Oxygen Deprived (Kilgore Fire Book 3)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I’d just put the first spoonful in my mouth when a sound from outside had me walking out of the kitchen to the window that looked out over my front yard.

  I moved the blinds down, hunching over so I could see out, and blinked when I saw the same two men that I’d seen in the same exact spot a week ago.

  “What are you two doing?” I whispered, absently spooning up some ice cream and shoving it into my mouth.

  I’d just moved my spoon down for a third dip when one of them lifted his hand toward his car, presumably using his keychain to pop the trunk open.

  Then movement caught my eye as a young girl came out of Drew’s house. The further she moved down the driveway, the more I realized that I knew that form. It was Attie, Drew’s daughter.

  She was nearly all the way down the driveway when she heard the men talking.

  She was shielded by the bushes that ran down the length of Drew’s driveway, and the men never saw or heard her.

  She stopped and turned, peering over the bushes.

  And screamed.

  I dropped my spoon and my bowl of ice cream and started running.

  The front door was locked, bolted and chained, giving me a very hard time as I tried to get out in my haste to get to Attie.

  Once the last lock was undone, I slammed the door open.

  It hit the wall with a loud thud, but I barely noticed as I started to run down the middle of my yard, straight for the men that now had Attie by the arm.

  “Let her go!” I screamed. “Now! Drew!”

  I screamed for Drew so loud that my throat throbbed.

  “Fuck me!” One of the men cursed as he started to move toward his car.

  Attie, though, fought back, hard.

  So hard, in fact, that I was initially surprised.

  I froze beside her, unsure of where to grab her to help or to let her continue on her own. She figured it out without me, but she got herself free and lurched for the car, grabbing something that was inside the trunk and pulling.

  I chose that time to rear back and hit the other man that was still there, but he caught my fist so effortlessly that I was momentarily shocked.

  He hadn’t even been facing me, how the hell had he seen me?

  And I wouldn’t get into the fact that he was still holding my hand as well as pulling a gun out from under his front jacket.

  I heard Drew’s shout from somewhere behind me, causing me to turn and stare at him running, shirtless and shoeless, directly to us.

  He had a gun in his hand as well, but he wasn’t aiming it at anything.

  “Freeze, Smith,” the man that was holding me ordered. He had his gaze on the man behind the wheel of the car. “Put your hands on the wheel and I won’t shoot you.”

  Everyone froze, except for Drew, who kept coming until he was in reaching distance of not just me, but his daughter as well.

  Attie had her arms around something that was bundled in a blanket, her eyes wild and scared as she let her gaze dart around this way and that, looking like her life had just been thrown upside down.

  “Fuck you,” Smith said, revving the engine.

  The distinct ‘thump’ of the car being put into reverse rocked through the still night air, and before any of us could even react, the man holding the gun on the one in the car pulled the trigger.

  The car started to roll backward, but the man inside of it was too dead to stop it.

  The one who’d just shot the other man then turned his gun on Drew.

  “I’m a cop, if you shoot me, I’ll shoot you, too. Then your kid and your woman will have to bury you,” the man said.

  He still had a hold of my arm, but his gun was pointing at Drew’s chest, and I was too scared to do anything that might upset the perilous balance that the two men had going right then.

  “Put it down,” Drew ordered. “Let her go.”

  The man let me go, but he didn’t drop the gun like he’d been instructed to.

  “I’m not stupid here,” the man snarled. “My name is Raphael Luis, and I’m on assignment as a liaison with the FBI. Call whomever you want and confirm it.”

  Drew hesitated.

  “I have my phone, Daddy,” Attie whispered. “It’s in my back pocket.”

  “Aspen,” Drew barked. “Call your brother. Get confirmation.”

  I moved around Drew, careful not to obstruct his view of the man or the situation.

  I reached Attie’s back, and it was then I saw that what she was holding was a human being.

  A live human being.

  One with big, bright, blue eyes and long curly blonde hair.

  “Mother fucker,” I breathed, my hands freezing on the phone in Attie’s jeans.

  Drew’s angry bark of ‘hurry up’ had me yanking the phone out Attie’s pocket and unlocking it without another thought.

  My eyes, though, kept glancing back at the girl.

  I’d just dialed the phone and put it to my ear when the first cop car came rolling down the street.

  And it was then that I could hear my ankle monitor’s beep-beep-beep.

  Well, that was helpful!

  What wasn’t helpful, though, was having three more guns added to the mix.

  “Put them down,” the officer, one of the two that I didn’t want to see right then, barked.

  “Hello?” Downy answered, voice alert.

  “Umm, you might want to come to my house. I think the Wild West is about to make a reappearance,” I said. “And hey, can you vouch for a man for me? He says he’s with the FBI, and I don’t know who to call besides you to verify he is who he says he is.”

  “The one across the street from you?” He asked. “Dark hair, green eyes. Beard?”

  I blinked, surprised that Downy knew my neighbor.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” I concurred.

  “He’s with the FBI. Introduced himself to me and Luke a couple of months ago,” he said. “I told him about the house across from you that was for rent.”

  I could hear him shutting doors, as well as his keys jingling.

  “That was nice of you to tell me who he was,” I growled in annoyance. “Would it really have been that hard to say, ‘Oh! Hey! You have a cop living across the street from you.’”

  Downy snorted, Raphael’s eyes came to me, but no emotion whatsoever showed on his face.

  “He’s not a cop exactly,” Downy hedged. “And I didn’t want you to know about him. He’s not exactly an upstanding citizen that I want you getting all neighborly with.”

  “Hmm,” I said, giving my nod to Drew, who dropped his gun. “Must be why he’s got a gun pointed at Drew’s head. Got it. See you soon, bro.”

  Then I hung up, ignoring the curse that came from Downy’s end of the line.

  “Put them down!” Officer Meek, my ex’s lover, screamed.

  Her weapon was pointed at Drew, though, not Raphael.

  The other officer had his gun out, but not pointed anywhere.

  He was obviously the smart one of the partnership.

  “Drew, he says he’s with the FBI. Put it away,” I said softly.

  “You first,” Drew said to Raphael.

  “Same time,” Raphael challenged.

  They nodded and both dropped the weapons at the exact same time, but neither one of them was letting their guard down.

  “On the ground!” Officer Meek spat.

  Raphael turned his glare to the woman.

  “Lady,” he growled. “I’m getting on the ground over my dead body. I suggest you back the fuck off and stop pointing that gun with two children less than a foot away from me.”

  “He’s with the FBI,” I said louder this time so Officer Meek, the whoring adulteress, could hear me.

  She ignored me, walking forward so that she now had Raphael in her line of site.

  “Show me your hands,” she ordered.

  Then something happened, so quick that I couldn’t even assimila
te the move before Officer Meek was down on the ground, her arm behind her back.

  “That’s why you never come too close to a trained individual. You don’t want to give them the opportunity to get their hands on you,” Raphael chastised.

  It would be inappropriate to laugh, correct?

  I did anyway, though.

  Discreetly.

  I mean, the bitch deserved it.

  “Excuse me,” the other officer that was now on the scene interrupted. “But there’s a man in here crying about his head being blown off. Do you think I should call that in?”

  I blinked, surprised.

  Firstly, because the man with his head blown off was still alive. Secondly, because the police officer was asking us if he should call it in.

  “Of course you should call it in, dim wit,” I muttered under my breath. “Yes, I think that’s for the best,” I said more loudly.

  The officer nodded.

  “Got it,” he picked up the mic on his shoulder and called it in.

  “What in the hell are they teaching at your police academy?” Raphael asked, letting Officer Meek, the cheater, go.

  She ripped her arm back and stood hastily, backing up several paces.

  She no longer had her gun, though.

  Raphael had somehow gotten that without me seeing it.

  And I wanted to hug him.

  Drew might not like that too much, though.

  Especially with the way he kept glancing down at my yoga pants and tank top, eyes hot, and not in a good way.

  I was momentarily surprised that I didn’t need a jacket, and in fact, wasn’t even cold.

  Then I shook my head.

  That was Good ‘ol East Texas weather for you, though.

  Hot one day, snowing the next.

  “Listen,” I started. “I…”

  That was when my brother showed up, his face mutinous as he stepped out of his city-issued SUV.

  He took a quick cursory glance around, then pointed at the house.

  “Aspen, go inside,” he ordered quietly.

  This was one of those times that I knew not to argue.

  I could tell by the look on my brother’s face, as well as the way he was practically vibrating with anger, that it wouldn’t be in my best interest to argue. Not to mention he’d used my real name.

  So, like a good little girl, I went inside.

  But I watched from the front window.

  The child in Attie’s arms was taken away from her by the paramedics that showed up, a striking red head and a blonde that looked super cute in their uniforms.

  They took the child to their ambulance and shut the doors, leaving moments later with a police escort.

  The man in the car was the next to be transferred, this one by two large men, both out of shape and not caring in the least that the man was screaming.

  I was fairly sure they sedated him before they’d even gotten him into the back of the ambulance. Mostly because one second I could hear him screaming, and the next I couldn’t.

  Mostly, though, my eyes stayed on Drew.

  He looked…odd.

  That was the only way I could explain it.

  His eyes were wild, and his body was strung so tight that I was sure he was going to snap at any moment.

  And when he said something to his daughter, and she started to argue, he said a few short words to her that had her freezing. Then nodding and complying with whatever he’d said to her.

  She walked stiffly to the truck Drew had bought for her, and with a police escort, she was gone, too.

  I’d have watched more, but Raphael said something to Drew, which caused him to turn to the window that I was looking out of.

  He shook his head at me once, and I guessed that meant that he didn’t want me watching out the window, so I sighed and stepped back.

  Right into an eight-dollar puddle of melted ice cream

  “Damn it all to hell,” I grumbled morosely, dropping down on my knees to tip the bowl up while catching as much as the melted goodness as I could. “This was the perfect end to one fucked up night.”

  Chapter 13

  I’m not saying I hate you. All I’m saying is that if you were hit by a bus, I’d be the one driving the bus.

  -Aspen’s secret thoughts

  Drew

  My body was still vibrating with anger as I stopped at Aspen’s front door.

  “Listen, Constance,” I sighed. “I had nothing to do with what happened today, and I don’t know what else you want me to say here.”

  I tapped my foot with impatience, ready to get off the phone with the woman.

  “What I want you to say is that this’ll never happen again!” Constance said shrilly. “Or she won’t be coming back to your house.”

  I ground my teeth together and refrained from saying what I really wanted to say.

  Instead I went with what I knew wouldn’t set her off on another tirade.

  “I will ensure you, to the best of my ability, that this will never happen again if I can help it,” I promised her, telling the truth.

  However, I couldn’t promise that Attie would never be in trouble again.

  I wasn’t psychic, and I couldn’t be with her twenty-four hours a day.

  I also had no control over fate.

  Something which I’d had slammed into my face tonight.

  “Fine,” Constance said. “Make sure you get to the field by ten in the morning. Her soccer game is at eleven.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Yes, Constance.”

  She sniffed and hung up, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I’d called to check on Attie, but just like me, she was able to deal with her problems and go to sleep.

  I’d always been good at compartmentalizing things and so was Attie.

  What I wasn’t good at compartmentalizing was my feelings for the woman that I could see through the window.

  She was laying on her bed, which was directly in the line of site from the front door I’d just come through.

  She hadn’t heard me, otherwise she wouldn’t still be swinging her hips to the sound of the music that was coming from the speakers next to the TV.

  She was up on her knees in the bed, her front plastered to the bed, ass in the air.

  Her Kindle was propped up against a pillow, and her arms were resting under her chin, one lone finger out and tapping the screen to turn the pages on it as she read.

  I could see the outline of her panties through her tight yoga pants.

  They were the type that barely covered the ass cheeks, and in the position she was in, they resembled more of a thong.

  I clenched my fists, my mind going back to earlier in the night when I heard her call my name in such desperation that my heart was hammering the moment the words had left her lips.

  I’d woken up to find her gone, and the scream had come again, this time even more frightening than the last.

  Then I’d barreled out the door, my gun in my hand and my heart in my throat, to find not just my woman in danger, but my daughter as well.

  And let’s just say the next five minutes, after seeing that, had not been the best of my life.

  In fact, I was fairly sure that out of all my experiences, that one was at the top of the list of my life’s worst experiences, which included even the night I’d nearly died when I was seventeen.

  Then it’d only been me that could die.

  What was infinitely worse, though, was seeing two of the most important people in my world on the business end of a gun.

  That’d been eye opening to say the least.

  “I just had sexxxxxxxx,” Aspen sang loudly. To what song, I didn’t know, seeing as I had never listened to that song before. “She let me put my penis…”

  She kept singing, snapping me out of my contemplation of life and how short it may be.

  I walked up behind her, no longer able to resist those
hip movements.

  Once I reached her, I stilled her hips with both of my hands on her ass, causing her to freeze in place.

  Her head snapped sideways as her hips started to drop, but I held her in place and made eye contact with her, letting her know with only the look in my eyes that I wanted her to stay exactly where she was.

  She got the message. Loud and clear.

  I took her calmness as acceptance and started to remove her pants, grabbing the waistband and pulling down slowly, exposing her beautiful ass cheeks one slow inch at a time.

  She shifted restlessly, causing me to pull them down faster than I intended to.

  I smacked her ass.

  “Stay still,” I ordered her.

  I needed to be in control right then.

  Badly.

  Because if I couldn’t control it, if I let myself slip just a little bit, I could hurt her. And I didn’t want to hurt her.

  I wanted her to scream, but not in pain.

  Well, at least not only in pain.

  A little bit of pain was inevitable. I wasn’t built like most men.

  I had a cock that hurt…but I also had enough experience that would make it pleasurable as well.

  I’d make Aspen crave that burn…and she’d take everything I had to give and more.

  “Okay,” came Aspen’s whispered reply.

  She didn’t stop moving her hips, though.

  It was more than obvious to me that she was anticipating this.

  Especially when I got her panties down around her knees and saw the wetness that was already glistening on the lips of her sex.

  “What kind of book were you reading, baby?” I rumbled, leaning forward and letting my nose skim the cheek of her ass as I inhaled deeply.

  Her pussy smelled divine, and my cock hardened in my pants.

  “I-ummm….” she hesitated. “It’s a romance.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked. “What kind of romance. Read me the last page you were on.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked, letting my tongue snake out and lick her.

  She shuddered the instant my tongue touched the lips of her sex, pushing back against my mouth, urging me to do more.

  “Still,” I urged again, slapping the outside of her thigh with the flat of my hand.