was just the world’s reaction to the epic kiss he was laying on Dakota. It was that amazing that the earth was rotating on its axis. He could have written a paper about the scientific effect of the perfect kiss on the earth’s core. The research would be more kisses, and he was all up for that.
But he was sorely mistaken.
It wasn’t their insanely explosive sexual compatibility that had caused the raucous.
Bennett’s eyes popped open to see three burly men in black fatigues pointing massive and very aggressive guns directly at him. And most importantly, at Dakota. He pulled her toward him and pushed her back behind him.
“Are you crazy?” Dakota huffed out in anger. “You can’t push me out of the way, Ben. I was literally hired to protect you.” She rushed past him and squared her shoulders out. “What the fuck are you doing here? Who sent you?”
Bennett became aware of two things all at once.
First, he could not hear the shrill blaring of the alarm system. He didn’t know what that could possibly mean, but it couldn’t be anything good. These highly-equipped goons must have disabled the alarm somehow. Bennett felt a flash of guilt. If he hadn’t been keeping Dakota all tied up in kisses, she would have heard them. He would have to apologize to his lady if they survived this. He had distracted her from her work, and it was about to cause some serious trouble for them.
Second, Dakota was an absolute badass. She was staring down the intruders like it was just any other conversation and not a huge invasion of privacy. Not to mention very illegal.
“Just give us the serum, and we’ll be on our way,” the big, bald guy in the middle said as he took one giant step forward.
Dakota didn’t cower. She arched one delicate eyebrow at the intruder. It spoke of her annoyance at having the kissing interrupted, and Bennett decided to believe that bode well for a repeat performance.
“I don’t know what serum you’re talking about. My boyfriend and I are house-sitting while our friends are off eloping in Vegas.”
“Yeah?” the man shot back. “Can’t be too close to them if you didn’t get invited. Serum, now.”
Dakota sighed and shook her head as if she were talking to a child. “Don’t you know what eloping means? It means the betrothed couple and a couple of witnesses. Namely her sister and their cousin. I’ll repeat myself. We don’t know anything about a serum. But if you just let me call Gray, I’m sure we can clear this up.”
The bald man raked his eyes over Dakota, then did the same to Bennett. He pushed his glasses up his nose, glowering at the man who snickered at them.
“If you’re dating that guy, I’m bald by choice.” His chuckle was echoed by his cronies.
Bennett wanted to take offense to the man’s words, but he wasn’t wrong. It would be pretty unbelievable for a solid twenty like Dakota to be with a guy like him, who was lucky to be a three on his best days. He didn’t like thinking of Dakota that way, and he knew she wasn’t shallow. She had been the one to kiss him first, after all. But Bennett was an intelligent man. He knew that society would see him with Dakota and assume he either had a big dick or a big bank account.
Really, how the female gender was perceived by society was highly problematic.
“Must be one hell of a razor,” Dakota threw back to the interloper’s comment about his chosen hairstyle.
He didn’t like the retort. Even his empty hair follicles turned red.
“Serum.” The man aimed the gun at Dakota, and a small red laser dot appeared on her forehead.
A headshot? For giving him sass? Tall, bald, and angry needed to learn some self-control.
It made Bennett’s heart hurt to think of the harm Dakota was in. He felt powerless to do anything. He knew that if he was a shifter like Gray, he would have taken on his animal form already to chase these bad guys away from the woman that made his heart beat faster than if he had been making an important scientific discovery.
He had to do something. He was just at a loss for what to do. All he had was his brain.
“There is no serum.” His voice was loud and echoing. “Had you decided to come in here like civilized adults, forgoing the guns, we would have had a conversation. Now, with this blatant