His to Defend - Em Petrova Page 0,17
could be worse things than a stone wall.
With a sweep of a hand, he stepped aside. She returned to her perch on the bed and sank to the edge. Lars went back to studying her from the armchair.
Being close to a woman was nothing new or unusual for Lars. They all rescued women every day—most of their clientele was female. She wasn’t even beautiful, not in a conventional sense of beauty. So what about her kept drawing his stare back to her?
His mind drifted to his boss, Oz. Having a history with his own ward, Rose, hadn’t helped him when it came to keeping his hands off her and reining in his desires. Though Lillian was nothing to Lars—just another woman in a long line of women to protect.
He bit back a groan of irritation. Right now, he wished he had Pierre under guard instead of this woman he couldn’t make sense of.
Maybe if he figured her out more, he’d stop thinking about whether or not she was afraid or uncomfortable or disliked him. It’s a useless pursuit of my mind. What does it matter, as long as I keep her safe?
Crossing a line would end in disaster. He and the Church already had bad blood. Believing him a turned spy for the Russians, the members had gone for his throat and nearly ripped the chip out of his wrist for what they believed to be treason. He couldn’t get away with laying hands on his very normal, uninteresting ward.
Chapter Four
They watched a little mindless TV. She found a selection of old paperback novels that she attempted to skim, to pass the time. Eventually, she fell asleep early fully dressed and curled on the corner of the mattress.
She woke several times in the darkness to see Lars slumped in the armchair. At one point, she considered waking him to share the bed with her. While she didn’t like the guy—or the situation—she still held humanity and kindness in high regard. In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to shake a big, dangerous man like him awake, so she laid there until she drifted off again.
The mattress sinking under her roused her awake, and she shifted, only to roll into the divot created by Lars’s weight.
She jerked upright, blinking through grainy eyes at the man sitting on the edge of the bed beside her.
“My contacts need peeled off my eyeballs at some point, but I don’t have a change of clothes let alone contact solution.”
Lars offered her a hint of a smile, which seemed more like a twitch of his hard lips, reminding her of horse’s hide shivering to shake off flies. “I can try to find you some solution. At least you slept.”
“Not well,” she grated out.
He released a huff. “Are you hungry?”
She glanced down to see the tray he held. A loaf of bread, with more of that honey dolloped on top, yogurt, berries and another pot of coffee awaited her.
“Yes, I am hungry, even though I’m not sure why I have any appetite. Knowing someone wants me dead should surely be a diet aid.”
“You’re far from in need of a diet. But I’ve seen people react differently in your situation.”
Her sleep fog cleared out of her mind at his words. How many people did he protect that he made distinctions between their habits?
“I’ll just slip into the bathroom,” she said and eased to her feet. Moving past him brought an awareness to her. She rarely woke up with a man, and even though he didn’t sleep with her, she still felt the strangeness of seeing Lars’s rugged face first thing when she opened her eyes. His brown hair had a way of being rumpled without looking messy, but the thick sprout of hair on his angled jaw reminded her that he was all man.
She quickly showered, using some small bottles of shampoo and body wash provided by the inn. Luckily she also located a new toothbrush and toothpaste on the vanity.
She rushed through the rest of her toilette, thinking of how well that hot coffee would go down after her rough night. When she stepped out of the bathroom, Lars’s pine-green stare settled on her, leaving her with an annoying shyness.
We aren’t lovers. I have no reason to feel this way.
He stood at the window, and he’d changed from the racing gear he used to impersonate Pierre. Oh, and when had his eyes turned from Pierre’s dark brown to green? She had no memory of when it might