The Protector: The Complete C.I.A. Romance Series

by Lilian Monroe

  His grip on my neck was weakening, but I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

  The first man was coming back through the front door. He ripped his mask off and glanced around the room, aiming toward me. With his friend on top of me, there was no way he would fire.

  At least, I hoped he wouldn’t.

  He hesitated. “Knock him out, Jarek!”

  “I’m fucking trying,” the man on top of me said. I landed a punch to his ribs and put my other hand on his jaw, pushing it upwards as he tried to strangle me.

  Then, he moved too quickly for me. He reached to his hip and I didn’t see the blade at all until it was slicing a gash into my ribs. I bucked out of the way, screaming as a surge of energy rushed through me.

  This was life or death, and not just for me. These men were here for Cat. If I failed, she would be taken—or worse. I didn’t know what they wanted with her, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them take her. And I wasn’t going to die here while I failed to protect her.

  As blood gushed out of my side, soaking my shirt and dripping onto the floor, instinct kicked in. Years of training took over. I wrapped my legs around his as my hand gripped the wrist that held the knife. He inched it toward me, angling for my jugular.

  His breath smelled of rotting meat, and his eyes had a sickly yellow tinge to them. The knife inched closer as pain radiated through me. I squeezed my legs around his waist and tried to use his body as leverage against him, but the fight had taken a lot of energy already.

  “What do we have here,” the first man said, and I saw him moving around the kitchen cabinets. “Up, girl.”

  Cat stood up. I couldn’t see her face, because all my focus was on the killer on top of me. My vision was starting to blur at the edges. I shifted my grip to his face to try to push him away, but he bit down on my palm. I yelped in pain.

  “Bennett!” Cat screamed.

  “Shut up,” the man said. “Jarek, hurry the fuck up or I’ll have to shoot you both. You, come,” he said to Cat.

  She didn’t move.

  “I said come with me,” he spat. I was at a deadlock with Jarek. His jaundiced eyes and yellow teeth made him looked like some sort of crazed animal. He snarled at me and I pushed my fingers into his eyes. Then, my grip on his knife hand slipped and he sliced it toward me again.

  It nicked me in the jaw before I could stop him, and then I landed a punch to his face. He yelped, but he was more resilient than I expected. I still couldn’t get the fucker off me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the first man come closer to Cat. He growled something at her and she backed away. He raised his weapon toward her and she didn’t flinch.

  Every part of my body wanted to go to her. Every bit of me wanted to be there, to take a bullet for her, to protect her against the dirty, gun-wielding killer in front of her.

  But I was weak. The fight with Jarek was taking its toll, as were the cuts that were soaking us both in my blood. Jarek was weakening as well, but neither of us were ready to give up.

  The man took a step closer to Cat and I knew it was almost over. Within seconds, either I would overpower Jarek and make it to Cat, or else I would end up dying in a pool of my own blood.

  17

  Cat

  The man’s eyes were completely blank. He felt nothing. If I let him take me, I knew he wouldn’t just kill me. He would do unspeakable things to me. I didn’t recognize any of the three men that were here. Jarek sounded like an Eastern European name… could they be Polish? Could they be working with Kowalski?

  He licked his lips and chuckled, taking another step toward me. His thinning hair was plastered to his head, combed forward to give him a bad fringe. He let the gun hang down by his side and reached a gloved hand in my direction.

  I had less than a second to act. It was now or never. I could see Bennett struggling on the floor against the snarling, wild animal of a man that had attacked him. The other man lay slumped on the floor with glassy eyes staring back at me.

  Just as the man’s hand grabbed my forearm, I twisted by body away from him. Our pasta water, forgotten on the stove, came to a rolling boil as I grabbed the pot.

  With strength I didn’t know I had, I flung the water at the man’s face. His screams pierced my eardrums as his gun dropped to the ground. He brought his hands to his face as the skin turned bright read and started to blister.

  “You bitch!” He tried to grab me. My heart jumped in my chest and before I could stop myself, I brought the pot down on his head as hard as I could.

  He landed at my feet in a lump. I dropped the pot with a clang and picked up his gun. If I stopped to think, I would start hyperventilating. I backed away from him and ran toward Bennett as he flipped the man onto his back. He knocked a knife out of the man’s hand and brought his arm back.

  I squeezed my eyes shut when his fist connected with Jarek’s face with a sickening crunch. When I opened them again, Agent Bennett was standing up and walking toward me. He put his hands on my shoulders, his eyes piercing mine.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I panted. He strode to the kitchen and glanced at the man on the floor. He ripped open a cabinet and found some rope before dragging the man to the exit.

  “Get that for me,” he said, nodding towards the door. I ran to it, still holding the man’s gun. I watched as he rested the man up against the porch balustrade and knotted his hands behind his back.

  Bennett’s shirt was completely soaked in blood, and a trickle of it ran down his neck. His hair was all over the place and he was limping. His knuckles were already turning purple.

  “Bennett,” I said, stepping toward him.

  “Hold that door open,” he said, and then he went to the other man on the floor—Jarek, I’d heard the other man call him that. When he was tied against the balustrade as well, I collected their weapons. Each of them had a gun, and Jarek and the dead man had pocket knives. I laid the weapons on the kitchen counter as Bennett came back through the door. He was on the phone.

  “Three of them. How long? Okay. Yeah. I need to take the Senator out of here as a priority. We can’t stay.” He grunted, and then winced as he held his side. “Understood. Okay.”

  He hung up and I walked toward him. “Let me look at that,” I said, pushing him down onto a chair.

  “It’s just a scratch.”

  “Let me see,” I snapped. His eyes flashed, but he peeled his bloodstained shirt up. A three-inch gash was in his side and I grimaced. He winced as I wiped blood away from it. “Doesn’t look too deep,” I said. I tore my shirt off and bundled it over the wound. “Are you strong enough to hold that?”

  He nodded, holding the shirt to his side.

  “Let me get some water to clean you up. I saw a first aid kit in the bathroom.” I made to walk away, but he caught my hand and pulled me toward him. I fell onto his lap and he pulled my face to his with surprising strength.

  He crushed his lips against mine and kissed me more fiercely than I’d ever been kissed before. He growled, tangling his bloodstained fingers into my hair as his tongue drove into my mouth. A moan slipped through my lips as I wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss.

  “Bennett,” I gasped. “You’re hurt.”

  He answered with a kiss. It was animalistic, wild, primal. Our teeth crashed together and our lips missed each other, but it didn’t matter. I tasted his sweat and blood and saliva as everything between us ignited. I curled my fingers into his hair and pulled him closer as heat bloomed between my legs.

  He kissed me harder, and then he slung my legs on either side of his body and stood up.

  I gasped. “Bennett, you shouldn’t—”

  Again, he shut me up with a kiss, and then turned around and pressed me up against the wall. His whole body pushed into mine, his broad, muscular chest pinning me to the wall. I could feel his length against my stomach and I moaned again, squeezing my legs around his waist and grinding myself against him.

 
He winced.

  “Sorry.” I panted, kissing his lips, his chin, his neck.

  “Fuck it,” he said, tearing at my pants and driving his hand between my legs. “I’m fine.” The instant his fingers slipped underneath my panties, desire flooded my entire body. I dropped my feet to the ground and shimmied my pants down to my thighs as he fumbled with his belt.

  It only took an instant for him to turn me around and kick my legs apart. My face was pressed up against the wall as he pulled my hips toward him. He drove himself inside me with a powerful thrust. I cried out, calling his name. I pressed my face against the wall as he wrapped his arms around me. One hand gripped my breast while the other found my clit and he thrust again.

  He moaned, his breath hot against my neck. Pleasure exploded inside me with each pump. Every time he drove himself deeper inside me, I felt myself inching closer to the edge. His fingers twirled around my bud as his grunts got more insistent. More primal. More wild.

  He drove himself deeper inside me, his flesh slapping against mine as my moans mixed with his. With one more thrust, I went flying over the edge.

  Pleasure crashed into me in waves, and I gripped the wall to try to maintain some hold on reality. I could taste him and smell him and feel him everywhere. All the tension, the adrenaline, the stress—it all came out in that moment. I squeezed my eyes shut as my whole body contracted around him.

  He kept his fingers on my bud, teasing every bit of orgasm out of me as he bit my earlobe and finally emptied himself inside me.

  I gasped as I felt him come, pressing my body into his as we panted against each other.

  Then, he stumbled backwards and fell onto the floor, clutching his side. Blood seeped out of his wound as he laid there.

  “Fuck.” He groaned. His cock, still rock hard, was glistening against his stomach as he tried to sit up. I gasped, hopping as I pulled my pants up. I grabbed my shirt from the floor and pressing it to his side. I put my hand to his forehead and stared at him until his eyes opened again.

  He sighed, shaking his head. “You took your shirt off, and I just… I needed you.” He took a deep breath, his chest heaving with every word.

  “You idiot,” I said, trying to fight the smile off my face. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

  “There are worse ways to go.” He chuckled, and then closed his eyes and winced as he sat up to lean against the wall. “And it seemed like you were enjoying it, too.” His eyes opened to slits as a smile ghosted over his lips.

  I leaned over and pressed my lips to his. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” I said softly, and I stood up to find what I needed to tend to his wounds.

  18

  Chris

  I managed to pull my pants back up, and Cat found another shirt to wear by the time reinforcements arrived. The men outside had started stirring, and they were taken away in cuffs. A paramedic tended to me, and I tried my best to stay alert.

  In retrospect, using my last bit of energy to fuck the life out of Cat Crawford might not have been my brightest moment.

  But I didn’t regret it. Even as they wheeled me out of the cabin on a stretcher, a smile drifted over my lips. The sound of a commotion made me open my eyes.

  “Senator, with all due respect, you don’t need to go to the hospital with—”

  “I’m going, and that’s that,” she said, stomping toward me.

  “We need to ensure your safety.” Berk was jogging after her and she whipped around.

  “I wasn’t safe in your ’safe house’ now, was I? So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going to the hospital with Agent Bennett, and then I’ll be going home. I didn’t ask you to protect me, and I’m sick to death of it. I never had any enemies before the Secret Service started following me around, and frankly, I’m sick of all your meddling. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

  She appeared by my side and I grinned at her.

  “Stubborn woman.”

  “Quiet, you.”

  The paramedics loaded me up into the back of the ambulance and she followed, slipping her hand into mine as we started driving. I drifted in and out of consciousness, but every time I woke up, Cat was by my side. When we made it to the hospital, she stayed with me and spoke to the doctors and nurses on my behalf until I was settled on a bed in a private room.

  The doctors stitched me up pretty quickly but decided to keep me overnight for observation. They weren’t sure how much blood I’d lost and wanted to run some additional tests.

  I protested their decision until Cat walked into my room. She sat beside the bed and took my hand in hers while the doctor explained the tests that would be done. The nurse checked my IV bag and then they filed out of the room.

  Cat squeezed my hand. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, honestly,” I said. “I only needed four stitches. He hardly hurt me at all.”

  “Right.”

  “They won’t let me leave.”

  “Let’s just do what the doctors say,” she said. She squeezed my hand again and I took a deep breath.

  “Thanks for coming with me. I hate hospitals.”

  “Could have fooled me.” She smiled at me, and then wiped my hair off my forehead. She stroked my hair until I closed my eyes, sighing. I replayed the events at the cabin, just as I’d been doing all day, wondering where I went wrong.

  How had they found us? How had they known where we were? They were either tracking us, or there was a mole in our operation.

  I just couldn’t see anybody on our team being a traitor—they must have followed us to the cabin somehow. Did I miss a tail? I was sure that no one was behind us. I made sure of it.

  I shifted in the bed and Cat sighed.

  “Come on,” she said quietly. “Spit it out.”

  I opened my eyes to see her staring at me, eyebrows arched.

  “What?”

  “There’s something on your mind. You’re tossing and turning like a madman in that bed, frowning and grunting to yourself. Are you hurt, or are you just torturing yourself about what happened today?”

  How did she know? She could read me better than anyone else I knew. I took a deep breath.

  “I just don’t know how they found us. Your phone was off, wasn’t it? I watched you turn it off.”

  She nodded. “Phone was off, computer was…” her eyes widened. “My computer was just asleep—I don’t think it was completely turned off. Does that make a difference?”

  I sighed, bringing my hand to my forehead. “It can, depending on the tech someone would be using to find you.”

  “Why is someone trying to find me? I don’t understand. None of this started before you guys showed up in my life.”

  I glanced at her and took a deep breath.

  None of this started before you guys showed up in my life.

  The words hit me like a smack in the face. Dread started creeping into my heart. Had I been looking at this all wrong? I’d assumed that the senator could be in league with the same Russians that had corrupted Senator Blanchet. I’d assumed she was a threat, or at the very least, a target.

  What if she wasn’t the target at all?

  What if she was being used to sniff out our operation—the one that took down a cell in the Russian network in D.C.? What if I was the target?

  Cat frowned. “What? You have that look on your face again like you just saw a ghost.”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  I needed more time. I needed to check this lead out and to figure out what was going on. By virtue of trying to protect her, it was possible that I was putting Cat in danger. I could be the reason that her brother was in hospital, the reason she’d narrowly missed an abduction… what if all this was my fault?

  I glanced at her, my heart thumping. All this pain, all this fear… because of me.

  A nurse appeared in the room, smiling at the two of us. “Good afternoon, Chris. I’m here to check your vitals.” She put a Velcro band around my arm and clipped my index finger into the machine. Then, sh
e frowned at the screen.

  “Blood pressure is a bit higher than before. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just don’t want to be here.”

  The nurse glanced at me and then at Cat. “Visiting hours are almost over.” I could tell that she thought Cat was the reason I was stressed.

  If only she knew that Cat was the only reason I hadn’t walked out of here already. The reason I was stressed was that I’d just spent over a month lying to Cat about who I was and why I was by her side, only to slowly become more and more attracted to her. Then, I discovered that I might be the problem, not her.

  No, she was probably keeping my blood pressure down, if anything. Cat squeezed my hand.

  “I should probably go.”

  “No,” I said, a bit too loudly. The thought of spending a night in this hospital bed on my own, while Cat went back to her house without me there to protect her… I couldn’t bear it. “Stay,” I said, glancing at her.

  “I’m not sure I can, Bennett,” she said softly.

  I glanced at the nurse, who pursed her lips. She looked between the two of us and took a deep breath. “Just stay quiet and don’t get in the way when we need to work on him.”

  “Promise,” Cat said, nodding.

  The nurse pinched her lips tighter and then wheeled her equipment out of the room. Cat looked at me and ran her fingers through my hair, shaking her head.

  “What have I gotten myself into, Bennett?”

  “I was just wondering the same thing.”

  She let out a bitter chuckle and lifted herself up onto the bed beside me. She laid her head on my chest as I wrapped my good arm around her. She stroked her fingers back and forth across my chest and I let out a long sigh.

  Whatever was happening, she was in the middle of it now. I was supposed to find out where her loyalties were, and now there was no doubt in my mind.