Endurance Read online

  But right now, my best friend is my concern and she has earned some time to herself. Yet somehow, Tanner Bloody Harris seems to find a way to put his needs above everyone else’s. Him calling for her help tonight pisses me off. He doesn’t deserve her generosity. Indie is wonderful. It’s just my luck that she would fall for the twin brother of the one man I loathe with every fibre of my being. Tanner Harris is a knobhead spunk bubble who runs around like a dog with two dicks. And my hatred toward him is not because he’s rejected me.

  The real reason I detest Tanner Harris is because the minute he turned me down, he started his personal mission to shag the entire city of London, paparazzi be damned. I’ve lost count of the number of seedy pictures that have popped up in the papers and on social media. All of them include him and a football groupie flavour of the night. A few weeks ago, some paparazzi got a shot of Tanner naked from the waist down inside a limo with two women. Then last week he was running barefoot through Yorkshire, obviously on the run from someone, most likely a husband. He’s a bloody pig, and he’s turned into a paparazzi’s dream come true with as many situations as he has got himself stuck in.

  Yet he turned me down as if I was some kind of demotion for him. As if I didn’t check all the appropriate boxes for him to shag. Oh, sorry Tanner, I do have a job. Oh, sorry Tanner, I don’t need your bleeding money. Oh, sorry Tanner, I don’t have a wide-set vagina like the kind of girls you’re used to.

  Maybe I’m still a bit cross.

  But it wasn’t like I asked to marry the sod. I wouldn’t marry Tanner Harris if he was the last tosser on Earth, especially now that he’s been sleeping around like he’s got a terminal disease and he’s trying to live out his last days permanently buried inside the Republic of Labia. I’ve got some indication from Indie that Tanner is on pretty thin ice with his dad because of all the horrid publicity he’s causing for the team, but he just keeps going. It’s ridiculous. I’m all about sowing wild oats, but not publicly. After everything I saw happen with Indie and Camden, I’m staying the hell away from that train wreck. My family and my career would not tolerate a scandal.

  However, there’s a dark, sick, masochistic part of my soul that wants to know what muck he’s found himself in tonight. So for that reason, I grab my keys and the sticky note where I jotted down his instructions and head out. Let’s see what kind of floozy he’s pissed off tonight. He’ll hate that it’s me turning up and the thought brings a cheeky smile to my face.

  I drive to the street corner he directed me to that’s only minutes away from my flat. As I approach, I slow to a crawl in my white Mercedes to get a good look around for where Indie is supposed to be picking him up. He wasn’t very specific so I turn in to park. I pull out my mobile to text back the number he called her from when, suddenly, flesh hits the hood of my car. Panic erupts as I worry about what kind of animal I’ve just ploughed in to or if we’re finally being invaded by zombies like I’ve always suspected. The flesh sack falls off the other end of my hood and pops up again by my passenger side door. All I see are bare abs and a fist that begins rapping on the window like a psychopath.

  “What the—” I start and quickly unlock my door.

  The flesh sack yanks it open and folds himself inside. “Fucking hell, drive!” he shouts, making no move to cover himself as he swerves his head around to look behind us like a maniac on the run.

  I am frozen. Completely gobsmacked as I take in the sight before me. Tanner Harris is sitting on my black leather seat, naked as the day he was born. And as much as I hate his every fibre, I can’t help but admire the impressive human in front of me. It’s loads of stunningly inked, smooth skin covering mounds and mounds of tight, roped muscle. A half-sleeve decorates one arm and a full sleeve decorates the other. I’ve caught glimpses of his ink before, but nothing like this. His eight-pack is bunched and rippled as he twists in the seat and crouches down a bit. He looks enormous in my small car. All six foot three of him is evidently too large for my Mercedes A-Class.

  My eyes are completely unapologetic as they glance down to his package. What a package it is. As far as penises go, it’s impressive. For a beardy, long-haired, grizzly sort of fellow, you’d kind of expect the carpet to match the curtains.

  It doesn’t.

  It’s neat and tidy down there. Not bald, which I’m happy to see. Men shaving their cocks bald gives me the creeps. It makes me think of prepubescent boy penises and completely kills any attraction I have to them. A man should be as he is meant to be. Manly, hairy, and masculine. The overly groomed fellows flittering around east London these days just don’t get my engine revving.

  But Tanner’s package is like a well-manicured garden, trimmed just enough and wreathing one of the most beautiful penises I’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s not standing at full salute by any means, but you can see some seriously glorious potential. I swear I see it pulse right as—

  “Stop staring at my trouser snake and drive!” Tanner shouts as I notice flashes going off from somewhere in the dark behind us.

  “Bloody hell,” I exclaim, looking over my shoulder for any oncoming traffic. “Tanner, if those are paparazzi and they get a shot of me, I’m fucking dead!”

  “You’re dead? I’m on strike two! If I get caught, I’m suspended from the team.”

  I begin pulling out of my parking stall and make my way away from the flashes, feeling a jolt as I gun the accelerator. “I can’t believe you’ve put me in the middle of this.”

  “Well, I didn’t ask you to come, did I?” he barks, resting his hand on the back of my seat to look behind us.

  My jaw drops at his nervy comment and I flick my hand up to knock his arm away from me. “I’m saving your arse from the looks of it.”

  “Oh, remind me to send you a fucking thank-you card,” he grumbles, looking out the window away from me.

  I quickly slam my brakes and he lurches forward, bashing his head on the frame of the door. “You can get out right now!” I screech, the volume making my ears ring. My narrowed eyes go to the rearview mirror and I see the vultures begin running on foot toward us again.

  “Ryan!” Tanner exclaims, turning toward me with a shocked expression and rubbing a spot by his eyebrow. “You’re fucking nuts. I can’t get out. Just drive!”

  “No,” I say through clenched teeth and narrow my eyes at him while pulling in an ounce of my control. “You don’t get to squish around on my brand new leather seat with your filthy bare arse and then give me a tone. That’s not how this works.”

  The flashes are getting closer as traffic whizzes by us with some rude honks. His steely blue eyes meet mine, narrowing to mirror my expression. I don’t want to be photographed with him but, more than that, I don’t want to be taken advantage of like this.

  His voice is deep and authoritative when he replies, “This isn’t a fucking joke, Ryan. This is my life we’re talking about.”

  His shoulders rise and fall with intensity that swallows up the little bit of air we have left in the car. I’m breathing heavily, too, because no one gets up my shirt like Tanner Bloody Harris. We’re staring at each other, both trying to eye-fuck the other into submission while the paparazzi get closer and closer.

  His puckered lips purse with frustration and a dimple forms on his right cheek. “Belle Ryan, will you pretty, pretty please, with sugar and cherries on your tits, help me out right now and fucking drive?”

  The corner of my mouth wants to lift into a victorious smile, but I hold back and turn my glare toward the road and floor it, leaving the flashing leeches well in our wake.

  God, he gets me revved up. Almost as much as my car. Gunning my little Mercedes is quite fun, actually. I so rarely get a chance to drive her like this, mostly because I like to take the Tube just to piss off my father. He thinks the Ryans have an image to uphold and that requires us to have the best of everything. Even though I’m twenty-seven years old, he insists on buying me a new car every year. The last car he took back to the dealer only had four hundred
fifty miles on it. The look on his face when he saw that was priceless. I can only imagine his face if he were to see me now. Maybe I’m dismissing a great opportunity by not enjoying the cars he gives me. Zipping around like this is thrilling. I don’t think I’d be half bad at driving a getaway car should 007 ever stop me in the middle of the street to chase down a criminal.

  Tanner exhales heavily once we’ve finally got a couple miles down the road. My gaze shifts over to him when he shoves his hands through his long, messy blonde hair that nearly touches his shoulders. He circles his palms around to scratch through his beard a few times, obviously deep in thought, and I have to will myself not to sneak a glimpse at his unit again. It’s just sitting there staring at me like a one-eyed monster.

  I’ve been driving around aimlessly for five minutes with no direction from him on where he wants me to drop him off. The longer the silence stretches, the weirder it begins to feel, so I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Whose wife did you screw this time?”

  He scowls. “No ones.” Discomfort radiates off of him as he drops his hands down to his package now that he has the mind to cover himself.

  I roll my eyes and hold the wheel with one hand so I can peel off my black cardigan with the other. I hand it over without looking. I can feel his eyes on me, and I’m praying to God he can’t see my nipples pebbling beneath my thin tank.

  “No bra?” he asks.

  I jerk the wheel just the slightest bit and swing him unexpectedly into the window frame again. His head makes a satisfying crack.

  “You should buckle up.”

  He groans and rubs his head. “You should come with a warning label. Dangerous machinery, proceed with caution.”

  “Stop looking at my tits and you’ll be a hell of a lot safer.”

  “Says the woman who was eyeing my tube steak like she hadn’t eaten in days.”

  I bark out an incredulous laugh. “That is disgusting, even coming from you. Is that how you get all those footie slags in bed? Smooth words like tube steak?”

  I glance over and catch his satisfied smirk. “No, they take far less effort than you.” He leans closer to me and his voice is husky as he adds, “I bust out the big guns for you.”

  Biting my lip, I do my best to hide my grin, annoyed that he still has that bloody charm about him. It’s not the standard charisma that most blokes spread on thick. It’s like a charming Pee-wee Herman…without the kiddie porn charges.

  He suddenly takes a sharp breath in and says, “At the risk of bashing this very tender moment we’re having, we need to turn around and go back.”

  “To where?”

  “To where you picked me up.”

  My eyes fly wide and I look over at him. He’s situated my cardigan over his package and his face is all scrunched up as if he thinks I’m going to punch him. Or perhaps it’s from the two goose eggs he has forming on his head, I can’t tell.

  “You want to go back? To that madness?” I ask, my jaw slack with disbelief.

  He lifts his shoulders. “The paparazzi won’t be there anymore and no one seems to be following us.”

  “Why the hell do we have to go back? I swear to Christ, Tanner, if you tell me it’s for some bird, I’m going to send you through the windscreen this time.”

  “It’s not for a girl, I promise. Will you please just do this for me, Ryan?”

  I want to cringe at how he addresses me. Ever since he blew me off at Old George, he’s refused to call me Belle, or even Dr. Ryan like he so flirtatiously referred to me as when we first met. It’s maddening. He addresses me like he addresses a teammate.

  He pierces me with wide, probing eyes, clearly desperate for my compliance. It’s a look I don’t think I’ve ever seen on him, so I can’t help but agree out of sheer curiosity. “This better be good,” I grumble and turn the car around to head back to the circus we just fled.

  He directs me back down the streets we had just driven and eventually over to a red phone box near the corner.

  “Pull right up to it. As close as you can.”

  Frowning the entire time, I do as he asks. When I stop, he rolls the window down and whisper shouts, “Sedgwick.”

  We’re met with silence, so he increases his volume. “Sedgwick!”

  I hear a rustling coming from inside the box before a head pops up from the ground. It’s sheathed in a grey stocking cap, but I can only make out the face enough to see a beard. The red door swings open and an old man’s head emerges.

  “Tanner?”

  “Sedg, get in.”

  “What?” I screech as I suss out that Tanner is offering up my car to a homeless man. “Tanner!”

  Tanner turns to me with a pleading look of desperation. “Ryan, please. Just do this for me. Don’t ask questions. I’ll make it right with you one way or another. Anything you want. You have my word.”

  “Tanner, this isn’t safe!” I look around his shoulder and see the man watching us with a curious expression on his face.

  “I’ll keep you safe.” He reaches out and squeezes my forearm with his hand as an act of reassurance. It’s the most serious look I’ve ever seen on Tanner. It’s…disarming. And for some reason unbeknownst to me, I feel myself nodding.

  Tanner turns back toward the window. “Sedgewick, hurry up and get in before they come back. Bring your stuff.”

  “I’d never pass up a tootle in a Mercedes,” he says as he grabs his dirty canvas bag and stuffs some belongings into it. He tosses the bag over his shoulder and hustles over with a sneaky sort of walk, like he’s committing some sort of crime.

  “I’ll…erm…open the boot,” I mumble, pressing the button on my hatchback. Of all the things I thought I’d be doing tonight, popping the boot on my over-fucking-priced car for a homeless man never made the list.

  “Would you look at that. A hatchback!” Sedgwick says as he dumps his bag in and closes the boot. He folds himself in behind Tanner and his eyes go wide as he takes in the lush interior. “This is some ride you have here, miss.”

  “Her name’s Dr. Ryan,” Tanner adds.

  I’m momentarily shocked by Tanner’s label for me, but my thoughts are interrupted by Sedgwick. “Oh! A doctor. What kind?”

  Tanner frowns at me as if he just realised he has no idea.

  “I’m a surgeon,” I reply, turning around to look at Sedgwick.

  “What’s your specialty?” Sedgwick asks.

  I smile at his question. “Well, I was doing emergency medicine before, but I’ve recently started on neonatal surgery.”

  “What’s that?” Tanner asks, interrupting my focus.

  “You operate on tiny babies before they’re even born?” Sedgwick’s face is full of awe.

  My smile widens further. “I do.”

  Sedgwick has kind eyes. They’re the kind of eyes that make me think he only sees the good in the world and none of the evil, which seems impossible considering he was sleeping in a phone box just seconds ago.

  He shakes his head in amazement and sits back in his seat like he’s getting comfortable. “What a night this has turned out to be.”

  Tanner asks me if I’d mind driving over to Grosvenor Square—a rather posh area in London—and then asks to use my mobile. I still have no clue what’s going on, but I don’t have a chance to ask because Sedgwick is keeping me busy, chatting about my job and some of the toughest cases I’ve worked. Tanner remains talking on my mobile the entire time. I assume he must be cancelling credit cards or something because I can’t imagine what on earth could be so urgent that he’d leave me to tend to our rather interesting car guest. Regardless, Sedgwick and I come to find a lot in common when he tells me about his time selling medical equipment in the 90s. He actually seems quite knowledgeable about the medical field in general.

  After Tanner hangs up, he instructs me through a couple turns. A few minutes later, we pull up to the valet line of the Grosvenor Hotel. A red carpet is stretched out below the warm bulbs of the awning. I’m completely confused
as two men wearing formal suits come up to Tanner’s window as if they were expecting him. Tanner holds up a finger and then turns around. Sedgwick looks as confused as I do.

  “Sedg, I’ve booked you a room here,” he says simply.

  Sedgwick’s eyes go wide. “Boy! No, I couldn’t.”

  “I know the owner. It’s all taken care of already,” Tanner replies firmly. “It’s nonrefundable.”

  “You should have asked. This is not the proper way—”

  “Sedgwick, you showed me a kindness and I’m showing you one back. That’s all this is. Repaying a favour.”

  “A favour? You only used my mobile. You wouldn’t even take clothes from me.” Sedgwick looks at me like he needs to argue his case. “I tried to give him some clothes, I really did. He wouldn’t take them. Said he was getting what he deserved. I think the boy could do with some therapy, to be frank.”

  Tanner turns a flat face on me that has me pulling my lips between my teeth to hide my amusement.

  “There’s an incredible restaurant here. Order room service. Order laundry service. Go shopping in the stores. Put it all on the room bill. I mean it,” Tanner says. “Please, Sedg. I want to do this for ya.”

  “I couldn’t possibly.” He shakes his head and folds his arms over his chest.

  “You could!” I add with a smile and a nod. Sedgwick looks right at me as if he can’t believe I’m buying all of this. His brow is furrowed so deeply, it’s folding in on top of itself, so I add, “Do it. Tanner’s a pain in the arse most days. You should definitely enjoy a night on him.”

  He harrumphs with a half-smile and eyes Tanner thoughtfully. “I suppose I could enjoy it for a night.”

  Tanner beams at Sedgwick and then at me. “That’s the ticket. Now, I’d walk you in but as you can see, I’m a little skint on clothes.”

  “No, no, you stay put. I’ve seen enough of you for one lifetime, boy.”

  “Off you go then,” Tanner says excitedly as I pop the boot for the man standing at the back of my car.