Classy AF: Cheap Thrills Series Book 3

by Moore. , Mary B.

  Leaning over my back, Raoul knocked harder than even I had. “Triple now. I’ve given them my number, so if you have any problems, or need anything, just ask them to call me, yeah?”

  “Will do.”

  Gently taking my hand, he gave me a tug toward the door, and with one last look over my shoulder – one where she mouthed ‘he’s hot’ at me, and then shooed me out the door – I walked toward the elevators, trying to figure out what the shit had happened to my day. I was so focused on replaying it all, that I didn’t realize where we were until Raoul spoke and I saw the screen saying we were headed for the ground floor.

  “Lotta thinking going on there, baby. You ok?” he murmured, moving my hair away from where the Titan had punched me, his eyes darkening when more of my cheek was uncovered. I didn’t know what it looked like now, but I knew what it had looked like an hour ago, and I figured from the clenching of his jaw it wasn’t pretty or in the shape of a fairy. And I say fairy because I’d had a patient once who’d been in a car accident. When her car had turned onto its roof, she’d hit her steering wheel at an angle that made the bruising look like Tinkerbell. Swear to God, it had wings and little puffy things on its shoes, too.

  “Yeah, just thinking through what I could have done differently,” I sighed, leaning my head back against the metal wall, and then standing back up again quickly when I thought about what could possibly be on them.

  Closing the distance between us, he lifted his hands and gently tipped my head back. “Rose, a man like that isn’t going to care how it’s done, he’s still going to lash out at someone who can’t protect themselves. He’s still going to pick on someone who’ll lose in a fight. And if it hadn’t been you, it would have been whoever had the balls to try to help Tana.” I nodded, knowing he was right, but I was sure I could have done something differently. “Lucky for you – and for Tana – you have a deputy sheriff and a sheriff at your back. And baby,” he whispered, leaning in so that our noses were almost bumping, “we’ll be making sure that prison isn’t a fun time for him.”

  Just then, there was a ping, and the doors started to open, meaning that I had to make the sacrifice of moving away from him. Which was probably just as well seeing as how when they opened, my brother, Jose, and Tabby were storming toward us, and they all looked pissed. Correction, they looked angry, but as soon as they saw my face, their expressions turned to ‘fucking pissed’.

  Chapter Six

  Rose

  After they’d seen my face – and after they’d all lost their shit, found it again, lost it once more, and then settled down – they decided that I needed ice. Ground ice with tequila and lime in it, so basically a Margarita. It worked well because when I wasn’t drinking it, I could swap the ice pack out for the glass and then swap it back again when I wanted another sip of it.

  I’d changed out of my scrubs into the jeans I’d had in my locker when we’d gotten here, but six margaritas on an empty stomach later, and I’d found myself in a predicament – my little finger was stuck in the tiny pocket above the normal pocket. All I’d done was reach in to get my cell phone out, and here I was trapped.

  “What are they even for?” Jose asked, swaying as she tried to point at my hip.

  I wasn’t sure what she was talking about – my vagina, my hips, the pocket, or even the people sitting behind us.

  “Yes,” Tabby cried, looking over her shoulder at the table behind us. “They followed us in here and they’ve been here all night.”

  A round of snorts and snickers came from the occupants, and one shouted, “Fireball!”

  That stopped my entrapped panicking. “What a great idea. Fireball!”

  And that’s how the day went downhill even more. They had given me four days off to recover from the punch, and damn it, I was going to find out what the hell this pocket was for.

  Apparently it was put there for cowboys to put pocket watches in to stop them getting broken, but I wouldn’t remember that until the next morning when I picked my jeans up off the floor and found three watches stuck in it. Oops!

  * * *

  The next morning…

  The deep groan behind me was what woke me up, the earthquake in my brain making it sound more like a roar than a groan. Sadly, where one part of me woke up so did all the other parts, and they freaking hurt.

  Slowly, I blinked open my eyes, then tried again when only one responded. “Holy shit, I’m blind.”

  And that’s when it registered that I wasn’t alone, when the top of Raoul’s face appeared in front of me, making me scream and almost kick him in the balls as I rolled to get away from him. “Settle, baby. I’m just looking… shit, that’s bad,” he hissed.

  Nothing good ever came from someone saying that, and the possibilities that hit me as to why I couldn’t see out of one eye scared the shit out of me. “Is there a hole? Did you glue it together as a joke?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Grabbing him by the ear which was the only thing I could think of to grab, I yanked him closer to me. “Why can’t I see? Did you glue it together?”

  He looked almost offended that I’d accuse him of going that far, but at this stage in the prank war, anything was possible. “No, I’m thinking the big tank that punch you yesterday, and the fact your eye is bruised and swollen because of it, is why you can’t see out of that side.”

  At the reminder, all the memories from yesterday’s incident came back to me, and I dropped my head back down onto the pillow as I relived the moment his fist hit my face. There had been veins bulging in his neck and face when he’d reared his arm to hit me, making it look like he was possessed. “Sorry.”

  Leaning over me, he picked something up off the side table, and then moved back into place. “Here are some painkillers and some water. Figured you’d need them when you woke up, especially the water.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Popping the pills in my mouth, I took a mouthful of the water, and then decided to hell with it and drank as much as I could. “That’ll be the mixture of tequila and Fireball,” he chuckled, reaching for the bottle when I was done. “We warned you not to do it, but none of you would listen.”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me,” I groaned, rolling over and shoving my face in his chest, relieved that the injured side of my face wasn’t the side on my pillow in this position.

  The irony was that he could ‘remind’ me all he wanted, right now the alcohol still made last night seem foggy and like a blur, so I could happily confirm that I didn’t remember one second of it. And that was probably for the best, seeing as how Tabby and Rose were known to have kicked a singer off the stage to sing karaoke. I could sing, but it sounded like a cat being scalded, kicked in the balls, run over, and then fed a fish head with hot sauce in it. The world was a happier place if I didn’t do it, although the same could be said for the two sisters. I’d seen the video and there was just no coming back from it for them.

  I felt him move slightly, and then fingers gently lifted my head so that he could see it better. This actually worked just fine for me seeing as how the only eye I could open was now looking straight at his mouth, although the view before of his chest had been far from shabby. In fact, it had been fucking awesome!

  I was so focused on the shape of his lips and how smooth they were, the scruffy beard around it, and the way his cupids bow dipped, that I didn’t realize he was raising his thumb to gently stroke the area that had been hit by a wrecking ball. When the pad of the digit hit the swollen and bruised skin, though, I knew. Sweet Jesus did I know. “Ow.”

  “Sorry, baby. I was trying to do it as gently as I could,” he mumbled, his eyes on the area in question. The longer he stared at it, the darker and more pissed off they got. “I could shove his dick down his throat seeing this.”

  Wrinkling my nose and then immediately stopping when it pulled on the area, I pointed out, “That means you’d be touching another man’s penis. You’d actually have the full shaft in your hand, which in a way is kind of
like…”

  It didn’t take much for him to shift the angle of his hand so that it covered my mouth, stopping me from saying anything else. “Fuck’s sake, woman. You’re bruised to hell and back, and you’re more concerned about me saying what men have said for years, and how it means I’d have another man’s dick in my hands?”

  Shrugging, and realizing he had no intentions of moving his hand, I figured I’d talk, anyway. So, I started mumbling into the palm of his hand, and then decided to lick it to get him to move it. When he did, wiping it on my arm no less, I started again. “So, what you’re saying is that you hadn’t thought the threat through, right? I mean, if I say I’m going to punch a woman in the tit, I know my hand is going to hit it. Same with kicking her in the fud, I just need to make sure I’m not barefoot or wearing a pair of shoes that I like.”

  “The fud?”

  Grinning and ignoring the pain that came from it, I nodded. “It’s my favorite word for a vagina.”

  Dropping down onto his back, he went to scrub his face with his hands but thought better about it when he lifted the hand I’d licked, meaning he only got to do it with the clean one. “I would love to understand the way your mind works,” he finally muttered, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t think it’s possible, though.”

  “Probably not,” I hummed, not even slightly offended by what he’d said. It was true, I lived life focusing on the lighter things seeing as how I worked with the darker things almost every day.

  Hooking an arm around my neck, he pulled me into his side, almost suffocating me with his armpit. Throwing out my own arm, I only just managed to avoid the collision, adjusting at the last second so that I had my cheek on his chest instead.

  Unfortunately, it turned out I’d thrown my arm out a little too far, and had grabbed a handful of his cock and a little bit of balls. Did I move my hand? I think not. In my defense, that was initially down to not realizing what I’d grabbed, squeezing it slightly and thinking it was a thigh muscle or maybe even the comforter. Once I realized, though - and thanks in part to the low groan he gave as I squeezed and he shifted his hips - I still held on, tipping my head down to look at what my hand was doing. And that’s when my swollen eye opened slightly as my good eye widened when I saw the bulge I had a grip of.

  “How the hell do you stay standing upright?” I gasped, moving my hand up and down and trying to get my fingers to meet around it. It was impossible, though. “Why doesn’t it stand out in your uniform?”

  Choking out a laugh, he lowered his free hand to where mine was still moving and gently wrapped his fingers around mine, tightening slightly and making mine do the same thing. “I tuck to the left, and no I don’t have issues with balance, but thanks for the compliment, baby.”

  A question I’d always wondered about came out of me next. “Why do y’all wear uniform now? DB wears jeans and a shirt, and y’all used to as well, but now you’re in uniform.”

  “You really wanna ask that while you’re jacking my cock?” he rasped, the arm around my neck moving down my back toward my ass. When I hummed, moving as close to him as I could get and giving the arm that was now cupping one butt cheek more space to move, he answered the question. “The mayor keeps trying different shit. As a small town, they allowed us to be in jeans and shirts so long as we identified ourselves with our badges. Then he decided we would be in uniform and then changed his mind back. Six months ago, it was Kevlar on the outside, now it’s Kevlar under the uniform. DB refused to keep changing his shit, so he stays in jeans and a shirt, Kevlar on every call out or patrol on the outside.”

  “What’s your preference?” I asked, eyes fixed on the nipple right in front of my face. Shifting my legs, I came up against his leg, and realized that he’d stripped down to his shorts to sleep – something which I had no complaints about, if I was honest.

  He didn’t even need to think about his answer. “Kevlar on the outside. Texas is hot, our uniforms are hot, and the vests make it even hotter. Even with an undershirt you sweat onto the vest, and it doesn’t make for a comfortable or pleasantly scented experience.”

  This intrigued me because it’s not something I’d ever thought about. “Can’t you wash them?”

  “We can wash the carrier vest, the thing that you see that has the protective plates inside it, so long as we follow the instructions, but we have to take the Kevlar panels out and remove the straps first. It gives us a chance to make sure there’s no damage or wearing to the armor, too, so it’s a smart thing to do, and I usually give mine a clean with a wet wipe while I’m doing it,” he told me, his hand releasing the one of mine that was still holding him, and wrapping itself around the back of my head. Before I could ask him what he was doing, he’d tipped onto his side, and had relocated me so that my cheek now rested on his bicep, leaving us face to face.

  The new position allowed me to watch his face properly as we talked – which I loved – but it also meant that his erection was now pressed up against my stomach. Let it be known, both aspects were freaking amazing. That said, I still had questions. “Don’t they make special undershirts that you can wear to catch the sweat?”

  Nodding, he shifted his hand to move some hair off my cheek, making sure not to press on the injured area. “Yeah, but sweat is sweat, it’ll stink no matter what you do.”

  “Actually, it’s mainly your apocrine glands and bacteria that do that. The glands produce a sweat that’s high in protein and the bacteria breaks it down easily. Plus, you’re a man, and I’m assuming you don’t shave under your arms?” When he shook his head, looking amused at what I was saying, I explained it a bit further for him. “Figured as much. The hair gives the bacteria more time to break it down because it evaporates at a slower rate, and what’s left over is what stinks. Deodorant slows down the production of sweat and also kills the bacteria, but with your vest pressing up against the stinky area, that shit’ll just build up on it.”

  A huge grin spread across his lips, showing his even white teeth that had totally had an orthodontist work on them. They were too perfectly in line to be natural, although it could happen. I’d wanted braces badly as a kid, but there hadn’t been much need for them at the time. Since then, my wisdom teeth had grown in so space was limited, which sucked when I saw how nice his were.

  “As informative and interesting as that was, baby, you haven’t asked what I figured would be the first question you threw at me this morning.”

  “What was that?” I asked, looking up at his eyes and loving how soft they looked as he watched me. Normally he was scowling or glaring at me, which was highly amusing, so the look on his face just now did funny things to my tummy. It also did funny things to my vagina which would have made me squirm, but I didn’t want to dislodge the erect part of him that was poking me or make him think that I was uncomfortable because of it, so I stayed still.

  “I figured you’d start with – why was I here in bed with you,” he mused, moving his hand up my hip to my ribs.

  He had a point, and the question had occurred to me, but other things had overshadowed it. Plus, now that the painkillers were kicking in, it did seem like the more pertinent question to have asked first. I hazarded a guess at why, though. “Because you were worried about my face?”

  “That’s part of it,” he confirmed, and then moved so that my head was on his forearm and he was leaning up on an elbow over me. “There was also the fact that you wouldn’t let me go last night. You told everyone – including your brother – that we were having a sleepover. When I carried you inside, you wrapped your arms and legs around me and refused to let go.”

  Wincing at the thought of Ellis’s reaction and tempted to use my nails to dig a hole in my mattress to bury myself in, I tried to remember any of that but came up blank. “I’m so sorry…” I started, but he interrupted immediately.

  “I’m not, not even slightly,” he muttered, leaning his face in closer to mine. “When I first met you, there was something that caught my attention and wouldn
’t let it go. Then you threw some shade my way…”

  “You started it,” I snapped, but if I was honest (again) he was probably right – I more than likely had said something to him. My period was the biggest asshole in the history of assholes, it made Chad Vernon look like a puppy in comparison, so it wasn’t unusual for me to turn into a bitch for a couple of days because of it.

  Not even acknowledging that I’d spoken, though, Raoul leaned down so that our lips were almost touching and continued, “And the war started. There hasn’t been a day since that I haven’t wanted to grab you up and kiss the shit out of you, though, baby.”

  I found that hard to believe. Even though I’d felt the same way a majority of the time, I’d also had days where I wanted to hang him by his intestines from a tree. I didn’t say this to him, though, I was too focused on how close his mouth was, and the fact that I could feel his lips skimming mine when he spoke.

  The longer neither of us spoke, the more the tension in the room grew, until I muttered, “Fuck it,” and pressed my mouth against his. I had a brief moment where I worried that he’d pull away from me, but then he was gently pressing me back into the mattress and moving so that the top of his body was on top of mine.

  I’d had boyfriends - of course I had, I was twenty-seven years old - but I could hand to God say that none of them had ever kissed me like he was at that moment. Exploring, branding, teasing, it was all of that and more, and the way his hands moved gently over me was like he was trying to memorize my body. Almost like we were in sync, I tilted my pelvis as he shifted to move over me so that our crotches were against each other and his hard length was rested against my folds. My very wet folds.

  “Jesus, you’re burning me,” he hissed, grinding down into me. Apparently I’d stripped my jeans and bra off last night, but I’d left my panties and tank top on, so all that separated us were two very thin cotton layers that were doing a poor job of hiding the effect he had on me.