Filthy a thrilling bodyg.., p.1
Filthy: A thrilling bodyguard romance., page 1
FILTHY
TIA LOUISE
CONTENTS
Filthy
Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Fearless
Prologue
ONE TO HOLD
By Tia Louise
A One-Week Stand
Books by Tia Louise
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Filthy
Copyright © TLM Productions LLC, 2022
Printed in the United States of America.
Cover design by Lori Jackson Design.
Photography by Wander Aguiar.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, photocopying, mechanical, or otherwise—without prior permission of the publisher and author.
Created with Vellum
FILTHY
BY TIA LOUISE
Good girls are saved by princes, but my savior is a monster.
After my father died and my family splintered, I became a target, a pawn in a game I didn't know I was playing.
Then he appeared—dark, dangerous, tormented, and always just within reach.
He makes me come alive. He makes me remember.
He makes me feel something I lost years ago: Safe.
And he thinks he can keep me at arm’s length.
Once upon a time I was a hero, until the sins of my father caught up with me, and I was forced into darkness.
I should've died in that fire. Instead, I served evil men, until I risked it all by walking away.
Now I'm a wanted man. At any time, I could be taken down for what I owe.
What I don't expect to find in my hiding place is her—broken, beautiful, so damn tempting.
I was hired to keep her safe. I shouldn't touch her with my filthy hands.
But every day it gets harder, then she starts sneaking into my bed.
Together, we're filthy, but together, we can find our way through the flames.
(FILTHY is a stand-alone, bodyguard, romantic suspense novel. It contains a fierce, wounded alpha-protector and the damaged young woman he’s hired to save. No cheating. No cliffhangers.)
To the Mermaids.
“You fill the empty places in my heart.”
-Onur Taskiran
(variation)
He watches her like she’s something he’s never seen before, like a Viking entranced by a mermaid.
-Tia Louise, Fearless
PROLOGUE
Oskar
Seven years ago
Wind whips through the cab of our military-issue Range Rover, and we’re traveling home in peace, no assignments left to complete.
My elbow is propped on the open window, and the unusually warm breeze twists loose strands of my hair around my eyes, hidden behind aviator sunglasses.
My partner Hutchence Winston, or Hutch as everyone calls him, is light. He’s finished, retiring from active duty after four years in country.
I don’t share his status, and my mood is not as light.
“Varna’s a far cry from what you expected when you got here four years ago.” Glancing at him, I consider all we’ve seen in our time together. I consider how it will be when he’s gone, and my stomach pinches with sadness. “No black and white ice deserts or peasants standing in bread lines.”
“Was I that much of a stereotype?” Hutch laughs, gripping the steering wheel as the vehicle takes a hard bounce over the rough terrain into Bucharest.
“You were just another American.”
Hutch is a typical, bold Marine. He’s big, although not as tall as me. He’s stubborn and a natural leader, but unlike the other Marines I’ve encountered, he doesn’t act like he knows everything or like Langley is the center of the universe.
We’re actually good friends.
“This country is beautiful… when it’s not trying to freeze you to death. Which isn’t often enough for my taste.” He glances from the road to me. “Sure you don’t want to come back with me? You are an American, after all.”
An old bitterness twists in my chest at his words. “Only on paper, my friend. America is a stranger to me now.”
“Only a stranger if you don’t have friends, and you have them.”
Lifting my chin, I look away, out the window. I have no reason to be loyal to this place. Without explanation, my father dumped me here at the age of six, to be raised by strangers who were promised a pension to keep me alive. I grew up no better than a foster child with a resentful family waiting for their monthly check.
I was hidden away from my family, my friends, until I was nothing.
Alone, I taught myself to hunt, to shoot, to use tools and build things by hand. I learned geography and where the moneyed class went for holidays. I studied and went to college, and as soon as I was old enough, I joined the military and eventually found myself working with the Americans, tracking down terrorists and flushing out spies.
“That paper is all you need.” Hutch pulls me back to the present. “I could use you in the States. You’re the best tracker I know, and one of the few people I’d trust with my life.”
I feel the same about him, but I don’t say it out loud. He doesn’t need to know my reasons for staying, about the letter burning a hole in my pocket.
“It’s not so easy to drop everything and leave for a whole different country.”
The letter arrived last night via special courier. It was handwritten on expensive stationery bearing a Muscovite stamp. I read it quickly, then stuffed it in my pocket as I tried to make sense of the words. None of it made sense.
It was from a man named Simon Petrovich, and it said my time had come. I had to take my place in line, pay my dues. It said I couldn’t run from who I am.
Who am I?
Dipping my chin, I look out at the barren terrain. “I have unfinished business.”
Hutch doesn’t miss a beat, letting out a low chuckle before turning the wheel onto a narrow, country road. “Any chance that business has long hair and soft curves?”
He’s joking, and I’m about to reply when my eye catches on a column of smoke off the road up ahead. Dread pits my stomach as we get closer, and I see a crowd gathered in the parking lot surrounding a one-story building.
“What’s that?” The closer we get, the less I have to ask.
“Krasivoy Kafe?” Hutch downshifts, reading the sign, and we turn into the parking lot.
Hopping out fast, we join the crowd surrounding the white-planked structure. Black smoke pours out of the large, glass windows, and the heat forces us all to step back.
Firetrucks are nowhere to be seen, and the restaurant is going up like a box of tinder.
“What happened?” I shout in Russian as we locate a paunchy man with a tag indicating he’s a manager. His hair is slicked with sweat and his white, button-down shirt stretches over his swollen belly.
“We got as many out as we could,” he shouts in Russian, face lined.
A woman in a black trench coat with long pearl earrings runs to where Hutch and I stand, frantically pulling my arm. “My daughter is trapped inside! Please, you have to save her!”
My chest tightens, and I look to Hutch. He’s waiting for me to translate.
“Kitchen fire?” I ask in Russian.
The man turns his wide eyes on me, like I asked him why grass is green. “What else?”
“Please,” The woman jerks my arm again. “She went to the bathroom, and they dragged me out…”
I can’t believe anyone could still be alive, but I don’t see flames–only thick smoke. A small cry meets my ears, and my jaw clenches.
“Oh my God!” the woman screams. “My father has money, connections…”
“The firemen are on their way.” The man’s black eyes meet mine.
“It will be too late!” she screams
“God will save her little soul,” the man says.
Fuck. My shirt is over my head while he’s still speaking, and Hutch is right behind me. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“A little girl is trapped inside.” I’m not a hero. I’ve never been the type of guy to run into a burning building, but that little voice will haunt me forever if I do nothing.
“Oskar, stop.” Hutch is right beside me. “You’re not prepared
“You should know, Marine, we’re never prepared for hell.” I twist my long hair in a bun, tucking it under a beanie, then I dunk my shirt in a nearby bucket of water and squeeze it over my head.
“Cover your face.” Hutch shoves his canvas jacket over my torso. “Bring her to me here. If you get disoriented, listen for my voice.”
Diving through the window, I’m immediately disoriented. Thick black smoke steals my breath and my vision. I drop to my knees, coughing as I crawl across the open dining area.
Fire roars from the kitchen like a freight train overhead, and I follow the path to the back where the bathrooms would be.
It’s closer to the kitchen, and the heat is overwhelming. Panic constricts my lungs.
Pausing to center my mind, I close my eyes and force calm, remember my training, my instincts… and listen. A whimpering cry is to my left, and I dash in that direction, pulling up short as a flaming board slams to the ground in front of me.
With a lunge, I reach him. A little boy is huddled in a corner.
“Come here,” I say in Russian, but I don’t wait for his cooperation. Bending to scoop him up, pain flashes through my shin. “Shit! Don’t kick me!”
He’s in my arms, but at my full height, the smoke is disorienting.
“Hutch?” I yell.
Faintly, through the darkness, I hear my name and run for it. When I reach my partner, he takes the boy as I dive through the opening.
“No little girl.” I drop to my knees, gulping at fresh air. “I didn’t make it to the bathroom. It’s too hot–I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“Please!” The woman’s face distorts as tears streak her cheeks. “My father has so much money. He will give you all the money you want.”
“What good is money if you’re dead?” The manager shouts at her.
The woman’s eyes go wild, and she lunges forward as if she’ll run into the building. Hutch catches her around the waist, and she crumples in his arms, crying “No…”
My chest burns hotter than the fire at her display of grief. I don’t know if the cry I heard was the little boy or her daughter. I only know I have to try one more time.
Turning on my heel, I charge again into the burning darkness. It’s more of the same–heat, blindness, impossible to breathe–only now I feel light-headed from smoke inhalation.
I can’t pass out. I have to hold on a little longer.
The roar of burning is sliced by a loud groan overhead. The beams holding up the roof are almost burned through, and the clock is ticking. I’m on a fool’s errand. A child in here this long would have certainly inhaled too much smoke or succumbed to the heat.
Giving the room one final sweep, I hear Hutch screaming for me to get out when my eyes land on hers across the dining room. Oversized dark eyes, pale, ashy hair. She’s so tiny, crouched in the corner, watching me as if from another plane of existence.
She doesn’t seem traumatized or overcome. She seems to be waiting for me to save her, wondering why it took me so long.
Another loud groan echoes overhead, and holding my forearm over my nose and mouth, I look up to see the rafters wavering precariously. It’s going to fall on us. A load-bearing beam crumbles like a broken toothpick.
I’m out of time.
Closing the space, I scoop her up and hold her close as I pump my legs, running hard, frantic to get to safety before it’s too late. Her small head tucks beneath my chin, and her little hand clings to my arm.
My heart pounds in my chest. I’m not going to make it.
I have to make it. I can’t let her die.
Hutch’s green eyes stand out in the black soot covering his face. They’re twisted in horror as another loud groan turns into a long rip. The roof is coming down. I have no choice but to throw her. Tiny nails scratch my skin as I rip her from my chest.
It’s a sensation I’ll never forget, her cry a sound that will echo in my mind.
“Oskar!” Hutch’s shout is the last word I remember.
Flashes of light, of pain, so much pain.
Crying, roaring, screaming.
Then black.
I’m on my stomach in a hospital bed with bandages over my eyes. Hutch’s voice is at my side, but it’s several days before I register what he said to me.
“I can’t stay any longer, friend.” He sounds so troubled. “I’ve got to get back to my family. Come find me when you’re well. I’ll have a place for you.”
But the little girl… What happened to the little girl?
It’s mist and shadows. The pain medication keeps me in a dreamlike state, and I count time by the nurses tending to me. One speaks in Russian, saying my first round of skin grafts was very successful. She places a device in my hand and says to press the white button if the pain becomes too great.
Her tone is light, and she says I’m a hero. She says everyone in the city is talking about me.
“The little girl–” My voice is thick from lack of use. “Is she alive?”
“Her family came to thank you, to give you money. Your American friend spoke to them. He told them you were not able to see anyone.”
She’s moving things around, rustling papers. She keeps talking, saying my picture is all over the Internet, on the news, in magazines. No, fuck no, I think before a wall of pain hits me so hard, I press the button, passing out as the meds drench my system.
The bandages are off my eyes now, and someone has placed a mirror below me tilted toward the window. I assume so I’ll have a view of the sky and trees. I want to see my face, my body, but I’m unable to move in this bed. At least the pain has subsided, and I no longer hold the device with the small, white button.
“You’re very lucky.” A man speaks in Russian at my bedside as if conjured from nothing. “Your face and hands were spared. You’re unscarred from the waist down.”
A long stretch of silence follows, and I feel I should say something. “Thank you.”
“I’m signing your release order. Your skin grafts are nearly healed, and you will continue to improve with time.”
Release order. I’m able to leave, but where do I go? The last thing I remember is the letter, but I’m sure whatever it was about has expired or been forgotten.
“Your bill is paid in full, and your relative brought you clothes.” He places a yellow sheet on a nearby chair. “When you’re ready, you’re free to go.”
My brow furrows–what relative?
He leaves, and I realize I can get out of the bed. Placing my hands on the sides of the mattress, I’m stiff and sore, and bandages cover my torso and arms.
Stepping to the mirror over the sink, I recoil at my reflection. My beard is unkempt, and my hair is dirty and matted. My eyes are white-blue, stark against the darkness of my skin, and at the tops of the bandages I see the destruction. Melted bits of skin not quite covered with gauze. I look like I’ve been to hell and met the devil.
Only I was wrong, the devil is here to meet me.
My door opens, and a short man with flat blue eyes and light brown hair enters the room. He isn’t smiling. His face is unlined, as if he’s never smiled a day in his life.
I tower over him, and in these bandages, my crazy beard in need of a trim, and my wild hair, I imagine I look like a demon.
“Get dressed.” He speaks English with a slight accent. “You’ll stay in Minsk until you’re well enough to assume your post in New York.”
