Protector #4 (A Navy SEAL Military Romance) (5 page)

“Who is it?” Brian called
through the door.

“Room service, sir,” came
the reply.

Brian cracked the door
and took a good look at the delivery person before he opened the door and
stepped out. Before he invited him in, Brian checked each of the plates by
lifting the cover and sniffing the food. I smiled as I realized what he was
doing and wondered what the delivery guy was thinking, but if the guy thought
it was weird, he gave no indication and simply nodded as Brian invited him in.
He rolled the cart over near the couch and handed the bill to Brian who signed
it and thanked him.

Moments later we were
digging into the feast as if we’d never eaten before.

We
ate in silence,
and I knew we were thinking about the same things. How to keep each other safe
from Dominic being the primary issue. I watched Brian digging into his burger
and wondered what he would look like sitting at my family’s table during the
holidays. Then, realizing how ridiculous that sounded, I shook my head and
returned to eating my own food.

“What?” Brian asked.

“Nothing,” I replied as I
took a huge bite of my sandwich so that I would have an excuse not to talk.

“Okay, just checking,” he
shrugged and popped a fry in his mouth then took a big gulp of the soda in
front of him. “This food isn’t half bad, is it?”

“
Mmmmph
,
rths
not,” I mumbled through the food.

“Personally I prefer foie
gras
with a good pinot,” he said casually. “Well,
when I could still drink pinot and not black out.”

“You what?” I said almost
choking on the fry I’d just bitten into.

“What? You thought I was
just a dumb muscle head?” he asked with a smile. “That I guzzled cheap beer and
didn’t know the difference between pinot and cabernet?”

“No, I just…”

“You just thought I
didn’t know about the finer things, did you?” he was serious now.

“I guess, if I’m honest,
I didn’t think you did,” I admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said.
“It’s a common mistake. No hard feelings.”

“I’m sorry, Brian,” I
said more quietly setting my sandwich down and leaning back on the couch.
Between the worrying and the teasing, I’d lost my appetite.

“Ava, don’t get mad,” he
said. “I’m sorry I baited you into that. It’s just that that letter really got
to me. I’m not stupid.”

“No one said you were,” I
replied.

“I know, but having a
rich educated guy say that I’m not smart enough to be with someone like you,
well…” he trailed off.

“I get it,” I said.

“Do you?”

“I mean, I don’t get it
get it, but I understand why it might be something that would dig at you,” I
replied.

Brian nodded as he
finished off his burger and then stared at my plate.

“Oh my God,” I laughed.
“Go ahead, finish mine. I’m done.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m positive. Eat
it!” I laughed harder when I saw the forlorn look on his face. “You are so
pathetic.”

Brian
happily polished off the rest of my sandwich and all of the fries that had
grown cold on my plate, then he searched the cart and found desert hiding on
the shelf under the main serving area.

“
Ooooh
,
look at this! Chocolate cake and cheesecake!” he announced as he pulled he
plates out and set them in front of me.

“None for me, I’m
stuffed,” I said as I held a hand up.

“Fine, then all the more
for me!” he cried as he dug in to the chocolate cake.

I watched him devour the
sweets and marveled at his appetite and his ability to find the good in even
the most stressful situation. He smiled as he polished off the cake and then
moved on to the cheesecake.

“How can you eat all of
that and not get sick?” I asked.

“Training, it’s all about
the training,” he said as he tucked another forkful in his mouth.

I shook my head and
laughed, but when I looked back over Brian had frozen with the fork halfway to
his mouth. He was listening intently so some sound that only he could hear and
all amusement had disappeared from his face. There was something happening, and
I was attuned enough to his way of monitoring things that I didn’t even ask. I
just waited for him to give me a signal.

Silently he set the fork
on the table before he got up and moved toward the door. He put his ear to the
door and listened as he held up a hand indicating that I should be silent, too.
I nodded and held my breath, and after what felt like forever, Brian dropped
his hand and came back to the table where he picked up his fork and finished
off the last bite of cheesecake.

“What was that?” I asked,
stunned that he could just flip the switch and go back to what he was doing
while I was still shaking.

“Nothing, I guess,” he
said. “I thought I heard something outside the door.”

“Thanks Captain Obvious,”
I said with a wry grin.

“That’s Admiral Obvious
to you, missy,” he grinned.

I groaned and fell back
on the couch. I wasn’t sure if he’d actually heard something or not, but I
trusted his instincts and wasn’t going to question them, even if he did tell
really bad jokes.

*****

Brian
sat down on the couch, grabbed the remote and looked for the local newscast. We
watched in silence for a bit, but it had been a draining day, and it wasn’t
long before I felt myself nodding off. I pushed myself up off the couch and
went to brush my teeth before turning in for the night. Brian was glued to his
phone as he frantically texted someone and didn’t notice me leave the room.

“Ava!” he shouted just as
I had put my toothbrush in my mouth.

“
Whgut
?”
I said through a mouth of toothpaste.

“Ava!” his voice was
frantic and I could hear him rushing around the room.
 
I stepped toward the doorway just as he
yanked back the door, slamming it into the wall, shouting, “Where have you
been?”

I bent over and spit into
the sink then straightened up and said, “Right here, in the bathroom, brushing
my teeth. Where did you think I’d gone?”

“I don’t know,” he
mumbled as he turned around. “I was just worried. Don’t do that!”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Disappear on me!” he
insisted.

“But I didn’t disappear!”
I argued. “You were on your phone and I simply got up and came into the
bathroom! Chill out, sailor!”

“Whatever,” he grumbled
as he checked his phone again.

I finished up in the
bathroom and then went to find my pajamas. As I dug through my bag, I could
hear Brian rapidly tapping the screen of his phone in the other room. I had no
idea what he was doing, but I decided that maybe I didn’t want to know.

“I’m going to bed now,” I
called as I stuck my head out of the bedroom. “I’m sleepy and I want to rest,
okay?”

Brian grunted, but
otherwise didn’t respond, so I walked out of the bedroom and around to the front
of the couch.

“Brian, I’m going to bed
now,” I said. When he didn’t respond, I leaned down and touched his shoulder to
let him know I was speaking. In an instant he shot up off the couch, grabbed my
wrist, spun me around and had me in a choke hold with my arm behind my back. I
screamed and he immediately dropped his hold and backed off.

“What are you doing?” I
yelled as my heart raced from the adrenaline that the scare had sent coursing
through my veins. “It’s ME!”

Brian hung his head and
sheepishly looked at the floor as he mumbled, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“What is going on with
you?” I asked, worried that there was something really wrong and wondering if
it was safe for me to go to sleep if there was.

“I just got caught up in
texting and forgot where I was,” he grudgingly admitted.

“That’s not okay!” I
yelled. “You scared me to death!”

“I’m sorry, Ava,” he
said.

“Brian, what is going on?
You’ve been on edge ever since we got here, and you’re scaring me,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Ava,” he
repeated. “I’m just worried.”

“Yeah, well, get a grip,”
I shot back. “You’re going to give me a heart attack and then you’ll have
nothing to worry about.”

He smiled a little, and
then looked up at me with worried eyes. “I don’t know what this guy is
planning, and I’m worried that I won’t be able to counter whatever he comes up
with.”

“Well, we’re safe for the
night, aren’t we?” I asked.

“Yeah, as far as I know,”
he replied.

“Then come to bed,” I
said.

“I can’t, I’m going to
sleep out here tonight,” he said. “It’s better that way.”

“No it’s not,” I
whispered as I moved close to him and rested my palms on his chest. “I need you
with me tonight. Please?”

He looked at me for a
long time before nodding slightly and leaning down to kiss my forehead.
“Alright, but let me get the room secured.”

I nodded and turned
toward the bedroom, when I looked back I saw him moving around the room
checking all of the windows, then the door lock and putting something over each
of the entries to the room. He saw me and smiled as I shot him a questioning
look.

“It’s in case someone
tries to break it,” he explained. “I’ll hear them and have time to counter the
attack.”

“Attack?” I asked.
“You’re expecting an attack?”

“Well, you know what I
mean,” he said. Then dropped his voice and said, “I just want to keep you safe,
Ava.”

I motioned toward the
bedroom and with a suggestive grin said, “Then come snuggle up next to me and
shield me.”

“Aye, aye!” he said as he
returned the grin.

It wasn’t long before
Brian climbed into bed next to me and held out his arms. I moved into them and
rested my cheek on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart and
feeling safe and warm wrapped in his strong arms. We were both asleep in
minutes.

*****

I
was pulled out of a sound sleep by the sound of moaning and crying.

At first I thought it was
a dream, that I’d been pulled back into the nightmare of my relationship with
Dominic and that the cries were mine and that I was fighting him off again, but
soon I realized that it wasn’t me that was crying, it was Brian. I rolled over
and found him restlessly tossing and turning as he called out in an
unintelligible language. I reached over and shook him a little, but that seemed
to increase the volume of his cries and he was now thrashing on the far side of
the king sized bed; his feet and arms flailing as he began yelling. I still
couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I knew better than to try and slide
over and wake him up, so I called out, “Brian! Brian! It’s me, Ava! Wake up!
You’re dreaming!”

He continued moaning and
thrashing and now it seemed to be getting worse. I yelled again and gently
lobbed my pillow at him hoping that the impact would somehow jar him out of the
dream state he was in. Instead he grabbed the pillow and began wrestling with
it as if it were a person who was intent on doing him harm.

“Brian!” I called with
urgency in my voice. “Brian, wake up! It’s just a dream!”

He thrashed harder now
and began to yelled, “Get down, get down! No! No! Get down!” over and over
again. I realized he was in the midst of a nightmare about something else,
somewhere else, but I didn’t know how to bring him back to me. It wasn’t long
before the yelling turned to screaming and his frantic attempts to escape
whatever horror he was reliving caused him to fall off the bed and hit the
floor with a loud thud. The screaming stopped and I rushed to the other side of
the bed to find Brian laying tangled in the sheets with a dazed look on his
face.

“Ava?” he said in a small
voice.

“Yes, Brian, I’m here,” I
replied as I tentatively reached out to stroke his head. I wasn’t sure how
awake he was and I didn’t want to startle him, so I waited for him to give me
another signal.

“Ava? What…” he began
before he looked up at me and then down at where he lay. He quickly sat up and
pulled his knees to his chest wrapping his arms around them as he buried his
face between his knees. Uncertain as to what he needed, I stroked his head
softly and slowly as I felt him begin to shake.

“Brian?” I whispered.
“I’m here. What do you need?”

He shook his head slowly
as he continued to shake. It wasn’t long before he began to rock back and
forth, as if he were trying to comfort himself. I heard the sound of sobs being
choked back as he focused on breathing deeply and rocking. I left my hand on his
head and waited silently.

It took many, many
minutes before he was calm enough to look up at me, but when he did,
my
heart broke. His face was contorted by pain and fear, and
the only thing I could do was drop to my knees next to him and pull his head to
my chest and hold him tightly against my body. Brian wrapped his arms around my
waist and buried his face in my chest.