Page 34 of Rescuing Nathaniel

“Give her here,” he said, stalking over to Rex and all but snatching Ava from his arms. Rex let him take her without argument, and Nathaniel would have sworn that the look on his face told him not to mess this up.

Mess what up exactly he wasn’t sure, didn't even want to know, but he did know he could protect her from the men hunting her. That was what he was good at.

“Than, you stay on Ava, the rest of us will take care of whoever is out there,” Rocco told him, and he didn't hesitate to shift into a position where they would be harder to spot, and he could better protect them.

“Is someone really out there?” Ava asked, her blue eyes wide in her pale face.

“Yes,” he answered, knowing that he and Rocco’s team couldn’t all be wrong. “But they won't get to you.” It was a vow he intended to keep no matter what he had to do.

“I’m scared, Nathaniel,” Ava admitted softly, her fingers curling into his shirt, clinging to him.

“I won't let them hurt you,” he promised.

“That only makes me more scared.”

“I'm good at my job, Ava.” While he might fail at most everything else, being a SEAL was the one thing he could do.

“Not what I meant.” Lifting one of her hands she cupped his cheek. “I meant I know that tone. It means you would put your life on the line for me, and while I know that’s your job, I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt.”

Oh.

Hell.

He didn't have a clue what to say to that.

Before he could figure it out, he heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching helo. Help was on the way, and he realized that the men following them had been tracking the helo. They were both coming from the same direction, and the trafficking ring had obviously spotted it and managed to get a team close to it, knowing it was likely here searching for him and Ava.

What they didn't know was that it was no longer just the two of them, they also had a six-man SEAL team to watch their backs.

“Get Ava to the exfil point, we’ll hold them off,” Rocco’s voice echoed in his ear, and he was eternally grateful that the team had brought an extra set of comms for him.

“Time to go home, Aves,” he told her as he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. One hand kept hold of hers while his other gripped his weapon in a death hold.

No sooner had they started running than someone fired at them, bullets whizzing through the air like a swarm of angry hornets, and he and Ava were the targets.

CHAPTER9

March 3rd

3:24 P.M.

They were being shot at.

For some reason, even after everything she had been through these last couple of weeks, that fact shocked Ava.

It shouldn’t.

She was well aware of that.

But it did.

Her entire life had become surreal. Like someone had snatched her up and transplanted her into the middle of a movie. Kidnapped by organ traffickers, escaping in a life raft, saved by a SEAL, running through the Mexican jungle hunted by the trafficking ring, being shot at. What about that didn't scream action movie?

Add in the sexy but vulnerable beneath his tough exterior warrior and this could so easily become a romance too.

Bad, Ava.

Not the time.

---