Protector #4 (A Navy SEAL Military Romance) Read online

  “Nothing, I guess,” he said. “I thought I heard something outside the door.”

  “Thanks Captain Obvious,” I said with a wry grin.

  “That’s Admiral Obvious to you, missy,” he grinned.

  I groaned and fell back on the couch. I wasn’t sure if he’d actually heard something or not, but I trusted his instincts and wasn’t going to question them, even if he did tell really bad jokes.

  *****

  Brian sat down on the couch, grabbed the remote and looked for the local newscast. We watched in silence for a bit, but it had been a draining day, and it wasn’t long before I felt myself nodding off. I pushed myself up off the couch and went to brush my teeth before turning in for the night. Brian was glued to his phone as he frantically texted someone and didn’t notice me leave the room.

  “Ava!” he shouted just as I had put my toothbrush in my mouth.

  “Whgut?” I said through a mouth of toothpaste.

  “Ava!” his voice was frantic and I could hear him rushing around the room. I stepped toward the doorway just as he yanked back the door, slamming it into the wall, shouting, “Where have you been?”

  I bent over and spit into the sink then straightened up and said, “Right here, in the bathroom, brushing my teeth. Where did you think I’d gone?”

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled as he turned around. “I was just worried. Don’t do that!”

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Disappear on me!” he insisted.

  “But I didn’t disappear!” I argued. “You were on your phone and I simply got up and came into the bathroom! Chill out, sailor!”

  “Whatever,” he grumbled as he checked his phone again.

  I finished up in the bathroom and then went to find my pajamas. As I dug through my bag, I could hear Brian rapidly tapping the screen of his phone in the other room. I had no idea what he was doing, but I decided that maybe I didn’t want to know.

  “I’m going to bed now,” I called as I stuck my head out of the bedroom. “I’m sleepy and I want to rest, okay?”

  Brian grunted, but otherwise didn’t respond, so I walked out of the bedroom and around to the front of the couch.

  “Brian, I’m going to bed now,” I said. When he didn’t respond, I leaned down and touched his shoulder to let him know I was speaking. In an instant he shot up off the couch, grabbed my wrist, spun me around and had me in a choke hold with my arm behind my back. I screamed and he immediately dropped his hold and backed off.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled as my heart raced from the adrenaline that the scare had sent coursing through my veins. “It’s ME!”

  Brian hung his head and sheepishly looked at the floor as he mumbled, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “What is going on with you?” I asked, worried that there was something really wrong and wondering if it was safe for me to go to sleep if there was.

  “I just got caught up in texting and forgot where I was,” he grudgingly admitted.

  “That’s not okay!” I yelled. “You scared me to death!”

  “I’m sorry, Ava,” he said.

  “Brian, what is going on? You’ve been on edge ever since we got here, and you’re scaring me,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Ava,” he repeated. “I’m just worried.”

  “Yeah, well, get a grip,” I shot back. “You’re going to give me a heart attack and then you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

  He smiled a little, and then looked up at me with worried eyes. “I don’t know what this guy is planning, and I’m worried that I won’t be able to counter whatever he comes up with.”

  “Well, we’re safe for the night, aren’t we?” I asked.

  “Yeah, as far as I know,” he replied.

  “Then come to bed,” I said.

  “I can’t, I’m going to sleep out here tonight,” he said. “It’s better that way.”

  “No it’s not,” I whispered as I moved close to him and rested my palms on his chest. “I need you with me tonight. Please?”

  He looked at me for a long time before nodding slightly and leaning down to kiss my forehead. “Alright, but let me get the room secured.”

  I nodded and turned toward the bedroom, when I looked back I saw him moving around the room checking all of the windows, then the door lock and putting something over each of the entries to the room. He saw me and smiled as I shot him a questioning look.

  “It’s in case someone tries to break it,” he explained. “I’ll hear them and have time to counter the attack.”

  “Attack?” I asked. “You’re expecting an attack?”

  “Well, you know what I mean,” he said. Then dropped his voice and said, “I just want to keep you safe, Ava.”

  I motioned toward the bedroom and with a suggestive grin said, “Then come snuggle up next to me and shield me.”

  “Aye, aye!” he said as he returned the grin.

  It wasn’t long before Brian climbed into bed next to me and held out his arms. I moved into them and rested my cheek on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart and feeling safe and warm wrapped in his strong arms. We were both asleep in minutes.

  *****

  I was pulled out of a sound sleep by the sound of moaning and crying.

  At first I thought it was a dream, that I’d been pulled back into the nightmare of my relationship with Dominic and that the cries were mine and that I was fighting him off again, but soon I realized that it wasn’t me that was crying, it was Brian. I rolled over and found him restlessly tossing and turning as he called out in an unintelligible language. I reached over and shook him a little, but that seemed to increase the volume of his cries and he was now thrashing on the far side of the king sized bed; his feet and arms flailing as he began yelling. I still couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I knew better than to try and slide over and wake him up, so I called out, “Brian! Brian! It’s me, Ava! Wake up! You’re dreaming!”

  He continued moaning and thrashing and now it seemed to be getting worse. I yelled again and gently lobbed my pillow at him hoping that the impact would somehow jar him out of the dream state he was in. Instead he grabbed the pillow and began wrestling with it as if it were a person who was intent on doing him harm.

  “Brian!” I called with urgency in my voice. “Brian, wake up! It’s just a dream!”

  He thrashed harder now and began to yelled, “Get down, get down! No! No! Get down!” over and over again. I realized he was in the midst of a nightmare about something else, somewhere else, but I didn’t know how to bring him back to me. It wasn’t long before the yelling turned to screaming and his frantic attempts to escape whatever horror he was reliving caused him to fall off the bed and hit the floor with a loud thud. The screaming stopped and I rushed to the other side of the bed to find Brian laying tangled in the sheets with a dazed look on his face.

  “Ava?” he said in a small voice.

  “Yes, Brian, I’m here,” I replied as I tentatively reached out to stroke his head. I wasn’t sure how awake he was and I didn’t want to startle him, so I waited for him to give me another signal.

  “Ava? What…” he began before he looked up at me and then down at where he lay. He quickly sat up and pulled his knees to his chest wrapping his arms around them as he buried his face between his knees. Uncertain as to what he needed, I stroked his head softly and slowly as I felt him begin to shake.

  “Brian?” I whispered. “I’m here. What do you need?”

  He shook his head slowly as he continued to shake. It wasn’t long before he began to rock back and forth, as if he were trying to comfort himself. I heard the sound of sobs being choked back as he focused on breathing deeply and rocking. I left my hand on his head and waited silently.

  It took many, many minutes before he was calm enough to look up at me, but when he did, my heart broke. His face was contorted by pain and fear, and the only thing I could do was drop to my knees next to him and pull his head to my chest and
hold him tightly against my body. Brian wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my chest.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I whispered over and over. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

  Brian shook his head and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I’m not okay,” he murmured.

  “Yes, you are,” I replied.

  “No, Ava, I’m not okay!” he growled as he lifted his head and gave me a fierce look. “I’m so messed up, and I’m never going to be okay.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked bewildered by the sudden shift in the power dynamic as I realized that I was protecting him from something neither of us could see.

  “It’s so screwed up,” he muttered as he shook his head. “I’ve kept it under control all week, but the lack of sleep and the stress of trying to keep you safe…”

  “What? What did it do?” I pushed.

  “It triggered the nightmares,” he admitted with a deep sigh.

  “Nightmares?”

  “Yeah, from the war,” he replied. “Ava, they told me I have PTSD and that I’m going to probably live with it all my life. The memories aren’t going to go away, but in order to manage them I have to get enough rest, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and not get into situations where stress rules the roost.”

  “Then why are you doing this job?” I asked.

  “Because I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” he admitted with a wry grin. “I mean, really, what’s so hard about babysitting a college girl whose ex-boyfriend is a jerk?”

  I laughed a little as I heard him sum up what in any other world would have been a super easy security job, but I felt bad that my situation had caused him such pain and anguish.

  “Yeah, that sounds like a cakewalk…if it wasn’t me,” I replied with a grin. “I’m sorry, Brian.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said as he reached up and cupped my face. “It’s mine for not managing it better.”

  “Brian, what are we going to do?” I asked.

  “We need to call the police and tell them what’s going on,” he said seriously. “I can’t maintain protection on my own, Ava. Dominic is off the rails and we need help here.”

  “We can’t!” I cried. “You know that! You know I can’t get the police involved in this!”

  “Ava, it’s not safe,” he said. “Not for you, and now, not for me either.”

  I looked at him for a long while before I got up off the floor and looked down at him as I quietly replied, “Fine. If you need to back out and let my father hire someone else, then I understand.”

  Continued in Protector #5, the protector series. Click here to continue.

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams