Page 1 of Chase’s Kind of Trouble (Obsessive Protectors #3)

ONE

Chase

Two Months Ago

It’s nearly eleven. The clock on the dash says she’ll be out in five. Always on time. My girl runs on a schedule like she’s on a SEAL Team mission.

It’s dangerous. Someone should warn her not to be so damned predictable.

But it sure as hell won’t be me. If I get close to the twenty-four year old waitress... I won’t stay in control. And I can’t lose control around her.

Celeste Ricci deserves better than me.

Right on cue, the back door of Kenneth’s Grill swings open. Like every night she works, the five-foot three brunette steps out, keys in one hand.

“Look, Tice, I gotta go,” I say into the speakerphone on the truck, “I’m working a case.”

“Night maneuvers, huh?”

“Yep. Like I said, gotta go. My primary’s about to move.”

“Copy. Call me tomorrow, I want to go over some information on that missing person case I’m working.”

“Sure,” I rasp absently and hit the button to end the call because I can’t concentrate on anything else when she’s in my sights.

The object of my observation waves at the busboy with a tired smile below her rain jacket hood, then heads for the parking lot. I track her movement, waiting for the moment when her feminine shape is outlined by the single bulb on the side of the building.

My pulse kicks. Hard.

There’s something broken inside me when it comes to this girl. Something raw. Dangerous, like old dynamite.

I want her so bad, it fucking hurts.

My grip tightens on the steering wheel of my new truck, leather creaking under my hands. Surprisingly, the wheel doesn’t have two divots in it, but if I keep this up it will.

She doesn’t know I’m here tonight. Has no idea I’ve been watching her for months. Will never know I paid off the parking ticket she got for staying over at the library on her day off.

Doesn’t know I slipped the shelter enough cash to keep the old man she feeds warm for the winter.

And the flowers I send every week to the café addressed to the staff…the ones with no signature, are for her. Just beautiful things to brighten her day.

Celeste deserves that.

She deserves everything. If I was a different man, I’d snatch her out of her life and deposit her in mine where she’d be treated like a queen.

My queen.

I scrub a hand over my face, raking the callouses down to my mouth. Jaw hinged open, a growl rumbles out into silence of my truck.

There’s so much I want to do for her. With her.

To her.

My body answers without permission. Thick, hot lust floods my veins like a swirl of gasoline and lava.

Fuck.

I might be thirty-six. I might have a roadmap of scars on my body and be saddled with enough ghosts to fill a semi truck, but I want her.

Even when nothing about this situation is logical.

She’s might as well be a star in the sky for how fucking far apart out world’s are.

But here I am…watching. Paralyzed. When all I can think about is how good it would feel, how right, having her beneath me.

On top of me. Too.

Bouncing those perky, ripe tits in my face while she whines my name and gushes all over my cock.

Don’t. Think. About. That. Idiot.

I shift in my seat, jaw tight as welded steel, and adjust myself, trying to ease the bite of my zipper. This is my life now. Fucked.

Been like this since the night she delivered my takeout to the register and checked me out. Since she smiled and called me sir like she didn’t even know she was handing me a loaded weapon.

Her taillights flash as she climbs into her sensible little Chevy sedan and rolls out of the lot. She drives slow. Always under the speed limit like she’s made of all the caution I was born without.

She’s delicate, beautiful, and soft. An angel on earth.

This obsession is fucking inconvenient.

But I can’t stop. In the pit of my gut, there’s a humming sixth sense. If I don’t watch and follow, and obsess, something bad is going to happen to this perfect creature.

This isn’t just lust, it’s much deeper and much more deadly.

I’m raked out of my desperate, disjointed thoughts when her brake lights flash unexpectedly. With a quick hit on the turn signal, the Chevy veers into the gas station at the corner.

The shitty one. No canopy. Just bare lightbulbs on a night with the rain hammering down in sheets.

I don’t think at all. Just flip into motion. Pulled by her magnetism, driven by chivalry.

Before she’s parked, I swing my truck into pumps on the opposite side from her car. Moving on auto-pilot, I kill the engine, shove my arms into my coat, and dive into the storm.

She hasn’t stepped out yet when I swipe my card and grab the nozzle.

Her door cracks open slowly. She peeks out, squinting through the downpour, an adorable scrunch to her nose.

I move in, taking control of the situation. With my coat hood low over my face, I gently tap on her door. “You can stay in there, ma’am. This one’s on the house.”

For a second, she just blinks, confused. The smile that follows nearly makes me swallow my tongue.

“Wow, thank you. I’ve had a long night, and you just made it so much better.”

“You’re welcome,” I croak with my head swimming.

Fuck. That smile, the way her luminous blue eyes dance. That sweet, unsuspecting sunrise is light in the middle of the darkness of my soul.

My spine lights up like someone just jammed a live wire into it.

I shut her door gently before I do something stupid.

Like crawl in there, kiss her until she’s drunk, drag her into the backseat, slake this raging hunger, and tell her every way I’m a scary bastard.

“Oh god,” I mutter as I ram the nozzle into her car a lot harder than I need to.

Jesus. I’m a fucking monster.Just tell her you’re worried about her. That your intuition is never wrong.

I pace while the pump ticks up slowly. Anyone who can see me probably thinks I’ve been snorting RedBull, pacing like a lunatic in an electrical storm.

I’m not worried about the lightning flashing through the sky, if anything is going to spark, it’s going to be a bolt of energy that shoots out of my vibrating body.

I turn my face up to the rain, curse myself. “Fucking tell her, Chase.”

My fingers find the business card in my front pocket. The card is black, rectangular, and sturdy. No name on the front—just a burner email.

On the back is my private cell number written in my own handwriting. For her. It’s the one no one gets except for my inner circle. The three former SEALs I trust most in the world.

I’ve held this card for weeks. Thought about passing it to her a hundred times…no, a thousand times. Maybe more.

Don’t do it, Chase. Don’t drag her into your hell. Don’t stain her with your killing hands.

I clench my jaw and shove the card deeper into my pocket. Rack the nozzle and head to her window with my throat stinging and my jaw locked tight.

Two taps on the glass and I back away, soaked now, aching, with my heart skewered.

I’m doing the right thing. Staying in the shadows. Protecting her from a distance.

But my fingers are still curled tight around that card. I almost gave it to her.

I’m slipping. Getting too close.

And when I break, I will fall, and a man like me knows the harsh truth…I’m taking her with me.