Sinners are Winners

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Pick-up, not nearly as much.

  I went back to the freshly washed bowl and pulled it out of the pile of clean dishes.

  “That’ll give me enough time to make the groomsman cake batter for when the other ones finally get out of the oven,” I said. “Then they’ll have to cool for like two hours before I can do a single thing to them.”

  “Good, then you can get to know me a little better,” he rumbled.

  ***

  “He’s a cop,” I said to my father later that night.

  “Really?” he asked, sounding just as surprised as I’d felt when I’d heard those words. “Doesn’t fight like any cop I ever knew. Motherfucker can fight.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  My father had watched the video clip—and yes, a chick hitting a guy in the dick had gone viral. I was now famous for junk punching a guy.

  And my dad was right. ‘Motherfucker’ could fight.

  “Too bad you’re leaving,” he said. “Sounds like an actual good one.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I had a lot of fun with him today,” I said.

  There was a long pause when he said, “You’re still coming home, right?”

  I looked at my dad over our FaceTime call and nodded. “Yes, Dad. I’m coming home.”

  Even though I wished I wasn’t.

  But sometimes I had to put my pride aside and admit that I wasn’t making it.

  “Good. I miss you.” He grinned.

  The grin fell off his face when the tones dropped all around him, signaling that there was an emergency call that he would be required to go to.

  My heart rate picked up speed, and I tried to school my features.

  Ever since my father had hurt himself at a fire call, I’d been leery of him working.

  I knew that my father could handle himself, but there were just too many ‘mishaps’ that were happening for me to think everything would always be okay.

  “Be careful, Daddy,” I ordered sternly.

  He winked at me. “Always am.”

  With that, he signed off, and to get my mind off of what my father was doing, I thought about my day.

  And the man that I hadn’t stopped thinking about in six long months.

  Chapter 3

  I never regret it when I do. I always regret it when I don’t.

  -me thinking about taking a shower

  Lock

  The wedding was nice.

  Or, at least the wedding venue was nice.

  The wedding hadn’t actually taken place yet.

  I was standing in one-hundred-degree heat, taking pictures with the groomsmen.

  “Fuck,” Justice finally said. “We’re done. Jesus fucking Christ.”

  The photographer shook her head. “No! We need just a few…”

  “Then take them in-goddamn-side.” He shook his head. “I want to look good at my wedding. Not a sweating sack of balls.”

  The photographer sighed. “Fine. We can take a few in the church itself.”

  “Thank fuck,” Justice grumbled, walking without another word to the door.

  I beat him there, though, already two steps in front of him.

  I’d forgotten how much I’d hated being in uniform.

  I’d been discharged from the Navy for about nine months now, and I hadn’t once missed my uniform.

  I tugged at the collar while automatically pulling the cap off of my head as I walked through the front doors.

  “I can’t believe your wife made me wear my uniform,” I grumbled. “I fuckin’ hate this thing.”

  The wool-like fabric was stifling, and I didn’t miss being in it for a second.

  The Navy itself? Yes. The dress uniform? Hell no.

  “She wanted to make it as easy on everybody as possible,” he said as he tugged at his tie. “Me, on the other hand, she didn’t care that I had to go get fitted for this. She said that every man was supposed to have a tuxedo. She even made me buy it. Do you know how much a professionally fitted tuxedo costs?”

  No, no, I did not.

  “Nope,” I said. “How much?”

  He mumbled a number under his breath that had my brows rising to my hairline.

  “Holy fucking shit,” I said. “No wonder you don’t want to sweat in it.”

  Something shiny and gold caught my attention, and my eyes drifted to the flash.

  They widened when I got a good look at Saylor for the first time today.

  “I’ll catch up to you later,” he said. “While the photographer is catching up, I’m going to go piss.”

  Then he was gone, leaving me standing in the middle of the foyer staring at the woman in gold who looked utterly beautiful, as well as confused and mad.

  I parted ways with the group of groomsmen, some of Justice’s childhood friends—the ones that could make it into town for his wedding anyway—and some of the guys from the police department that we worked with on a daily basis.

  Logan, a fellow cop, called out to me but I waved him off and headed in the direction of the flummoxed girl that was looking more and more flustered the longer she stood there.

  “Saylor,” I said, startling her as I approached.

  She jumped, turned, and then her shoulders slumped when she spotted me.

  “Hey,” she smiled. “You scared me.”

  I took her in up close and personal.

  She was in a gold dress that went all the way down to her ankles. It was a strappy number, looser on top with a deep V to expose her ample chest, and a tighter empire-type waist that accentuated how curvy she was. And on her feet were some wicked looking heels that I would love to hold on to as I bent her in half and fucked the hell out of her.

  My mind had been in overdrive since yesterday.

  Remembering how she’d been licking the spatula with the leftover batter on it, then even later when she’d finished icing the cakes and had given me the bowl to try the icing…

  I readjusted myself surreptitiously in my pants, hoping that nobody could see my half-chub I had going on.

  “What’s wrong?” I wondered.

  She sighed.

  “My parents are on their way, but they’re late.” She sighed. “A flat tire. Then they got another one about twenty minutes later.”

  “Fuckin’ sucks,” I admitted. “They gonna make it in time?”

  She nodded. “Yes. They were with a couple of others in the club, and they got it repaired fast. But still. They worry me. They’re not twenty-one anymore.”

  I grinned.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I never used to worry about my dad at all. Yet now that I know the kind of dangers he runs into when he goes to SWAT calls, I tend to worry about him even more.”

  “Your dad is on the SWAT team?” she asked in surprise.

  I nodded once. “Yep. Though, he’s the negotiator for the department now. He doesn’t go in at all. Just stands at the scenes and talks to the fucktards that need SWAT called on them.”

  Her mouth twitched.

  “My parents aren’t senior citizens by any means,” she said. “But there’s been a lot of freaky shit happening lately that has me jumpy.”

  “You talked about his accident yesterday,” I said. “There’s more?”

  She’d told me yesterday that he’d been in an accident at work that had fucked him up pretty bad. And that he’d just returned to work not too long ago.

  “Little piddly shit.” She crossed her arms over her chest, making her breasts press together and up. I licked my lips and looked away. “They think they have an arsonist on their hands.”

  I grimaced. “Those aren’t any fun.”

  Just then the photographer called for us to return to our positions.

  Nobody hurried to move.

  “It looks like the photographer is getting pissy,” Saylor said, eyes on the woman that was indeed losing her shit behind me. “You better get over there.”

/>   I winked at her and then did just that, but not before tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

  Her hair was down and around her face, a riot of black curls that I wanted nothing more than to pull on just to see if they’d bounce back into place.

  The photographer hollered again, this time sounding extremely upset, and I sighed before leaving her standing there with a small smile on her face.

  “What the hell was that?” Justice asked.

  I looked at him in surprise.

  “What was what?” I wondered.

  “That thing you just had going on with Saylor.” He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t hurt her.”

  I tilted my head. “When have I ever given you any indication that I wasn’t a trustworthy person? I’d never hurt her.”

  “Not on purpose, no,” he agreed. “But Saylor is one of mine…and I don’t want you fucking with her heart.”

  “I’m not going to fuck with her heart,” I said, sounding just a little bit testy.

  “No?” he asked. “You better not because I’d fuck you up.” He paused as his eyes caught on something over my shoulder. “Then again, her dad would do that for me.”

  I looked over my shoulder to see a rather large man heading straight for Saylor.

  I would’ve tensed and been ready to fight had I not seen the smile aimed at the big man filling up Saylor’s entire face.

  “That her dad?” I asked.

  I should, technically, know at least some of these people. It wasn’t as if we didn’t go to the stray party with the Dixie Wardens here and there when I was growing up. But I was really shit at remembering people’s faces and names. I hadn’t gone to anything in quite a while, either. Everyone was different.

  “Yep,” Justice confirmed. “His name is Tiago Spada, but everyone calls him Kettle.”

  “Why do they call him Kettle?” I wondered. “That’s an odd name.”

  Justice grinned as he looped an arm around my shoulder and dragged me back to the almost-crying photographer.

  “That’s because Kettle can take a lot of shit and not get mad. But when he finally boils over, shit’s going to hit the fan. Like a tea kettle. One second he’s fine, and the next he’s going nutso.” He let me go when we were near the photographer. “Hey, Ford,” Justice called.

  Ford Spurlock, one of Justice’s childhood friends, looked over from where he was standing next to a pillar.

  “What?” he grumbled.

  “You remember that time that Saylor went out on that date and Kettle found out that he disrespected her?” Justice drawled.

  Ford’s lips kicked up at the corners of his mouth.

  “Yeah,” he grinned.

  “You remember what he did?” Justice asked.

  Ford’s grin turned into a full-blown smile.

  “Yep.” He paused, eyes drifting to me as he obviously read between the lines of the conversation. “Kettle lost his shit and sent the kid to the hospital. Kid was only fifteen.”

  I let my eyes drift to the big man that was staring at his daughter so adoringly.

  And wondered if she was worth it.

  But then she turned her eyes to me, smiled, and winked.

  Oh, yeah. She was definitely worth it.

  ***

  I couldn’t help but stare at her throughout the rest of the wedding.

  When she was on my arm as we were walking out behind Justice and his new wife, I looked down to see her wiping away tears.

  “Weddings make you cry?” I asked curiously.

  She shrugged.

  “That’s why I started making cakes,” she said, looking a little sheepish. “I just love the look on a bride’s face when she sees the wedding cake.”

  “When did you start doing this?” I asked curiously, trying to keep my voice low so that the people around us didn’t hear what I was saying.

  “When I was a teenager.” She smiled. “I used to work in the photo section in Walgreens with a really nice woman. She was about ten years older than me, and I used to idolize her. Her and her boyfriend met when we were working, actually. He came in wanting to get some photos developed. She developed them for him, and they had a laugh over the dog that he’d just gotten. I really enjoyed watching their relationship grow. When he asked her to marry him, they were both poor college students. I offered to make the cake, and I don’t think that they realized I could actually cook when they agreed.”

  “You didn’t take any food up there for like staff parties or anything?” I asked.

  We were in the lobby now, but I still hadn’t let go of her.

  “No,” she grinned. “This was Walgreens. The turnover rate was high, and the employees weren’t the same ones from one week to the next. There was no camaraderie there. Just between me and Tanya. But when I made that cake and saw the look on her face, I knew that I would keep doing it.”

  “And then you started making such big cakes that people started ordering?” I guessed.

  I shrugged. “Yes. Kind of. People just started ordering them for birthdays and stuff like that. Before I knew it, all of my old clients were recommending me to new clients. And then everything was going by word of mouth. But…I never really wanted to do it full-time. It’s just more of a hobby to me.”

  The photographer was once again trying to rein us all in, pointing to where she wanted us to go to get the rest of the wedding party photos done.

  “This is a nightmare,” I muttered. “I’m so fucking hot right now.”

  Saylor’s eyes swept up the length of me before settling on my face.

  “If it makes you feel better,” she said teasingly. “You look fucking hot as hell.”

  I looked down into her eyes and knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from fucking her.

  There was just no way.

  I eyed her up and down, too.

  “I’ve wanted to peel that dress off of you since I saw you in it before the wedding,” I said bluntly. “So, the feeling’s mutual, I guess.”

  Her breath hitched, and a pretty blush started at her tits and swept upward.

  God, she was pretty.

  “All right, y’all!” the photographer yelled. “We’re meeting outside for the wedding party group photo. Then we’ll take one of each of the crew with their pair that they walked down the aisle with. Then we’ll finish up with the bride and groom. Let’s go! The lighting is absolutely perfect right now!”

  I started tugging Saylor toward the front doors as the rest of the wedding party shuffled out, about as excited to be out in the sun as I was.

  “Don’t look so excited,” Saylor teased. “At least you get to have someone to talk to while you go through this torture.”

  I looked down at her and grinned, squeezing her hand in mine.

  “Very true,” I teased. “Now I can have someone watch my face for signs of heatstroke.”

  She winked, making me want to grab her up into my arms and kiss her.

  I’d done a lot of thinking about the woman since I’d last seen her.

  She’d cost me my original job that I’d agreed to take up with the police department when I’d first started. She’d also made me become a national sensation overnight with how I’d disarmed the dumbass in a matter of moments.

  I’d also gotten quite a bit of flak from colleagues that I’d been involved in it at all.

  Needless to say, I should be worried and stay away from her.

  I wasn’t worried.

  And I most certainly wasn’t going to be staying away from her.

  I also knew was that I couldn’t let her leave.

  So, after the pictures were taken and the bridesmaids dispersed to go help the bride do whatever brides needed help doing after a wedding, I called my mom.

  Chapter 4

  You may now bang the bride.

  -Royal’s Underwear

  Saylor

  I grinned at my father as I said, “I gotta go help the bride pe
e. I’ll be back.”

  My dad winked, and my mother dropped a kiss onto my cheek before turning to my dad.

  “Take me to eat,” she ordered.

  “They’re going to have food at the reception,” he said.

  “They are,” my mother agreed. “But they’re also going to be doing that in like two hours. It’s been three since I’ve eaten, and you know how famished I get.”

  My dad snorted.

  Loudly.

  “I know that you’re full of shit,” he rumbled, throwing his arm around her neck and pulling her in tight. “But let’s go. If we hurry, we can grab something to eat before anybody notices that we’re even gone.”

  I watched with a smile on my face as my parents left, and then I went in search of Royal.

  I found her by herself, trying to lift all the multiple layers of tulle and fabric.

  “What are you doing?” I questioned as I watched her lift and shift her skirt layers from side to side.

  “I’m trying to find the end of these goddamn things so I can pee,” she answered.

  I helped her move the fabric to the side, then bunch it up all around her boobs. Then we made the walk to the bathroom with her butt hanging out.

  “How’s the view from back there?” she asked as we walked.

  I looked at her white cotton boy short underwear and grinned. “I think he’s going to like them.”

  The underwear said ‘You may now bang the bride’ on the front of them and ‘It’s not going to spank itself, Justice.’

  “It was really hard getting them to fit all those words on there,” she said. “It cost me fifty bucks just for one pair of underwear.”

  I choked on my spit.

  “I got y’all a pair, too,” she said. “You should put yours on.”

  I looked at the goody bag that she’d handed me when I’d walked in that day, but hadn’t had a chance to actually go through yet.

  “What does it say?” I wondered.

  “Maid of honor,” she said. “And bang me.”

  I burst out laughing as I helped guide her to the seat.

  “I’m so glad that you agreed to be my maid of honor.” She sighed as she peed. “And that you’re willing to hold my dress for me while I pee. I know we don’t know each other all that well…but I’m so glad that I got to know you. I just wish you weren’t moving away.”