“Though you didn’t have to. You did good. I got this because I don’t want you to pull your punches. You need to practice as if it’s the real deal, and that means hitting me as hard as you can.”
A small frown furrowed her brow.
He held the padded helmet against his hip. “First lesson, though, is to use your voice. If you’re attacked, yell as loud as you can to intimidate your attacker and draw attention if anyone is nearby. You yell, and you keep yelling until you’re safe.”
She nodded.
“Next, always go for the four most vulnerable areas. Eyes, nose, throat, and—”
“Groin?” she finished with another smirk.
He gave her a mock glare. “You didn’t have to apologize, but that doesn’t mean you get to laugh at my pain.”
“Sorry.” She straightened, making a show of wiping the humor from her expression.
Which had him fighting a smile when he needed them both to take this seriously.
“We’re going to start with the hammer strike. When you’re alone, walking to or from your vehicle, have your keys ready in your hand, and strike at your attacker like swinging a hammer.” He demonstrated the stance and motion, then put on the helmet to advance on her. “For right now, just make a fist and hit me.”
Shelby got in a tentative stance and when he was close enough, reached out to tap her fist against his helmet.
“What was that?” he demanded. “Where’s your voice?”
She arched her brows. “In here?”
“Anywhere,” he barked. “And hit me. As hard as you can. That’s what the padding is for.”
She frowned and nodded at the same time.
“Let’s go again.”
Even before she was in her stance, he lunged at her. She squeaked and swung. The hit was better, but, “You sounded like a mouse. A meek little mouse. Is that what you are?”
Her eyes were wide as they met his. “No.”
“Then yell and fucking hit me. Do you need me to put on a red shirt? Or better yet, tell you how I can’t wait to see you in red?”
Her brown eyes narrowed, and when he went for her this time, she yelled and struck out like she was swinging a ten pound hammer with everything she had. Then she jumped back with a gasp, both hands flying up to cover her mouth.
“Much better. Again.”
She gave a hesitant smile at his praise, then went serious again. After a few more reps, her hesitation melted away, and her confidence bloomed.
Dev moved on to the palm heel strike. When he explained how to jam the heel of her palm up toward his nostrils or under his chin to jar his jaw, her frown returned.
“Won’t that hurt?” she asked as she pantomimed his moves in the air.
“That’s the point.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“We don’t train with these suits in Special Forces, and I sparred with guys twice your size on a regular basis. You can’t hurt me any worse than they did.” He shifted to her right. “I’m going to come at you from the side this time. Get in front of me as much as you can before you strike.”
She nodded and got ready. With a slight glance over her shoulder, she asked, “Do you miss it?”
“Getting the shit beat out of me?”
Her lips curved in a smile. “I highly doubt you got the shit beat out of you, but no, I meant the military. Do you—”
He attacked, and she pivoted, planted her feet, and yelled loud enough to make his ears ring while jamming her heel up under his chin hard enough to snap his head back.
“Wow. Nice.”
“So, do you?” she persisted as she reset.
Exertion had elevated her breathing, and as his gaze strayed to her chest in that tight T-shirt, he forgot what she was talking about.
Eyes up, man. Focus. Do you miss the military? “Yeah. I do.”
“Would you go back if you could?”
The question made him pause. A month ago, he’d have answered yes without hesitation. Right now, with her in front of him, it wasn’t an automatic reply. Not like earlier, when she asked if he’d keep teaching her if the stalker was caught before they finished.
Without a way to explain the unexpected no forming in his head, he said shortly, “I can’t go back, so it’s a moot point.”
Also, a month ago, he was still pissed off at the abrupt end to his career. He’d been floundering, wondering what the fuck he was going to do with the rest of his life. Now, he saw a glimmer of potential for something he hadn’t imagined before.
Protective services. Training. He could continue to help keep people safe like he had in the Special Forces, just with more preventative measures than rescues after the fact.
Before she could ask more unsettling questions, he moved on to the groin kick, and finished their first lesson with how to escape the bear hug attack. She was a quick study and could execute each move fairly smooth after a good dozen reps.
“All right, that’s it for tonight.” Not only did she look exhausted, but the bear hug attacks had his senses drowning in the scent of whatever fruity body wash or shampoo she’d used in her shower. Thank God for padding. “You did great for the first lesson.”
“Really?”
The hopeful lilt to her voice had him giving her a smile of reassurance as he peeled off the suit. “Really. Tomorrow we can practice all these again, and I’ll add a few more.”
“Any chance we can try a few without the suit right now?”
Fuck. He turned to lay the padding against the wall with a silent groan. The distance it had afforded him was the only reason he’d made it this far.
“I just want to see what it’s like without the padding,” Shelby added. “So it feels more real.”
Feeling her was precisely the problem.
“Yeah. Sure.” Because of course, he’d been having trouble saying no to her since the night of the wedding.
She did great with her hammer and palm heel strikes, even if he could tell she was holding back. He didn’t argue that for tonight.
“We’re going to skip the groin kicks for now,” he advised, and she laughed.
A second later, when she turned her back, he seized the opportunity to catch her off guard and grabbed her from behind in the bear hug. It might have also been that he didn’t want to give himself a chance to over-think how close the move would bring him without the suit.
He should’ve given himself the chance to think about it.
Should’ve prepared mentally for the feel of her ass snugged up tight against his groin. The soft cushion of her full breasts against his forearms. Heat spread like wildfire until she let out a yell and bent at the waist to drop her weight. Next thing he knew, she rotated her upper body to slam her elbow up into his jaw on the right, then the left, and back to the right.
Muscle memory kicked in from hand to hand combat training, and he was able to pull back just enough to avoid a sore jaw in the morning. Her hip swivel twisted her free of his arms, and she reached up to pull his head down while lifting her knee toward his groin.
Pure instinct had him jerking back, and his weight shift at the odd angle tweaked his knee. The searing stab of pain dropped him to the mat with an involuntary grunt.
Shelby gasped and dropped to her knees to lean over him. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth. Or he would be, as soon as she wasn’t leaning over him, her beautiful brown eyes swimming with concern as she worried the corner of her bottom lip with her teeth.
Her palms rested on his chest, and when her gaze met his from less than a foot away, she suddenly froze. A flare of heat thickened the air, and he reached to grasp her arms to set her away. Only, once his palms made contact with her bare skin, all he could think about was pulling her closer.
Her attention slid to his mouth, and his name came out on a whisper of breath. “Dev.”
When her tongue darted out to wet her lips, he was a goner.
&nbs
p; With a low groan of defeat, he dragged her in. She might have met him halfway, but the instant their lips melded, he was swept along on a tsunami of desire a decade in the making.
Her lips were silky soft, and her breathy little moan parted them just enough for him to slide his tongue in for a taste. She opened for him, and he took full advantage to stroke deeper. So sweet. Hot. And the way she met him stroke for stroke was addicting in a way that had him rolling her over, using her momentum to keep them going until he lay on top of her.
Well, partially on top—with his swelling erection pressed firmly against her thigh, right about where those pink velvet shorts kissed the curve of her ass cheek.
She slid her hands from his chest, up around his neck to rake her nails through his hair. The smile she tilted up from beneath her lashes was a contradiction of shyness and pure siren. Just like that day in her bedroom all those years ago when she’d offered him her innocence.
He stilled as desire battled with honor. Many things had changed in nine years, but his reason for saying no back then was the same reason he had to say no now.
His first duty was to protect her.
Chapter 19
Shelby felt Dev pulling away before he actually moved. She saw the regret in his eyes and tried to keep him from leaving her. But she was no match for his strength as he pushed up from the mat. Away from her.
“I can’t,” he bit out, his tone gruff and angry. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand.” She lay there blinking up at him, weighed down by crushing hurt and disappointment.
“Don’t look at me like that. I have to be responsible, Shelby.”
He reached out a hand to help her up. She frowned at the gesture, but gripped his fingers before the thought of refusing fully formed. Apparently, she’d take any excuse to touch him.
He tugged free and turned away the moment she was on her feet.
Hurt stabbed again, followed by resentment. “How is kissing me irresponsible?”
When he kept heading for the door, she followed and raised her voice. “The least you can do is answer me.”
Dev swung around so fast she jerked back in surprise.
His gaze bored into hers, dark and angry. “It’s irresponsible because when I was kissing you, I wasn’t thinking of anything else but burying myself deep inside you and the hell with the rest of the world.” Heat flared in his eyes, and he clenched his jaw. “I have to stay aware.”
The blunt words had her heart pounding so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of her. “Isn’t that why you have the security system?”
A fierce frown darkened his expression. “No, Shelby. I did not install security so I could fuck around on the job like your other useless bodyguard.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she protested.
“You are my responsibility,” he ground out as he jabbed his thumb into his chest. “Your safety has to be my number one priority. I can’t get complacent while this bastard is still out there. If something happened to you because I wasn’t good enough—” He abruptly snapped his mouth shut. His gaze held hers for another heart-thumping second, and then he spun back to the door. “I can’t let my guard down for a second. Neither should you.”
She didn’t try to stop him as she sucked a deep breath into tight lungs. A whole kaleidoscope of emotions had her reeling. She’d been kissed before, but never like that. Like he wanted to devour her. The throb of his arousal against her leg had triggered an answering pulse of need deep inside.
Need that currently had her fighting the urge to go after him. But those telling words just before he’d snapped his mouth shut shed a ray of light on his confusing surges of anger. She’d always assumed he was mad at her, but now she wondered if it was directed at himself. Was he really that worried he wasn’t good enough to do the job?
Maybe he needed her as much as she needed him. Needed to know she trusted him—with her life—and had every confidence in his ability to keep her safe.
When she ventured from the room, she was surprised to realize it was after nine p.m. Dev was at his dresser in his bedroom, and she hovered in the doorway.
“You okay if I still sleep in here tonight?”
“I figured you would.”
That didn’t really answer her question, did it? Still, since it wasn’t an outright no, she didn’t question further before brushing her teeth and returning to slip beneath the covers. He took his turn in the bathroom, then shut off the light before getting into bed.
Shelby took a breath to speak at the exact moment he shifted onto his side, facing away from her. Pressing her lips together, she kept the words inside, hands folded over the comforter across her stomach.
It felt like she lay there for hours, staring up at the dark ceiling. In reality, it was probably more like five or ten minutes before she finally whispered, “Dev?”
No answer.
“You still awake?”
A grunt from his side of the bed held a note of annoyance.
That kept her quiet for another few minutes, until under the cover of darkness, she found the courage to ask the question she’d agonized over for so long. “You had nothing to protect me from that day in my bedroom, so why did you react the way you did?”
“I had plenty to protect you from,” he growled.
“Like what? You just left,” she accused. “As if I didn’t matter to you at all.”
He turned his head in the dark, then rolled over onto his back. “You mattered, Shelby.”
“Didn’t seem like it when I didn’t see you again for nine years.” Old emotions tangled with new to clog her voice. “We used to be friends.”
“Walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he admitted gruffly.
“Then why did you?”
“I was twenty-one. You were only sixteen.”
“I was old enough,” she defended. “All my friends were having sex already.”
“Worst reason ever to have sex,” he retorted.
He was right about that. Even more so because she’d only had one close friend back then. And her cousin, Raine.
How about because I loved you?
Nope, not asking that question.
“It was the only way I knew to protect you,” he said quietly.
“Walking out of my life and not talking to me again was protecting me?”
“That was right after I’d graduated Special Forces training, you remember?”
She nodded, then quickly added, “Yes.”
“I was given one week of leave before I had to go back for my first mission. How could I be with you knowing I couldn’t make any promises about coming back? Out of respect for you, and your parents, your whole family, I had to walk away.”
“You could have explained that to me instead of yelling like you did.”
“I was angry, Shelby. At the situation—and at you. Offering yourself to me like you did was reckless and naïve, and right or wrong, I wanted to scare you, maybe even shame you, into not going to someone else. Apparently, that didn’t work.”
She frowned at his tight tone, until she remembered that day in her dad’s office when she’d purposely taunted him. Guilt prompted her to admit, “It did, actually.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the shadow of his head roll toward her on his pillow.
“I lied when I said you were a practice run. I only wanted you.” That last came out as a whisper, and the following I still only want you was gulped back with a wave of nerves.
“It took every ounce of mental training I had to resist you that day.”
Hearing the sincerity in his voice, going over his words and why he’d rejected her, her hurt eased for the first time in years. “And all this time I thought it was that you didn’t want me.”
He gave a wry grunt and turned back toward the ceiling. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Then or now.”
Her pulse skipped at that last bit. “I’m sorry I was mad at you about it f
or so long. I’m sorry what I did drove you away and kept you out of my life for so long. I don’t want that to happen again.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “For how I handled it, and for hurting you.”
She squeezed her eyes tight against the burn of tears as emotion swelled in her chest. It gently eased, giving way for an unexpected sense of peace. “You know how I didn’t want you to take this job at first?”
“Yeah.” There was a smile in his voice.
“I’m really glad you did. I trust you to keep me safe more than anyone else. And I’m not saying that to add pressure on you, I just want you to know, I’m glad it’s you who’s got my back.”
After a long moment of silence, suddenly his hand covered hers. She sucked in a breath as her heart fluttered high in her throat. He threaded his fingers with hers and then laid their joined hands in the space on the bed between them.
She heard his hard swallow, and the slightly shaky cadence of his breathing. His grip tightened briefly, but he didn’t say anything else or try to touch her in any other way. And for now, the unspoken thanks was more than enough to secure his place in her heart for the rest of her life.
Chapter 20
It was still dark the next morning when Dev eased out of bed at five a.m. and started a pot of coffee. Then he retrieved the folder from where he’d stashed it last night in a lower kitchen cupboard.
He’d reviewed about half of the letters with Reyes while waiting for Shelby to finish her extended shift yesterday, but he wanted to go over the rest—hopefully before she got up. And if she did, well, the death threats weren’t something he wanted her to see, but he wouldn’t keep them from her if she asked again.
Stirring a teaspoon of sugar into his coffee while standing at the counter, he slid the folder closer while recalling those moments in bed with Shelby the night before. He hadn’t outright lost it since losing Gonzales on a mission in Syria five years ago—not even last November when he’d realized his injury would end his career.
But last night, when she voiced her faith in him, he’d been too choked up to do anything more than hold her hand in gratitude. She’d fallen asleep shortly after, and her even, relaxed breathing had lulled him along with her.
To Love and Protect Page 13