Page 2 of Too Guarded to Love (Project VIPER #3)

Damn, was it responding now. Her brother would kill her for allowing a pretty face to erase his years of “don’t be stupid” training. But Jonathan’s stunt at the airport left her feeling more vulnerable than standing in the rain with a larger-than-life man who ignored her question.

Thunder cracked above. The cacophony yanked her out of the stranger’s spell and into the cold present. “How did you get the driver’s plate? Were you watching me?”

The accusation sounded as ridiculous in her head as it did on her tongue.

Why would anyone be watching her tonight?

Or ever. She was Dr. Olivia Darren. Orthopedic surgeon.

Not someone like her brother’s fiancée, who was targeted last year because she held lifesaving, classified knowledge.

Still, she couldn’t chalk up the unexplainable occurrences at work to “shit happens.” The unexpected call from Harlee reinforced Olivia’s gut feeling that something weird was happening back in Atlanta.

“I wasn’t watching until you swerved into the parking meter.” The stranger darted his gaze down the street again. “But I think whoever tried to hit you was watching long before.”

“Holy shit.” If Gran were here, she’d tell her to stop cursing like a sailor. Her brother would swear to rip the driver apart while he made a call to a buddy to run the plate. But Olivia could only manage an obscenity. Her weird feeling meant something.

Someone had been watching her—at least in the last few minutes.

The hooded man angled his body between her and the wind. “I tried to chase him down. Sorry I couldn’t catch him.”

“You ran after a car? On foot?” She wasn’t sure if his actions were as ridiculous as her I’m-being-watched thoughts or if he was some sort of cloaked superhero who patrolled the neighborhood.

Based on his fresh bruises, he’d recently found trouble, and then some .

The damaged may-or-may-not-be vigilante shrugged his shoulders. “I was out for a run anyway.”

“In this weather? It’s after midnight.” The lamppost flickered again. A light sheen of perspiration shone on his skin, the only sign of exertion emanating from his body. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

She was, though, for a half dozen screwed-up reasons.

Dammit, she should have stuck to her original itinerary and driven to her brother’s house and met with Harlee tomorrow night.

The lectures she wanted to delay, from her twin and Gran, would have been preferable to a head-on collision in the rain.

Hell, she wouldn’t be surprised if her family already knew about her poor choices.

Word somehow always got back when her impulsive actions blew up in spectacular fashion.

The stranger assessed the damage to the front bumper. “Running in a storm after midnight is safer than driving in it, apparently. You’re lucky you didn’t get a one-way ticket to heaven.”

His brief smile and the way he raked his gaze over her body with quick assessment, yet somehow slow perusal, appeared anything but angelic.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, just…”

She was hurt. Her pride, her heart, and the life she’d carved out in Atlanta, where nobody cared about what she did with her time or who she spent it with, had all been taking blow after blow these past few weeks.

Somebody did care, and not in the well-meaning, albeit annoying way her family always knew about her business.

But she couldn’t explain that to a stranger.

Yet her gut said she didn’t have a reason to fear him.

The small Army logo on his rain jacket and pants, and the way he held himself erect and alert, like her brother when he morphed into protector mode, strongly hinted at honorable intentions.

At least her brother and Gran didn’t have cause to worry. She hadn’t told them about her visit—or the reason. Still, once they found out, the lectures about her choices tonight would commence.

The stranger eyed her sodden dress. “Let’s get you fixed and out of the rain.”

Fixed.

Dammit, why did this guy have to keep echoing the words she should have seen as red flags? Jonathan had said her focus needed to be fixed. Her career and life needed to be fixed, and he was the guy to do it, even after she’d made it clear she didn’t need to be repaired.

Or rescued.

She didn’t need a savior. At the airport, she’d verbally castrated Jonathan for not believing in her.

And she didn’t need this stranger’s help.

But if the outline of muscle visible under his formfitting raincoat and pants was any indication, he could pick up the rental with one hand and change the tire with the other.

Brute strength wasn’t the only thing exuding from every inch of his six-something frame. Dominance, not the physical, intimidating sort, but an inherent power that likely compelled people to snap to attention when he entered a room, rippled from him like sand in the wind.

She tipped her chin up. “I don’t need to be rescued.” She may have a history of impulsive decisions, but she’d never needed a man to save her from her actions, despite what her overbearing brother thought.

The stranger cocked his head. “Good, because my rescuing days are over , sirena .”

The sensual Hispanic accent coiled in a rope of heat deep down in her belly. “ Sirena? Did you just call me a mermaid?”

He shrugged. “You look like you just dragged yourself out of the ocean.”

Strained merriment laced his response, like he hadn’t laughed in a long time.

“I’m not a mer—” She dropped her gaze. Drenched material clung to her curves even though the rain had slowed.

Crap, she did look like a mermaid, and not the tempting kind.

She looked like a bedraggled sea hag, out of her element and too skittish to accept kindness from someone who hadn’t tried to harm her.

A horn blared in the distance. Electricity jolted the air between them. She peered left to right, the feeling of being watched pressing in. “I’m not some creature who chases fish in the ocean.”

Lightning flashed as the side of his mouth tilted up into a half smirk. “Then what do you chase?”

She jutted her chin in the air at the challenge in his voice. “I don’t chase. I lead.”

His lips thinned into a line as hard as the glint in his eyes.

“What did he do?” Thunder followed the rumbling question.

She blinked as the heavens roared above. “Who?”

“The asshole who didn’t let you lead.”