Page 52 of Mine to Protect

Between two fingers, I flipped the note and then stepped backward, stretching my arm out as far as it could go. Not sure why. Not like I could get away from it. I was on this guy’s radar whether I liked it or not.

Carefully, Chandler extracted the note from my fingers. “Anyone else touch it?”

“Yeah, the new creepy ranger, Sadie. She’s the one who found it and gave it to me. I’d just come out of my stupid meeting with John.” Cas’s glare burned into me. Instead of giving in, I kept my focus on Chandler.

“Give me a minute,” Chandler muttered more to himself than us before disappearing into his room.

The taut tension in the room elevated without Chandler as a buffer.

“Alta.” My name came out as a command, but a command to do what, I had no idea.

“I was going to tell you,” I whispered. “I just knew you would… you initially wanted me off this case due to the potential for me to be a target, I didn’t know how you would react when you found out I am one.”

“So keeping me in the dark, exposing you the entire fucking walk here without me being on alert—”

“Aren’t you always on alert?” I said with a smile. When I gathered the nerve to look at him, my heart cracked at the hurt and fear behind his brown eyes.

“Not when you’re around.” His agitation with the situation radiated off him. “Do you not trust me?”

“Of course I do. I trusted you more in the first few seconds we met than I have anyone else in the past ten years. But I just… I needed to process it, and then you showed up, and that amazing kiss.” I traced along the edge of my lips with my fingertips, remembering the slight burn of his rough scruff. “My not-so-bright idea of waiting to tell you had nothing to do with you.”

With a groan, he ran a scarred hand down his face and massaged his bearded jaw. “I don’t like it. If the profile is accurate, then why is this guy going after you? You’re not married to a fucking meathead, you’re not a mother, someone he could manipulate emotionally.”

“Well….” I shrugged and scrunched my freckled nose. “All he’d have to say is there’s a hurt animal, which he’d probably figure out since he likes to stalk his victims beforehand.”

“You’re. Not. Helping,” Cas growled. “It’s a good thing you’re suspended. No way could we let you go out on shifts alone with this crazy bastard following you.”

“Or….”

“Don’t even think about it.” Each word was emphasized with a loud stomp. Feet suctioned to the floor, I watched, wide-eyed, as he prowled closer. “No one would go for the idea of using you as bait. If he’s been watching you, then he knows we’re here and would plan around it.”

Toe-to-toe, I tilted my head, eyes lost in the dark depths of his as we stood silent. Emotions—lust, hate, anger, passion—swirled around us, offering a blurred window into Cas’s complicated soul.

“How do you do it?” he asked with awe lacing his tone.

“Do what?” I breathed. That close and all I wanted was him closer, touching, his skin against mine.

“Break me and make me whole again with a simple damn look. You see something no one else has ever cared to see.”

My heart shuddered at the utter honesty in his statement. “What do I see?”

“Me.”

Somehow his raw confession healed a jagged edge of my soul, cleansing the part that had been left unused for so long. Around us, the fire he’d built crackled, and Chandler’s muffled voice filtered through the shut bedroom door.

“What… what do you see in me?” I dared. It was a bold question, considering his choice of words had the potential to slay me where I stood or continue strengthening my resolve to let him into my life.

His head cocked to the side an inch, eyes scanning up and down my face. “I see an innocent, kind woman who has scars deeper than someone as young and perfect as she should have.”

Scars, also known as issues.

I tilted my head down, angling my eyes to the floor to keep from seeing the sympathy in his gaze, but two gentle fingers beneath my chin drew my eyes back up to his. “Your scars are what drew me in the most. We’re not too different, Lady. Both have pasts which have molded us into the people we are now. I’m fucked up in the head, or so they say,” he said with a tight smile. “But you, you’re perfectly broken in every way, making you the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

Wow. His words were like fresh air filling my lungs, strengthening my soul.

The balls of my feet pushed down onto the floor. Hesitantly, I leaned closer, putting our lips almost touching. “Others have tried to fix me, but you, you want me because of who my past changed me into, not despite it.”

“Ditto, Lady.”

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