Baby Protector Bear: BBW Bear Shifter Baby Paranormal Romance (Who's the Daddy? Book 4) by Harmony Raines Page A

the heat of the blankets covering her, and the nearness of his body. “How do you know?” Her ears strained against the silence and heard nothing, making her wonder if he was making the whole thing up.
    “I heard the front door being unlocked.” Backing away from her so she could sit up.
    “Unlocked,” she hissed. “How can someone have a key?”
    “You tell me?”
    “You think this is to do with me?” she asked, pushing him away.
    “No.” She saw him shake his head in the dim light. “But this is an inside job. So did you tell anyone we were coming here?”
    “No one.” Chrissie still hadn’t heard any noise, other than a car driving along the street outside. “It might be your imagination. And if it isn’t, they’ll trigger the alarm and backup will get here. We can keep Sam safe.”
    He shook his head again. “Can’t you hear that? The alarm code is being entered.”
    “What!” She listened, but only the sound of her own heartbeat, mingled with his, sounded in her ears. He was so close, his breath caressed her skin, and she would only have to reach out, and turn his head a little for his lips to be next to hers.
    If only that was why he had come to her room. Instead, her heart clenched in her chest as she heard the unmistakable sound of the front door opening, and someone stepping inside.
    “What do we do?” she asked.
    “Stay here,” he said. “Be ready in case we need to run. But don’t wake Sam. It would be helpful if he didn’t cry, so I can hear better.”
    “Please be careful, you don’t know if whoever is down there has a gun.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Come back to me, Joel.”
    “I will.” Then he did something spontaneous: he turned his head, his eyes fixed on hers, before they dipped to look at her lips, and he bent forward and kissed her. So soft, so brief, and then he was gone.
    Like a ghost, he slipped out of the bedroom, and she heard only a faint creak as his foot touched the first stair tread. She waited, hardly breathing as she listened for any clue as to what might unfold. Then it came, the sound of an electrical charge. A Taser.
    “Shit,” she muttered, and was out of bed, dragging on her hoodie as she went to the bedroom door and looked out. She couldn’t just stand by and let Joel have his throat slit while he was lying prone on the ground.
    Only he wasn’t prone on the ground. At the bottom of the stairs, a fight was breaking out, a shadow fight, between two men. She pulled back, her brain trying to make sense of what was happening. How could they possibly have been found? And what was she going to do about the situation?
    She looked again, assessing the fight between the two men. One the unmistakable size of Joel, the other smaller, weaker, had a Taser in his hand, aiming it at Joel. She rushed down the stairs, trying to keep on her feet, and flew at the smaller man; only Joel had already knocked the weapon out of his hand.
    Then he knocked two teeth out of his mouth for good measure.
    Her forward momentum meant she couldn’t stop, and she slid down the last two stairs, to be caught in Joel’s arms as he scooped her up.
    “Are you OK?” he asked, holding her against his chest.
    “Am I OK? What about you? He Tasered you. I heard it.”
    “It was nothing. I’ve been hit by one of those before, it will take more than a shock like that to bring me down.”
    “Are you sure?” she asked. He nodded, and then she wriggled in his arms. “You can put me down now.”
    “Sure. Sorry,” he said setting her feet on the ground, but his hands lingered on her waist, as though he was afraid of letting her go.
    “Don’t apologize. I’m glad you’re here, and I’m glad you’re built like a tank.”
    He chuckled. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
    “You should.” She took a step closer and leaned over the guy who was knocked out on the floor; then she looked at the front door. “He had a key?”
    “Looks that way. And the alarm code.”