“It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to know. With Chase’s connections, he was able to keep Kyle’s name from being released to the press.” His hand covered hers, and when she looked at him, several different emotions flashed in his eyes and it was hard to tell what they all were. Relief? Solace? Uncertainty? Lust? Well, that last one wasn’t hard to figure out. She’d seen it many times before.
Chet felt a stirring in her core. Damn, she’d missed him.
His thumb brushed over her knuckles as he sighed. He seemed to be weighing his words before he spoke. “I brought you here tonight to tell you we should go back to being just friends.”
Her stomach and face fell, but when she tried to pull her hand away, he tightened his grip, holding her there. “Let me finish.” When she relaxed a little, he continued. “That’s what I should tell you . . . but I can’t.” Shaking his head, he bit his bottom lip before releasing it. “I fucked up, Chet. I let my grief consume me. I pushed you away and left you unguarded. I was trying to drown myself in alcohol because it hurt too much to repeatedly relive what happened in my head. And in the process, I was trying to convince myself the worst thing I could do was fall in love with you, because you deserve so much better than me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Chet’s jaw dropped. This was so not going the way Tuff had planned. When he’d arrived home with the fixings for a picnic, he’d had every intention of telling her that their friends with benefits relationship was best brought down to a hands-off one. He’d figured at the relaxing beach, they’d be able to talk for a while, and she’d realize he did still want to remain friends with her and he wasn’t trying to blow her off. But the moment he’d seen her standing on her back porch, he felt a slight chink in his resolve. Then she’d smiled at him, and his gut had twisted. The ride over hadn’t helped at all because her nearness and her subtle perfume had driven him nearly crazy with desire.
The final blow to the armor around his heart had been when she’d laid her hand on his arm in comfort, and he’d seen the pure compassion in her eyes. For over two weeks, he’d been trying to drown his sorrows in booze, when what he should have done was bury himself in her sweet body. Chet would have lain next to him in bed each night and held him through his nightmares. She would have said all the right words of comfort and helped lift his spirits, like he’d done when her friends had been killed. She wouldn’t have pushed him away—she wasn’t like many of the one-dimensional women he’d dated in the past who only wanted a good time or to change him into potential-husband material. No, his little bomboncita was stronger than most women he knew. She was kind, caring, beautiful, passionate, and tough enough to stand up for what she believed in. She rescued animals and then fostered them, even if it meant she could be in danger. She was the most incredible woman he’d ever known, and like a fool, he’d almost thrown her away because he’d thought she couldn’t deal with his job.
Ian had pulled Tuff aside earlier, after the sparring matches were over, and given him a sarcastic version of a pep talk. What it boiled down to was Tuff could get struck by a car crossing the street tomorrow or go down in a plane crash. Chet could be shot and killed in her driveway or drop dead of some medical problem she wasn’t aware of. It happened to random people all the time, people who everyone else thought would live to be one hundred. There were no guarantees in life. Why should Tuff spend the rest of his alone?
He thought back to the night when he’d gone with Chase and Irv to tell Kyle’s fiancée and parents he wasn’t coming home. Becca had taken one look at the three men on her doorstep and had known instantly what they were going to tell her. She’d collapsed on the floor and screamed before they could even get a word out. She’d told them later she’d had a feeling something awful had happened just around the time Kyle had been shot. It wasn’t the first time Tuff had heard of a person, madly in love, having that intuitive feeling that something had happened to their significant other. If something happened to him, would Chet know before she was told? Would he know if she was the one who was killed?
For once, just once, Tuff wanted to be selfish. He wanted the woman he’d fallen in love with. He couldn’t fight it anymore and hoped to God it wasn’t too late.
Forgetting about the food, he stood, walked around the end of the table, never letting go of Chet’s hand, and straddled the bench next to her. He brought her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them, ignoring the sting of his split lip. She still hadn’t said a word, just staring at him in shock, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. “If you’ll have me, Concetta, I want more than just a friends with benefits thing. I can’t guarantee I won’t fuck up again at some point, I’m not perfect, but I do know I was even more miserable these past few weeks because I didn’t let you in. I needed you, but I was so afraid you wouldn’t be there for me.”
“I would’ve been there, Tuff.” She cupped his bruised cheek gently. “I wanted to be there for you so badly.”
“And I shut the door in your face.” He rolled his eyes. “God, I’m an ass.”
She smiled. “No, you’re not. You’re human. We all have our faults and moments of weakness. It’s when we don’t learn from them that they become a hindrance.”
“Well, I definitely learned something. I learned I’m in love with you, sweetheart. That’s never happened to me before. Never has a woman taken up residence in my heart. But you have.” He tapped the left side of his chest. “You’re in here, and I don’t want to let you go. Can you forgive me?”
Her smile widened as she leaned forward. She brushed her lips across the non-swollen part of his mouth. “There’s nothing to forgive, Tuff. And, by the way, for the record, I love you too.” She held her hand over her heart and repeated his words from just a moment ago. “You’re in here, and I don’t ever want to let you go.”
Lying in bed, Tuff glanced at the clock on the night stand next to a sleeping Chet. She was tucked into his side, her head on his shoulder. It was 2 a.m., and he was wide awake. On the floor next to him, Meat was snoring softly, with an occasional grunt and sigh. After returning home from their picnic, they’d left the dog in the living room with the bone he’d still been gnawing on, stripped each other bare on their way to Chet’s bedroom, and proceeded to drive each other crazy. For the first time in his life, Tuff finally understood what it meant to make love to a woman. With all those who’d come before her, it’d just been sex, but with her, it was so much more. She’d burrowed into his heart, and he was more than happy to have her there.
Her mom would be arriving in about twelve hours, and Tuff was looking forward to meeting Mariana Suarez. He got the impression Chet was a lot like her—sweet as candy, but tough as nails when she needed to be. He was happy the woman was moving to Florida and would be close enough for Chet to see her often. He was a little nervous, though. It’d been a long time since he’d been introduced to the mother or father of a woman he was dating. But it was more than that with Chet. They weren’t just dating, at least not in his book. This was the woman he could see himself walking down the aisle with someday. He wanted to see her pregnant with his child and then grow old with her. Very old. He wanted the life Kyle was supposed to have had.
The hand on his chest caressed his skin.
“You’re thinking too much,” Chet murmured into the crook of his neck before nuzzling him there. “I thought you were worn out enough to sleep the whole night.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”
Her hand slid down his torso, pushing the sheet out of the way, and his breath hitched when it didn’t stop until it reached his cock which grew instantly at her touch. He groaned. “Chet—”
“Shush.” She began kissing the same path down his chest and abdomen her hand had taken moments before, and she slowly pumped his stiff shaft. “You had your way with me earlier. Now it’s my turn. Hands behind your head.”
A smile spread across his face as he put his hands between his head and the pillow.
“Yes, ma’am.”
His leg twitched when she licked the seam where his hip and thigh met. Somehow, he managed to keep his eyes open just enough to watch her take him into her hot mouth. His pelvis bucked in a natural reaction. “Oh, shit! Baby, that feels so good! God, yeah!”
Slowly, she bobbed her head up and down, swirling her tongue around his hard flesh. She took him deep, causing him to hiss and gasp. Her hand cupped his balls, kneading them softly. He ran a hand down her naked back and squeezed her ass cheek.
She lifted her head and frowned at him. “I told you to keep your hands behind your head.”
Smirking, he pulled her leg over him and then dragged her body backwards up his until she was straddling his face. “Too bad, my bomboncita. I want to eat your sweet pussy while you suck my dick. First one to make the other cum wins breakfast in bed in the morning.”
“Hmm. You’re on.”
She was already soaked for him, and he ran his tongue over her swollen labia. Her spiciness coated his tongue. Chet squirmed and moaned but then went back to pleasuring him. Wrapping his arms around her hips, he held her in place as he feasted on her. He was determined her climax would come before his, but, damn, if she wasn’t making it difficult. Every time she sucked hard on his cock it took him one step closer to detonation.
Pulling her cheeks apart, he ran a thumb over the rosette of her anus, causing her to hum around his cock. He knew no man had ever taken her there. One of these days he’d have to try to talk her into it. She hadn’t been turned off by the idea when he’d asked her about it one night, but she also wasn’t too keen on it yet. He hoped to change that someday, but if she said no, he was more than willing to fuck her mouth and pussy instead.
Chet tightened her hand around his cock, just below where her lips were suctioned around him, and she sucked in hard. Holy fuck, I’m gonna explode.
Doubling his efforts, he whipped her clit with his tongue. Leaving the one thumb at her rear entrance, he used the other to fuck her vagina. She gasped and pulled off him, coughing. He would have stopped to make sure she was okay if she wasn’t rocking her hips faster and faster against his assault.
“Oh, God!” Despite being close, she took him deep into her mouth and swallowed hard several times. Tuff thought he was about to lose the bet, but then her body seized as she came for him. Seconds later he followed her over the edge, unable to resist any longer. She swallowed every drop, then released him and collapsed on top of him, the last of her own climax waning.
Tuff kissed her clit, then grinned. “I hope you know how to make pancakes, baby.”
With her head resting on his thigh, she maneuvered her body just enough so her heavy-lidded gaze met his. “Only if you like hockey pucks, hon. Pancakes fall under baked goods in my cookbook. I suggest you go with an omelet.”
He winked at her. “An omelet it is.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tuff caught Boots nodding off next to him in a mandatory defensive driving course and smirked. They had to take the stupid course every three years to keep Chase’s already ridiculously high insurance rates from going into the upper stratosphere. At least it also kept Tuff’s car insurance rates down too. It helped that a lot of his accidents had been on classified missions. It meant his name hadn’t appeared on any paperwork filed with any insurance company for those incidents.
Tuff was tired himself, but he was sure Boots’s problem was the rug rat still not sleeping through the night and not from a few hours of marathon sex with his woman. Of course, Tuff had taken great pleasure in pointing out the fact to his partner that morning, to which the response had been two middle fingers stuck up in the air followed by, “Fuck you, asshole. Just wait until you have kids, I’m going to laugh my fucking ass off.”
Usually, Tuff would have snorted and rolled his eyes because there’d been no way he was having kids anytime soon, but after last night, he couldn’t get the image of him and Chet, with a few little ones of their own, raising them with lots and lots of dogs. Damn, they’d need a new house and a huge, fenced-in backyard.
For the first time in his life, Tuff was thinking about a long-term future that had nothing to do with job security or money for retirement, and everything to do with the woman whose bed he hadn’t wanted to leave that morning. He’d never told a woman he loved her before—well, in high school he had, but that was only because he’d been trying to get into the head cheerleader’s panties. After he’d joined the Army, he’d quickly learned that once military bunnies heard those words out of the mouth of a guy in uniform, especially one in special ops, they started bringing out the bridal magazines. Now he was glad he’d never said “I love you” to another woman as an adult because he knew they weren’t just words. Chet was the woman who’d earned them simply for being her. She’d wormed her way into his heart and soul where she’d remain for the rest of his life, of that he was certain.
“All right, let’s take a ten-minute break,” announced the skinny, metrosexual guy who’d been teaching the course.
The twenty men and three women in the classroom on the second floor of the BHS building stood almost as one and headed for the door. Tuff had barely made it to the hallway when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It was almost 2:00 p.m., and he doubted it was Chet calling him since her mother was due to arrive at the house at any moment. Pulling the phone out of his pocket he checked the screen and frowned, wondering why Isaac Webb was calling him.
Stepping to the side of the hall, out of the flow of traffic, Tuff answered the call. “Hey, Detective, what’s up?”
“Hey, Tanner.” Tuff’s brow narrowed. The man sounded like he was in pain. “Sorry about this, but I’ve got bad news. Jose Martinez made bail and was cut loose yesterday.”
“What the fuck?” Tuff practically yelled into the phone, causing those in the hallway to freeze and stare at him. He ignored them, striding toward his cubicle. “Why are you just telling me this now?”
“Sorry, but I was sidelined with an emergency appendectomy yesterday morning and was in surgery when the fucking ADA called and left me a goddamn message. I’d told him to keep me updated until we figured out if he was connected to the Spender murders or not.” He groaned and muttered another curse. “Trust me, I’m as pissed as you. He didn’t bother letting my partner know he couldn’t reach me. I just got my phone back from my fiancée and checked my messages. I called you right away.”
Tuff wasn’t surprised. The assistant district attorneys tended to rotate in for a year or two, get their experience, then move on to a better paying job in private or corporate practice. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard the local cops bitch about the DA’s office. But right now, he didn’t give a crap about them. Martinez had been out for a full day, and that meant Chet could be in danger. “Thanks. I gotta check on Chet. If you hear anything else let me know.”
“You got it.”
Disconnecting the call, Tuff hit the speed dial for Chet. After the fifth ring, it went to voice mail and Tuff cursed under his breath. “Chet, it’s me. Call me as soon as you get this message. Martinez was released on bail yesterday. I’m on my way home to make sure everything’s okay. Don’t worry, I won’t scare the hell out of your mom when I get there. Call me, baby. I—I love you.”
Grabbing his keys, he spun around and stopped short. Blocking his way to the exit were his partner, Chase, and Irv. All three were staring at him in concern. The big boss was the one who asked, “What’s going on? Is your girl okay?”
Shaking his head, he pushed past them, and they fell in behind him as he strode toward the stairwell. “I don’t know. That asshole from the dog fighting ring was released yesterday afternoon, and, due to a series of events, I’m just finding out now. She didn’t pick up her phone so I’m heading home to make sure she’s okay.”
“I’m going with you,” Boots said without hesitation. “Besides, it’s about time I meet the woman who got you to say those three little words.”
“She’s hot,” Chase
added.
“No shit, when did you see her?” Irv chimed in. It seemed like they were all tagging along for the ride. “If she’s hot, what’s she doing with him?”
Tuff growled even though he knew the guys were slinging shit just to keep him from freaking out. He ran down the two flights of stairs to the underground parking lot and tried to reach Chet again as he jogged toward his truck. Again, it went to voice mail. He tried to convince himself she was busy catching up with her mom, but he couldn’t get the sinking feeling that something was wrong out of his gut. He jumped in the driver’s seat of his truck as Boots took the passenger seat. Tuff cranked the engine, threw the gear shift into drive, then peeled out of the parking spot. Seconds later, Chase and Irv were on his tail in the latter’s Suburban. Tuff prayed that when they got to Chet they’d have a good laugh and all the panicking had been for nothing. He couldn’t lose her less than twenty-four hours after he’d said he loved her. The powers that be in the universe couldn’t be that cruel, could they?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Going from room to room, Chet double and triple checked everything was neat and clean for her mother’s arrival. She loved her dearly, but her mother could be a neat freak at times and would start “helping out” five minutes after she got there. Chet wanted her to relax and just enjoy her visit.
She glanced down at Meat lying on the kitchen floor, still gnawing on the giant bone Tuff had given him. She’d been surprised this morning when he’d kissed her, before heading to work, and told her how much he was looking forward to meeting her mother tonight. He was taking them both out to dinner. Chet was certain her mother would love Tuff once she got past the shock of his tattooed arms. It wasn’t that she was against tattoos, but in Chicago, like many big cities, gang members were covered in them. Thankfully, Chet’s brother, on the good side of the law, had a few now, so their mother was used to them.
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