The Broken Protector Read Online Nicole Snow

Categories Genre: Alpha Male Tags Authors: Nicole Snow Advertisement

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I can’t see his eyes in the darkness.

But I wonder how I’d feel looking into his green eyes again, without the strangeness of Ulysses and Montero. They stare at me like I’m something they want to buy in a shop window.

That’s what makes me so uncomfortable, I realize.

Ulysses looks at me the same way I was admiring that desk in the shop.

His father, the same.

In their world, everything has its price.

But Lucas, he looks at me like he sees me—and I hope he likes what he sees.

There’s a wild magnetism in my blood, this urge to climb out of my car and walk over to his. This urge to tap on his window and see how his eyes ignite when he drawls, Well, well, Miss New York.

Shame I still feel the Arrendells eyeballing me, even if Lucas isn’t.

Something tells me it would be a bad, bad idea.

So, no, I don’t give in.

I don’t have the stomach for more trouble or awkwardness tonight.

I just start the engine and pull away.

When my eyes flick to the rearview mirror a second later, I gasp.

Just like the Jacobins, the Arrendells are gone.

Is everyone a human jump scare around here?

I’m not scared.

I’m not.

I’ve been fine on my own in this house so far. Sure, the silence makes me listen harder sometimes, waiting for the snap of a footstep on a twig or the sudden creak of a porch board.

But I have the fireflies for company, this constant lovely swarm of living string lights right outside my window.

The alarm system Lucas installed definitely helps, too.

As long as it’s not going off, I know I’m really alone—or at least Roger or anyone else won’t dare get too close.

But there’s something different in the air tonight.

I curl up on my air mattress for another lonely night in the house. I’m scrolling this local secondhand store’s website, smiling at a nice-looking bed that’s in my budget. If I order tonight, I could have it by tomorrow afternoon and spare myself a week-long backache.

There’s wind out there, whistling through the trees.

It tells me where the chinks in the weathered wood are, little gusts slipping in around the windows and the eaves to tickle the fine hairs along the backs of my arms.

Why does it feel like ghostly fingers walking over my skin?

I swear, it’s even messing with my internet connection.

I’m still using my phone’s mobile hotspot for my laptop. I guess the cell tower it’s using isn’t doing so well in speeding gusts that bend the trees like sad mourners.

But it holds on long enough for me to place my furniture order, plus a few other odds and ends.

I should shut it down and sleep, but I’m too restless.

I need a distraction, something to get my mind off Redhaven’s unease and weirdness.

I can’t help glancing out the window, trying to fight down that feeling of being watched—it has to be my imagination this time—and I sneak a hand into the little organizer basket next to my air mattress that’s filling in for a nightstand.

Underneath my Kindle is a long, slender unmarked box.

These things always are.

And if it wasn’t for butterfingers the other day, Lucas Graves never would’ve seen the secret it holds.

I thumb the box open and slip the little purple vibrator bullet into my palm. A plastic-wrapped duo of AAA batteries comes tumbling out after.

Convenient.

I’m already blushing as I pop the batteries in.

It’s the mundaneness of bringing this thing to life that makes it a little embarrassing, but it’s also memories of growing up.

I never had much privacy.

My foster parents always suspected me of horrible things and would come whipping into my bedroom in the middle of the night to catch me in the middle of—I never knew what they expected me to be doing.

Drugs? Prostitution? Summoning demons?

Who knows.

But it only took one instance of Foster Mom #4 catching me with my fingers inside my panties to make sure I never did that again.

Not until my college dorm and long nights when my roommates were out.

Nights when I started feeling like it was okay to explore, the desperation of hormones on fire when I was too nervous with boys.

Even back then I was secretive.

But I need this now.

I need this after a freaky, long-ass day and what’s shaping up to be a long night haunted by a green-eyed beast stuffed in a police uniform who knows my dirty little secret.

So I slide on my back, tracing the cool kiss of the bullet down across my stomach, teasing it against my pussy.

I close my eyes and touch.

Touch.

I think about him without actively trying.

My body jolts like lightning and I hiss through my teeth, lifting my hips off the bed.

Oh—oh, it’s strong, and I’m already so hot.

Teasing myself with sizzling circles around my clit, pleasure darting up my spine until my nipples peak.

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