Page 51 of Too Guarded to Love

“That’s not a line, baby. That’s the honest truth.”

The intensity in his words trapped her breath in her throat.

“Almost there.” He touched her arm. “Finish your thought before I ask you again in front of the cameras up ahead. What were you thinking when you dropped to your knees in front of me like a diosa del mar?”

“Goddess by the sea?” She squeezed her thighs together, but the pulsing desire incited by his compliment, which should have sounded cheesy, didn’t subside. Maybe it was his smooth-as-silk accent. Maybe it was his too-beautiful-for-words face. Or maybe he possessed his own sort of gift that made a girl forget every reason she shouldn’t drop to her knees and worship him like a god.

No, not a god.

A hero.

Gods weren’t real, and Captain Nic Romero was one-hundred-percent hot-blooded male.

She brushed off his touch. “Please stop doing that.”

“What? Complimenting you?”

“Yes. It’s distracting and I’m still annoyed you think I’m a problem.”

“You’re a hard problem.” He smirked as he glanced down. “In one sensitive area.”

“Oh.” She tried to keep her gaze straight ahead but failed.

“Eyes up here, baby, or I’ll pull over and show you how hard just sitting next to you makes me.”

She whipped her head up. “Cool it with the inappropriate compliments.”

“Not going to happen. Now answer me.”

“Fine. I thought what we did—what we would have done if I hadn’t been shot—could have been more than a secret. And the next time I saw you at Kane and Beth’s wedding, we could share a smile and only the two of us would know what it meant.”

She stared at his profile. The muscle that ticced in his jaw was the only indicator her words affected him. “I’d hoped that my choice to explore the dark stranger who let me lead would be a memory nobody could ruin by calling it impulsive or reckless.”

Nic stared down the tunnel. “Was it either of those?”

“Impulsive? No. Reckless?” She smirked as he glanced at her. “Well, I did wind up getting shot so…”

He whipped the steering wheel to the right. Cursing, she lurched to the side. He yanked her back with his steel as he stopped the cart. As she caught her breath, he gripped her chin with one hand and her waist with the other.

“I’m deeply sorry for that and promise you will not get hurt again, hear me?”

She blinked, mesmerized by the intensity of his apology and desperate plea in his vow.

His nostrils flared as his grip on her chin tightened. “And until Edgar says otherwise, you are under my protection. And you will listen to everything I tell you to do without question. Got it?”

She didn’t speak. Trapped by his touch, she could only shiver at every guttural word that sounded like a warrior’s vow to torch a village to keep her safe.

Slipping his steel fingers from her chin, he cupped her cheek. “Now that we understand each other, it’s time we followed through on your deal.”

Her body shuddered as she shook her head. “I took that deal off the table.”

“It’s back on the table, but with a stipulation. Whatever you were going to propose had better include finishing what you started at the beach.” He leaned so close the recirculated air barely had enough space to blow between them. “Consider that an order.”