hotel’s underground parking and pulled up to Tyler’s company SUV. “She’s a handful because she’s spoiled as fuck.” I hadn’t seen any of her movies, but I knew there were a shitload of them. And career actresses were always a pain in the ass as clients. She was lucky Tyler was her detail and not me when she’d made a run for it. I would’ve spanked the fuck out of that sweet ass of hers.

  Tyler snorted. “No shit.” He got out of the Escalade. “You want me to help you get her up to the suite?”

  “I got it.”

  “Good luck.” He couldn’t close the door fast enough.

  I waited till he pulled away, then turned in my seat.<
br />
  She was still staring out the back window.

  I didn’t even know if she was cognizant we’d stopped. “Audrina,” I clipped, authority in my tone. “Look at me.”

  Not turning, she trailed a finger down the window. “I don’t do drugs.”

  Right. “I told you to look at me, Audrina.” I used her full name because I hated Dreena. I wasn’t one of her groupies.

  Her hand pressed against the glass. “The colors, they’re like a waterfall.”

  “Turn around,” I commanded.

  She finally listened. Her eyes dilated as fuck, her gaze on me, she looked right at me but she didn’t see me.

  Shit. “You want me to take you through that hotel lobby up to your suite or do you want to come to my place?”

  Her gaze strayed back to the window. “I never noticed colors before.”

  “Answer my question.” She wasn’t in any condition to make the decision, but I wasn’t not gonna ask. “Lobby and your hotel suite or a private residence?”

  “Nothing’s private.” Her voice dropped. “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

  No fucking shit. “Not when you run naked across South Beach, it isn’t.”

  Her hands went to her breasts and squeezed. “Skin,” she whispered.

  Jesus fuck. “Hotel or condo?”

  She dragged her fingers down her body and spread her own legs. Her head dropped. “So lonely. Everyone’s drowning.” She touched her shaved pussy.

  Fuck me. “Audrina,” I warned.

  She groaned like a goddamn porn star.

  “Hey!” I barked.

  Her head snapped up then wavered, but her eyes met mine.

  “You come in my car, I’m gonna spank the ever-loving fuck out of you,” I promised, giving no fucks about impropriety. “You hear me?”

  “Yesss,” she hissed, her head falling back. “Spank me.”

  Fuck this. I wasn’t carrying her orgasming ass through a hotel lobby with security cameras. “Condo it is.”

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Condo, condo, condo.”