Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set

by Lani Lynn Vale

I blinked, then started getting nervous.

  Of course, it’d occurred to me that I was meeting Miller’s parents… but I hadn’t thought about how important it was… this initial meeting. I wanted to make a good impression.

  Which was why, when I saw the bathroom just before we got to the baggage claim where we were to be meeting, I darted inside and went straight toward a stall. Where I promptly started to hyperventilate.

  I sat down and buried my face in my hands, leaning forward to try to circumvent the panic I could feel rising at an alarming rate.

  What if they didn’t like me?

  Would Miller think differently of me?

  Hell, Miller didn’t feel anything for me. How could he?

  He hadn’t made so much as an ass grab since I’d forced him to fuck me.

  The door to the stall opened, and I halted my sobs.

  Silent tears tracked down my face as I waited for whoever was outside the stalls to finish the fuck up so I could resume my sob fest.

  Except whoever it was didn’t just leave.

  “What’s wrong?” Miller said from above me.

  I screamed.

  Like a little bitch.

  “What the hell, Miller! What have I told you about boundaries?” I yelled, yanking my pants up and turning to glare up at him.

  He started to grin unrepentantly at me before he saw the tears in my eyes, then he frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  Then he literally jumped over the stall.

  I wasn’t sure how he did it, but one second he was on the other side, and the next he was gathering me into his arms.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said lamely.

  He chuffed. “Get over it and tell me what the fuck is wrong.”

  Always so elegant, my Miller.

  “What if they don’t like me?” I whispered fiercely.

  His eyes softened as he cupped my face. “They’ll like you, honey. You’ve already got my brothers wrapped around your finger. And we’ve got our parents wrapped around ours. Trust me, it’ll all be okay. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think they’d like you.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his chest.

  “Okay.” I sighed. “Let’s go.”

  He took my hand, stopped for a squirt of the hand sanitizer dispenser, and pulled open the door to the bathroom.

  I hadn’t even made it out three feet past the threshold when a ball of energy hit me, gathering me up in her arms and pulling me into her.

  “Oh,” the woman, who I guessed was Miller’s mother, said. “I’ve been waiting for you for thirty-five years.”

  I blinked. “Thirty-five years?”

  She nodded. “The moment I had Miller, I knew I was only ever going to have boys. But I knew one day Miller would get married, and I’d have a daughter.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Viddy teased from the chair beside Trance’s slumped form.

  “I like her,” his mother whispered. “But you are exactly as I’d pictured my daughter-in-law to be.”

  Then she turned around to Viddy. “No offense.”

  She smiled. “None taken, Sloan. I know Miller’s your favorite.”

  Sloan, Miller’s mother, nodded. “That’s true,” turning back to me. “He is my favorite.”

  My jaw dropped. “You have a favorite child?”

  She nodded. “He’s the only one that I got drugs with when I was birthing them. I don’t care what the heck you say. You don’t forget. You remember everything about the birthing experience, and those other two kids left me with scars. Horrible, ugly scars.”

  My eyes widened, and I turned my face up to Miller’s to see him smiling.

  That smile was contagious, though.

  It caught on my face, and when I turned back to Sloan I said, “I think I’m going to love you.”

  She beamed. Positively beamed.

  ***

  “Are you sure you don’t mind going? We don’t have to,” Miller said, eyes turning to me as we walked out of the elevator.

  I shot him an eye roll. “No, it’s fine. Your father got the tickets, you should go.”

  I tried to get out of it once more, but it seemed the man’s mind was set on me going with him, or not going at all.

  “You’re coming with me. He got a whole fucking section. He won them,” he corrected me.

  “I’ve never been to a wrestling match before. How will I know what’s going on?” I asked worriedly.

  He was dragging me out to the hotel’s lobby where we were staying, and further beyond into a side room where we were meeting the rest of our group.

  “This isn’t real ‘wrestling.’ This is reality TV wrestling. There’s a huge difference. All these guys are, are actors. Really fit actors who perform a show.”

  “That’s right,” Foster said once he heard what Miller was saying. “They are pretty good about making it look real, however. There’s a guy we…”

  “Let’s not talk about him, please. I want to be able to keep my dinner down where it belongs,” Miller rumbled.

  I raised my eyebrows in question at him, but he ignored them and me.

  Well, it was obvious he didn’t want to talk about the ‘guy.’

  Trance was the last to arrive, and I was surprised that he looked halfway normal.

  The man had been passed out by the time we’d arrived at our hotel, and Miller, as well as Foster, had had to carry him up to his room.

  The funny thing was, was that the entire time he was being carried, not one single person said a thing about the large man passed out drunk.

  Although, since I’d been here, I’d seen literally three other people being carried around like that. It was obvious that it was a normal occurrence in Vegas.

  “Well, now that the life of the party is here,” Foster said loudly. “We can go!”

  Trance flipped his brother off, and that was the end of that. At least until we returned home, that was.

  ***

  An hour later, I was in awe.

  There was a massive crowd in the stadium we were at; we were on the front row of all places, and I could literally throw my cup of coke and strike the man currently on the stage.

  “I hear we have some ex-military in the house,” the announcer said, looking toward our group. “If one of you wants to come up here and show your skills, we’ll offer you all a free dinner at The Showgirl’s Saloon and Show courtesy of the WWE.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  I looked to Miller to see him glowering.

  “That little prick,” Miller snapped.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “That’s how Dad got the tickets,” Foster observed. “Because fucking Faris Blue’s a douche canoe. He knew we’d be here for the reunion. And he wanted us to come out to witness his success.”

  I blinked. “Who’s Faris Blue?”

  Faris was wearing a black speedo with boots that came all the way up to his knees.

  His hair was down, wet, and messy surrounding his head.

  His eyes were white. Literally, fucking white.

  He had to have been wearing contacts that blocked out the color of his irises. Regardless of what was in his eyes, he looked fucking creepy.

  “Faris Blue is a man we went to school with. Always the class bully and all-around shithead,” Trance said thoughtfully.

  “Dad had to have known what would happen,” Foster said.

  Miller nodded. “So, who’s going to do it? One of you or me?”

  I stiffened. “What do you mean, who’s going to do it?”

  He nodded toward the stage. “He’s going to get one of us up there, because he just can’t help himself. I’m just wondering who he wants, because he’s hated us all since before I could count.”

  “Maybe that pretty little lady right there wants to come on up here and try a real man on for size,” Faris said.

&
nbsp; I looked around, trying to figure out who he was talking about when I finally realized he was speaking about me. Only because I saw my face on the huge big screen in the middle of the arena.

  Miller stiffened at my side. “I guess that would be me.”

  Then, without any further hesitation, he hopped the fence separated us from the stage and walked up slowly to the ring.

  ***

  Miller

  My mind was not in a good place.

  I was still reeling from the total cluster fuck of last night, and now this motherfucker was calling my girl out in front of fifteen thousand people.

  There was no way in hell I’d let Faris fucking Blue pull the same thing he used to. We weren’t in high school anymore.

  On the other hand, I didn’t really want Mercy to see that side of me.

  I’d been trying so fucking hard not to show her my rough side. Not to show her how easily she could be hurt by me. Not to show her how easily I could lose my temper.

  She was about to see it all, though, and this was the ultimate test.

  I slid into the ring on my belly, standing to my feet almost before I was all the way on the mat.

  Faris watched me with his little beady eyes as I walked toward him.

  When I was within arm’s reach, he lowered the microphone and smiled. “Been a long time, Genuine.”

  I gritted my teeth. I hated when he called me ‘Genuine.’

  He always said it so facetiously that I wanted to fuck his face up every time he did.

  “Try to keep up for the crowd’s sake, okay?” Faris said into the microphone.

  I smiled painfully at him. What a dick.

  Try to keep up with me, my ass.

  He moved as if he was going in slow motion, and I knew instantly he was going to try to sweep my legs out from under me.

  I backed up, putting space between us, causing his leg sweep to make him look stupid instead of it being effective.

  “Play along,” a man said from behind me.

  I raised my brows and glanced to the side to see some man with a headset covering half of his head, in a black t-shirt that said, ‘stage manager.’

  Dismissing him as less than nothing, I turned back to Faris to see him running toward me.

  I moved, letting him run past me, stepping even farther than I normally would so I could get a good swing in, and waited for him to bounce off the ropes.

  Which he did, seconds later, bouncing off hard and coming back at me with twice the speed as his charge.

  I raised my fist and swung.

  My fist connected with his jaw with a snapping crack.

  The crowd in the first eight rows all gasped as Faris went down hard.

  Out fucking cold.

  What surprised me the most was Mercy.

  The moment Faris went down, Mercy started jumping in excitement, screaming my name and cheering me on.

  After a full minute of him not moving, I exited the ring to the crowd’s stunned silence, bypassing the stage manager and his wide, speechless eyes.

  That was when all hell broke loose.

  Men started pouring out of the tunnel that the ‘contestants’ stayed when they weren’t on camera.

  Men, every single one of them bigger than me, pounded down the walkway.

  I turned my eyes to the commotion that I felt happening on the opposite side and smiled wide when each and every man, sans Silas and Dixie, hopped over the fence and ran up to flank me.

  Right about the time my brothers got to either side of me, ten of Faris’ former teammates stopped directly in front of us.

  Adrenaline was pouring through my veins, and my hands twitched to fight.

  I’d really had a long fucking day, and an even longer month and a half. I needed to let off some serious steam, and this was exactly how I would do it.

  “Let’s see what you got, boys,” I said, gesturing them on with my fingers.

  The front one smiled, with his gold teeth and hot yellow, skin-tight bikini bottoms. Or whatever the fuck they were called.

  He had on red boots, too.

  “Are you supposed to be Hulk Hogan’s love child or something?” I asked, inciting the man further.

  “No,” he hissed.

  “Well then, what are you supposed to be?” I quipped.

  He struck, throwing his weight at me like an ox.

  He’d have hit me hard, too, had Trance not lifted his foot up when he got within reach and stopped him with a heel to the chest.

  Hogan Junior fell to the ground, gasping in pain.

  Then the rest were on us.

  Chapter 15

  The only ‘B’ word you should ever call a woman is beautiful. Why? Because bitches love to be called beautiful.

  -T-shirt

  Miller

  “Aren’t the point of the chairs to hit people with?” Foster asked a Las Vegas Police officer.

  Tony rolled his eyes to me. “Please, for the love of all that’s holy, shut your brother up before I have to arrest him.”

  Foster grinned and saluted him silently.

  Tony and Foster were good friends.

  We’d been stationed here when we were in the Navy, and Tony DeRoy had been a regular at the bar we used to hang out at during our free time.

  He also used to work with Trance before Trance moved to Louisiana.

  “Why was this even taking place?” Tony asked me.

  I pointed at Faris, who had blood dried on his face. “That fucker right there.”

  “Goddammit. How many times do we have to pull him off of one of you?” Tony shook his head in aggravation. “You need to get a restraining order.”

  I shrugged. “No big deal.”

  “Alright, well they can resume the show,” Tony directed to the stage manager. “Just don’t pull that shit anymore. The people watching this show, witnessing it, don’t understand that this wasn’t staged. You’re lucky they didn’t kill your people. Thank you for calling.”

  With that, Tony knocked me on the shoulder and started to exit the building.

  The entertainment that was happening in the ring, in the form of two women Jello wrestling, didn’t interest me in the least as I turned around and finally went back to my section.

  I hopped back over the barrier that led to our seats and barely had my feet on the ground when Mercy hit me.

  She scaled my body, wrapping her arms around my neck and her feet around my waist.

  “Holy shit, that was hot,” she gasped, giving me a kiss on the mouth. “I could totally see myself surviving a zombie apocalypse with you. You’d totally be better than Daryl.”

  I opened my lips in surprise and she took advantage of the moment, sweeping her tongue inside.

  I kissed her back: hot, hard and nasty. My fingers threaded through her hair, and my arm wrapped around her waist, holding her to me.

  All the emotions I’d been holding back, by sheer force of will, broke through the wall I’d erected out of self-preservation.

  I moaned into her mouth, relishing the way she felt surrounding me.

  It was only when the hoots and hollers of the crowd penetrated my excited mind that I realized we were on the jumbo-screen.

  “Shit,” I said against her lips. “We’re drawing the attention of the crowd.”

  She nipped my lip. “Does that bother you?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Good, because right now I’d do just about anything to stay in your arms.”

  “Anything?” I asked, leaning back slightly.

  She nodded. “Anything.”

  Those words were what I’d been waiting to hear.

  ***

  Mercy

  Miller and I walked hand in hand from dinner, following behind our crowd.

  It was an amazing thing to watch, these huge men. They walked so effortlessly and seamlessly.

  Like they were a well-oiled machine.

/>   They were also intimidating, because not once had we slowed our walk from the restaurant to our hotel. The entire time people moved out of our way, even if they had to turn sideways and back against buildings to do it.

  Miller tightened his hand on mine, bringing my attention back to him.

  “What?” I asked.

  He looked at the two in front of us, Silas and Dixie, and then slowed minutely to put more distance in front of us before saying anything.

  “I need to know something,” he said quietly.

  I blinked, butterflies starting to swirl around in my tummy.

  “What?” I asked.

  He swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob, before he said, “Do you want to take our relationship further?”

  I paused, my stride faltering, as I took in what he said.

  I knew that if I said no, he’d respect my wishes and never bring it back up again.

  However, if I said yes, all of my dreams could come true.

  I’d literally dreamt of him, and our first sexual encounter, on a daily basis, since about twenty minutes after it’d happened.

  It didn’t help that we’d slept in the same bed together nearly every night since the attack had happened.

  It was pure torture to sleep up against his rather hot (and I mean hot literally and figuratively) body, and not want him.

  “I want to say yes with everything in my body and soul,” I said quietly.

  He let my hand go, and pulled me into his body, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as we walked.

  “But?”

  I took a deep breath and then let it out.

  “I still have those dark tendencies. I still want it all.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I still want to be told what to do. I still want it to be rough. But I’m not sure I can handle it like that yet.”

  My admission caused him to squeeze my shoulder in understanding. “Then we’ll work up to that. Whatever you can handle, I’ll give you. And until that time comes, you’ll be in charge, okay?”

  His acquiescence to my fears left me feeling teary-eyed. “Then yes, Miller. You’re what I want. You’ve been what I’ve wanted for a really long time, now. I just wish that other thing hadn’t had to happen in order to get you here.”

  He kissed the top of my head before saying, “Me neither, honey. Me neither.”

  Then we were back at our hotel and saying goodbye to the others for the night.