Page 21 of Savage Protector

Chapter Nine

Izzy

He carried me to the bed and set me down against a stack of pillows. “You need to eat. Good thing for us dinner was delivered right after I returned.”

I nodded. “I don’t have any clothes.”

He reached behind him and dug through his bag. “Here,” he handed me a grey T-shirt with USMC emblazoned across the front. “I’d be happy to keep you naked and in my bed tonight, but if there’s any hope for getting you fed before our next round, you need to cover up.” He wagged his brows at me while shoving his legs into a pair of green sweats.

I looked down a little shocked to discover I was naked from head to toe and not bothered by it. Where had self-consciousness disappeared to? Still, I took the shirt from him and swept it over my head, sighing at the soft, lived-in feel of worn cotton that smelled warm and fresh like my badass caressing my skin. It became even more delicious when I imagined the shirt hugging the sleek and sexy muscles of his chest.

Because of our height difference, it easily covered my butt and some of my thighs. I didn’t care if that made me look silly. Wearing his shirt felt sublime.

“I have to say I didn’t expect you to be a Marine.”

He paused from uncovering all of the food. “That sounds mysterious. What did you expect?”

“I thought for sure you were some kind of bad boy badass. The trouble kind. I mean you had the whole package going. Old leather jacket that looked worn enough to have seen lots of action, torn denim, cigarette dangling from your lips. You also said something about a bike. I had this whole fantasy going.” As he stared at me in silence I tugged nervously at the hem of the shirt even though I knew I was covered.

“Really?” he finally asked. “You don’t think Marines are badasses?”

“Well, yeah. If I think about you on the front line of some war with a big gun in your hands defending the country from some crazy, I definitely get a badass vibe. Just different. More hero less criminal.” I took the plate he offered and put it down on the bed in front of me.

“Beer okay or you want something else?” He held up one of the long necks I ordered and tipped it my way.

“Beer's good.” I took the offered bottle.

“I want to hear more about this badass you thought I was. Criminal huh? You got a thing for bad boys?”

He scooted onto the bed directly across from me and folded his legs across each other. I had no idea why his posture or seating position struck me, but I realized we were about to share our first meal and what should have been some weird after sex awkward date was completely comfortable.

“I don’t know. I have kind of a warped view of the world. I never seem to see things as they really are. I guess you could say I’ve lived a not so innocent sheltered life. So when I think badass it’s more like what I see on television. A little more criminal.” Or the kind of guys my father kept on his payroll. I might have been sheltered, but I certainly wasn’t blind. No man guarded his secrets like my father unless they were the kind that could get him in a lot of trouble.

“Sheltered, huh? You don’t fuck like you’ve been sheltered.”

I blushed hot and fast, almost choking at the vulgarity of his statement. Yet, the blunt language appealed to me in a way I couldn’t explain.

“I’ve never done—it—like that before. But I did say not too innocent.” I took a bite of my club sandwich to keep from saying anything else idiotic for at least the next thirty seconds or so. I also didn’t want to explain my limited sexual history to a man who I didn’t know very well. I wasn’t ready for that kind of embarrassment.

“Fuck too ugly a word for it? Cause in my world fucking is a very good thing. Hot like between the two of us, the best.” He tipped his beer back and took several swallows while I watched his throat work. I bit my lip.

“Your world? You mean the Marines?”

He leaned his beer on his leg and started rubbing the edge of the label. “No, babe. Me and the Marines… We broke up. Got injured on my last assignment and they decided I wasn’t fit for duty anymore.” He pulled up the leg of his sweats up to his knee and showed me several scars I hadn’t notice in the shower. They weren’t old and faded yet, so I guessed this injury wasn’t that long ago.

“I don’t understand. Your knee didn’t seem to bother you on the roof or in the shower.” I blushed again from thinking about it.

“The Marine Corps has rigid standards for physical fitness that I can’t meet one hundred percent of the time. That means I’m out even if I am capable of just about anything. Almost one hundred percent isn’t good enough.”

I nodded, not exactly understanding the justification on the behalf of the Marines. How could they release a near perfect specimen? I hadn’t even seen him limp and he’d carried me on the roof just fine.

But I suppose if events were different and he was still a Marine, we would have never met.

Or if I’d gotten married to the disgusting criminal my father handed me over to.

“So what do you do now?”

His eyes narrowed a little, some of the light leaving them. He took another tug on the beer. “Don’t know yet. Just got home...” He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Yesterday.”

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