Page 11 of Too Guarded to Love

Sweat and anticipation slid down his neck. He shifted away from the fire. The movement sprang the tip of his cock from his boxers. The liberation shook him harder than the blast that had taken his arm and leg.

She licked her lips. “Permission to speak denied if you’re going to tell me to stop.”

He should tell her to stop. Better yet, he should get the hell out and run until the adrenaline she’d aroused dispersed into the salt air. If she wanted company while she waited for the tow truck, she could sit with Mrs. Alvarez. She had a spare rocker.

He didn’t have a spare anything. The universe granting him another chance at a career, at a family, at being alive was about as likely as Olivia being a mermaid. He should walk away and let the tow truck deliver her to whatever problems awaited her at home. He wouldn’t let a woman with trouble on her tail bring it to a head at his expense.

Instead of listening to logic, he tilted his hips toward her mouth. The tip of his cock nudged her lips. She darted out her tongue and licked. Fire shot through his body as she tasted him like an ice cream cone from the boardwalk.

“Dios mio.” He repeated his plea to God as he gripped her wet hair with his steel and nudged her closer.

The screen door rattled in the wind. She didn’t flinch at the sound as she opened her pretty lips and stared up at him as if waiting for permission to proceed.

“I was right. You are a sirena.”

Of the most alluring kind.

And the safest because in a short while, she’d be a memory, and he wouldn’t be responsible for her safety.

He fisted his cock. She might be safe, but her sudden subservience made the alpha side he tried to control around women roar louder than tectonic plates crashing under the ocean. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

The cold, cruel sea raged beyond the windows flanking the screen door in a vast void. Her smile promised heat and pleasure and a connection he didn’t want to crave. As she gripped him harder and drew him to her mouth, he threw his head back and closed his eyes. Sparks burst behind his lids as her warm breath coasted over the crown of his cock.

He yanked his gaze down, desperate to feel her lips…

A steady red dot that had nothing to do with the fireworks in his vision materialized on the screen door. He blinked. The tiny circle he’d been trained to recognize as an imminent threat didn’t disappear.

“Sniper. Duck.” The command ripped from his throat as he dropped to his knees and tackled Olivia. A gunshot rang from the beach. Her scream reverberated through his body as he twisted them to the ground. Pain seared the seam of his shoulder where flesh met steel as he cradled her head in his hand and rolled her underneath him.

Ignoring the burn, he activated his mind comms.

Ryan Bradley, VIPER’s chief information security officer, barked, “Status?”

“Gunshot. Sniper from the east.” Nic stayed low as he crouched in front of Olivia, too shocked to keep the conversation in his mind like he would have in the field. “Activate me.”

“Bypassing pre-activation and bringing you fully online.”

“Roger that.” He spotted a dark figure on the sidewalk across the street, scurrying to take cover behind Olivia’s car. The sting of activation zipped down his spine as he raised his arm and zeroed in on his target.

“Fire.”

The invisible laser streamed from his middle knuckle. The sniper dropped his rifle and clasped his upper arm. “Direct hit.”

“We’ve got eyes on him. He’s retreating. No other threats detected. We’ll alert local authorities to pick him up.”

Nic fought the urge to run after the fucker. The intensity of the V-Strike had been intended to incapacitate, not kill. Nic could catch the stunned sniper before he made it to the next block, but Olivia was top priority.

He pressed his steel over the hand she clasped to her shoulder. Blood seeped through her fingers. Fuck, he’d been right earlier. There had been trouble brewing.

“Your biofeedback is showing elevated pulse and heart rate levels. Are you hit?”

Of course, headquarters detected a spike in his vitals. He’d been about to get a blow job. “Affirmative. I’m with a woman. Bullet went through her shoulder and hit my steel. Nicked my skin, but I’m fine.”

With one eye on the door to the beach beyond where the sniper—a fucking sniper—had disappeared, he tapped Olivia’s cheek. “Can you hear me?” He barely heard her ragged whimper over the blood rushing between his ears. “I’ve got you.”

“We’ve dispatched an ambulance.” Ryan shouted another order to one of his analysts to make it quick. “Are you secure?”

“Yes.” For now.