Protector (Doms of Mountain Bend #1) - B.J. Wane Page 0,55
didn’t need the sexy look of his unsnapped jeans riding low on his lean hips and emphasizing his six-pack abs to renew a lust that exceeded anything she’d felt before, with anyone else.
First things first before she could entice him into jumping her bones again – a long overdue talk was needed to clear the air.
“Thanks, Dakota, I appreciate the offer. My thoughts exactly. Later.”
Shawn clicked off, his gunmetal gaze following her move toward the kitchen island, his jaw tightening as he eyed her bare legs below the shirt’s knee-length hem. “Good morning. I helped myself to your kitchen, but all I could find for breakfast was the coffee.”
Lisa noticed he didn’t apologize for making himself at home, not that she cared. Sucking in a deep breath, she placed her hands on the small island separating them, and blurted, “I’m sorry about last night, and…”
“I hope you’re not apologizing for throwing yourself at me and begging me to fuck you. Because that would piss me off.”
She gave him a rueful smile. Of all her regrets, that wasn’t one of them. “No, you won’t get an apology for my panicked pleas. I was talking about not telling you about a stalker I picked up back home and hoped to put off my tail by escaping here for a short time.” Her eyes watered, irritating her as he grew blurry for a moment before she blinked them away, refusing to shed one more tear because of that creep.
“How long has this been going on?” Pulling a notepad from his back pocket, he searched for a pen lying around.
“Top drawer behind you. For several weeks before…” Lisa paused as a shudder went through her in remembering how her brakes had failed, and the terror of bringing the careening car under control. “Sorry,” she muttered, shaking her head.
“Tell me,” he demanded, handing her a cup of creamed coffee across the counter.
After taking a fortifying gulp of sweetened caffeine, she relayed everything she could recall from the first time he contacted her with a hate-filled text up to her failed brakes and enlisting Father Joe’s help. Retrieving her phone from her purse by the front door, she handed it to him, glad she’d kept every ugly, nerve-wracking message.
“At least you were thinking straight enough not to delete these.” He drilled her with a disapproving glare. “I can’t say the same about your thinking since we met again. Care to explain why you didn’t come to me right away with this information?”
Lisa’s temper shot to the forefront, a defensive reaction, she knew, to her dismay from knowing she’d earned his disapproval. “Get real, Shawn. How would you have reacted if the kid you rescued twenty years ago suddenly showed up at your door and claimed to need your help again? I can just imagine your skepticism.” Watching him closely, she saw his hesitation, the look hinting she had a point. “Aha, I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Possibly, at first anyway. But not after I took over for Master Simon at Spurs. After that night, you should have revealed everything, if for no other reason than giving a Dom the honesty needed for even a temporary relationship.”
His valid point wiped away the edge her comment gave her. That would probably bother her more if she didn’t find his bare chest and her memories of all those bulging muscles pressing against her so distracting,
“You’re right there,” she admitted, sipping her coffee. “My only excuse is I thought my absence had worked since I hadn’t heard from him again. That mistake almost got you hurt, and I can never forgive…”
“Lisa,” Shawn growled in a sharp tone, his hand slicing through the air. “I’m a trained cop, I wasn’t in danger, or even worried. I searched your house with my gun drawn even though I’d heard him running away.”
“Gun?” She looked up with her brows furrowed. “I never saw you with a gun.”
“You were too frightened when you came in and too out of it after I fucked you to notice I laid it on the nightstand.”
He turned slightly, and her eyes slid down his smooth back to the handle of his pistol sticking out of his waistband. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” Fisting his hands on his hips, he started pacing, shooting questions at her with rapid-fire intensity. “Is there anyone you suspect is doing this to you?”
“No, no one.”
“You haven’t pissed off a co-worker or close friend?”
“No.”
“How about an ex-boyfriend? Someone who didn’t want the relationship to end?”
Lisa snorted, shaking her head at