Protected by a Hero

by Susan Stoker, Cristin Harber, Cora Seton, Lynn Raye Harris, Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus, Tessa Layne

  She was still reeling from the sharp relief that he hadn’t slept with anyone else. That he wanted to be with only her. Because she definitely felt the same way.

  Smoothing her hand nervously against her jean clad thighs, she stepped out into the hallway. The house was quiet and after searching most of it and finding it empty, she knocked on the door of what he’d told her was his office.

  When no one answered, she cracked it open and peeked inside to see if he was on the phone. He wasn’t in there, but a glass door leading to the outside was open. The room was gorgeous, with a full wall of windows. The drapes were pulled back, revealing the dark night and desert stars. She imagined he got a lot of natural light in the day. His desk was in pristine condition, with two laptops on the glass top. The rest of the desk was wood, teak she guessed. It went perfectly with the wall of built-in bookshelves.

  He must have taken Charlie out because Angel hadn’t seen the dog anywhere either. A cool breeze blew through the room. “Vadim?” she called out, not wanting to invade his privacy, even if he had told her that his office door was always open to her. He didn’t answer so she started to leave when another gust of wind swept through.

  A manila folder on his desk flipped open, the pages ruffling, a few scattering to the floor. Pushing the door open, she stepped farther in and started to pick them up when she saw her name on one of them. As she started to scan it, her fingers turned numb as it sank in what she was looking at. He’d compiled information on her.

  “Angel.” Vadim stood in the doorway, his expression grim.

  Since she’d already jumped to conclusions once, she didn’t want to do it again. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, she stood, one of the fallen papers in hand. “The wind blew these off your desk and I saw my name.” She motioned to the others near her bare feet. “Is this work related? Did your boss want you to look into me after I took the food from Cloud 9?” She really hoped that’s what it was and could actually understand that. Sierra hadn’t said anything about telling Mr. Christiansen about what Angel had done, but for all she knew, the chef had done just that. And she wouldn’t blame her.

  Vadim paused for a moment and she thought he was going to say yes. But he shook his head and stepped to the side as Charlie came in. He shut and locked the door behind the dog, then picked up a small remote from the nearest bookshelf. He pressed a button and she nearly jumped in surprise when the drapes slid closed, covering the windows.

  “I didn’t want to do this now, but will you take a seat?” He motioned to a small cushioned chair on the other side of his desk.

  It looked a little worn, as if he sat in it often in addition to the ergonomic chair behind his desk. Not that she cared about that. She wanted to know why Vadim had a file on her. She’d been stalked once and was now on the run because of it. As she sat, she placed the paper with her name, address and other employee information on the desk and tried to hide her trembling hands in her lap. Charlie plopped down beside her and nudged Angel’s foot, as if to let her know she was there. But she couldn’t even look at the dog, her gaze was riveted on Vadim.

  He sat on the edge of his chair, but he looked like a caged tiger, wanting to pace. “Until today I’ve never looked into your past. I never wanted to violate our friendship like that. I hope you believe me.” The expression on his face told her that was important to him.

  Which eased her fears. “I do.”

  Vadim let out a sigh and slouched back against his chair, the action disconcertingly uncharacteristic. He scrubbed a hand over his face like he did only when he was upset about something. “I don’t talk much about my work, but you know I handle a lot of Wyatt’s computer security.” When she nodded he continued. “Before I came to work for Wyatt I was part of an intel unit in the Marines. I did a lot of stuff for them in conjunction with other government agencies.”

  She didn’t even want to guess what agencies, though the way he said it, she could. “So now you do similar stuff for Mr. Christiansen?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Sometimes legal, sometimes not.” After he said that, he watched her carefully, as if waiting for a reaction.

  Angel shrugged. “If you’re waiting for me to judge you, I’m not going to.” She was using someone else’s social security number. She had no room to judge. Ever.

  Something seemed to shift inside him at her words, even though his body language never changed. Finally he continued. “When I stopped by your apartment complex, I spoke to Mr. Botkin. He told me a man had been asking about you. This just happened, right before the vandalism incident. It feels like too much of a coincidence for the two things not to be related. Maybe I’m overreacting. Do you know why anyone would be asking about you?”

  That numbness was back, creeping over her entire body like cold fingers. “Someone was asking about me?”

  “Yes. Brown hair, brown eyes, tall and Mr. Botkin said his daughters would have considered him handsome in the Hollywood sense.”

  Oh, god. She was going to be sick. He’d found her. He’d been asking about her. What if she’d led him right back to Vadim’s? Oh, no. No, no, no. Angel jumped up from her seat, terror forking through her like jagged slashes of lightning. She had to leave. To run, right now. Panic battered against her insides but before she’d taken a single step Vadim jumped up and had rounded the desk.

  He grabbed on to her hips, holding her in place, as if he was afraid she’d bolt. Which was exactly what she was planning on doing. “Who is he?”

  She shook her head, her throat tightening. “Vadim, I can’t…I need to go. Right now. You could be in danger.” Tears burned her eyes, streaking a hot path as they fell down her cheeks in wave after wave. She’d been running for two years and while she didn’t feel safe exactly, she’d started to hope that maybe she’d left her past behind.

  Angel didn’t even realize she was sobbing until Vadim pulled her against his chest. She wrapped her arms around him, savoring his strength for just a moment. She knew it wouldn’t last, that she couldn’t depend on him. Couldn’t put him in danger like that. He rubbed his hand up and down her back steadily, just like he’d done this morning when she’d been crying about her apartment.

  Lord, what was wrong with her? It was like her pent up emotions from the last two years were just coming out all at once. She was too upset to be embarrassed though.

  She wasn’t sure how much time passed, a minute, an hour, but eventually that constriction in her chest loosened and she could breathe again. Sucking in a deep breath, her tears finally dried up, she pulled back and looked at Vadim.

  He held her face in both his hands, murmuring words she didn’t understand as he wiped the stray wetness from her cheeks. His gentle expression nearly cracked her heart open and she almost started crying again.

  Reaching up, she lightly gripped his forearms, not to stop him, but because she needed to touch him, to use his strength. “His name is Emile Glass and he killed my brother.”

  * * *

  Vadim filed that name away, knowing he would kill this bastard for Angel if the man came after her. He would do anything to take away the raw agony in her beautiful eyes still filled with unshed tears. Motioning to his favorite chair, he sat, and pulled her with him so that she sat on his lap.

  She didn’t even protest, just curled against him, bringing her legs up so that her knees tucked into him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, waiting for her to continue. He’d just started his investigation on her and so far all he’d discovered was that the social security number she’d been using belonged to a girl who had died as an infant. And Angel had just started using it when she came to work at Cloud 9. He didn’t even know if her name was Angel. He didn’t care.

  “My name really is Angel,” she said, as if she’d read his mind. With her head on his shoulder, she absently traced a pattern over his chest with her fingertips. He hated that his sweater was stopping him from feeling her against his skin. “I’m from a small Louisiana town about an hour north of New Orle
ans. I grew up with two loving parents and a wonderful older brother. Seriously, we were like the perfect all-American family. I loved them so much and I truly appreciated them. I knew what we had was rare. When I was in my last year of college my parents were killed, along with four others, in a freak boating accident. They’d been on vacation with friends in the Bahamas when a swell came up and…” She sucked in a ragged breath before continuing. “That’s not important for this story. After they died I went into a depression. Really bad. I dropped out of school and moved back into their home. Which in hindsight was stupid because of all the memories there. I just couldn’t seem to pull myself out of my depression. I was never suicidal, but I wasn’t happy. Didn’t want to leave the house, didn’t want to see any of my old friends, nothing. I was living like a shut-in at the age of twenty-two.”

  Vadim tightened his grip, hating the pain he heard in her voice, hating that she’d had to suffer the loss of her parents. Whenever he’d asked about her family she’d been vague and he hadn’t wanted to push. He didn’t like talking about his own past so he understood. His mother had tried hard, but she’d had addiction problems among other issues. He’d been more of a burden to her than anything.

  “Eventually my brother got me into therapy and out of their house. I still wasn’t working, but at least I was leaving the house and doing normal things like grocery shopping on my own. I was such a mess it was pathetic,” she said, her self-disgust clear.

  “It’s not pathetic to mourn those you love.” He’d never been lucky enough to have caring parents—had never known who his father was—but he’d lost many friends in the Marines, and he still mourned them. “I wish you’d told me all this.”

  “I wanted to, so badly. I almost did when you told me about…” She glanced up at him. “About all the friends you’d lost. You were so open and real and I wanted to tell you, but I knew if I told you they’d died I’d end up telling you the whole truth.” She sniffled again then ducked her head back to his shoulder and kept tracing random designs on his chest. He stroked a hand down her long, damp hair as she continued. “Long story short, this guy named Emile befriended me. He was sweet, or so I thought, and didn’t mind my weirdness of not wanting to go anywhere or do anything. In hindsight I realize he wanted me all to himself and that’s why he didn’t mind my anti-social behavior. But as you know, that’s not the real me. The therapy started helping and so did spending time with my brother. After about six months I started bouncing back, started seeing old high school friends and even my friends from Tulane had started to visit now that they were done with school and I was actually accepting visitors. And they were encouraging me to go back and finish. I was—am—only twelve credits shy of graduating and I was ready to go back too. I still hurt, but I wasn’t that emotional mess anymore and I wanted to live my life again.”

  When she paused, he knew that whatever she was about to say would be horrible.

  “Emile must have sensed my…I don’t know, me just getting back to normal. I feel like maybe I should have seen the signs but I was so caught up in my own bullshit I didn’t realize that what I thought was just friendship, he viewed as much more. One Saturday night I was at his parents’ place for dinner. His dad runs the biggest law firm in the town so he’s kind of a big deal. There were so many people there, it was…overwhelming. I didn’t know most of them and right before dessert he proposed to me.” She pulled back and looked at Vadim, her pretty face a mask of horror and confusion. “It was insane, like I was watching it happen to someone else. When I say we were friends, I’m talking just friends. We’d never kissed or flirted or anything. But he got down on one knee, had a ring and everything.” Groaning, she covered her face and shook her head. “It was awful,” she muttered through her fingers.

  Finally she looked up again, and this time sadness bled into her eyes. “Maybe I should have handled it differently, just told him no right then. But I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of so many people. I thought it would be kinder to wait. So the next day I met him at his place and apologized if I’d ever led him on or let him believe that I wanted more than friendship. When I tried to give him his ring back, he punched me in the face. Broke my nose. It hurt, but it was also such a shock. That level of violence.”

  Vadim jerked in the chair, seeing red at the thought of anyone hurting Angel. Oh yeah, this man was dead if he came after her. He didn’t want to hear anymore, didn’t want her to continue, but he knew she needed to get the whole story out and he needed all the details if he was going to find this bastard. And he was. Very soon.

  “I won’t go into all the details, but he hurt me. Would have raped me if a neighbor hadn’t intervened and called the cops. I pressed charges, filed a restraining order, did everything I was supposed to. Then I moved almost immediately. We’d already sold our parents’ house by that point and school didn’t start for another couple months so I went to live with my brother while I was healing. Luckily Emile hadn’t broken any bones, except my nose. It was mainly just bruising and…” She trailed off and clutched on to Vadim’s shoulders. “Vadim.”

  That was when he realized he was actually shaking. The urge to kill someone had never been so great. So real it felt like a consuming thing, eating at him from the inside. “Keep going,” he rasped out, amazed he could speak when his jaw was clenched so tight.

  For a moment she looked unsure, but continued. “A couple weeks later my brother was killed in a mugging gone wrong. The town we lived in was a little bigger than the one we’d grown up in, but the area he was in at the time wasn’t known for crime and he still had his wallet and very expensive watch. It wasn’t a mugging. I knew it and Emile confirmed it with a phone call on the day of my brother’s funeral. He said that unless I came back to him, he’d kill everyone I loved. I told the police, but the number he called me from was a throw-away phone. There was nothing they could do except bring him in for questioning but they had nothing to charge him with. So I packed up and ran. He wanted to fight his assault charges in court, and there was no way I was sticking around as long as his father would have dragged it out. I would have been a sitting duck and it’s not like the cops could protect me. So I’ve been on the move for two years.” The pain in her voice sliced at him.

  Vadim let out a curse, pulling her into a hug. She twisted in his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He had a dozen other questions, but knew now wasn’t the time. Now he just needed to hold her, to comfort her, to let her know that he wasn’t going anywhere and that he’d help her get through this. Because he’d die before letting that monster touch her again.

  “You’re the first person I’ve told,” she murmured against his neck. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but didn’t know how. Now you understand why I have to leave,” she said as she pulled back.

  He forced his jaw to work. “There’s no way in hell you’re leaving. I’m going to kill that bastard.”

  “Vadim, don’t say that.” She sounded horrified, but he didn’t care.

  “This isn’t an idle threat, Angel. Computers weren’t my only area of expertise in the military. I’ve killed before and if he comes after you, I’ll protect you. No one is going to hurt you. And there’s no way I’m letting you face this on your own.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Angel ran her hands over Vadim’s tightly bunched shoulders. The energy humming through him was palpable, his rage simmering just beneath the surface.

  Barely.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He calmed a fraction at that, but she continued. “And you’re not going to do anything to him.” She couldn’t have Vadim getting in trouble because of her. Or worse. She also knew she was tired of running. She wanted her life back and that was mainly because of Vadim. He was a man she didn’t want to leave. Even if her first instinct had been to flee, the time for running was over. She wouldn’t live in fear forever.

  “You’re not leaving,” Vadim said again, though this time it sounded almost like a question.


  “I know.” She pushed up and twisted slightly so that she was straddling him. Her knees pressed on either side of his thighs, the cushion of his chair soft. But what she felt between his legs most definitely wasn’t soft.

  The rage and anger seemed to dissipate from his expression, only to be replaced by confusion. And a lot of lust. The undeniable flare of heat in his eyes warmed her from the inside out.

  She lifted up on her knees so that her covered mound rubbed over his growing hard-on. She didn’t want there to be any doubt exactly what she wanted from him. Feeling his reaction to her was the biggest turn on there was. Knowing that she got a man like Vadim so hot made her nipples tighten in anticipation of what was to come.

  “Angel.” His hands settled on her thighs, his fingers flexing almost convulsively against her. When she didn’t say anything, he turned his face away from her. For a moment she feared he’d reject her, but he let out a soft, very clipped command to Charlie. Angel might not understand the word, but she heard the authority behind it.

  The dog let out an annoyed sound, but trotted from the room, tail waving. She was glad he’d told her to leave. Angel might adore her, but she didn’t need an audience for what she wanted.

  “Have you really fantasized about the color of my nipples?” she asked as Vadim met her gaze again.

  He nodded, his pale eyes darkening. “Very often.” His words were harsh, unsteady. And he was very still. Almost impossibly so. Which told her that he was trying to hold on to his control.

  “Then why did you turn me away before?” He’d apologized, but she didn’t really understand why he’d seemed almost repelled by her after they’d kissed. There was so much more she wanted to tell him about her past, but right now she wanted to lose herself with him. First, she needed to know he wouldn’t reject her again.

  When he finally answered, his words stunned her. “I don’t deserve you.”