Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set

by Lani Lynn Vale

She would’ve died had Max and Gabe not been there.

  “Did you get the plate numbers?” I asked Gabe.

  I’d heard him come in behind me, taking in the destruction alongside me.

  “Yeah, the plates were stolen. I have Jack doing what he can from the computer end, though,” Gabe said powerlessly.

  Jack was another member of Free, and a computer wizard.

  He was extremely smart, and from what I’d heard, his wife was even smarter.

  The two of them together were a fucking wet dream in the hacker world.

  And it made me happy to know they were on my side for this.

  “Thank you,” I replied just as softly.

  “There were two of them. That I know,” Gabe offered.

  I nodded my head. “I should’ve gotten you out here the day before yesterday. Goddammit, then we would’ve had cameras up.”

  “No,” my brother said from the doorway. “Then you would’ve just had a dead Blake. Sure, you would’ve known, maybe, who it was, but you wouldn’t have any reason to know anymore, other than vengeance.”

  My older brother and his fucking logic sometimes made a lot of sense.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Not sure there’s any reason to put cameras up anymore. But we’re going to anyway. And I need Mercy’s men to come out and start working on her house.”

  Miller nodded. “Mercy’s already started on it.”

  Did I say I really loved my sister-in-law?

  “Thanks,” I said, continuing to walk through the room over to the area where Max had taken her during the shooting.

  I blinked in surprise when I saw the millions of freakin’ books lining the walls.

  There had to be at least a small fortune’s worth.

  “So, she’s a reader?” Miller asked, picking up a book that’d fallen from its shelf.

  I took the book from him, smiling when I saw a highlander on the cover wearing nothing but a kilt.

  “Looks like it,” I said. “Nothing better to do but fantasize, I suppose. Collect books of all the men she wished her ex-husband would’ve been.”

  “Speaking of ex,” Michael said from the doorway. “He’s here.”

  I liked Michael, although I didn’t know him as well as the others.

  I’d been on the SWAT team for a little over two years now, and I felt like I knew just as much about him now as I had when I first started working with him.

  I knew he’d have my back if I needed help, but aside from our work relationship, I didn’t know much more about him.

  I was fairly sure, though, that the tattoos covering his body told some sort of story.

  They fairly had to with the sheer amount of them he had.

  “Thanks,” I said, patting his shoulder as I passed him.

  He grunted.

  I found David on the front lawn, studying the destruction.

  “’Sup?” I muttered.

  I didn’t really care for David before, but now I really didn’t care for him.

  He was an ass, and to know he treated Blake like shit only accentuated the fact that he was a douchebag.

  “I wanted to come over here and offer Blake a place to stay, but the tattooed one said she wasn’t here,” David said, eyes roaming the pile of rubble.

  I snorted. “With who? Your new woman? Or other woman?”

  He glared. “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

  I smiled. “I’m sure she’d rather have died in the drive-by today than stay at that house with you and the woman you cheated on her with. I’ll be sure to mention it later, when she’s at my place, that you offered, though.”

  He started forward but stopped himself with only a step in my direction. “You need to stay away from her.”

  I raised a brow at him, giving him a mocking smile. “Oh yeah? And who are you to question me?”

  He raised his lip in a snarl. “You’re nothing but a washed-up gimp who can’t fucking do anything but gets special treatment because he was one of the select few on the SWAT team. You’re only on there still because they can’t legally fire you.”

  I heard a snort behind me but didn’t turn around.

  “Is that what you think?” I asked slowly.

  He shrugged. “I don’t think. I know.”

  “You think you can get onto the SWAT team? Do what we do?” I taunted him.

  “I fucking know I can. I just have a wife at home to worry about,” he shot back.

  I laughed then.

  “A wife that you cheated on your original wife with?” Blake hissed. “You’re such a crock of shit. Should I tell them that you wear a fucking girdle under your uniform to hold your gut in?”

  I turned to see her walking down the street toward us.

  I’d missed her. Even that sneer that was currently directed at her ex.

  She’d said that she was going to come by, but I’d expected her to drive, not walk.

  Apparently, I needed to pay a little more attention and explain to her that she couldn’t be doing that anymore.

  I didn’t want her to be out running without protection of some kind. Hell, right now she didn’t need to be out, period.

  “Get the fuck away from my house, David,” she snapped.

  “I paid for that house!” David growled.

  “Yeah, you did, didn’t you? But you know what? So did I. Remember when we got married and you said what’s yours was mine? Well, there you go. I deserved the fucking money to buy this house. And I also deserved the settlement I got,” she spat. “Get the fuck over it.”

  “Well, it’s only for another six months. Hope you have your shit in order, because after that day, you won’t be getting another fucking dime from me,” he yelled before turning on his heel and stomping back to his truck.

  “I freakin’ hate that man,” she growled as she watched him walk away.

  I turned to her, pulling her into my arms. “I do, too.”

  She smiled, leaning her head back to look at me. “That made me totally hot, seeing you taunting him.”

  I grinned. “How hot?”

  She blinked, all signs of teasing gone. “Hot enough that if we were alone right now, I’d show you.”

  “Hot damn,” Downy yelled. “I need to get home to my wife! See y’all at dinner!”

  Blake’s face flushed as she watched Downy walk away.

  “That was embarrassing,” she admitted, burying her face into my shoulder.

  I laughed, but something silver caught my eye as Downy pulled his car away.

  A woman sat in her car across the street.

  She’d been hidden by Downy’s huge truck, but now that he was gone, I could clearly see her sitting there.

  She stared right at me for long seconds before she, too, started her car and drove away.

  “What?” Blake asked, startling me.

  I memorized the license plate number, before replying. “Nothing. It was nothing. And don’t let Downy embarrass you. He’s got a mouth, but he won’t make a big deal of anything that goes on between us.”

  She smiled, looking relieved, and said, “Good.”

  “Now,” I said, leading her to my truck. “About being alone…”

  Chapter 13

  Everyone loves my cooking. Even the smoke alarm cheers me on.

  -Kitchen sign

  Blake

  “Are you sure you want me to stay here?” I asked, looking around at the apartment.

  “I haven’t stayed here in weeks since this,” Foster said, gesturing to his leg. “But it’s got clean sheets, thanks to Mercy. And I’m going to stay here with you until we figure out why you have people breaking into, and shooting up, your house,” Foster replied as he dropped his keys onto the coffee table.

  “Has it been empty?” I asked, looking around at the ultimate bachelor pad.

  There wasn’t much to it. From what I could see, there were two bedrooms. One was empty but for a bed and a dresser, the othe
r was empty but for a bed.

  The living room was much the same, only sporting an older TV, two couches that looked to be purchased from a yard sale, and a table in between the kitchen and the living room, sans chairs.

  “Is there anything you need or want from the house… something you can’t live without?” Foster asked. “They’ll have your front wall replaced by the end of the week, and the rest fixed in no more than three weeks. It shouldn’t take you long to get back there… if that’s what you want.”

  I opened my mouth, hesitant to say it. “Umm, it’s heavy.”

  “What is?” he asked, dropping his arm full of bags onto the table and turning back to me.

  I worked my lip between my teeth, finally deciding to just say it.

  “My pottery wheel.”

  He blinked. “Pottery wheel?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, my pottery wheel. I dug it out of storage when I left David, and well…I like it. It helps me sleep.”

  “Is this like one of those things that you can make big mounds of dirt into a bowl?” he asked, eyebrows drawing down in concentration.

  I nodded. “Clay. But yes, one and the same.”

  “Isn’t something like that dirty?” he asked, walking into the kitchen and pulling a beer from the fridge.

  The house was completely empty but for beer in the fridge. Now that was the ultimate bachelor pad.

  “It can be dirty, yes. But I have plastic underneath the one in my house. I just mop the floor when I’m done,” I said. “My kiln is outside my house. I won’t need to use that until I have about ten pots ready to fire, so I don’t need it here.”

  He nodded. “Where would be best for you to set it up?”

  I went into the bedrooms.

  Noticing that the spare bedroom didn’t have a bathroom I said, “I can do it in that room, it’d just be easier if I had it near a water source.”

  He nodded. “How big is it?”

  I held my hands as wide as I could get them. “This wide.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll measure it. We’ll figure it out. Sounds to me like it’d be easier to just do it right here.”

  He pointed to the corner of the living room, which happened to be nearest the bathroom.

  “The rooms are too small to hold much more than a dresser and a bed. If you put it in there, you’re going to have too much shit everywhere. At least here you can do it without it being in the way,” he observed, tilting the beer up to his lips.

  “Thank you,” I said seriously. “That really means a lot to me.”

  He shrugged. “As long as you don’t care that I sleep with all the TVs on, we’ll be okay. I can’t stand the constant quiet.”

  I nodded.

  “That’s fine,” I said, nerves starting to take over when I realized that we’d be staying in the same place for over three weeks.

  Three weeks of being in close quarters with a man that set fire to my blood and stirred things in me that hadn’t been stirred in a very, very long time.

  “We’ll get your wheel after dinner. Are you ready? Do you need to change?” he asked hopefully.

  I looked down at my blue jean shorts, yellow flip-flops, and lime green halter top. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”

  He swallowed. “Your breasts. I can see them.”

  I looked down, and sure enough, I could see them too. “What’s the big deal?”

  “I’ve been trying to ignore the fact that you can see your nipples through the shirt,” he said, walking forward slowly as if not to spook me. “But I can’t.”

  Little did he know that it took a lot to spook me. Such as a freakin’ thunderstorm, and I was fairly sure Foster was nothing more than a little thunder cloud.

  I might get a little rumble of thunder from him with his constant need to protect and serve, regardless of who it was, but it’d never be anything more than that.

  Then thunderstorms were the last thing on my mind as his long, blunt finger, circled the tip of my nipple.

  I gasped as the feeling shot straight through to my toes.

  My breasts had always been sensitive. Something that David never tried to explore.

  I’d asked him, again and again, to touch my breasts, to suck on them, but he’d always steered clear of them.

  I’d thought something was wrong with them, but suddenly I knew I was wrong.

  Especially when Foster yanked my shirt to the side, allowing my breast to pop free of the built-in bra and bounce with his exuberance.

  He leaned down, and roughly captured my nipple into his mouth, sucking hard.

  Hard enough that I clenched my core tightly. My pussy closing in on itself, desperate for something to be inside of it.

  Anything!

  He read me like an open book, though.

  Letting his hand sneak around the back of my short shorts, he slipped two long fingers up and inside. Gliding underneath the elastic of my thong and delving in between my folds in a matter of seconds.

  My eyes closed of their own volition, which was why I was surprised when he bit down on my nipple, causing me to gasp in excitement.

  Then, finally, his fingers found my pussy and plunged inside.

  Filling me completely… with only two fingers.

  More than I’d ever been filled before, and I didn’t even have the real thing yet.

  “God,” I breathed, eyes slamming open in surprise when he sucked hard on my nipple once again.

  I looked down, watching his strong, bristly jaw work as he sucked powerfully, drawing my nipple deeply into his mouth.

  My hands moved down to cup the back of his head as I went up onto my tiptoes and circled my hips, searching for something.

  More friction, possibly.

  Yet again, though, he knew what I wanted.

  Thrusting his fingers in and out of me at a furious pace, curling in to work that special spot inside of me.

  Then his voice, his goddamned voice, was what made me explode.

  That sexy, deep baritone whispering all the dirty things he’d been wanting to do to me since he’d met me, made me come. And come so hard I screamed.

  It took me a few long seconds to come back to my senses, but when I did and opened my eyes, it was to find his intense ones staring back at me.

  “You’re so fucking sexy,” he said, pulling his fingers from my pussy, then promptly sucking them clean.

  I gaped at him, stunned with how he could go from zero to ninety in point three seconds.

  Letting me go carefully, he stepped back and readjusted himself.

  I smiled, reaching for his belt, but he stopped me.

  My heart, which had been frantically beating against my ribcage, froze for a few short moments.

  “There’s not enough time in the world to do what I want to do to you,” he said, softening the blow.

  When I moved to head to the bathroom to clean the flood between my legs up, he grabbed my hands and stopped me.

  “Don’t,” he said simply.

  I raised my brows at him. “Why?”

  He grinned as he said, “You’re gonna need that later. And it won’t be the last time I do that tonight before we actually get to the main event. The buildup is going to drive you fucking crazy, but I promise it’ll be worth it.”

  With that lovely parting comment, he slapped me on my ass, sending me on my way.

  ***

  I was nervous.

  I knew tonight would be the night.

  The night I had sex with the second person in my life.

  The second person who could make or break what I thought sex could be.

  With David, it’d always been bland.

  Toward the end of our relationship, it’d turned into an every Thursday kind of thing.

  With Foster, though, I had a feeling that it’d be spontaneous. And hot.

  Really hot.

  “Why are you biting your fingernails?” Foster asked.
/>   “You’re about to meet my mother,” I lied.

  He snorted. “You need to be careful when you lie. You have a tell,” he laughed.

  I blinked and turned in my seat to face him.

  “What tell?” I asked him.

  He pointed to my lip that I was currently worrying with my teeth, and I winced.

  Yeah, I did do that. Often.

  It was a nervous habit. Something I did a lot, I’d found.

  “I’ll have to see what I can do about remedying that,” I teased.

  He winked and bailed out of the truck with a bounce in his step that had nothing to do with the kinetic energy stored in his prosthesis.

  He moved around his truck, walked up to my door, and opened it.

  Offering me his hand, he helped me down and held it as he slammed the door behind me.

  I walked with him, in silence, up to the door.

  We stopped once we reached the front door, though.

  That was because we heard fighting.

  Well, my mother was yelling, and my father did what he did best, ignored her.

  I wasn’t really sure that my parents loved each other.

  In fact, there were days that I was fairly sure they hated each other.

  The only thing that I thought kept them together was that they’d been together so long they didn’t know any different.

  I’d asked my dad why he didn’t divorce, and he’d said that it wasn’t ‘his way.’

  He’d never leave my mother.

  End of story.

  But as I stood there on the front steps of my parents’ home, I knew that they were through.

  “Choose!” my mother screeched.

  My father’s deep, calm voice said. “Don’t make me do that. You know who I’ll choose.”

  My mother’s voice became shrill. “You have to choose! I won’t allow you to let her treat me like that! You’ve been avoiding this for days. If you don’t say who you choose, right now, then I’ll only assume I know who you’re picking and act accordingly.”

  “You walk out this door, I won’t let you back in.”

  Then, she did just that.

  She opened the side door, stormed out to her minivan, and peeled out of the driveway, narrowly missing Foster’s truck by a hair’s width.

  I walked through the front door, seeing my father and grandfather on the couch, both with a beer in their hand.