Protector: Doms of Mountain Bend Book 1 by BJ Wane (good books to read for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

sinister. He was tempted to call Father Joe, but he preferred hearing everything from Lisa and didn’t want to alarm the priest if this was an attempted robbery. Mountain Bend was a peaceful town, for the most part. They had their bar fights, drunk drivers, wild teenage parties, and domestic abuse, but home vandalism was rare, and given Lisa’s reticence toward opening up to him, he couldn’t help but think trouble had followed her here.

Returning to the bedroom, he stripped and climbed into the bed, pulling her sleeping form next to him. With him here to protect her, tomorrow would be soon enough to get answers.

****

Lisa awoke from the best night’s sleep she could remember getting in months, disappointed when she discovered Shawn’s body was no longer wrapped around her, keeping her warm. Then again, all she had to do was think about his rough fucking against the wall last night and his slower, gentler assault on her body in bed hours later to chase away the chill of rolling out of bed. However, with wakefulness came a return of guilt, and regret for the way her silence had inadvertently put him at risk. She’d never wanted to bring her troubles to his doorstep, but sometimes doing what you think is the right thing can return to bite you on the butt.

Spotting his shirt tossed on the floor, she picked it up and slipped it on, enjoying the soft, worn cotton against her skin and the way it dwarfed her smaller frame, much like his hold all through the night. If she wasn’t careful, she could get to liking him sharing her bed way too much. She had to keep reminding herself his protective streak was in his DNA, as much a part of him as his rich mahogany hair and gray eyes. Shawn’s insistence on sticking around last night had nothing to do with strong feelings for her but more with doing his job as both a cop and a Dom.

With that in mind, Lisa dashed across the hall to use the restroom before following the enticing aroma of coffee into the kitchen. Her heart executed one of those disconcerting flips the moment she saw him leaning against the counter holding a cup of coffee in one hand and his phone to his ear with the other. Her mouth watered as she eyed his bare wide, thick chest and smooth broad shoulders for the first time, recalling the strength in those corded arms as he’d held her pinned to his thrusting hips. She 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