Protector #5 (A Navy SEAL Military Romance) Read Free

what they know,” he warned.
    “Oh my God, you are such a nervous nelly!” I laughed. “Get over
it, I need to work out and that’s what we’re doing.”
    Brian shot me an annoyed look as we walked to the elevator and
headed back to the room. I ignored his dark scowl and even whistled a little as
the elevator lifted us to our floor. Once in the room, I heard to the bedroom
and changed into my work out gear. It made me feel good to think about moving
my body since we’d been sitting around in rooms for almost a week now.
    “Ready?” I asked as I emerged from the bedroom. Brian was still
scowling as he nodded and then headed out the door to check the hallway.   I rolled my eyes dramatically as he checked
both sides of the hall and the motioned for me to follow him back to the
elevator.
    “This spy routine is getting old,” I said sarcastically.
    “Ava, if you can’t get on board with the protection plan, could
you at least have the courtesy to not make sarcastic remarks about it?” he asked.
There was something in the tone of his voice that made me stop and look at his
face. He didn’t look happy at all, but I wasn’t happy either. In fact, I was
pretty miserable at the moment. My whole life had been upended and he was
acting like it was an inconvenience for him ,
when he’d been hired to ensure that this exact thing didn’t happen. As I
thought about it more, I realized I was really angry.
    “You know what? I’m tired of being told what to do and how to do
it,” I asserted. “From now on, I’m running this show and you will do as I say.
Got it?”
    If looks could kill, I’d have been well on my way to the morgue,
but he nodded and backed off as I jabbed the elevator button repeatedly. I
didn’t care if he did have my best interests at heart, I was sick and tired of
people trying to control me. When the elevator finally arrived, I stalked into
it and crossed my arms over my chest. Brian entered the elevator and turned to
face the front. I shot dirty looks at the back of his head as we descended to
the ground floor. When we reached the bottom, Brian stood aside as the doors
slid open and held out his arm like I was royalty. I shot him a look as I
exited and marched toward the gym.
    I quickly located a treadmill and hung my towel over the bar
before stretching out. Brian positioned himself at the free weights and I
watched him in my peripheral vision as he stretched and began pumping iron. It
was hard for me not to be distracted by the sight of his bulging muscles, but I
fought the urge to turn and watch and began my own workout. I set the treadmill
to mimic a slow but steady hill climb and began jogging to warm up. I soon lost
myself in the rhythm of my feet pounding on the treadmill and let my mind
wander to the places where I hadn’t wanted to go.
    I thought about how far I’d come in the past year since leaving
Dominic, and I tried to puzzle out what would have caused him to want to start
stalking me after having left me alone for so long. Why was he so obsessed with me? What triggered the obsession? Why did
he want me back after all this time? None of it made any sense to me, but I
knew there had to be a reason. People didn’t just start stalking for no reason.
Did they?
    As I ran, I noticed someone climbing onto the treadmill next to
me, and I quickly looked over and nodded, and then did a double take. He looked
familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I quickly looked over to where Brian was
working out and saw that he was furiously tapping the screen of his phone as he
shook his head. He hadn’t seemed to notice the guy next to me, and if he had,
he wasn’t worried, so I relaxed and told myself that I was imagining things.
    I picked up my pace for the last few miles and tried to run a fast
time rather than slack off and get lost in my mind. It worked for a bit, but
soon I got the nagging feeling that I was being watched and when I looked over
at the neighbor treadmill, I saw that the guy who’d