Her Forbidden Hero Read Online Free PDF

which was worse: the raging hard-on he’d had half the night over the image of Alyssa bent over the hood of his car or the soul-stealing nightmares of the disaster that had left him less than a whole man. Both left his body aching. Both made it impossible to sleep worth a shit.
    Only one he could control. He needed to rein in his dick where his best friend’s little sister was concerned. What was that fantasy about anyway?
    Not letting himself answer his own question, he shoved out of bed and got himself ready for a run. Since he’d been well enough, physical training had been a key component of pulling his head together, and one of the only things that gave him a taste of his old life. Nothing cleared his mind like pounding out five miles, and the sun was shining brightly enough to just maybe have a shot at brightening his mood.
    Doubtful, especially with the heat of humiliation still flowing through him after tripping over words in front of Alyssa. Twice. He’d felt like such an idiot, sitting in his car unable to come up with the word pry , for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know whether to hope she hadn’t noticed or that she had and it would warn her away.
    Humidity hung in the morning air when he stepped outside. His thoughts were so tangled, he didn’t notice the passing scenery as he ran himself into the ground. Those damn nightmares were like a puzzle he could never solve, filled with blank spots and missing pieces—just like his memory. He knew enough to be certain an error in his judgment had brought an end to his career and three good men’s lives. Maybe his brain conjured the details, maybe it didn’t. Either way, the dreams always sent him screaming into bleary-eyed wakefulness and left him hung over with a sense of failure that felt like suffocation.
    His thoughts drifted to his team, the one he’d lived and fought with for four years. Good men—no, great men—every last one. Men in whose hands you could place your life and know they’d give their own to protect it. Men who made sacrifices of food and sleep and blood and family so others could have those things in spades. Men who defended liberty and battled oppression by any means necessary. He used to be one of those men.
    No more.
    Goddammit all to hell.
    As he passed the high school, the memory of his last visit there came to mind. Alyssa’s graduation. Man, he’d been proud of her. He’d given her a stuffed bear and a pair of small diamond earrings, and she’d acted like they were the greatest presents she’d ever received. That night, when Brady presented her with the used car he’d saved up for, she’d taken the bear with her for her inaugural drive. He wondered if she still had that bear. One thing was for certain—she still had the earrings, because she’d been wearing them at Whiskey’s the day before. That shouldn’t have pleased him as much as it did.
    Forty minutes later, he returned to the little house he’d been renting. Renting, not owned. Nothing in his life was permanent anymore; he’d made sure of it. Hands braced on his knees, he watched two droplets of sweat splash to the sidewalk.
    This yearning for what he could never be and never have was pointless. Not to mention pathetic. And that included Alyssa Scott. Not that he was thinking of acting on those midnight fantasies, but clearly his body couldn’t tell the difference between a woman he could have and one he had no business wanting.
    He stalked inside, the air-conditioning like ice against his sweaty, sun-heated skin, and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge that he drained in one long drink. The next order of business was a shower.
    The rough spray beat down on him for long minutes and eased some of the tension from his muscles, but not enough to keep him from thinking about Alyssa. If there was anyone who meant as much to him as his teammates, it was her. You just didn’t forget a lifetime of protecting and caring for someone, especially someone so sweet and