Page 3 of Her Ruthless Protector

“Did you forget about the wind chimes?” Asher asked.

“Yep, that date was a fucking rollercoaster,” Cullen gave a half grin. “I told her where I’d made reservations, and she said that she was taking me to a vegan restaurant instead. Vegan, not vegetarian. Lots of tofu dishes.”

“I didn’t know Virginia Beach had a vegan restaurant,” Max said.

“It doesn’t. She started driving, with the top down and the wind chimes tinkling, toward Chesapeake.”

“I call bullshit. There’s no way you put up with that for forty miles,” Kane said.

Cullen chuckled. “You’d be right. The wind chimes came down as soon as we hit Interstate 264.”

“How’d she take that,” Asher asked.

“She looked over at me and said, ‘Strike one.’ Then she said, ‘You should really try harder to please me’.”

Max gave Kane a questioning look. Kane gave a subtle shake of his head.

Where were the damn photos? They had less than fifteen minutes to go.

“She didn’t actually say that,” Nick’s eyes were wide.

“Swear to God,” Cullen responded.

“What was strike two?” Zed asked with a laugh.

“Hey, you don’t know there was a strike two,” Cullen said defensively.

“Hell, even Nick knows there was a strike two. I’m betting it was when you were confronted with the menu,” Raiden grinned.

“I resent that. After that time where we had the two days of expired MREs, tofu and bean sprouts were heaven.”

“You know, I took a bullet smack dab in the middle of body armor during that raid. Ended up with a bruise that lasted for a fucking month. But it was the case of the runs I got from the expired chili that I remember the most.” Leo shook his head with a wry grin.

“So, how’d you get the second strike?” Zed asked again.

“Well, here’s the deal Zaragoza,” Cullen said, dragging out Zed’s last name. “I personally think the strike was Brittany’s fault. The fourth time that she was getting ready to send back her food for some piddly-ass reason, I told her to shut the fuck up and eat it already. For God’s sake it was already nothing but bunny food. There was nothing the chef could do to make it taste any better and she was being a spoiled little brat.”

Zed grinned. “Yep, your strike was totally her fault.”

“Told ya.” Cullen nodded.

“So, she told you that was your second strike, and you needed to be nicer?” Asher asked.

“Nope, she told me that was my second and third strike, and there was no hope for me.”

“Why the hell did she ever want to go out on a blind date with you to begin with? Did she tell you?” Kane asked. They only had twelve minutes left until they stopped. Needed to get to the bottom of things fast.

“She drove like a bat out of hell to drop my ass off at my house, and I asked her that very thing.”

“So?” Max asked.

“Apparently she’d been complaining to my sisters about the lack of good men and her continual bad experiences in the dating world. Baily had said I was a nice, smart, and honorable man, so she thought she’d take a chance.”

Cullen paused.

“I would have felt bad for her if she hadn’t continued. She said that I was a total troglodyte, and that she would be happy to explain what the word meant. She then went on to say, that any woman stupid enough to marry me would deserve the life of subjugation she ended up with. She again offered to explain what the word meant.”

Kane snorted. “And you said?”