Page 39 of A Beta Protects

I glance out of the window. It’s a slightly gray overcast day that threatens rain. Not a good day for a walk, but it’ll have to do. “You’re going to need a sweater, Kira. We live in a beautiful part of the world, and today I want to show you it.”

She looks bewildered. “But you were just shot.”

“Even a shot man has the strength to take a beautiful woman out for a walk.”

13

KIRA

Ican’t keep my eyes off the man leading me into the forest.

“I can feel you watching me.” He lifts a low-hanging branch before I can walk into it.

He’s wrong about the watching. What I’m doing is nothing less than staring.

“I’m not sure I should have agreed to this.”

He stops immediately and looks down at me. “Because you’re afraid of me?”

I shake my head. “I saw that bloody T-shirt. You shrugged it off in front of Shawn, but you should be getting medical treatment, not showing me the beauty of this world.”

“I’m a Marine.” He keeps walking. “Bullets bounce off us.”

I grip his wrist.

Every muscle in him tightens.

I immediately snatch my hand away, heart lodged in my throat, and I back up, bumping into a tree. Bryce hated when I touched him without permission. A wife lets the husband take the lead. And here I am just… I gulp. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”

“Kira.” Dom’s voice is whisper quiet. I’d run away, but the intensity in his gaze cements me in place. “I’m going to tell you something important, and I want you to really listen to me. Can you do that?”

All that intensity means I should run, right?

I know intense.

Intensity comes with a threat and a gun gently placed on the nearest surface to remind me of my place. It’s a reminder of what will happen to me if I don’t behave.

Intensity is something I don’t want.

So why am I not running away from Dom?

“Kira?” he asks softly.

I force myself to breathe in, dispel the panic which must be the thing freezing my ability to run.

Dom gave me his bed. He had Shawn come over to help me, so Bryce couldn’t force me to return to him if I didn’t want to. And I don’t want to. Dom has never threatened me or scared me. He is not Bryce.

“Yeah?”

“If you ever want to say anything, touch anything, do anything, you are free to do it. I can be possessive of the people I care about, and that’s because I don’t want them to hurt. You never have anything to fear from me, Kira.”

“I know you won’t hurt me.”

Relief flits across his gaze so quickly, I nearly miss it. “Good.”

My eyes flick to his side. “I know Marines. Aaron fell down the stairs once and when I asked him how he was, he said?—”

One corner of his mouth lifts in a faint smile. “Outstanding?”

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