Valentin — Elle James

She needs protection. He wants to avoid attachment. The stakes just got personal. Valentin Vachon, a former Navy SEAL and commitment-phobic mercenary, is trained in extraction ops and thrives in high-stakes situations. After leaving the Navy, he joins Brotherhood Protectors in the Louisiana bayou, determined to avoid anything that remotely resembles a family. But his plans go awry when he's assigned to protect schoolteacher Ouida Mae Miz Mo Maudet.Miz Mo is facing protests and threats over her science curriculum, but when Valentin, undercover as a P.E. teacher, steps in to help, he's quickly challenged by her feisty personality, the growing danger and non-athletic eighth graders. As threats escalate, Valentin is forced to spend more time with the fiery teacher, battling both the attackers and his own attraction to her—pushing him closer to the one thing he's always avoided: commitment.In the bayou's chaos, their chemistry could be the one thing that saves them...