A quick glance toward the microwave and she noticed the time. It was getting late, and tomorrow was a big day. As of right now she’d only get four hours of sleep before she had to get everyone up for school. Then she’d go back to bed for a few hours, and the kids would be home by three o’clock from school before she knew it. They would be going to the hospital to see her aunt and talk to the doctor.
“Well, I’ve got to go. I think they may be releasing Aunt Peggy from the hospital tomorrow. They ran a bunch of tests, and so far it looks like she’s in remission.”
“That’s great. I am sure it has a lot to do with the treatment you got for her. The clinic nearly killed her.”
“I know. I hate to think about all the other people that clinic failed.”
“Oh no. Don’t start worrying about the strangers again. You nearly wound up in jail, remember?”
“Of course I do. It was the scariest twenty-four hours of my life.”
“Good old Charlie. He treats you like you’re his daughter.”
“He acted like I was his own daughter when he bailed me out of jail then reprimanded me.”
They began walking across the living room to the front door.
“How did you get that money to pay for your aunt’s surgery? And don’t tell me by bartending at the club. That was big bucks to save her life. Oh, wait, you’re not stripping are you? I heard that Lilly and some of the other girls get huge tips.”
Melissa looked down at the rug. “Hell no! I could never do that. I am doing fine just working the bar. You would be surprised at how much I make in tips.” She hoped her lie about the tips went unnoticed. She wasn’t about to divulge any of her extracurricular activities. “Let’s just say I came across an amazing opportunity and took advantage of it.”
“Okay, don’t tell me then. Whatever you did, it was well worth it.”
Melissa said good-bye then exited the apartment.
Chapter 2
Vince and Frankie stood near the bar drinking their beers and talking about the drug bust their team engaged in tonight. It was intense for the average SWAT team officer but not for an Alpha were. It was difficult to get the scene out of his head as Vince recalled the setup. There were bullets flying all around them, drug dealers were armed with semiautomatic weapons, and they were secured inside a home armed with titanium doors as barricades.
“That’s pretty fucking funny about that titanium door. How much you think that fucking thing cost?” Vince asked.
“Shit. I don’t even know where the fuck you get titanium doors from as an average citizen,” Frankie responded.
His brother laughed. “They weren’t average citizens. They were drug dealers from Jamaica.”
Frankie laughed. “You can buy a lot of expensive shit with ‘fuck-you’ money.”
Just then Vince sniffed the air and smelled the female wolf as she approached the bar. His eyes roamed over her body from her six-inch, spiked red heels to her perky little breasts. She wasn’t wearing any bra, or panties for that matter. The dress was skintight and matched her heels and her lipstick. Vince knew what she wanted, and with one glance toward his brother Frankie, it was on. They had seen her around this bar before, and she never dressed so provocatively.
“Hi,” she whispered extra close to Vince’s ear.
He took a slug from his beer and pretended he didn’t notice her. She would need to know her place right off the bat. He knew what she was offering, but she didn’t know what she was in for with him and Frankie.
Frankie stood up and towered over the female wolf by at least a foot. She was lanky, with long legs, thin arms, and a decent ass. Not their usual type, but she would do for tonight. They were both feeling rather stressed lately. Their other brothers were on edge as well, and there was no explanation in sight.
Frankie moved in behind the blonde and sniffed her neck. He knew immediately she was from Semora pack. It was a small, neutral wolf pack that had family scattered around the state of New York.
He placed his hands on her hips and gave a small thrust to her ass, letting his thick, hard cock press against the seam. She closed her eyes and leaned back against him.
Vince took control of the situation because it seemed they were drawing some attention from the crowd of humans around them.
“You, outside in thirty seconds,” he stated then drank the rest of his beer before rising from the stool and leaving with his brother Frankie.
Vince looked at his military watch as they stood in the side parking lot of the building. She would have to use her wolf senses to know where to meet them. It was part of the game. The thrill of the chase.
“Did you see that fucking dress she had on?”
“I’m really not into this tonight,” Vince stated, sounding annoyed with himself.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just not—Bingo!” His watch beeped, indicating that the thirty seconds were up, and along came the blonde.
She wiggled her ass like she thought she was the hottest wolf in town. Her heels clanked on the blacktop with every step she took. In a flash, she lifted her dress from upper thigh to shoulders, up and over her head.
He was right. No fucking undergarments.
She pressed her small breasts against Vince’s chest as she reached for his pants.
* * * *
Vince wasn’t sure what the hell came over him, but he wasn’t interested in getting any tonight. He had been fighting this sensation inside of him for weeks now. He started to think that there was more to his life than the SWAT team, the government job, and dedicating his entire life to the military.
He grabbed the blonde by her hands and stopped her.
“What’s your problem?” she asked him. Then placed her hands on her hips.
She thought nothing about standing in the middle of the side parking lot completely naked in front of two wolves she didn’t know. It bothered him. Wolves being sexual creatures was one thing, but putting out to any wolf sniffing was another. Vince didn’t like women like this. He was annoyed now at his brother for provoking him.
* * * *
Frankie inhaled her scent, trying his hardest to keep interested. But one look at his brother Vince and all bets were off. His brother wasn’t interested either. The smell of numerous colognes and both human and were-male scents made his stomach twist with disgust. She was nothing but a cheap whore, and that was it. He lost his desire as well. He was still a gentleman as he helped to locate her dress and tell her that they needed to go. Vince pretended that his phone vibrated as he followed Frankie’s lead. The chick bought it, thinking they were really important as he helped her with her dress and thanked her for understanding. She smiled.
“You two can do me any time you want.”
Her language bothered Frankie. Everything about her bothered him. As they watched her walk away and back into the bar, they walked silently to their truck. “We could have had sex with no strings attached and we both turned it down. What the hell?” Frankie stated, sounding annoyed.
* * * *
After making it halfway to their home, a thirty-minute drive into New Jersey and outside the city limits, Frankie spoke.
“What the fuck, Vince? That sucked.”
“Why are you getting mad at me? You could have done your thing with her. I just wasn’t attracted to her.” Frankie glared at his brother. They shared the same brown eye color, the same six-foot-four-inch height, but their personalities were on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. Frankie loved having sex and could get it whenever he wanted it. He and his brothers were Alpha males, the finest specimen of their blood line. Even human women drooled when they caught sight of them. But Vince was more reserved. He was more like the wine-her-and-dine-her type of guy. Frankie loved pussy, and he didn’t hide that fact, ever. He never left a woman unsatisfied, and neither did his other brothers, Logan, Sunny, and Jake.
“Why did you have to project your negativity in my direction?”
“I did no su
ch thing. You’re used to fucking any woman willing to open her thighs. I desire more in a woman before I have sex with her.”
“Since when?”
“Fuck you!” Vince growled just as they approached the development where their house was.
Vince parked the truck and got out, slamming the door behind him.
As they entered the house, they heard the TV blaring and someone in the kitchen.
Vince looked around the room at his brothers. Logan was doing sit-ups in the living room and Sunny was watching TV and sipping a beer while Jake cooked up some midnight munchies in the kitchen.
“I’m hitting the shower,” Vince stated in a nasty tone, walking out of the room.
“What the fuck is his problem?” Jake asked Frankie as he scrambled the eggs and removed the bacon from the frying pan. A pile of food sat on the counter waiting to be eaten.
Feeling frustrated, Frankie took a beer from the refrigerator then plopped down on the stool by the island in the kitchen.
“Nothing,” he replied.
Jake sniffed the air then stared at Frankie and raised his eyebrows. He looked like the actor Dwayne Johnson when he did that. All the chicks went crazy over Jake. He was tall, muscular, and had brilliant colored brown eyes that were more wolf than human. Women loved that and were always complimenting Jake. He also carried himself very well. He enjoyed a fine wine, a gourmet meal, and more luxuries in life than the rest of them did. He knew how to cook, he was always suave and debonair, but if you pissed off his wolf, he would rip you to shreds. Frankie had seen it done before.
“Okay, so you two fuck the same chick and what, he wants to date her but can’t because you fucked her?” Jake teased as he placed the food platters onto the island along with plates.
“What the fuck happened?” Sunny asked as he and Logan joined the conversation.
“It wasn’t like that.” Frankie ran and hand through his hair feeling the sexually frustration tighten every muscle in his body. The beer wasn’t doing shit to easy his throbbing erection.
“Then tell us what happened, Frankie,” Logan asked, but Frankie knew Logan meant business. As lead Alpha to their pack and SWAT team commander, he had the right to know everything that went on in their lives. Being their brother, he made sure they were protected. This was his way of helping to ease a potential blowup between Frankie and Vince.
Frankie explained as he piled food onto his plate.
“So Vince wasn’t in the mood but you wanted to have sex with the blonde anyway so you could get some pussy tonight? You should be thanking him. Vince is more sensitive when it comes to women,” Sunny added as he piled food on his plate.
Frankie gave Sunny a dirty look. Sunny was built like a linebacker, big and bulky instead of a stealth ultimate fighter, lean and trim. Sunny and Logan were built like tanks. They were thick and their muscles were bulging everywhere. They had more than just definition. They looked pumped and ready at all times. Both wore their brown hair to shoulder length, and both were crazy wolves and men to deal with. Frankie, Vince, and Jake shared the same tempers, but they were each two hundred and fifty pounds, give or take a few pounds, and built like lean, muscular, ultimate fighters. They were pure muscle.
“Maybe this is something to be concerned about?” Logan asked as he finished eating his food in record time.
They were silent a moment. Logan spoke up first.
“He was kind of acting funny the last time we visited Samantha, Dustin, and the guys. He was envious that our cousins found their mate and she was with child.”
“Don’t even say it. I sure as shit am not going to settle down with one fucking woman and have sex with only her for the rest of my life. And kids? No fucking way. There is no woman out there with the strength, mental and physical tolerance, or the perfect body to make this dick give up free pussy,” Frankie stated very seriously.
Sunny laughed.
“You have no clue, Frankie.” Sunny shook his head.
“What?”
“Stop! There’s no need to have this discussion anyway,” Logan stated.
“It could happen. We each could find a mate or be like Dustin and the guys and share the same mate,” Jake added to the conversation.
“All of us share one woman? Are you nuts? If I did find a mate, she would be so fucking occupied fucking me, she wouldn’t have time to fuck any of you. She wouldn’t need to.”
Logan threw the rag at Frankie’s head.
“Stop throwing around the F word so much. Just forget this conversation. No one knows if there is even a mate out there for any of us, never mind all of us. Besides, your shit isn’t that good,” Sunny teased.
“My dick is bigger than yours, Sunny,” Frankie added.
“No fucking way,” Sunny replied.
“Cut it out, we all know that I have the biggest dick,” Jake stated very seriously as he cleared his plate.
They chuckled until Vince entered the room. He grabbed a beer and a plate of food. Everyone was silent.
He looked at his brothers and their sensitive expressions then at Frankie and shook his head.
“You fucking asshole, you told them?”
“Told us what?” Sunny asked, trying to act casual.
Frankie shook his head and took a seat at the table. His gut was bothering him since before the blonde at the bar came along. He really didn’t want to engage in casual sex, but he couldn’t admit that out loud. He had a reputation to uphold, and admitting that he wanted a relationship with the right woman could subject him to teasing his wolf wouldn’t handle well. He swallowed hard, hoping the move submerged his true feelings.
“Well?” Vince persisted to get an answer from his brothers.
“Oh, you mean about the blonde with the pussy and ass made for fucking and how you got a limp dick?” Sunny teased, and all the brothers roared with laughter.
“I did not get a limp dick. Fuck, Frankie. You can be such an asshole. Just leave me alone. I’m not going out for drinks after work with you anymore. As a matter of fact, I’m done with bars for a while.”
They continued to laugh until Jake spoke.
“Well, you can only stay away from them for a week. We have Alex’s bachelor party at that place, Charlie’s, downtown on Friday night.”
Vince cringed just thinking about the place. It was supposedly an upscale strip club with great food and awesome entertainment.
“Just what I need.”
Logan placed his hand on his brother’s back in support.
“Don’t worry, we’ll have your back.”
The brothers laughed.
* * * *
They cleaned up the kitchen and then went into the living room to turn on the news channel. Immediately, Jake saw the flashing lights and the media surrounding two sets of houses in a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn. They listened as the reporter began to describe what was going on.
“It appears that it is going to be another case of an unsolved mystery. Police received a call forty minutes ago from an unidentifiable caller who stated that a large drug deal was about to go down in this quiet neighborhood. Unbeknownst to the police as they approached the area quietly and arrived prepared to catch the culprits of this large drug deal in action, the crooks became the victim. Instead, they found three irate alleged drug dealers, ripped off by a crook they didn’t know and couldn’t identify.”
The men listened as the reporter spoke and then tried to get a statement from one of the men arrested.
“Look at those assholes. They deserve to get busted and go to jail,” Jake stated, and his brothers agreed.
“Sir, can you give us a statement, please? What happened?” the reporter asked one of the patrol sergeants.
“It appears that the drug dealers were ripped off. A deal went down. The other party who paid an unknown amount of money for the drugs were arrested two blocks from here. These three morons were robbed by someone in a black mask. They held them by gunpoint and stole the cash.”
“A
ny ideas who the suspect who robbed the men is, and whether or not they planned this attack with the intent to get the drugs off of the streets?”
“No. But if I did, I would shake their hand. We found a street value of more than sixty thousand dollars worth of cocaine on those guys. That’s a lot of drugs.”
“Are you condoning the behavior, Sergeant?” The reporter asked.
“Hell no. A crime is a crime, but this is a big bust. These guys are wanted for numerous crimes. There’s a felony warrant out for one of the guys at the scene two blocks over. A great night for the NYPD.”
With that the sergeant walked away.
“That’s incredible. I would like to think that someone good stole the money. Maybe a citizen fed up with the system and the way some of these neighborhoods are being overpowered by drug dealers,” Frankie stated.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right, brother. A crime is a crime even if it’s the criminals getting ripped off,” Vince added, sounding firm.
“Still, could you imagine if there was a modern day Robin Hood out there? Maybe they’re stealing from the wealthy drug-dealing criminals and giving back to the poor? That’s my kind of story,” Frankie replied.
“Whatever. I’m going to bed,” Sunny mumbled then walked out of the room. Soon after, the others called it a night as well. But Frankie stared at the television screen as the news continued. He couldn’t help but fantasize about the possibility of a modern-day do-gooder. He thought about the criminals he and his brothers had fought over the years. He thought about the secret government jobs and the corruption even in political office. He shook his head.
“No way could it be true,” he stated to an empty room, then clicked off the television and went to bed.
Chapter 3
Melissa let the hot water soothe her muscles. Tonight’s hit was a close call. She had no idea that three men were going to show up and not just one of Carlos’s guys. This had to be one of her last hits. Aunt Peggy was coming home tomorrow now that Melissa had the last thirty grand for the medical bills. Thank god she was able to sweet-talk to the nice old doctor and tell him she worked for cash and didn’t have any credit cards. Her sister had only a small amount of money set aside for the kids in their own savings account. Melissa had added more, and now those savings accounts were looking decent, and the money had to remain in the account for their education. Sarah and Mike were so in love. They were making it. They were surviving on their own with great jobs and a promising future until that night. Melissa still couldn’t believe that they were caught in the middle of a drug war and drive-by shooting that left Brandon, Lea, and Tommy with no parents and a sickly great-aunt. If not for Melissa, they would have wound up in foster care, separated and alone.
Dwyer, Dixie Lynn - SWAT Team Two and Miss Robin Hood [The Men of Five-0 #2] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) Page 2