Mine To Protect (Mine #6)(4)
Because FBI Special Agent Victor Monroe? He was not a man she should want. He was not a man she should be fantasizing about. He was not a guy who should be on her desire radar at all…
But he was.
And this is how twisted my life has become.
Every single day, she lived in fear. Would another of her father’s psycho enemies come after her? Would she get to be tortured by some other maniac because she had to keep paying for dear old dad’s sins?
“That was too close.” Victor’s voice was low, angry. A hard rumble that was oddly sexy. Right. Like I don’t think nearly everything about the guy is sexy. That was the reason she’d kissed him back at the bus station. She’d fantasized about his mouth for too long and when he’d pulled her close, Zoe had thought…
Oh, why the hell not?
Now she knew why not. Because that kiss had made her want him more. And in the madness of her current life, she didn’t have time to want anyone.
Not even her special agent.
Victor Monroe. Victor of the golden, tanned skin. Victor with the incredible blue gaze that she could never forget. Victor—dark and dangerous and with the FBI.
The hand that had been gently stroking her suddenly rose and his fingers curled around her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “This is why you can’t run. Your life is on the line.”
“I thought…you said it was safer…that people believed I was dead…”
“Yeah, well, that was the general idea. I was circulating the idea that you’d been killed, but turns out…someone at the FBI isn’t exactly on your side.”
Her breath heaved out. “An FBI agent sold me out?”
“I don’t know who, not yet, but my boss is working on that.”
She jerked away from him. “I have to get away from you.” She reached for the door handle.
But Victor caught her wrist and pulled her right back toward him. “You need to stay with me! I’m the one saving your ass!”
“No, you’re not.” She twisted her wrist, yanked hard, but the guy didn’t let go. “You’re the one who got me shot at! If you’d just left me in that bus stop, I would have gotten on the bus, driven away, and been all safe and sound. Instead, you played your kissing game—”
“Kissing game?”
“You dragged me out of that place and you got me shot at!”
Headlights appeared in the distance—only, not a very big distance away. The lights were already illuminating their SUV.
“Um…Victor…” She licked her dry lips. “Why did you stop here?”
“Because it was a secluded spot and I needed to make sure you were safe!”
Those lights were coming closer. “Is that some agent who is supposed to rendezvous with you? Please, tell me it is.”
“Fuck.” He jumped out of the vehicle.
Wait—why had he jumped out of the SUV? “Victor!” She lunged into the driver’s seat and shoved her head out of the side of the vehicle—he’d left the door open in his haste. “What are you doing?” Because that other car was coming close, too fast, and Victor was now crawling around under the SUV.
“Got it!” Then he was rolling from beneath the vehicle and—he tossed something away into the dark. “SOB tagged my ride, but he won’t be following us any longer.”
Someone had tagged them? She slumped as low down in the front seat as she could. “Tell me that’s not the shooter closing in on us.”
“You drive.” He’d run around the vehicle and leapt into the passenger side. “And I’ll keep him busy.”
“But—”
Glass shattered. The other driver had stopped. His lights weren’t moving, and since the guy wasn’t busy driving—he is shooting at us again! Zoe stayed slumped behind the steering wheel but she stretched out her leg and shoved the gas pedal down. They lurched forward and as they did—oh, sweet Jesus—Victor was half-way climbing out his window. He was firing his gun at the other vehicle.
She just kept a death-grip on the wheel and prayed that they’d both make it out of that shoot-out alive.
Each time he fired, it sounded like thunder, echoing through the vehicle.
“Don’t slow down!” Victor bellowed.
She wasn’t planning to slow down—and definitely not planning to stop.
“I got his tires. The bastard won’t be following us any time soon.” He slid back in the SUV, fully back in. “I’ll call my team and get them to pick him up ASAP.”
Right. Wonderful. Call in the team. She drove straight ahead, now on a narrow country road, and Zoe had no idea of where she was headed.
“I can’t risk going back with you to try and contain him,” Victor said. “I don’t know what kind of firepower that guy has in his ride, and I don’t want to put you at risk.”
Did he think she was going to argue? “Call in your team. Let them handle him.” The last thing she wanted was to have some kind of face-off with the guy back there.
So Victor yanked out his phone and talked to his team. She drove like a bat out of hell. Zoe kept glancing back in the rearview mirror. No other headlights appeared. The road was empty and she should have started to feel safe.
She didn’t. Zoe actually couldn’t remember the last time that she’d felt safe.