Page 23 of Too Guarded to Love (Project VIPER #3)

N ic reached into the charred vehicle and grabbed the screaming toddler from Tessa’s arms. Cradling him against his chest with one hand, he offered the other to Tessa.

Tears streamed down her face as she scrambled out.

Hudson followed and reached for his son.

Hot pain spread through Nic’s shoulder as he handed the baby over.

He ignored the blood seeping through his shirt and searched for Olivia as Chris and Linc helped Scarlett and Beth from the car. He spotted her behind the destroyed guard desk, barking instructions to a paramedic.

He was going to strangle her.

Nic jumped over the rubble and grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Let’s go.”

“No, I need to help.”

He scooped her in his arms, not caring if her brother or everyone in headquarters watched. “Don’t test me, baby.”

“I’m not your baby. I’m a doctor and Parker needs?—”

He pointed to Hudson. “That’s the surgeon who saved Chris’s life when he lost his arm in the middle of a burning battlefield. He can handle it.”

Nic ignored her protests and ushered her to an alcove by the stairwell. His body still trembled from adrenaline as he set her against the wall.

He blinked against the sharp haze ringing his vision as he took in the crimson stains on her shirt and hands. “What the hell were you thinking? I told you to stay put.”

For a split second too long back there, he’d thought about abandoning Scarlett and Beth, and Hudson and his family, to whisk Olivia away from danger.

“I’m a doctor, Nic.” She looked over his shoulder toward the paramedics working on the guards. “I wasn’t about to cower in a corner and let Parker bleed out.”

“I watched you almost get crushed to death.”

“I was doing my job.”

His vision blurred as VIPER’s garage mutated into a Middle Eastern village.

The concrete dematerialized to sand. Olivia’s features metamorphized into Rachel’s as the blood on her shirt spread to her stomach and collapsed into a gaping hole where her organs used to be.

Bile rocketed up his throat as he fought to separate the two women, the past from the present, and fear from anger.

He didn’t do so well with the last one. “I don’t care about your job. I care about keeping you safe.”

“ I care about my job. I may have been forced to abandon my patients in Atlanta, but I wasn’t about to ignore an injured person.” She wiped her reddened eyes with the back of her hand. “Don’t give me shit for helping?—”

He caught her wrist and pinned it above her head. “Don’t you give me shit about keeping you safe. Are you hurt?”

“I’m…” Her gaze landed on his chest. “You’re bleeding.

” She yanked her hand from his grip and shoved it up his T-shirt.

Blood dripped from his shoulder and down his torso.

Her fingers stilled on the source. “Why are there already stitches in the wound?” Her mouth dropped open.

“Did the sniper’s bullet tear through me and…

oh God. It hit you.” She pulled his shirt up. “Take this off so I can?— ”

He grasped her hand and held it against his chest. “I don’t care about me. Answer my question. Are. You. Hurt?”

“No.”

He wiped blood from her forehead and held his finger in front of her face. A crimson drop dripped from his steel finger.

She shook her head. “Not my blood.”

He wiped away more to reveal a shallow cut. “Lying again?”

She gripped his wrist. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. You’re bleeding.” Kane had counted on him to keep his sister safe, and she’d been hurt. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t listened to him. It hadn’t mattered that Rachel hadn’t listened either. He’d been responsible and he’d failed.

A mind comms alert stopped his spiraling thoughts.

“Level Black is in effect. Repeat Level Black is in effect. Report in immediately.”

The message repeated over the intercom.

Alarm flashed in Olivia’s eyes. “What’s Level Black?”

“A safety precaution.” He grabbed her hand, afraid she’d punch him if he tried to carry her again.

He wanted to hold her against his indestructible body.

Feel her heartbeat against his chest as proof she was alive and well.

Shelter her from guns and explosions, ex-boyfriends who didn’t believe in her, and even her brother, who treated her like a kid.

And he sure as fuck didn’t want to attend another funeral this week. “We need to go.”

“Wait.” She dug her heels into the concrete and turned to the paramedics attending to the guards.

Chancing a jab to his jaw, he lifted her up in his arms, careful not to jostle her shoulder any more than necessary. Her floral scent somehow defied the smoke, like her soft curves defied her nerves of steel that propelled her to the fire instead of running the other way.

All to help a stranger.

Fuck, that was his job. He ran into infernos and battles and everything in between to save lives or take them if those were his orders.

Sometimes he didn’t even know names or why he’d been tasked to rescue or eliminate, yet he did it without question.

But she wasn’t a super soldier. She wasn’t made of steel and wasn’t trained in battlefield situations.

But wasn’t she?

He’d never had a patient on the table who relied on him to make life-and-death decisions in a heartbeat. He imagined that one wrong cut, one wrong assessment, could kill someone.

Double fuck. He shouldn’t be finding more reasons to like and respect Olivia.

He should be running from her as if she were on fire.

A five-alarm blaze he could handle. Suffering the consequences of fucking his best friend’s sister, and worse, falling for her, had the potential to obliterate the existence he’d built since losing his arm and leg.

Still, despite every instinct that told him to hand her off to Gage, who rushed by, he breathed in her scent. Cursing himself for wishing he could infuse her essence into the technology in his body and release it on an as-needed basis, he focused on the incoming mind comms message.

“Stairwell is clear.”

Olivia wriggled in his hold. “You’re such a jerk. I just wanted to see if the unconscious guard was alert yet.”

Nic had spotted a paramedic kneeling next to the conscious guard a minute ago. “He is.”

“Good.” She slapped his arm as he stalked to the entrance to the stairwell. “I can walk, Nic.”

“I can walk faster. Super leg, remember. ”

“More like superego.” She gave up struggling and settled into his embrace. “I thought you were a charmer, not a monster.”

He held her closer and could swear his heart stuttered to match the rhythm of hers. “Apparently, I’m both when it comes to you.”

“What else are you? Because you did something back there I can’t explain, but I know what I saw.”

Olivia studied the hard set of Nic’s jaw as he raced up two flights of stairs while carrying her like she weighed less than Hudson’s son. He ignored her question, but recognition had flashed in his gaze. He knew exactly what “something” she’d asked about.

And what about the telepathic conversations?

The idea that the VIPER boys could communicate without speaking seemed preposterous, but was it?

Maybe she hadn’t imagined Nic reporting in to someone when she’d been shot at the beach.

After what she’d just witnessed, nothing was out of the realm of possibility in this alternate VIPER-verse. “Where are we going?”

“Someplace where you’re going to stay put until one of us gets you.”

The smell of smoke and sweat clung to his skin, but clean air circulated around them as he deposited her outside a door.

She glanced at the MedLab sign. “Is this where they’re taking the guards? I can help.”

“You get checked out first before you help anyone else.”

“But…”

He gripped her chin. “I lead here at headquarters, not the other way around. Until your brother takes over my watch, you’re my problem to deal with. Understand?”

Problem? She opened her mouth to tell him she’d had nothing but problems since meeting him, so he must be the problem . Instead, a cough harsh enough to rival a four-pack-a-day smoker came out.

Dammit, why wasn’t he coughing? He’d been closer to the goddamn fire. Instead, he’d walked away with a raspiness that only intensified his sexy factor. Too bad his jerky words ruined the effect.

He opened the door and nudged her inside.

Beth ran up to her. “There you are. Are you okay? How’s your shoulder?”

Olivia embraced her future sister-in-law.

The smell of burned rubber and smoke clung to them both, but Beth somehow still smelled like lilacs, just like the last time she’d hugged her.

“I’m fine. You?” Olivia didn’t have to ask how she’d gotten up to MedLab so quickly.

Kane and his super leg could run up the steps as fast as Nic had.

“I’m okay.” Beth stepped back but didn’t let go of Olivia’s hand. “Holy hell. That was one of the scariest moments of my life. Thank God we were in one of the tricked-out prototype cars that Scarlett and the other VIPER geniuses have been working on.”

“Did you say…” Olivia coughed again. A woman in scrubs offered her a cup of water. She took it and sucked it down, moaning as the cool liquid relieved her throat. “Did you say tricked-out prototype car?”

“Yeah.” Beth waved her hand. “I don’t know all the details, but Scarlett’s itching to look at the video footage and examine the wreckage.

If we’d been in a regular car, we would have been blown sky-high.

The car had some sort of sensor that detected the bomb when it was detonated and minimized the blast.” She dipped her head to Olivia’s.

“Scarlett is pissed that the locking mechanisms in the car and the garage sprinklers were somehow compromised, though. And she’s rambling about how the bomb got on the car in the first place.

Seems it was shot onto the roof from a distance and was small enough not to be detected. ”

Olivia nodded, certain she didn’t have the security clearance to hear that information.

She fought the urge to ask for more details as she followed Beth through a brightly lit reception area.

Photos she hadn’t noticed earlier of military tents and hospitals hung on the white walls.

They probably depicted volumes of interesting history, but she didn’t look twice.

Instead, she drank in the sight of Beth.

Seeing her in a sparkly purple crop sweatshirt and baggy faded jeans that showed off her petite curves, her dark curls piled in a messy bun as if she’d run out for coffee instead of just surviving an explosion, settled something in Olivia.

The VIPER-verse was weird and terrifying, but at least she wasn’t in it alone.

A door opened to the right. A slim blonde with subtle curves and several inches on Beth appeared in the doorway. The same smoke and burned rubber smell lingered as she pulled her long ponytail tighter and smiled. “Hi, I’m Scarlett.”

“I’m Olivia. It’s so great to finally meet you.”

“It’s great to meet you too. Patience asked me to find you. We could use your help to stabilize the wounded guards for transport to Level Black.”

“Sure, but what is Level Black? Nic just told me it’s a security measure, which sounds like a good plan right now, considering the garage exploded and then I watched him kind of…”

Point a finger at a burning car and make the door melt like he possessed some sort of elemental power .

She didn’t doubt that Nic possessed powers, but she imagined his to be of the orgasmic kind. He also possessed the power to piss her off with his “you’re my problem to deal with” comment. Once they got to this mysterious Level Black, she’d show him just how much of a problem she could be.