If I hadn’t been at home ‘sick’ I would’ve never seen her, either.
I would’ve normally been at work right now, and if I wasn’t at work, I was getting shit done around town. And I had a feeling that she knew that nobody was around or up this early in the afternoon. ‘Cop row,’ as everyone was calling the string of duplexes that nearly the entire SWAT team lived in, was a ghost town at this hour.
And what better way to know that than being the manager that lived at the end of the street, had security cameras on the entire street, and was at home all day and able to pick and choose her time slots because she was observant?
Or maybe I was just overthinking things. Whatever the reason, I wanted to see her. Badly.
Now I was standing in front of her fuckin’ door with my fist raised to knock.
Something which I did after I was through thinking about whether I should be here and then waited for her to come to the door.
She opened it seconds later, still wearing what she’d been wearing earlier, and my dick automatically got hard—or harder. I’d been sporting a semi since I’d seen her bend over to stretch.
I licked my lips as I tore my eyes away from her legs to focus on her face.
“I left my phone here somewhere, I think,” I admitted.
I hadn’t.
My phone was back home in my dirty jeans pocket.
But she didn’t need to know that. Nor did she need to know that I’d only wanted to see her again.
Hell, I was still running a low-grade fever, and I really should be back at home in my bed where I belonged.
Yet, there I was, lying to her, standing on her front porch.
“Oh, no,” she said as she opened the door wide. “I haven’t seen it. But I also haven’t been looking for it. Let me go check the bed.”
She went into the room and bent over the side of the bed closest to the wall, and I got my first good idea of what she’d look like if she were bent over while I fucked her from behind.
Needless to say, when she turned around, it wasn’t a very pleasant look on my face.
I was sure it was closer to feral than pleasant.
“Oh,” she said when she found me so close behind her. “Are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t okay.
Far from okay, actually.
“Umm,” I hesitated. “Yeah. My fever’s much more manageable. I’m about ninety-nine percent positive that I have or had the flu. I’m feeling much better today, actually.”
“I don’t doubt it for a second,” she replied huskily “And you probably still have the flu. If I’m not infected with it by the end of the week, it’ll be a miracle.”
I winced. “I never meant to stay here.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I was getting at, to be honest. What I was getting at was that you were in my space. Which is quite small, and I didn’t send you back home when I probably should have.”
“Probably should have?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”
I didn’t want to be alone, either.
“Do you want something to eat?” she asked quietly.
I was not about to say no to her.
“Sure.” I paused. “As long as it’s light. My fever’s down and all… but I’m not trusting it completely just yet.”
Meaning, I didn’t want to eat a lot, then have my temperature go up, then puke up everything I’d just eaten.
“I have some crockpot chicken noodle soup on,” she said. “I just put it on, but I can heat it up in a pan just as easily.”
“You cook for yourself?” I asked as I followed her into the small kitchen.
The place that she stayed in was about a quarter of the size of our places.
“I do,” she confirmed. “I cook for myself and then eat on what I cook for about a week. Sometimes I just throw it away if I don’t think I’ll eat it more than once, though.”
“If you ever want to drop some off at my door,” I teased as I leaned my hips against the counter. “It won’t be unwanted.”
She looked at me over her shoulder, and I had to practically drag my eyes away from her ass to meet her gaze.
“I’ll think about it,” she said softly. “Is your tarp holding up okay?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, drawing her attention.
“It is,” I confirmed. “Luckily it’s not supposed to rain for another couple of days. The man that came by after I got home said that they were going to come and fix the wall and the roof’s support this week sometime. Then, once they get the drywall in place and the plyboard, they’ll call some roofers.”
She nodded. “That’s what they told me, too. My mom’s dealing with that all, though. I was never really supposed to be doing as much as I’m doing with Cop Row. I honestly was supposed to be living in one of the duplexes, but the damn place filled up so fast that I was relegated to the doghouse, so to speak.”
I looked around at the place she was staying. “What was it supposed to be?”
She shrugged. “Honestly? I have no fuckin’ clue. I’m not sure if they just had extra materials and space, and they just thought, ‘hey, I’ll just throw a tiny house in between these duplexes’ or what, but it worked out for me. The place is protected like a motherfucker. Cops everywhere.”
She batted her eyelashes at me, causing me to laugh.
Five minutes later, she was handing me a bowl of soup and some more medicine.
“I know you said that your temp was down, but just in case,” she said as she dropped the pills in my hand.
I popped them into my mouth, swallowing them dry.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as her eyes took in the muscles of my throat working.
I felt my cock stiffen behind my sweatpants, and I crossed my legs to hopefully keep it somewhat contained.
“So, what kind of book are you writing right now?” I asked as I slowly took a bite of the soup.
Flavor exploded in my mouth, and I moaned.
She shifted so that her arms were covering her breasts, and that was when I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
I moaned again, but I disguised it as I took another bite of soup.
“It’s about a man that is in a motorcycle club,” she said softly. “Or, more accurately, is trying to get into a motorcycle club. But it’s one of those one percenter clubs, so you have to do some bad shit to get into it.”
“Like what kind of shit?” I asked curiously.
I, of course, knew what a one percent biker club was. Being a cop, I’d run into my fair share of them before.
And, come to think of it, Hastings’ dad probably had before, too. So she likely knew what she was writing about.
“Guns and drugs.” She shrugged. “Do shit that you don’t want to do. Rough some people up. Show your devotion to the club. Let the president fuck your girl. That kind of thing.”
My brows rose at the end of her explanation.
She laughed and pointed at my face. “You should see your face at that last one. But anyway, the guy doesn’t realize that his girl is a bunny. He doesn’t realize it until much later, when the girl keeps showing interest in the president. So instead of arguing, he doesn’t care that she goes and does things with the president of the club. He takes it more as a favor and finds another girl. They fall in love, and the guy refuses to give that one up. Things get tense… and that’s where I’m at in the story.”
I shook my head.
“And women actually want to read that crap?” I asked before I thought better of it. “As a cop, I don’t see the appeal of clubs like that.”
She shrugged. “There are some rabid readers out there that like it way worse than I write it. Cheating is A-okay. Sometimes there’s public sex. Sometimes members share their girls. Sometimes the guy roughs up the girl. Things like that. Things that I’ll never write because my brain just isn’t wired to write like tha
t.”
I took another bite of soup but kept my eye on the woman in front of me.
She was a tricky one. I’d never met someone like her before.
She was like one of those stuffed donuts. She looked all innocent and shit on the outside, but on the inside, she was a surprise.
“Is there sex in your books?” I asked curiously.
I mean, I’d have asked that earlier, but I didn’t want to embarrass her. And I felt like she’d answer it if she was a little more loosened up by my earlier questions.
She blushed a bright red that matched the red Kitchen Aid mixer that was sitting on her counter.
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Not like Fifty Shades of Grey sex, but definitely more than a Christian Romance.” She scrunched up her nose. “I wouldn’t let my grandmother read them.”
I laughed at that. “What’s your most favorite one?”
She sighed. “I don’t have one. And before you ask, I have over seventy books out at this point. If you want to know where to start, which I know you’re not going to do, start at the beginning. You can look me up on my website.”
She rattled off her website, and I pulled my phone out and typed it in, my brows rising when a photo of a shirtless man was the first thing I saw.
“You could probably model for my next book if you wanted,” she teased. “I’m pretty sure you have better abs underneath that shirt than he does.”
I grinned and lifted my shirt to show her but made sure to push my belly out so that I didn’t have a single ab in sight.
She poked me with her finger, causing me to lose my control on the stomach distention and laugh.
My abs definitely made an appearance then.
“You’re silly,” she teased, her eyes lingering on my belly.
Mainly my lower abs where my underwear rose up a bit higher than my pants. Oh, and where I had that defined muscle that led into my pants. The one that formed a V.
I rubbed my hand over my belly, letting my fingers go underneath the waistband a bit to push them down just a little bit lower.
“Are you done?” she asked softly, gesturing toward my bowl that I still had clutched in the hand that was holding my shirt up.
I allowed my shirt to drop and handed her the bowl.
“I am,” I said, “but I’d like more, please.”
Honestly, it tasted wonderful. It was the first thing that I’d eaten in two days.
She busied herself at the stove again, filling up my bowl for a second time, and I studied her ass in her shorts.
She had a great ass, and by great, I meant, ‘I’d fuck it’ great.
Multiple times.
Even as weak as I was, I still wanted to pull her to me, shove her so she was face down on the counter, and tug those shorts down to her knees and have my filthy way with her.
She turned again and my eyes were now on her pussy.
The seam was riding up a bit, causing her to have a bit of a camel toe.
And my eyes were now fixated.
I wanted to tug that out with my fucking teeth.
“Here you go,” she said softly.
I glanced up to see her staring at me with knowing eyes and another blush that made my lips turn up.
“Thank you,” I rumbled.
She swallowed, crossing her arms over her chest again. But not before I saw her hard nipples.
I took another bite of soup and watched her watch me before I asked her more.
“Do you ever do research?” I asked, leading up to my next question.
“You mean like research about a place? Because yes. Actually. I do. In fact, next week I leave for Alaska for a month so I can write about a couple that meets up there on a poker run.”
Alaska for a month.
Why did the sound of that make me want to throw up?
“A month?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
Why was I so worried about her being gone for a month?
I had no fuckin’ clue, but I didn’t like it one bit.
“Yep.” She smiled then. “I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska. Nobody ever wants to go with me, though. So I’ve decided to do it by myself.”
I’d go with her in a heartbeat if I could.
But it wasn’t like she’d invited me, and it was also likely I wouldn’t have a job when I came back if I just up and left.
Then, because I was blaming my slight fever for my actions then, I opened my mouth and asked her another question.
“How about a little more research?” I teased, offering my body with a sweep of my hand.
I could tell that she wanted me.
I wanted her, too.
Badly.
So badly, in fact, that the soup tasted like sawdust as I waited for her answer.
She blinked. “Ummm… are you being serious right now? Because I can’t tell.”
I straightened up and allowed her to see my very serious condition.
Her mouth fell open in surprise.
“You… you want me?” she asked as if she was surprised that I would. “But why, why, why?”
The repeating words. I was making her nervous.
Before I could answer her in the affirmative, she was up and moving away from me.
“Can you give me a sec? I need to go save the book that I’m working on,” Hastings said quietly.
I watched her go.
Slowly, I finished my soup and placed the bowl in the sink. After rinsing it out, I went in search of the object of my desire.
I still couldn’t fuckin’ believe those words had come out of my mouth.
Smooth, Samuel Adams. Real smooth.
I found her in the room with the monitors.
She was sitting at her computer staring blankly at the screen.
“What’s with all the camera equipment?” I asked when I walked into the room.
“Umm,” she hesitated. “After that last thing with the movie star? My dad suggested we get some security equipment in here. He said with y’all being cops, that we should probably have it anyway just in case. You can’t be too safe lately.”
That was the fuckin’ truth.
But the thing with the movie star? That was a fluke accident.
See, a couple of weeks ago Adam’s girl, Amelia, had pissed off a movie star that’d been filming in the city. He’d been a vindictive asshole and had decided that he was going to beat Amelia up—did beat Amelia up. In Adam’s home. Hence Hastings worry about security.
“That’s understandable,” I finally said. “And your pop is right. We can’t be too careful lately.”
She bit her lip and turned.
Then, all at once, I had my answer to my earlier question.
I’m not sure how we ended up in the bed together.
Nor was I sure how I ended up with my mouth on hers. What I did know was that I wanted her.
I liked her quirkiness. I liked that she was honest and open with her illness. I liked that she had let me stay there the other night. I liked that she dropped off a bottle of ibuprofen and Tylenol yesterday morning.
And, even more, I liked that she was looking at me like I was a piece of chocolate cake she wanted to devour.
Chapter 6
Indoorsy.
-T-shirt
Hastings
What the hell was I doing?
I had no fuckin’ clue.
The man was sick.
The man had the fucking flu.
I’d likely have the flu, too, after this.
But I just couldn’t make myself stop.
One second, I was in my computer chair, the next, my mouth was on his, and I was leading him backward to my bedroom.
The backs of his knees hit the bed and he collapsed backward.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he wanted to or not, but I followed him down anyway as if he’d planned it all.
He growled when I crawled on top of him, his hands co
ming to my hips as he latched onto my flesh and dug his fingers in.
“I just…” I inhaled deeply. “If we do this… you have to promise. You have to promise to keep going. No matter what I say.”
He pulled back slightly, his eyes losing some of their heat.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his tone full of worry.
I opened my eyes and stared at him.
“Pew, pew, pew.” I swallowed. “Ignore that.”
He pressed a kiss to my nose.
“What do you mean?” he reiterated.
His repeated question, and not his anger at my random ass verbal spewage, made me calm a bit.
“If I scream.” I paused. “If I say something gross and disgusting. If I…” I closed my eyes. “Do you happen to have a gag or something?”
His eyes went thoughtful.
“Not on me. Why?”
“Because when I get nervous…” I pointed at my mouth. “Things are said and done that I have no control over.”
Understanding dawned.
“You know this because you’ve done this before?” he asked carefully.
I nodded miserably. “The one and only time that I tried, the guy stopped before he could even get it inside of me because I screamed in his face.” I paused. “And told him that his dick was small, and that he needed to man up before he showed it to me again.”
I was expecting him to laugh, but he didn’t.
He stared. “Do you want me to gag you?”
I thought about that.
“No? Maybe? I don’t know,” I admitted. “I want to be able to tell you that it feels good. That I’m enjoying it. But on the other hand, I’d like to be able to do this, to enjoy it, without having to worry about you stopping because of whatever is coming out of my mouth. But I also know that things are going to be said, and I’m not going to want to stop, and you’re going to wonder if you should.”
He studied me for a long second.
Then he grinned. “I don’t have a gag. I do have a tie, though.”
Something that felt a lot like anticipation slithered through me.
“Where is the tie?” I asked curiously.
His eyes shone.
“In my truck,” he answered. “Want me to go get it?”
The words must’ve shown in my eyes because he was gone seconds later, only to return with a tie in his hands and heat in his eyes.
Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 9) Page 5