Page 83 of Her Noble Protector

His eyes looked hard and determined as he looked down at her. “We know that. Did you pack a bag?”

She nodded.

“I’ll go get it.”

* * *

Raiden had felt one thousand times better when he left Lisa at the high-rise condo in downtown Virginia Beach the day before. It was on the twentieth floor and had top-notch security. And even better than that, it now had Ezio Stark inside. The men of Night Storm had arranged a schedule to guard Lisa until Maria was caught, and in the meantime, they had Raiden’s parents’ home set up so they could finally take down the bitch when she showed her face.

According to Aiden’s sources, Maria had used one of her aliases to get into the country two days ago but then disappeared in Chicago. As soon as Kane got that information, he started working with Clint and Lydia to track her down. But it was Aiden who came through again. Apparently, Rolando’s brother, who was not Maria’s father, had caught a private flight to Washington D.C. He also had friends with him on the flight, which had been the same day that Maria had done her disappearing act in Chicago. That definitely escalated the timeline.

Raiden was currently across the street from his parents’ home at the Beckers’ house, watching every person and car that came by. He was in his old friend Chuck’s childhood bedroom. It had been easy enough for Chuck to talk his parents into going to their lake house for a week when Raiden had explained things.

They didn’t have any kind of ETA as to when Maria or any of her goons would arrive, so nobody else but Raiden was physically watching the house. Kane had pulled in some friends, so the electronic surveillance was topnotch. Still, Raiden just knew Maria was going to try something, so he had to personally keep watch.

As he monitored the street he contemplated his one and only date with Lisa. She’d been funny at the restaurant. He’d been seeing that more and more as he’d had breakfast with her with his folks, but it had come shining through that night. When she’d told him that she’d gone to Mexico to try to track down any relatives on her father’s side of the family, he could hear the longing in her voice. It was clear that the idea of family was important to her. He hated the fact that she hadn’t been successful.

Raiden’s pulse started to beat faster as he thought about that kiss at his house. In his entire life, there had been nothing else like it. But that hadn’t been what rocked his world. It had been that moment in his lap when she admitted that was the first time she’d been kissed since she was sixteen. He’d been pretty sure, but having that confirmed was like a punch in the gut.

Lisa had been knocking him on his ass since she’d opened her eyes and looked up at him in that Mexican jungle. Moment after moment, he’d been sucked in deeper. He had no rational explanation for it, it just was. But when she confirmed that he’d given her her first kiss in eleven years, she blew his mind. Then there was the fact that she wasn’t scared.

Tentative?

Sure.

Hesitant?

Yep.

All kinds of turned on?

Absolutely.

Raiden had been kissing for a hell of a lot of years. In his entire life, he’d never had a better kiss.

He looked back across the street at his parents’ house. Goddammit, they needed to put a stop to this Maria bitch so he could get on down the road with Lisa. He had plans. One of those plans was convincing Lisa that he was the last man she would ever be kissing, in her life.

* * *

“What can I get you from the coffee shop?” Cami asked.

Lisa turned to Ezio who was sitting on the couch, one foot propped up on the coffee table, his laptop resting on his knees. “Cami wants to know what you want from Starbucks.”

“Coffee.”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “What kind of coffee? Latte, cappuccino, espresso, mac—”

“Coffee,” Ezio interrupted her. “Just black coffee.”

“Coffee for Ezio, caramel macchiato for me.”

“You got it. I should be there in ten minutes, depending on the line.”

“Sounds good.”

Lisa hung up and looked down at her own laptop. It was either that or pretend to read a book. Either way, she needed to do something to make herself look occupied in front of Raiden’s friends instead of freaked out. Of course, if she looked freaked out, they would probably think it was just about the whole Maria business, not the Akari business.

Honeymoon.