Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

He was right. There was no defense against the truth. She ducked her head, feeling a little ashamed of her outrageous behavior the night before.

“But I’m at home. I’m safe. I won’t be going anywhere today. You should go home and do…whatever it is you do when you’re not following me around.”

Which immediately had her curious about how Off-Duty Tyler spent his days. Did he have a significant other?

She silently scoffed. Of course, he did.

He may be a little harsh and taciturn, but he was quite…beautiful. With those sharp, chiseled features, square jaw, and a wide, stern mouth, that featured a perfect bow-shaped top lip. He also boasted a strong, assertive nose, straight eyebrows, thick eyelashes with frosted tips…and silky golden-brown hair, short at the sides and long enough for only the smallest amount of wave to creep in at the top.

He was devastating.

Her eyes dropped to his collar, where the jagged edges of a tattoo crept up the left side of his neck. She often found herself wondering how big that tattoo was, where it ended, and what it looked like.

Vicki imagined his girlfriend as this perfect, feminine creature. Intelligent, witty, maybe a little kickass.

Or perhaps he had a suave, hot boyfriend, also witty and definitely kickass.

“I’ll leave after our debriefing.”

His words jerked her back to the present, and she sighed. She was not in the mood for this.

“At ease, soldier,” she said in her deepest voice, waving a slice of toast at him.

“I am at ease.”

“I meant sit down. Let’s do this thing, while I eat. Time to de my briefs.”

Shit. Had she really just said that? What did it even mean? Such a lame attempt at humor.

How much more awkward could she be?

Her face flamed and she felt distinctly uncool. “Uh…you know what I mean.”

He sighed—the sound was humiliatingly long-suffering—and slid into the bay seat next to her. Sure, she had invited him to do exactly that, but he was usually such a stickler for appearances, that she hadn’t really expected him to comply.

And just like that, she felt crowded and claustrophobic, even though there was, like, two feet of space between them.

“You disappeared last night.” His words were gruff with barely concealed anger, and her eyes widened. She couldn’t recall trying to give him the slip last night. In fact, she hadn’t done anything so childish since his very first month as her CPO. She mouthed off on occasion, but she understood that he had a job to do. And while she thought it was unnecessary, it was easier to just let him do his thing.

Maybe she had slid back into old habits last night while she’d been out of it. But she couldn’t imagine even attempting it.

“I did?”

“Before I went into that last pub, I told you to stay put, but when I returned a minute later you were gone.”

“But we weren’t gone. We were…” She frowned trying to create some order out of the collage of disorganized images she had in her head from last night. “Those guys. We were chatting with them.”

She glared at her plate as she recalled something else. “That little shit had his hands all over my bum.”

“I told you to stay put.” His voice was adamant and, yep, still pissed off. “And you didn’t. Worse, you had the Jägermeister and that’s what tipped you over the edge.”

“He told me it was water.”

He gave her a frankly disgusted look. “In a hip flask?”

“Okay, I clearly wasn’t able to use my best judgment but perhaps you shouldn’t have left two smashed women alone in the first place,” she responded, feeling a little miffed herself now. “You left us vulnerable to a bunch of dicks, one of whom took shocking liberties with my person.”

Way to sound like an outraged Regency maiden, Vicki.

Jeez.

“I know. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened. I made the wrong call. I should have kept you with me. Especially considering the state you were in. It was bad judgment on my part. And I’ll write it up.”

“Wait, you mean like…report yourself?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s a bit drastic, don’t you think? I mean we were both at fault. If you report it you’ll get into shit, then Miles will hear about it, which means that I’ll never hear the end of it. Why don’t we just keep it between ourselves? No harm, no foul, right?”

“You could have been hurt, kidnapped, murdered.”

“Whoa, slow your roll, Mr. Doom-and-Gloom. We were never in any danger. You were right there.”

“But what if I wasn’t?”

“Well, then I wouldn’t have…” She slammed her mouth shut, and his eyebrows went skyward.

He stared at her for an incredulous moment before pointing at her with that damned bossy finger. “Complete that sentence.”

She compressed her lips and shook her head.

Another pointed jab with his finger. “You wouldn’t have what?”

She huffed and glared at him, remaining mute.