Her Sinful Protector (Halo City Protectors #2)

1. Hadley

one

Hadley

H is hand lightly tugs at my hair, wrapping it around his wrist and securing me in place. The feeling of helplessness only intensifies my arousal.

“Hollander, please make love to me. I can’t wait any longer.”

“Not until you show me what that mouth can do, Baby Girl.” He tightens his grip on my hair, tipping my head back to meet his gaze as he unzips his pants. The hiss of his zipper makes my core throb harder.

I begin to salivate in anticipation of having his hard length in my mouth. “Please,” I beg, trying to lower my head to get a look at his shaft, which causes him to tip my head back farther.

“Not until I say so. Only Good Girls get rewarded, and you’re not being very good, are you, Baby Girl?” The way he says Baby Girl has my toes curling and my clit throbbing harder.

“Sorry.” I press my thighs together tighter, chasing an orgasm just out of reach.

“Now, that’s a Good Girl.” He loosens his grip on my hair, guiding my head toward his cock, but I still can’t make out the size or the shape, with my head at this angle.

Trusting him completely, I lick my lips, open my mouth, and look into his eyes, showing him how much I want him deep in my throat. I wait for him to command me to suck his cock like I am dying to do, but when he opens his mouth, no words come out, only the sound of a phone ringing.

A phone?

My sleep-addled brain can’t make sense of what is happening until the fourth ring, when my dream Hollander begins to vanish before my eyes.

“No.” I moan into my pillow, cursing my luck for being interrupted right in the middle of one of the best sex dreams I’ve had about my work partner, Hollander. There have been many since we started working together three months ago, but this one was the most intense.

Throwing the pillow across the room does nothing to ease the pulsing in my body—three more minutes, that’s all I needed. “Hello.” I grab my phone from the nightstand without bothering to check the caller ID. It’s the middle of the night, no one but Hollander calls me this late—or at all, actually.

“Sorry, Baby Girl, I didn’t mean to wake you up, but I need some intel on one of the houseguests staying with Senator Matthew Stinson.” His deep, sexy voice makes my body tingle in response.

“Sure, just give me a minute, Vanilla Thunder.” I mute the phone for a few seconds while I take a couple of deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth to calm my racing heart.

Hollander and I were thrown together for a pilot program at work three months ago. The owner of the Halo Protective Group, Vance London, and his right-hand woman, Evie March, decided they needed an expert hacker to gain access to information not available to the general public.

They hired me right after I graduated from college three months ago. I accepted the job on one condition—I would stay out of sight. I’m extremely introverted, preferring the company of my cat and computers to people. Which they readily agreed to, given my computer skills.

What I didn’t account for was my reaction to Hollander. I’m at his beck and call day and night for whatever information he might need while on the job guarding the rich and famous. He’s funny and sweet—the perfect guy.

I fell in love with him the first night we worked together. He called me in the middle of the night, not unlike tonight. Something was off with the retired general who he was in charge of guarding on the night shift.

Hollander gave me what information he had about the general, and I filled in the rest by hacking into an almost impenetrable system, foiling an assassination attempt on the general’s life. Earning us praise from Vance, which doesn’t come lightly.

Most nights aren’t that exciting, but they’re my favorite, just Hollander and me talking over the secure system about nothing important.

It feels like everything to me. I know his favorite color and food, and that we both love criminal dramas, which led him to call me Baby Girl and me to call him Vanilla Thunder.

I know it’s corny and stupid, but those stolen moments mean everything to me, even though I know it’s just something Hollander does to pass the time on the long, normally boring night shift.

Hollander has never seen my face, and until three weeks ago, I hadn’t seen his.

After all those nights working together, curiosity finally got the best of me, and I caved, searching every inch of the internet for everything I could find about Hollander.

With my hacking skills, I probably know more about Hollander than he knows about himself.

To say I was impressed by what I found would be an understatement. Hollander, a former Navy SEAL, served on the Titan X Team. The team’s missions were so dangerous that its members were known as the Suicide Squad.

If that wasn’t impressive enough, the few pictures I could find of him, with his light brown hair, deep green eyes, tall frame, and muscles that go on for days, only reinforce that he’s way out of my league.

I’m the shy, quiet girl who dresses like a librarian and would never get a second glance from someone like Hollander.

The only reason our professional relationship works is that I created the Baby Girl persona he’s come to know.

It was easy to come out of my shell around Hollander.

I would die if he ever knew the real me.

“Are you still there, Hads?” Hads, another nickname he gave me. I love it even more than when he calls me Baby Girl.

Unmuting the phone, I answer him, “Yeah, Holls, I’m still here,” using the other nickname I gave him.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I? You don’t have a guy there, do you?” His question catches me off guard, delaying my answer.

“No, no guy here unless you count Tom, my cat.” I glance at my cat just in time to see him roll his eyes at me. Okay, I’m not sure if cats can really roll their eyes, but if they could, that’s exactly what Tom just did.

“Good.” Hollander sighs into the phone, almost sounding relieved. “I really don’t need any information on the Senator—tonight’s my last shift before my next assignment.”

“Okay. Do you need any information about your next assignment?” I bite my lip, trying to think of another reason Hollander would want to talk to me.

“Actually, two of my best friends found the loves of their lives and are getting married next weekend. They visited me here in Halo City a couple of months ago, and their twin-sister fiancées fell in love with one of the Neo-Gothic cathedrals in town. Of course, Jack and Trace can never say no to their women.” He laughs his genuine laugh that I’ve come to love.

“They’re having their wedding reception at the Morrow Museum.

” I’m not sure why Hollander is telling me all this—he’s never gotten this personal about his friends, only about himself.

“I was wondering if you would do me the honor of being my date.”

“What?” I screech into the phone. There is no way I heard him correctly.

“I just thought that since we get along so well over the phone, it might be nice to meet in person outside of work.”

All the air feels like it’s being squeezed out of my lungs. I can’t meet Hollander in person. Once he sees I’m not the fun, sexy Baby Girl he thinks I am, I’ll lose that relationship with him—I can’t risk it.

“I’m sorry, Hollander, I can’t go out with you to the wedding or ever. I’ve got to go.” I hang up, not giving him a chance to respond, and bury myself under the blanket, refusing to look at Tom and his constant disapproving stares.

I knew whatever this was with Hollander had an expiration date. First thing in the morning, I’ll call Vance to ask to be reassigned. It’s better this way—make a clean break before my heart becomes too attached to a man who will never love the real me.

Who am I kidding? I’m already too attached to Hollander.