Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes Book 1) (9 page)

We only had 4 bags. Duke grabbed all
four and then armed the car’s alarm, and with his eyes darting to
and fro, he made sure nobody was around. Before going into the
house, he made me wait outside while he checked inside. It didn’t
take him more than 30 seconds to come back outside to tell me it
was safe to come in.

I knew why he did it, but it did seem
a little extreme. I didn’t think anyone could have followed us or
had found our location so quickly, but I guessed anything was
possible.

Following him into the kitchen, I told
him I would put the food away. He grunted his thanks and left the
bags sitting on the dining room table. I watched him disappear
around the corner and laughed to myself, thinking he probably
didn’t want to actually have to see or touch my feminine
products.

With a snort of amusement, I put the
food away, and began to think up recipes in my head I could make
with the few items we had bought. Meat, milk, cheese, eggs, bread,
pasta, spaghetti sauce, tortillas, coffee, creamer, some frozen
breakfast items, portable drinks, and other quick packaged
snacks.

I opened a cupboard and was delighted
to find a rack of spices. Then my smile fell when I realized they
were probably 30 years old. I began pulling them out, checking the
expiration dates (did spices ever ‘expire’ anyway?) and was happy
to see quite a few of them weren’t expired or were barely past
their dates and deemed them safe. More creative recipes began to
form in my mind, glad I would have something to do to fill the
boredom besides read. As I was replacing the spices, the light from
the kitchen caught something shiny like glass in the back of the
cupboard. Looking to see if Duke was around, and satisfied he still
wasn’t, I stood on tiptoe and reached for it. My hand closed around
cold glass, and carefully pulling it out, I set it on the counter.
I gaped in shock to see a black label reading “Jim Beam. Original
Bourbon Whiskey” and then smiled at my find.

I turned the bottle around to read the
small date printed on the label: 1997. Wow, 19 year old whiskey –
score! He didn’t want me having wine, but at least if I needed a
shot to take the edge off, I’d have this.

Quickly replacing the bottle back into
the cupboard and putting the spices in front of it, I closed it and
made two sandwiches. I carefully placed a small bag of chips on
each plate and set them down at the table.

“Hey, Duke, I made sandwiches, are you
hungry?”

Chapter 11

Duke

When I heard her call me to lunch, I
grinned a little. Hell yeah, little woman making me a sandwich.
Every guy’s dream. Too bad she’s not doing it naked. Then the
fantasy would be complete.

Wait. I’m working. I’m the agent, and
she’s the vic. Not my little woman. I shook my head in disgust at
myself and went out to the kitchen. When I walked in, all I saw was
ass. A nice, round one in a pair of jeans, bending over at the
dining room table.

“Did you lose something?” I asked, my
arms folded over my chest.

She righted herself, cheeks turning
pink as she held up a small bag of chips. “Dropped this.” She sat
down at the table and pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”

I obeyed and my mouth watered at the
sight of the sandwich sitting on a glass plate. A bag of chips lay
near it, and a can of soda next to the plate.

I watched as she took a small bite of
her sandwich, which was cut in half. She bit into it like a priss,
then used a paper napkin to wipe away the nonexistent crumbs or
whatever.

Without wasting time, I took a huge
bite of mine and my eyes rolled back in my head. Best damn sandwich
ever.

“What’s in this?” I asked, my mouth
full.

When my eyes met hers, there was a
happiness and pride I could see there. She didn’t look smug, but
rather satisfied with herself. As if she enjoyed the compliment I
had inadvertently paid her.

“Turkey, cheese, mayo, mustard, and
baby spinach. I grilled the bread in some butter and salt in the
pan over the stove first, though.”

Nodding, I bit into the sandwich
again. “It is very good, you are a good cook.”

Did I just pay her another compliment?
I was seriously losing my hard edge. No way was this very
attractive yet infuriatingly annoying woman gonna do that to
me.

She was still smiling, and she held
eye contact with me as she shoveled a chip into her mouth. I
swallowed my bite without chewing it all the way at the look she
was giving me. Grabbing the soda, I popped the top and guzzled down
the sickeningly sweet fizzy liquid. Once my food went down, I
fought the urge to gag. Soda… no. Cancer in a can.

I got up, rummaged through the
cupboard, and found a cup. Filling it with tap water, I drank long
and deep to be sure the food went down – and to get that disgusting
sugary taste out of my mouth. Tap water wasn’t the best, but it was
better than soda.

Returning to the table, I sat down and
continued to eat. Rayanne, who was done with her lunch, watched me,
her eyes dancing in curiosity.

“Not a fan of pop?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s bad for
you.”

She chuckled, leaning back in her
chair. “And that dip you shove into your lip isn’t?”

My sandwich paused at my mouth, I
quickly countered, “Dip doesn’t make you soft and fat.”

“That’s what the gym is for,” she
replied, seeming to be proud of her quick retort. I decided not to
reply to that, but she kept talking. “That’s diet soda, by the way,
no calories or sugar.”

“But full of chemicals,” I
rebutted.

She laughed again. “Ah, the truth
comes out. Chemical nazi, are you?”

I wasn’t going to respond to that,
because she was right and I wasn’t going to give her the
satisfaction. I finished my sandwich, then tossed the crumbly paper
plate into the trash. I dumped the Diet Pepsi down the drain in the
sink. With a look of pride, I made eye contact with her as I tossed
the now-empty can into the trash.

I heard her laughing again as I left
the kitchen.

As much as she annoyed me, I knew she
was right. There was nothing on the damn TV and I’d already read
all the magazines I’d bought, cover to cover. I was so bored, I was
tempted to ask to borrow one of the paperback books she’d bought
earlier. I was never a huge fan of reading, and seeing as she’d
mostly picked up chick romance books and some vampire shit, I was
reluctant to ask. I then briefly wondered if I should look around
the house for something to fix. I suppose I could replace her
doorknob. If I could find some tools.

I looked at my watch and saw it was
about 10 p.m. Doorknob could wait, I guess. I went in search of
her, and I found her on her bed, her door wide open, reading a
book. She’d changed out of her jeans and was now in some sort of
white dress thing, her bare legs and feet so smooth looking. She
was lying on her stomach, her ankles crossed and in the air,
swinging back and forth as she read. She must have heard me
approach, because she turned her head toward the doorway and placed
the book, still open, face down on the bed.

Smiling, she said, “What’s up,
Cowboy?”

Trying not to smile at her, and
feeling my dick twitch behind my zipper at how sexy she looked, I
kept my face impassive. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.
I’m heading to bed. Get me if you hear or see anything
suspicious.”

She swiveled her body around, placing
her bare feet on the floor. She saluted me with her left hand,
which made me bite back a smile, and said, “Yes, sir.”

Coming to stand just inches from me in
the doorway, she whispered, “Goodnight.” Then the door was closed
in my face.

Once it was closed, I couldn’t help
but smile. Why did she have to be so damn cute?

Thankfully, I had slept soundly. But
upon waking, I checked my phone to see the time, and seeing it was
6 a.m., I pushed myself to get up and check on the vic.

Just like the day before, she was
lying in bed, the blankets piled on top of her. I smiled a little
at the paperback still clutched in her hand. I checked the front
door and all the windows once again to be sure they were secure.
Then I set my phone’s alarm for 8 a.m. and crawled back in bed. I
didn’t see any reason to be up this early.

As I was about to pull the covers back
over me, my phone lit up and vibrated. I looked at the screen to
see a text from Jack-N-Jill:

Still alive, big
guy?

I quickly typed back my
reply:
Yes. Thanks for waiting 2 days to
check on us, asshole.

I shouldn’t be so disrespectful, but
fuck… I couldn’t believe they’d waited this long to make
contact.

Another text quickly shot
back:
We tried several times to reach you
on the landline at the cabin and received no response.

What? What landline? We’d
been here the whole fucking time. Well, shit, except for our little
shopping trip. So I replied:
What
time?

The response was
immediate:
About noon
yesterday.

Oops. We’d been out. So I
apologized.
Sorry, we were out getting
essentials. Won’t happen again.

Another speedy response
read:
Copy.

And that was it. I lay back down and
drifted back into nothingness.

As my phone’s alarm screamed at me to
get up, I slammed my eyes open. As my senses hit me, the one coming
after sight was smell.

Is that bacon?

Bacon can always make me get out of
bed. Of course, I can eat bacon after I hit the bathroom and get
rid of this boner. Was there anything worse than morning wood when
you wake up in an empty bed? No, no there wasn’t.

Leaning over and trying to pee with a
hard-on was always a challenge, but of course I had mastered it.
Spend a year eating sand and MREs, surrounded by dudes and very few
attractive women (trust me, there were a couple, but I didn’t meet
their standards, apparently), and you could master the art of
pissing with rock-hard wood.

Pulling my shorts up and wandering
into the kitchen, I saw Rayanne shoveling eggs and something else
onto plates and putting them onto the old wood dining room table.
She had on that same white dress thing, which was probably a
nightgown, and nothing else.

Just when I had gotten rid of the
hard-on…

“Good morning, Duke,” she said with a
smirk, her eyes traveling the length of my body before settling
back on her chore.

She set the second plate onto the
table, and with a smart look on her pretty face, she gestured
toward the food. “Please eat.”

With a nod and the niggling urge to
get some nicotine in my system, I sat in the same chair as last
night and looked down at the plate. Bacon, eggs with cheese, and a
waffle that had been cooked in the toaster. I picked up my fork and
ate without a word.

Rayanne sat across from me, her fork
poking at the food on her identical clear plate. Even though the
table was oak, I could see from the corner of my eye, that her slim
and pale legs were crossed under the table as she ate the breakfast
she’d prepared for both of us.

I could also tell she wasn’t wearing a
bra, but there was no way I was going to let my eyes wander there
again. They’d gone there when I’d entered the kitchen a few minutes
ago, but being the gentleman I am, I had kept my gaze fixed on hers
without wandering down to her chest.

“Did you like breakfast?” she finally
asked, her light brown eyes boring into mine.

I nodded. “Yes, thanks. I would have
gotten this but obviously you got up first.”

Setting her fork down with a clink,
she replied, “I don’t mind doing the cooking. In fact, just let me
do it. I’m bored and need to keep busy.”

I nodded in understanding. That’s why
I had made breakfast yesterday. I had been used to keeping busy. I
wasn’t the best cook around, but I knew how to make bacon and eggs
and a few other things.