“Aren’t you worried that he’ll break that door?” I asked when he stood onto his hind legs and put both paws up on the glass.
She looked over and smiled. “No. It’s safety glass.”
“Why? Have you experienced him breaking the glass before?” I asked.
“Mmm-mmm,” she said, shaking her head. “Corrinne again.”
“Corrinne?” I asked in alarm, the name pulling me rudely out of my perusal of how great her hair smelled.
She nodded. “Yeah, Corrinne. Threw rocks through my last house’s windows. That’s why every one of my doors, as well as windows, have safety glass.”
“Where’d you go to college?” I asked warily.
“UT,” she answered quickly.
What were the odds of two Corrinnes, in Kilgore or around the vicinity, both being crazy as fuck?
“What was her last name?” I asked, really not wanting to hear the answer, but knowing it would need to be done. Just in case.
Don’t say Calloway. Don’t say Calloway.
“Beamer…” she answered.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God!
“Bennett?” she called from behind me. “What’s the deal? Do you know her?”
I turned to find her standing, tweezers in her hand and looking at me like I’d grown a second head.
“No. My Corrinne isn’t your Corrinne, thankfully. That’s my girl’s mother,” I explained. “It’s just the sound of that name really freaks me the fuck out. Not that I’ve seen her in five fucking years, but to hear her name still gives me chills.”
The last time had been by accident, too.
I’d been out to eat with my family, and Corrinne had been out to eat with hers.
I’d never know why she’d bothered to come over when she did, looking at Reagan like she was her long-lost daughter who she cared for.
She never wanted her and only acted like she did when she was wanting money from me.
That day, though, was the day she’d thrown out a little hint that maybe she really did want Reagan.
It’d freaked me out so much that I’d had my mother speak with a lawyer about any and all possible options Corrinne might have, in case she ever got the whim to try to get Reagan back.
Luckily, there weren’t any, but I still broke out into a cold sweat whenever her name was mentioned.
She really could make my child’s life a living hell, even if she couldn’t get her under the letter of the law.
“Seems to me if she was so bad you wouldn’t have made a kid with her,” she surmised.
I shook my head. “I was a teenager at the time. Young and dumb. I have some stories that will turn your skin inside out to hear.”
She shivered. “How does she get along with your daughter?”
My face hardened. “She hasn’t seen my daughter since she was born… at least not purposefully. I’ve had full custody of her for the majority of her life. She only knows that her mother was a very bad person and that she’ll never be seeing her, at least if it’s within my power.”
“So does your girlfriend, Meg, like her?” Lennox asked, taking my hand once again and finishing the job.
I scrunched my face up in confusion. “Meg?”
She looked up at me with her brows high.
“Don’t you have a Meg?” she asked casually.
I shook my head. “No.”
“You were talking to her the last time we were together,” she said suspiciously. “You asked her if she wanted you to bring dinner.”
I didn’t let on that I knew who she was talking about. It really cracked me up that she was trying to be so aloof about Meg and still get information at the same time.
I smiled.
“Meg is my babysitter when I’m working. She has a seven-year-old of her own, and she’s married to a Marine,” I said with a laugh at the look on her face.
“Oh.” She laughed a little under her breath before taking out the final stitch.
After inspecting the skin, she curled my palm into a fist with both of her hands and said, “Try to open your hand.”
I did, easily.
“Well, you could at least make it look like I have some strength,” she grumbled.
After throwing all her trash into the trashcan, she smiled at me.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
I looked at my watch. “In about an hour, I’m supposed to be having dinner with a few of the guys off the SWAT team and their wives… do you want to go?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I don’t want to impose.”
Then the moaning started, followed shortly by barking.
I looked toward the backdoor to see the dog barking at the back window of the house beside Lennox’s. It looked like the two houses shared a yard.
“What the fuck is that?” I asked sharply.
Lennox smiled. “That would be my next door neighbor and best friend. He’s a little… loud when he’s…ummm… you know.”
I raised a brow at her. “When he’s fucking?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Yes!” She hissed in affront at my language. “But you don’t have to be so vulgar about it!”
I grinned. “We’re all adults here. Fucking is fucking. No other way around it.”
She shook her head and went to the backdoor and opened it before calling the dog.
“Cola, come!”
Cola didn’t stop barking. Plus she didn’t move, either.
“Your dog looks like she listens real well,” I observed dryly.
“Yeah, she’s pretty stubborn. Cola! Come!” she yelled louder.
With the door open, I could hear the yells and shouts even clearer, and wasn’t really sure how Lennox could stand to hear that. Add in the dog’s barking, and it was really quite loud!
“Jesus, they’re really getting after it, aren’t they?” I asked her.
“You have no idea. This is pretty mild for Paxton,” she said just before she walked outside and captured the collar around the dog’s neck.
Cola continued to bark even after she got the dog inside.
“Does she ever stop?” I asked, wincing a little as the large mutt’s bark reverberated off Lennox’s walls.
She shook her head. “Only if I put her into her cage in my room. That’s her quiet place.”
I grabbed hold of the dog’s collar and started pulling her in the direction of what I assumed were the bedrooms.
It turned out to be the third on the left.
It was painted in shades of pink. The bedding was a soft pink, and the walls a bright neon pink. More like the color of a highlighter, if I was being honest.
Her floor was the only thing not pink, and that was a dark grey that looked to be softer than my bed.
I sank at least half an inch into the carpet, thinking that it’d be perfect to fuck Lennox on.
Her bed, however, was even nicer.
It was a king-size in a huge rustic wood frame with four posters.
At the footboard, there was a stand for her TV, so close that she could see it perfectly if she were to be in bed.
The dog’s cage was even pink, if you could believe it.
“Do you have a thing for pink?” I tossed over my shoulder as I moved the still barking dog to her cage and shut her in.
“Yeah, pink’s my favorite color,” she said with a laugh in her voice. “That’s also my favorite song!”
I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t dare because I feared she was being serious.
“Well, now that we have that taken care of, why don’t you slip into a pair of pants and some shoes so we can go?” I offered.
She shook her head in amusement. “First of all, I’m wearing shorts. Second of all, I don’t have any jeans that are clean for me to wear. Where are we going, anyway?”
I liked that she didn’t tell me no, instead just asked where we were supposed to be going.
I smiled a cryptic smile and said, “You’ll see.”
Chapter 5
Sex jokes aren’t funny. I mean cum on, people.
-Coffee cup
Lennox
“You do realize that this is a strip club… right?” I asked the man at my side.
“Yep,” he agreed quickly.
“A female strip club…” I continued. “One where males go without their females.”
He nodded again. “Yes, and no. This isn’t a strip club anymore. The KPD bought it so we could hold SWAT training and other department trainings that are required by law. It says it’s a strip club on the outside, but it isn’t. At least not anymore.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that I didn’t completely underestimate the guy.
“So is it renovated inside?” I asked as he got to the door.
He shook his head. “Yes, well sort of. The front part is still pretty much the same as it had been, but the back part is completely renovated. That’s where we’ll be having dinner. The stripper poles are still up, though. The guys found those pretty fun, so we left them.”
I snorted.
Guys would.
He led me into the back of the building, using a huge set of keys that he’d revealed from his pocket to get us in.
“Oh, wow,” I said, looking around the large arena. “Do y’all use all of this stuff?”
The ‘back’, as he’d called it, was more like a warehouse.
Everything in it was painted black, and there were huge obstacles, ropes hanging from the roof, and even padded walls.
“Train. Run through the course. See if we can beat our times. A little bit of everything,” he said as he passed the ropes.
My hand curled around one of the ropes, and I dropped my bag off my shoulder, settling it on the floor by my feet.
“Can you climb this?” I asked, taking a running jump and pulling myself up.
I curled my feet around the long rope and started to climb hand over hand.
I got about ten feet off the ground before I decided that I really couldn’t go any farther.
My hands were already killing me.
And I was fairly sure if I got all the way to the top, which I wouldn’t, that I’d fall to my death.
Looking down, I saw Bennett smiling up at me.
“That all you got?” he asked, curling his massive hand around the other rope and raising his eyebrow at me.
I nodded. “I don’t have much upper body strength.”
He held the rope underneath my butt steady as I started to come down but didn’t move his hand when my ass started to get close to it.
“Uhh,” I said, nodding my head toward his hand. “You think you can move that?”
He grinned. “Sure I could.”
I slipped until his hand rested against my ass, and I visibly jolted at the contact.
If Bennett hadn’t had his hand there, I would’ve been swinging.
I glared. “Move it.”
He grinned, baring his teeth, and laughed before moving it.
I slid the rest of the way down and rubbed my hands on the back of my shorts to try to work out the sting.
“Can you climb that?” I asked in challenge.
He raised his brow at me, then nodded.
“Yeah. It’s a requirement to be on the SWAT team,” he said simply.
“Prove it,” I declared.
“And if I do? What do I get?” he rumbled softly, moving in close.
I licked my lips, suddenly very aware of what his words were doing to me.
My heart was beating fast and my palms were sweaty. And we wouldn’t even mention the other places.
“What do you want?” I breathed.
He moved his head forward until he was less than a hairsbreadth away from my lips, and said, “You.”
I gasped, getting a huge lung full of the air he’d just breathed out, and said the only thing I could.
“We’ll see. You’ll have to do more than climb a rope to get me. But I’ll at least consider it… that is, if you can even do it.”
He chuckled before backing away.
Placing both of his hands onto the rope as high above his head that he could, he started to climb.
And he didn’t even use his legs.
It was all in his upper body.
Every single bit of it.
Holy. Shit.
“Holy shit!” I breathed.
“Such a fuckin’ show-off,” a male said.
I turned to see a man directly behind me.
He was gorgeous.
Tall with brown hair, and the most beautiful brown eyes I’d ever seen, he could easily be a cover model for a magazine.
He was wearing faded light blue jeans, black boots, and a black long-sleeved shirt that covered him from hands to neck.
I smiled at him. “I bet him he couldn’t do it.”
He raised a brow at me, surprised, I’m sure, that I’d done so.
“It takes a lot to get Bennett to do much of anything. It must’ve been some payout,” he laughed, starting forward.
“It’s totally worth it,” Bennett yelled from above us. “Introduce yourself, shithead.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to keep the laughter from bubbling forth.
Jesus, these men acted like they were twelve-year-olds!
“I’m Michael,” the man at my side said, extending his hand.
Before I could extend my own hand, though, Bennett was there.
He dropped down in between us, officially cutting off our contact before it even got started.
“I said introduce yourself, not touch her,” Bennett said.
There was no venom in his tone, yet I could tell something was taking place in front of me.
A silent admission between the two.
“Jesus,” I said. “He didn’t offer to fuck me as an introduction. It was only his hand.”
He turned his honey eyes to me and smiled. “I know.”
Simple as that.
I know.
What the fuck, Batman?
“So are we just early, or so late that they’ve already left?” Michael asked, taking a look around.
“I don’t know. I guess they’re just not here yet…” He trailed off as his eyes fastened on a sound, and then dropped me down, covering me with his body.
The movement was so fast that I hadn’t even had the time to scream, let alone draw a breath before it was all knocked out of me.
Bennett’s body lay heavy on mine as he covered me, and my heart was pounding.
“What… what… what’s going on?” I whispered loudly.
Bennett grunted and levered himself up off me, then offered me his hand.
“Sorry about that,” he said, offering me his hand.
I extended my own and looked around warily.
“What the hell was that?” I gasped.
Michael was grinning, wiping at his shirt with a rag he’d magically produced.
“I told you I’d get him!” a woman yelled loudly.
“No, I told you that you couldn’t get both of them, and you didn’t,” a man’s triumphant voice shot back.
The two of them appeared at a balcony above our heads, and I tilted my eyes up to see a man with red hair, and a woman who looked to have black hair, standing beside him.
The woman had a wicked-looking paintball gun in her hand, and she was waving at Michael and Bennett frantically.
“Sorry,” she said. “He told me I couldn’t do it.”
The men beside me snorted, deciding to be amused rather than ticked.
“I wouldn’t have let you do it had Bennett’s woman not been here,” he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder to indicate me.
I waved at them, and the woman’s face went startled as her mouth turned into a big O of surprise.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized, tossing the gu
n at her husband. “I didn’t know anyone was coming with them.”
She hurried down the ladder, much to the red-haired man’s consternation, and hurried over to me.
She was pregnant, and I could now see why the man had been upset about her going down the ladder.
I would’ve been advising her, if she were my patient, to not do dangerous things like descend a ladder from twenty feet above while she was pregnant.
Pregnancy did weird things to your balance, and most women didn’t think their balance was altered until they fell or did something bad to themselves.
“It’s okay,” I said, waving my hand in the air as if to clear it. “Benny here protected me.”
“Benny? You call him Benny? He lets you call him Benny?” the woman asked with a smile in her voice.
I raised my eyebrows. “Let? The man has no control over me.”
The woman laughed.
“Oh, I think I’m gonna like you,” she breathed, latching onto my hand and pulling me along in her wake.
She was surprisingly strong for her small stature, although she was still taller than my five foot two.
“Where are you taking me?” I whispered, looking over my shoulder to see Bennett, Michael, and the red-headed man talking.
Bennett’s eyes were on me, watching as the Asian woman stole me away, and not caring in the least.
“I’m taking you to meet the rest of the crew. We’re all up front. The rest of the guys are in the back room moving some big… thing that I don’t know what it’s called, around. We’re playing on the stripper pole. Or I was when my husband came in there to check on me and started throwing a little hissy fit,” she explained before pushing through a swinging door into the front of the strip club.
I’d never been in there before, so I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to find.
What I wasn’t expecting was the elegant red hues and the rich hardwood floors. The stage was even beautiful.
“Wow,” I said, surprised. “I never thought it’d look like this from the outside. I always pictured trashy.”
She shot me a smile over her shoulder. “That’s what we all thought, too. We thought the guys were freakin’ nuts when they told us they were getting this place. We went along for the ride, though, and helped them clean up. It looks pretty good, too.”
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 107