Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes Book 1) (7 page)

Her arm clamped over her chest, and I
brought my gaze up to hers and smiled. “It is a bit chilly in here.
I’ll go find the thermostat.” But I didn’t move. I just let her
narrow her light brown eyes at me.

“Excuse me?”

I watched with amusement as she
stormed off to her room and slammed the door. The doorknob fell off
with a clank to the wood floor and rolled in circles. Then I heard
her scream in frustration, and I lost it. I was laughing so hard at
her irritation, even though I knew I shouldn’t be. She was so damn
uptight.

Shaking my head, I
wandered through the small house until I finally found the
thermostat. It was one of those old-fashioned dial types, and I had
to put my face right up to it to read the numbers. Good God, it was
62 degrees in here. Turning the dial, I cranked it past 70 and
heard a loud
boom
from somewhere in the back of the house. I immediately
smelled gas. “Fuck.”

The house, which was probably more
like a cabin, was one story. No upstairs, no basement. So where
would a freakin’ furnace be in this house? Garage? Negative, there
was no garage.

There was no way I’d sleep thinking we
were gonna die of carbon monoxide poisoning, or get blown up in
this old piece of shit house, so I went in search of the furnace. I
finally found it off the kitchen when I heard Rayanne call out.
“Duke? Did you hear that noise?”

Rolling my eyes, I barked out, “Yes,
I’m on it. Go back to bed.”

I heard her mumble a curse but
couldn’t make it out, nor did I care. The damn furnace had to be 30
years old. Plumes of dust were still billowing up from it. I got on
the floor and looked into the bottom. I used my hand to clear away
dust and cobwebs. Dammit, the pilot light was out. No wonder the
thing was banging and clanging. I pushed up off the floor and
decided I’d search the kitchen drawers for some matches.

A worn and faded box of long matches
caught my attention on top of the furnace and I smiled. At least
whoever had stayed here last had had a small bit of common sense.
Grabbing the box, I struck one against the side and watched as an
orange flame danced to life before my eyes. Its heat felt good
against my face and hand and I realized how truly cold it was in
here. I’d been in colder situations than this, though. Most people
don’t understand how fucking cold the Afghanistan desert can get at
night. Trying to stay awake while on patrol was hard, but falling
asleep wasn’t an option and the freezing cold sort of sobered you
up.

I lay on my belly and lit the pilot
light, right as a voice startled me.

“What are you doing,
Cowboy?”

I slithered away from the flame, blew
the match out, and stood up. I saw Rayanne standing there with her
arms folded across her chest.

“I thought I told you to go back to
bed.” Then my eyes went to her chest again. Dammit.

She looked slightly annoyed but held
my gaze with her infuriatingly pretty eyes. It was then I noticed
they had little yellow and green flecks in them.

“You did, but you’re not my father, so
what’s going on in here?”

I held up the still smoldering match.
“Lighting the pilot. Hopefully it’ll warm up in here.”

“
Well
I can’t sleep when it’s this cold.”

A million
perverted thoughts and comments went racing through my brain but I
clamped my teeth shut to avoid them expelling from my mouth. So
instead, I did something even stupider. I moved closer to her and
put my hand, which was warm from the flame, on her arm. She was
freezing.

“
Wow,
you are cold.”

Her eyes darted
down at my hand around her bicep, then up to mine, widening in
surprise.

For the first time
in a long time, I was rendered speechless. I swallowed hard and
pulled my hand away. “I’m gonna go try to find some more blankets
until it warms up in here,” I mumbled.

I left her
standing in the small, old kitchen. Making my way to the narrow
hallway, I found its one and only closet, so I opened it in search
of more blankets. I sighed in relief when I found plenty of them
folded neatly on the shelves. I pulled out four of them.

Turning around to
head back to her, I almost yelled when I saw her standing right
behind me. She had startled me so badly, I instantly became angry.
I don’t know why being scared makes me angry, but it just does, and
I’m still learning to control it. Impulse control, however, I
hadn’t mastered. I shoved two of the blankets in her arms and said,
“Here, take these and pile them on your bed until it warms up in
here.”

She looked like
she wanted to say something but I didn’t let her. I stormed into my
room and slammed the door with a huff. I then realized I’d left my
toothbrush and paste in the kitchen but I didn’t care. I wasn’t
going back out there.

I’d slept like absolute shit in that
tiny bed. Plus it never really warmed up. I’m a warm-blooded guy,
but unless I have a naked body next to me in a house this cold, I
really couldn’t create my own heat.

Checking my watch, I could see it was
6 a.m. I scrubbed a hand over my face and flipped the covers back.
I needed to check on the vic.

Yawning, I lightly knocked on her
door. I didn’t get a response, so I knocked louder. Still no
response. Seeing as the doorknob was still missing and lying on the
floor in front of the door, I crouched down in nothing but my
sweatpants and peered through the empty hole. Rayanne was lying in
bed, her back to the door, all the blankets piled on top of her.
Her blonde hair was over her face and I watched intently for
movement to make sure she was still breathing. I stared at her a
little too long, I realized, and turned to go back to my room. I
wanted to grab a shower before she woke up and hogged the fucking
bathroom.

The shower was hot and it
felt good. I soaped up my body and was annoyed at the damn hard-on
that wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t believe I was hard just by
watching her sleep. I kept fighting with myself, saying I didn’t
find her hot. She’s just the vic and I’m her protector for the next
ten… no, nine days.
Keep it
professional,
I told myself. Did my dick
listen? No, of course not. It stayed hard, imagining her in the
shower with me, soaping me up, her small, pale hands with those
pretty fingernails running up and down my body. From the tops of my
shoulders, down my biceps, wrists, to my hands, and then my abs.
Then she’d bend down to soap up my hard thighs, then calves, then
feet. She’d work her way back up until her hand wrapped around my
hard length and then she’d start soaping that up, too. Up and down
until it was really, really… clean.

Clean?

A knock on the door dragged me from my
lusty thoughts and I rinsed off quickly and shut the water off.
Without drying off completely, I wrapped the small towel around my
waist and slid the shower curtain back, opening the bathroom door
with as much thrust as I could.

Rayanne’s eyes were big, her mouth in
a small “O” that I wanted to fill up with something. My hands
instinctively went down to my crotch, protecting my not-so-secret
secret.

“What?” I asked.

“Uh…” she started.

I huffed and raked my fingers through
my wet black hair. “What do you want, Blondie?”

“I… I just needed to use the
bathroom,” she stammered.

I looked down at her hand to see some
sort of feminine product in it. She quickly hid it behind her back
but I had seen it. I suppressed a gag and looked into her eyes.
“Give me two minutes.” And then I closed the door.

Scrubbing my teeth quickly and
slapping on some aftershave, I hung the towel up over the bar and
slid my athletic shorts up. I didn’t bother collecting my
toothbrush and paste, I left them on the outdated countertop and
opened the door. Steam billowed out and I made my way past Rayanne
and into my room, closing the door behind me.

Feminine products… no wonder she’d
been so bitchy. That explains it. She’d barely said two words to me
on that tortuous twelve-hour drive from Florida to here. Thank God
for the radio because I was going insane. I hated road trips as it
was, but with silence, it was torture.

Don’t get me wrong, I hated it when
chicks babbled on and on. I had a girlfriend once who apparently
couldn’t handle the silence and would just jabber on and on about
stupid shit like her job and her family. I seriously wanted to
punch something every time she spoke. It didn’t help she had the
most annoying high-pitched voice ever.

Yeah, that was annoying, too. But
complete silence, and having the vic staring out the window the
whole time was almost just as bad. For fuck’s sake, just say
something.

Back in my room, I sat on the bed, my
head down, my hands cradling my face. I still had the thick hard-on
irritating me under my shorts but I ignored it. With a huff I got
up and put some clothes on. Plucking my phone from the table beside
my bed, I checked it to see I had no missed calls or texts. I
hadn’t expected much, but if they’d at least checked in on me, that
would have been nice. It was as if they didn’t give a shit at
all.

And they probably didn’t.

Chapter 10

Rayanne

I took care of business in the
bathroom, including a shower, and went into my room to get dressed.
I had only brought a small case with me with a few outfits and bare
essentials as far as toiletries and makeup go. Unfortunately, I did
not bring enough… feminine products.

After getting dressed, I wandered out
into the small house and found Duke cooking in the kitchen. It
smelled good and I stood in the doorway watching him. His jeans fit
his butt perfectly and that light gray T-shirt he wore hugged every
muscle in his back – which was huge. His arms were already
straining the sleeves of the shirt but his back was rippling as he
moved. It tapered down into a trim waist. He had a belt holding his
pants in place, and I grinned.

Without turning around, he grunted,
“If you want coffee, it’s in the pot.” He used his spatula to point
to the right.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you heard me
come in.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t. I
smelled you.”

Oh, crap.

“Uh, well, I just showered, so, I hope
it was a good smell,” I replied, trying to lighten the
mood.

He was always so damn grumpy. I
decided while I had been in the shower that I was going to make it
my mission to break through his hard shell. I don’t know why he was
so hardened and grouchy, but the more time I spent with him, the
more I really wanted to know why he was that way. I also noticed he
walked with a limp. It was slight, but I could see it, and I was
curious about that, too. I wonder if he got shot. He is in the FBI,
after all. I think.

Pouring myself some coffee into an old
ceramic mug I’d found in the cupboard, I planted myself in one of
the wooden chairs of the outdated dining room table set.

“So what are you cooking?” I
asked.

“Bacon and eggs. Not the most exciting
breakfast, but they only stocked the fridge with the bare
essentials, and honestly, I was surprised to see bacon in
there.”

“I see, well that sounds good. I’m
starved.”

He nodded and used the spatula to move
the food onto a plate. I got up to grab it but he walked toward me
and set it before me. Surprised by the nice gesture, I said,
“Thanks, Duke.”

“No problem,” he replied.

Sensing he was in a better mood than
he had been in the bathroom earlier, I decided to waste no time
asking him what I needed to ask. After swallowing a bite of eggs, I
said as he sat in front of me and shoved a fork into his eggs, “I
am going to need to find a store of some kind. I need a couple
things.”

He shoved the eggs in his mouth and
looked at me with those dark blue eyes. They were framed by long,
black eyelashes and I almost choked at the look he gave me. It was
a look I’ve never seen before, and I couldn’t quite figure it
out.

“What?” I asked.

He swallowed his food and I watched
his sexy Adam’s apple bob up and down.