Page 22 of Her Guilty Protector
All I can do is smile. Smoothing my palm down his cheek and over his heart, I echo. “Mine.”
He washes my hair then my body like I am the most precious thing in the world. Hair dried and both of us dressed, he insists on carrying me to the kitchen and sitting me on the stool. While I make the salads from my seat, he prepares the mac and cheese and heats crispy pork strips.
“Didn’t know you could cook.”
He laughs. “Even I can do mac-n-cheese and follow the directions for the strips. I am pretty good with burgers on a grill, but the outside scent leaves a trail to follow. We can’t take any chances.”
“You could have probably given it to me raw tonight and it wouldn’t have mattered.”
He smirks. “I did give it to you raw a couple times.”
Laughing, I throw a spoon at him.
He insists I do a few more stretches and exercises after dinner while he does the dishes. Then he finds a checkerboard and proceeds to beat me six in a row.
“What is it with you? I’m considered pretty good at this.”
“I spent twenty years as an Army Ranger. Chess and checkers both are battlefield games. I understand war.”
His eyes tell me he knew all about battles and survival before he ever joined the military. When this is over, I’m going to give him what he’s never had. Peace and a home.
CHAPTER 13
Hawke
Making sure she’s settled with a book, I go out for a perimeter check. My senses and emotions are on high alert. After making my rounds I pause in the woods in view of the main door of the cabin and stare up at the stars.
Damn, the way her hands cupped my butt, the way she met each of my thrusts, her soap silkened hair wrapped in one of my fists, made me come undone. Her moans of pleasure as I took her hard in the shower echo through my brain. The moments, the feels, keep playing in my mind and already I need her again.
She’s here with me. A life I could never have imagine flickers on the horizon. A hope I was afraid to entertain. She’s mine now, and no way in hell is anyone taking her from me.
But a baby? Being a dad? That’s some scary shit I never envisioned for me. Growing up the way I did... Hell, most of the time I double wrapped I was so afraid of surprises. When I realized Laney was the love of my life, but she was too good for me, I never thought about having a wife, let alone kids, a family.
As a soldier I didn’t think about dying. It was part of the job. Some of us made it out, some didn’t. I was always aware of the men who did have families to go home to. Someone waiting. Weall had tasks to perform, but still I tried to protect my troops when and where I could. Some of the scars I bear were to save someone else. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I always thought of myself as expendable. There was no one to miss me.
But now... Now Laney needs me. She says she wants me. What if I don’t have to stay in the shadows? What if we both walk away from this? What if we get a chance to be together, to be a couple, a family? What if I just gave her a baby?
Could I really be a father? I have no idea how to be a parent. No, that’s not true. I’d know everything not to do. Not just from my own experiences but from being the commanding officer to my men. Many of them also ended up in the military because they saw it as the only way out of a dead-end life. A lot of them came from broken homes and poverty. After all, the poor have always been the country’s expendables in war.
But becoming a dad? Something warm and soft builds in my chest. Laney’s baby. A little girl just like her.
Never, never have I ever hoped. Now I can’t get the thought out of my head.
I’m going to end this, and Laney will never suffer again. If she still wants me... I will love and protect her for the rest of my life.
CHAPTER 14
Delaney ‘Laney’
A phone call from Vance after dinner gave us more information on Allen. I escaped to the bathroom and I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I’m tired. So very tired. My head and hip are hurting, not from the love Hawke and I have made, but from the weight of my mistakes.
How could I have been so naive to have trusted Allen? How did I miss the evil behind his gaze?
With a better idea of what to look for, Vance’s team have identified several more women who fit the same type of profile of what Allen went after with me.
Single women, with little or no family, who were passionate about their work and generous with others. Programmers, accountants, and investors. Jobs where they worked independently from home.
Could I have saved the other women? Two of the missing girls were after he first injured me.
