by Paige Tyler
Khaki inhaled sharply. “Oh God.”
“I’d never been in anything remotely like what happened that night. It was a frigging bloodbath.”
Xander didn’t even know he’d shifted until he felt Khaki’s hand on his arm. He glanced down to see that his claws were completely extended and his fingers were flexing. As if he was trying to rip out someone’s throat.
“You don’t have to say anything else,” Khaki whispered, taking his hand in hers.
He forced his claws to retract, then took a deep breath. “My partner—the guy I practically used to worship—turned tail and ran. Some drug dealer shot him in the back before he could get ten feet. I got hit five times as I tried to drag him to safety, but it was too late. He died in my arms. I should have died too, but I didn’t. That’s when I changed. Gage found me a few weeks later. I was confused about what was happening to me, pissed off at the idea of being a cop, and ready for a career change, but then he told me he was building a team that would be tighter than any other law enforcement unit in existence, and I jumped at the offer to join SWAT. I wanted to work with people who put their teammates first and remembered why the hell they were doing this job in the first place.”
Khaki’s eyes filled with tears. “I guess I understand now why you were so adamant at first about not getting involved with me.”
Xander gently wiped a tear from her cheek. “What do you mean?”
“I think that part of you was worried that if you let yourself get involved with me, you’d be doing the same thing all those other cops in Kansas City did—putting your own interests before the good of the team.”
His first instinct was to deny that his past had anything to do with how he’d treated her, but then he stopped and thought about it. “Maybe,” he finally said. “But all I ever wanted was to do right by you.”
Khaki put her head back on his chest and snuggled close. “Don’t ever worry about that. You definitely did. It may not have been the way the rules say it should be done, but for us, it’s the right thing.”
He smiled and pressed a kiss to her hair. “I know that now. Forgive me for being a slow learner?”
She scratched her nails across his abs, making him jump. “Of course. You’re a guy—I expect it.”
Xander folded one arm behind his head and relaxed, letting his other hand play in her hair. It was funny. He hadn’t thought about that night back in KC in a long time, but now that he’d told Khaki what happened, he realized there’d been a weight sitting on his chest. It wasn’t gone completely, and probably never would be, but it was lighter than it had been. And it was all thanks to the amazing woman lying next to him.
Chapter 12
“So, why do you need clothes again?” Xander asked as Khaki dug through her panty drawer.
They’d had this conversation already, when she’d mentioned she wanted to come over to her place and pick up a few things. If he had his way, she would stay naked the whole weekend. While that was definitely an appealing thought, it was rather unrealistic. They could spend only so many hours having sex.
“Why do I need clothes?” she said as she found the black lacy pair she’d been looking for. “Two words—burned eggs.”
While she’d been making scrambled eggs in the nude this morning, he’d come up behind her, slipped his arms around her, and…well…one thing had led to another…and the eggs had turned into carbon.
“I suppose I can see your point,” he acquiesced. “As long as you don’t wear too much.”
She turned, dangling the skimpy black panties from her fingers. “These work okay for you?”
Xander eyed the tiny scrap of fabric. “Maybe.” He gave her a hungry look. “It might help me decide if you model them for me.”
She’d promised herself that she wasn’t going to let her libido get the best of her again—at least not for a few hours. But the moment Xander’s eyes started to smolder, his amazing scent wafted in her direction, and she knew it was hopeless. Just the thought of parading around in front of him in nothing but a pair of tiny panties had her pulse quickening.
“Turn around,” she insisted, pulling off her top, then unbuckling her belt. “Or you’ll blow the whole effect.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he muttered, but turned around anyway. “I’m pretty sure we both know what effect seeing you in those things is going to have on me.”
Khaki quickly stripped out of her clothes and wiggled into the panties. She turned to paw through her bra drawer, searching for something to complete the ensemble when the doorbell rang.
“If you’re not expecting someone, I hope you plan on ignoring that,” Xander growled.
Khaki was more than ready to agree, but the doorbell rang again…and again…and again.
“I’d better answer it.” She grabbed her short robe and put it on. “It’s probably my neighbor Emma.”
Xander grumbled something she couldn’t make out. “I’ll give you exactly one minute, then I’m coming out—naked. So you better get rid of her fast.”
Khaki laughed as she hurried into the living room. She was still trying to come up with some way to get rid of Emma when she looked through the peephole.
“Oh, crap!”
Xander was at her side in a flash, eyes blazing and claws extended. “What is it? Is that asshole Jeremy back? I’ll fucking—”
Khaki turned and slapped a hand over his mouth. “Worse. It’s Cooper, Max, and Becker!”
He stared at her in confusion as she took her hand away. He lifted his nose a little and sniffed. “Shit,” he whispered. “I can’t smell anything over your… Well, over you. I didn’t even hear them.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Maybe they’ll just leave?” he asked hopefully.
That thought was dashed when one of her new teammates banged on the door.
“Hey, Khaki! It’s us,” Becker said. “Get your lazy butt out of bed and answer the door. No way are you lying around your first weekend off. We’re taking you on a tour of Dallas.”
She pushed Xander toward the bedroom, whispering as they went. “I’ll get rid of them, but you’ve got to hide.”
He agreed with a quick nod and looked around her bedroom before heading for her closet. She didn’t have a chance to tell him not to bother. He figured that out on his own when he opened it and saw that the tiny space wasn’t even big enough for her minimal amount of clothes, much less a guy his size.
“Khaki!” Cooper shouted. “You okay in there? What’s all the noise? Do you need help?”
“I’m fine,” she called out. “I’ll be right there.”
Crap, crap, and double crap.
“The bathroom,” she told Xander urgently, then realized that hiding him from sight only addressed half the problem. “Wait! Aren’t they going to be able to smell you?”
“Shit, you’re right,” he muttered. “I’m not good at this clandestine stuff.”
Neither was she. But they’d better get good at it—quick.
She grabbed Xander’s arm and tugged him into the en suite bathroom, then turned on the shower and pointed at the bottles of shampoos and shower gels in the caddy hanging from the wall. “Dump one of those all over you.”
He frowned. “Which one?”
“All of them.”
Before he could ask anything else, she dashed into the living room and yanked open the door. Becker’s eyes weren’t the only ones that widened when they saw her. Cooper and Max looked just as shocked to see her standing in the open doorway in nothing but a short bathrobe.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was just getting ready to take a bath.”
“No problem,” Becker said with a nod, still trying hard to not look anywhere he shouldn’t. “But now that we’re here, you want to skip the bath and go out with us instead?”
“We hate the idea of you hanging out by yourself the whole weekend,” Cooper added. “The Cowboys have a home game this weekend, and since we know security, we can get in
and watch them practice.”
“Then maybe head out to the Mesquite Arena to catch some of the rodeo,” Becker said. “Or go to the State Fair.”
Khaki grimaced. If she didn’t have Xander getting soggy in her shower, she would have jumped on their offer in a second.
“I’d love to, but I’m going to have to pass,” she said. “I kind of made plans to spend the day pampering myself. It’s been a really long week.”
“Pamper yourself?” Becker glanced down to take in what he had to assume was her naked body under the robe, then quickly snapped his head up again.
Khaki stifled a laugh. “Yeah, you know, light some candles, take a long soak in the tub, wash my hair, paint my toenails. Girlie stuff.”
Max frowned. “You’d rather soak in a bathtub than hang out with us?”
“No, but… It’s just that I really need some me time to chill out and destress a little. I’m really sorry, guys. Rain check?”
“Definitely,” Cooper said. “And no need to apologize. Next time, we’ll call first.”
She grinned. “Sounds like a deal.”
“Guess we’ll let you get back to your bath,” Becker said, the disappointment obvious on his face.
“Thanks for thinking about me,” she said. “You don’t know how much I appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Khaki,” Cooper said. “You’re a member of the Pack now, and don’t you forget it.”
She was about to assure him that she wouldn’t when he suddenly sniffed the air. “When was Xander here?”
Crap. Cooper must smell Xander’s scent on her.
“Xander?” she echoed.
“Yeah.” Cooper sniffed again. “I can smell him in your apartment.”
Khaki’s mind went completely blank as she scrambled for what to say. “Um…he stopped by earlier to drop off some training material he wanted me to go over—first-aid stuff. I haven’t looked at it yet though.”
“Oh.” Becker snorted. “Sounds like him. No matter how fast you’re learning, it’s probably not fast enough for him.”
Khaki let out the breath she’d been holding. “Guess not.”
“See you on Monday,” Becker said.
“Have a good weekend,” Max told her.
They turned to leave, but Cooper stayed where he was, studying her with an intensity in his dark eyes that made her squirm. Khaki had no idea what was going on, but she could practically see the gears turning in his head, and she didn’t like it.
“I should probably get back to my bath before it overflows,” she said, hoping to nudge him on his way. “I left the water running.”
“Yeah. Gotta take that long soak in the tub, right?”
She wasn’t sure what he knew, but he knew something. She forced herself to smile. “Right. See you on Monday?”
She braced herself, expecting Cooper to call her out right there in front of the other guys, but instead he smiled and gave her a nod. “See you then.”
Khaki stood in the doorway, watching them walk down the hall. They gave her a wave before getting in the elevator, and she waved back. She let out a sigh of relief. Apparently, her paranoia had been misplaced.
Locking the door, she raced into the bathroom and jerked the shower curtain back to see Xander standing there with a sexy grin on his face, shampoo in his hair, and shower gel slowly running down his naked body. He might smell like he’d been locked in a Bath & Body Works store during an earthquake, but he looked hot covered in all that soap.
She considered teasing him a bit more. She had promised him a big reveal after all. But after making him stand in the shower covered in fruit-scented shower gel for so long, she simply didn’t have the heart. She dropped her bathrobe, then her panties, and climbed in the shower with him.
“Sorry it took me so long to get rid of them,” she said as she helped him rinse off.
“Don’t be. That was some quick thinking.”
He got most of the soap out of his hair, then pulled her into his arms for a kiss. She moaned as she felt his erection press against her stomach.
“I think I owe you big for being so calm under pressure,” he murmured as he kissed her again.
For half a second, Khaki considered telling him about the way Cooper had looked at her before he left, and her concerns that he might have figured something out. But as Xander’s hard-on pulsed against her, she pushed that thought out of her mind.
“Speaking of owing me something big…” she said.
Eyes smoldering, he swung her up in his arms and stepped out of the tub to head for the bedroom.
“Xander, you’re getting me all wet and gooey,” she squealed.
He laughed again as he plopped her on the bed. “And I’ve just started.”
* * *
“Are you sure it’s okay to go out in public?” Khaki asked. “What if someone we know sees us? Won’t they realize we’re a couple?”
Xander grinned. “Becker and Cooper go out together all the time and no one thinks they’re a couple.”
She thumped him in the chest as they drove along Interstate 30 toward Fort Worth. “Very funny. I’m serious. I just told the guys a couple hours ago that I’d be spending the day pampering myself at home. What if they see us?”
He stopped laughing. Khaki was right. This wasn’t something to joke about. And after the near miss at her apartment, it was something they were going to have to address.
He pulled her closer, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of your concerns. But it’s not like we can hide in our apartments for the rest of our lives and hope no one ever knocks on the door. This morning pretty much proved that’s not going to work. But Dallas is a big city. We can go out now and then. We just have to be careful when we do. If we go to places outside of the city and stay away from ones where I know the guys like to hang out, we should be okay.”
She glanced up at him, worry in her dark eyes. “And if someone sees us, what do we do?”
Xander pulled off the interstate and turned onto U.S. Route 377. There was an awesome Mexican restaurant he’d found about a year ago down here. He’d never mentioned it to the guys on the team, and it was too out of the way for them to stumble across. It should be a perfect place to have a quiet dinner with Khaki.
“If anyone sees us,” he said, “we’re just two coworkers having dinner. We’re in the same squad. It’s expected we’ll go out occasionally.”
Khaki nodded, but he could tell from the way she bit her lip that she was still apprehensive about going out in public. Until they pulled into the parking lot of the small restaurant and she finally saw how nondescript and out of the way it was. She sat up straight and looked around, some of the tension leaving her body when he drove around back and parked.
When they got inside, he asked for a table in the darkest corner of the restaurant, just to be safe. But as they ordered, Xander noticed Khaki throwing nervous glances at the doorway every few seconds.
“So,” he said, leaning his forearms on the table. Maybe talking about something else would distract her. “Last night you got to hear about how I went through my first change. How about you? What happened?”
Khaki gave him a curious look. “I thought Sergeant Dixon already told you guys.”
Xander shook his head as he tipped back his bottle of beer. “Not all of it. He told Mike and me that you’d run into some problems back in Washington with another cop you’d been seeing and were looking for a new start. He said you’d gotten in a shoot-out, but he didn’t give us the details about why you were so eager to leave Lakefront. I’d like to hear about it, if it’s something you’re comfortable discussing.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. Instead, she took a slow sip of her beer, then smiled at him. He loved that smile.
“What do you want to know?” she asked. “You already know about Jeremy, at least enough to know he was a jerk. I don’t mind telling you more, if you really want to hear about my ex-boyfriend.”
&nbs
p; He grimaced. “Maybe we can just skim over those details. I’m more interested in why you became a cop and how you turned into a werewolf. So, let’s start with the basics. Did you grow up in a family of cops?”
She laughed. “Far from it. I’m the only cop in my family. Mom is an interior designer, Dad’s a financial advisor at a big investment firm in Chicago, and my sisters are in accounting, marketing, and sales.”
“Huh. How on earth did you end up being a cop?” The waitress came over with a big basket of homemade tortilla chips with salsa on the side, and he and Khaki dug in as she told him that it was all because of career day in grade school.
“Dad came into my class when I was in the fifth grade and started talking about the power of compounding interest and how important bonds were to the economic growth of the greater Chicago community.” She made a face. “I almost crawled under my desk in embarrassment. Then Scott McDaniel’s mom came in wearing her Chicago PD dress blues, telling stories about busting burglars and car thieves, and I knew from that day I wanted to be a cop. I was so sure of it that I announced my career choice in front of everyone that night at dinner.”
Xander chuckled, imagining a ten-year-old Khaki telling her parents she wasn’t following in their footsteps. “That must have disappointed your mom and dad.”
“Not really. My dad told me that after listening to Mrs. McDaniel, he wanted to be a cop when he grew up too.” She laughed at the memory. “And my mom just wanted me to be happy. Although I think she secretly hoped that my dream of being a cop was merely a phase I was going through.”
That was understandable. His own mom hadn’t been crazy about the idea of him becoming a cop either. “How did you end up in Washington State? Why didn’t you join the Chicago PD instead?”
She nibbled on another chip before answering. “I did try to join the CPD, but they weren’t offering the entrance exam when I was looking for work. I was checking out some of the smaller towns nearby, hoping they might be hiring, when my sister, Kirsten, talked me into going out to Tacoma with her on a business trip. She knew I was bummed out about not getting into the police academy and thought it would cheer me up. She also spent a good portion of the trip trying to convince me to go back to school for accounting. I can barely balance my checkbook and she wanted me to be responsible for someone else’s money. No, thank you.” Khaki snorted. “So, while she was working, I went sightseeing. Long story short, I ran into some patrol officers from Lakefront who told me that their department was hiring. I filled out an application right then and there. Everything else is history.”