Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc 7)

Warrior Wolf

Leader Lion

Soldier Snow Leopard

Top Gun Tiger

Protection, Inc. Collection 1

Protection, Inc. Collection 2

… and many more!

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(Protection, Inc. # 1)

Ellie McNeil was not having the best night of her life.

It was 3:49 AM, and she felt every second of the sleep she hadn’t gotten. Her eyes burned, her feet hurt, her head throbbed, and her muscles ached with weariness.

Remind me why I volunteered for the overnight shift, again? Ellie asked herself. Oh, right. Because I really, really need the money.

And also, she had to admit, because sometimes there was nothing more exciting than being the paramedic on call in the middle of the night.

This wasn’t one of those times.

Ellie and her partner, Catalina Mendez, had taken call after call since their shift had begun at midnight, speeding out in the ambulance with sirens screaming. And not a single call had been for an actual emergency. In between calls, Ellie and Catalina debated over which was more ridiculous, the drunken frat boy who thought his sleeping roommate was dead because he’d stopped snoring or the elderly man who thought he had a fever because he’d forgotten to turn off his electric blanket.

As the ambulance sped through increasingly sketchy neighborhoods, Ellie decided that it wouldn’t hurt to close her eyes. Just for a second…

Catalina brought the ambulance to a stop with a screech of brakes, nearly flinging Ellie into the dashboard.

“Wakey, wakey!” Catalina sang out, her voice bright with sadistic cheer. She was a night owl by nature, and volunteered for overnight shifts because she actually preferred them.

“I was not asleep,” Ellie retorted. “I was just… resting my eyes.”

“That’s what sleep is,” Catalina pointed out. “Up and at ’em, Ellie. Just two more hours till we can go home and cuddle up with... Uh, cuddle up.”

Ellie repressed a sigh as she grabbed her medical bag. At 6:00 AM, Catalina got to go home and cuddle up with her cats. Ellie had nothing to cuddle with but her pillow.

One year, eight months, and two weeks since I last had sex, Ellie thought glumly. Not that she was counting.

It could easily be another year— or two, or five, or ten— till she found a man willing to put up with a woman who spent half her nights saving lives away from home. Catalina made do with short-term flings, but Ellie didn’t want to settle for anything less than a committed relationship. Which meant that she’d settled on nothing at all.

When Ellie scrambled out of the ambulance, the icy night air chilled her lungs and face, shocking her to full awareness. She forgot about her weariness and lack of romantic prospects, and focused on her job.

“Review call,” she said automatically.

Equally automatically, Catalina recited, “Male, age eighteen, awoke disoriented and combative. Call placed by mother.”

“Bet you a pizza he snuck out and partied too hard,” Ellie suggested.

Catalina elbowed her in the ribs. “I’m not taking your sucker bets.”

The apartment building faced an alley too narrow for the ambulance to park in. They left the ambulance parked on the wider street that the alley intersected, and walked down the dark, garbage-strewn alley toward the apartment belonging to the disoriented, combative male and his mom.