Oxygen Deprived (Kilgore Fire Book 3)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Hopefully, the fish would enjoy it.

  As well as the light that I could even now see shining at the bottom.

  “Ummm,” I said. “Did y’all need that trolling motor that just fell off?”

  Maybe it was old.

  Maybe he didn’t need it.

  “What?” Drew asked.

  I pointed to where the trolling motor had been ripped from the mount it’d previously been sitting on. “It’s gone.”

  Drew looked around me, then cursed.

  “What happened to it?” He asked.

  I pointed to the water.

  “Fuck,” Drew said, scrambling to the front of the boat.

  “I’d say that’s about ten feet or so,” PD said with a laugh.

  Drew snorted, then reached for the wires that were still connecting the lights to the boat.

  He pulled it up, and miraculously it still worked when he put the bar back in place.

  “This is a fucking nightmare,” Drew growled. “We’re never going to get to dry land in time to get the decoys out.”

  By this point, the illusion was way old, and I might or might not have gotten a little annoyed and pissy.

  “Listen,” I said. “This is cool that you got me out of my house, but I’m pretty sure that my balls are freezing off.”

  Both men blinked at me, staring at me as if I’d grown a second head.

  “You don’t have any balls,” PD felt obligated to point out.

  “Is that right?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

  PD shuddered.

  “That’d just be so totally wrong,” he said, eyeing the skin tight waders. “So wrong.”

  I smiled.

  “So…tell me about you, PD,” I said, leaning back in the chair and wrapping the coat that Drew had shed for me back around me. “You know my best friend, Naomi, right?”

  I could see PD’s eyes narrow in the pre-dawn light, and I had to hide my smile as I breathed in deeply.

  The smell of Drew filled my lungs, making my heart start to beat a little faster.

  He always smelled like lemon and a faint whiff of smoke.

  It wasn’t what I would think of when I thought on how a man was supposed to smell, but it was him.

  In fact, I was so caught up in the smell that I almost missed PD’s answer.

  “I’m thirty-seven, and I’m a bit too kinky for your sweet, innocent little friend.”

  My mouth might, or might not have, dropped open.

  Luckily, the darkness that was still clinging to the surroundings as well as Drew’s t-shirt blocked my reaction.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “What, are you into spankings? Like with floggers? Oh!” I said excitedly once my mouth finally came unstuck from my chest, leaning forward so I could see PD when I said what I had to say next. “Are we talking bondage and toys kinky here or ginger anal plugs?”

  He blinked at me, then we hit another tree.

  PD didn’t catch us this time, and Drew cursed.

  “Don’t you know how to drive this thing?” I asked him. “I’m pretty sure you’re giving us all brain damage.”

  Okay, so I was still upset with Drew.

  I couldn’t help it.

  He’d been married when we first met. How hard was it to mention that you had a wife that couldn’t scrape off? I would’ve understood!

  “You know about ginger anal plugs, also known as Figging,” PD asked carefully. “How do you know about that?”

  “I’ve read some BDSM erotic romances,” I said. “It started with Fifty Shades of Grey, and escalated from there. Now I’m on the racier books. I have nothing to do all day, so I’ve been reading more than normal. I’m currently reading Slaves Desired Master.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Drew muttered. “I can’t believe we’re talking about this right now.”

  He stood up and pushed us off, but I didn’t miss the huge boner he had going on in his waders.

  His weren’t all that tight, either, meaning Drew liked the topic of conversation.

  What he probably didn’t like, though, was the fact that I was having this discussion with his friend rather than him.

  I hadn’t said a nice thing to him since he’d given me his jacket five minutes out from the boat ramp.

  And I was pretty sure he was rethinking bringing me.

  My ankle chose that moment to throb when a particularly hard bump against a fallen tree jolted my leg against the dog’s cage between my feet.

  I hissed, causing both men to look at me in surprise.

  “My ankle hurts,” I explained to them.

  Drew’s eyes widened.

  “I didn’t really give that much thought,” he said apologetically. “I can let you use my waders once we get to where I’m wanting to get to. It’ll give you a little extra room.”

  I softened for him.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said. “It’s only because I bumped it against the cage.”

  He nodded, not quite convinced, and started forward again.

  Finally, we broke through the trees, and he groaned.

  “We’re here,” he said to PD. “Check the depth.”

  I handed him the paddle that’d dropped on top of my feet to him.

  “Don’t get any funny ideas with this,” I said to PD.

  His eyes lit up with mirth.

  “Sorry, darlin’. I only play with the ones that are free,” he shot back.

  I opened my mouth in affront.

  “I’m not taken!” I bellowed loudly.

  PD gave me two raised eyebrows that clearly said he didn’t believe me.

  I didn’t believe me, either.

  I was Drew’s.

  Just not right now.

  He needed to take care of his problem before I’d let him back in my bed.

  Hours later, I was rethinking that promise to myself when Drew carried me into his house from his truck.

  I was partially asleep and would’ve probably forced him to put me down had I been awake.

  But I was officially exhausted from being out all day and so snugly and warm.

  “I’m going to put you down on my bed for a minute while I go get Thief settled in his kennel.” Drew said as he placed me on a bed that felt like clouds.

  My eyes closed and stayed closed long enough for the front door to close and then I started to hyperventilate.

  I was going to have sex with him again.

  I was going to have sex with a married man!

  Oh, my God!

  I was such a slut!

  I furiously dialed Naomi’s number, relieved when she answered.

  “Hello?” She said, sounding chipper as always.

  “Quick!” I said loudly. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “What?” Naomi sounded nervous now. “What’s going on?”

  I ran through Drew’s nearly empty living room to the front door where I could look outside.

  I saw him there, standing in tight Wrangler jeans that molded to his ass like a second skin, and stared.

  “I’m going to sleep with Drew again,” I informed. “Not today, maybe. But maybe tomorrow. I won’t be able to help myself.”

  “What?” Naomi’s voice was high pitched at the best of times, but when she was shrieking, it was even worse. She reminded me of a harpy. “When did this happen? You totally told him to suck your dick yesterday and now this?”

  I moaned. “I know.”

  “Well, what changed?” She asked.

  “He held a baby,” I cried. “At the boat ramp.”

  “What are you talking about?” She questioned. “What boat ramp?”

  So then I went in to the story of how he’d bailed me out of my improvised jail, how he’d taken me duck hunting, let me blow on his duck call, given me his jacket, and had held me when I was so cold I couldn’t feel my toes.

  But the icing on the cake was when we’d arrived back at t
he boat ramp, and a baby was there that’d fallen into the water.

  The mother had been freaking out because the child was probably no more than a month old.

  She’d hit the water and had sank underneath the dark murky depths while we’d been pulling up in Drew’s boat.

  Drew had bailed almost before he’d come to a complete stop, and had managed to get the kid even before the mother could bend over in her frantic search to get her child.

  He’d then started stripping the clothes off the baby, and had placed the little girl against the screaming mother’s chest.

  “He told the woman to take her shirt off?” Naomi gasped.

  “Yeah!” I confirmed. “And then he’d had PD call 911, even though the baby had been kicking and screaming her discontent.”

  “Holy crap,” she said. “What did PD do?”

  “Pretty much the same. Tried to calm the woman down. When the woman still didn’t cooperate, Drew had taken his own clothes off, then covered the baby with his dry clothes. Good thing he was wearing his waders,” I added as an afterthought.

  “That’s kind of cool,” she said. “I would’ve loved to be there.”

  “Then I was in the boat and it started to drift off, so I had to start it on my own and drive it. It was so cool!” I froze when Drew started moving towards me, a handful of crap in his hands. “Shit, I gotta go. He’s coming back.”

  “Have sex with him!” Was the last thing I heard before I hung up and made a mad dash into the room.

  I didn’t go for the bed, though.

  There was no way I’d be able to pull off ‘sleeping.’

  So I chose to go to the bathroom and take care of some of my girly needs before I came back out.

  And ended up going through all his bathroom cabinets. And his pants. And his shower.

  My eyes lit on the lube that was sitting on the shower rail at the very top, and I froze, wondering what exactly that was for.

  Did he masturbate in the shower with it? Why else would it be there?

  I had it in my hand when a voice directly behind me made me jump a foot in the air.

  “Eeek!” I said, squeaking.

  The bottle dropped onto my toe, but I didn’t notice as I turned around and gasped, my hand going to my thundering heart.

  “Jesus!” I said. “You scared the crap out of me!” My eyes narrowed. “How’d you get in here, anyway? I locked the door.”

  “It’s broken,” he said, pointing at the door handle.

  The front of the handle had its cap missing, showing the insides of the door handle, which explained why he’d gotten in.

  “You could’ve knocked,” I muttered darkly.

  His grin widened and he bent down to pick the bottle of lube up off the floor.

  “You were in here for about an hour,” he teased. “I started to worry you’d fallen in.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “I most certainly did not fall in. My ass hangs over the toilet seat on both sides. I’m fairly sure it’s physically impossible to ‘fall in’,” I shot back.

  He shrugged and placed the lube back on the shower rail before turning around and leaving the room.

  I followed him reluctantly, but he didn’t stop when he got into the living room. No, he headed right out the front door.

  He kept going until he walked into my house, with a key that I’d never given him.

  “Hey!” I said forcefully. “How’d you get a key?”

  He put something down on the counter, which I could see from the front door, and I grimaced.

  “I told you I wasn’t eating a duck,” I said. “I still can’t believe you thought I’d enjoy duck hunting. You’re crazy in your head if you think I’ll like that.”

  He tossed me a look.

  “All I ask is that you try it, not that you eat it all. That’s it,” he promised.

  I sighed.

  “Fine,” I acquiesced. “Just make sure you remember I don’t like my food burnt.”

  I came up to the kitchen counter that was directly across from him and hopped up onto it while I watched him work.

  Something dinged on my base unit across the room, and the light that’d stayed green the entire day—yes, I checked multiple times—turned from green to red and back to green again.

  “Guess that was cutting it close,” I guessed. “What time was I supposed to be back in my house?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think they give you twelve hours, but we ran way over that today. We were out about fifteen hours or so. I told my sister we wouldn’t be back until nightfall, though. When she’s working, that’s okay. When she’s not, we need to get you back here in twelve hours.”

  “We?” I asked.

  He turned the oven on and then started taking down bowls.

  “Flour?”

  I pointed to the bottom cabinet.

  “Eggs?”

  I pointed at the same spot.

  “We?” I prompted again.

  “Yes, we,” he confirmed. “The only way you get to come out is if you’re with someone who has agreed to chaperone your excursions. That’s me or your brother when I’m working.”

  I bit my lip.

  “My brother’s not going to agree to chaperone me so I can go out,” I told him. “He doesn’t particularly like me and avoids spending time with me.”

  “That’s up to you and him to work out,” he said. “But I wouldn’t count your brother out just yet. Just…trust me.”

  I got the feeling he knew something I didn’t. But it wouldn’t be until the next week that I learned what that was.

  And to say I was surprised would be an understatement.

  Chapter 11

  I lost one pound this week. Time to reward myself with a hamburger.

  -Aspen’s secret thoughts

  Drew

  “Remember to take your sister out tomorrow,” I told Downy.

  Downy nodded. “I’m not going to forget, you fucker.”

  I flipped him off and got into the fire truck.

  We’d been on our way to go get something to eat when I saw Downy getting out of his SUV, his K-9 officer at his side.

  After giving Mocha a scratch between the ears, I turned my attention to Aspen’s wayward brother, who had forgotten about his sister earlier in the day, and I had to call my sister to have her change Aspen’s day from today to tomorrow.

  “Seriously, man,” I said. “If you forget tomorrow, she’ll be stuck in that house for another week. My sister can only pull so many strings here.”

  Downy nodded and turned his back on me without another word, and I jogged to the engine and climbed back into the driver’s seat.

  “What was that about?” PD asked me.

  I sighed.

  “Downy and his avoidance of anything to do with his sister,” I muttered darkly as I pulled out into traffic.

  I made my way into the left lane, which was where we were supposed to drive at all times, and headed to Chili’s, the one and only place that was open at this time on a Friday night.

  We were in the middle of cooking dinner at the firehouse when we had to abandon it to go out on a call. When we came back five hours later, it was a congealed mess and no one was up to cooking anymore.

  So, instead of hitting the grocery store for more food to cook, we were on our way out for dinner.

  “He forgot about her?” PD asked incredulously.

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know for sure,” I hesitated. “He got a SWAT call about two hours before he was supposed to pick her up, and it ran into her scheduled time by a couple of hours. Then, when he was done, I think he forgot, but he blew me off when I asked him about it just a minute ago.”

  “Maybe he was stuck doing paperwork,” Tai chimed in from the back seat.

  I tossed him a look over my shoulder that clearly said, ‘I don’t think so.’

  Tai grinned.
/>
  “My wife wants to meet your woman,” Tai mentioned. “She’s apparently a legend, you know.”

  My brows rose.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Everyone in town’s been talking about the scorned cop’s girlfriend who went all Carrie Underwood on his car. When Mia heard you were dating her, she told Masen, and that’s all I’ve been hearing about since,” he explained.

  Masen was Mia’s best friend, and Booth’s wife.

  The two of them together were twin tornados. Add Aspen into that mix, and I feared for the safety of everyone in this town with the antics I could see them pulling if they, and we, weren’t careful.

  “She still mad at you?” PD asked, his eyes going over to Naomi who’d been sitting quietly the entire time.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Won’t even give me the chance to get close to her before she shies away.”

  My eyes went to Naomi’s, who quickly looked away before she could make contact too long.

  “That’s understandable,” PD said. “She didn’t know you were married.”

  “I’m not fucking married,” I spat. “I’m fucking divorced. My ex just likes torture me by prolonging the inevitable.”

  “No,” Naomi said quietly from the backseat. “You just reminded her of the very thing that her parents did. If my memory serves me right, she told you that Danny cheated on her. She also told me she told you about her mother and the situation with her father. She doesn’t do cheating, and you let her do that without her even knowing it, whether you see yourself as divorced or not.”

  I blinked, surprised that she’d made sense out of it so easily.

  Now that she’d pointed it out, it all made sense.

  And Naomi was right.

  I had done that to her.

  Despite the fact that I considered myself divorced, I technically wasn’t, and I’d taken her choice in the matter away.

  She might’ve made the same choice regardless of whether I’d given her all the details or not, but the fact that I hadn’t given it to her was clearly upsetting her.

  I hadn’t considered how she might view it

  Yes, I’d known she was upset, but now that I looked at it from her point of view…

  “Shit,” I muttered softly.

  “Yep,” she confirmed. “If it makes you feel better, I told her to sleep with you again, but she told me she couldn’t do it until she was sure you were divorced.”