Just Kidding

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  That one light kiss sent tickles down my spine and a swarm of butterflies to fight in my belly.

  “You didn’t cuss once,” he said, his hand coming down to possessively cup my ass. “You went all lawyer on her and defended my honor.”

  I had.

  And I always would.

  Not because I had a thing for Dax, though. But because he was such a good man.

  He deserved to have someone throw down the gauntlet for him.

  His mouth moved then to where my shoulders and neck met, nibbling on the sensitive skin.

  “Dream about you now,” he murmured between kisses. “How you taste. What you’re doing. Whether I need to kick someone’s ass for you or not.”

  I snorted. “Really? You dream about kicking peoples’ asses for me?”

  He shrugged. “Last night’s dream was me being this badass who protected your honor. It was weird, and we ended up growing old with only dogs and cats that we named kids’ names.”

  Snickering at the images that explanation brought forth, I leaned back and studied his face.

  “I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” I told him. “Growing old with you.”

  His eyes went a little heated as he said, “Yeah?”

  I pressed against him more fully, feeling his erection dig into my belly.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  We didn’t waste any more words after that.

  No, instead we told each other stories with our mouths and tongues, using them to lick, lathe, and suck.

  When Dax finally sank into me minutes later, I was already on the downhill slide of an orgasm.

  It didn’t matter, though.

  Dax had a way with his mouth and cock, and it wasn’t long before I was following him over the precipice all over again.

  “How does it feel?” he asked, his voice a rasp. “To have me so deep inside of you?”

  “I d-don’t think I can explain,” I rasped, my pulse a rapid beat in my chest. “It feels… like everything.”

  “Everything?” he panted, his hips working fast and smooth, taking me deep and hard.

  “Every. Thing,” I repeated, my fists clenching on his thigh. “I can’t think when you’re in me, yet you’re expecting me to form a coherent sentence. I can’t do anything but feel you… and it feels like everything. Everything I’ve ever wanted. Thought I might need. Realized I didn’t have. You’re everything.”

  His hands tightened on my hips for a few seconds, then he grunted out loudly, his impending release imminent.

  “Fuuuuck,” he said. “You feel like everything to me, too. Like everything that’s all mine.”

  My eyes closed as an orgasm overtook me, my second one that Dax had given me for the night.

  “Ah, fuck,” he whispered. “There it is.”

  I heard him cry out my name as he came inside of me, filling my insides with his release.

  I was too busy loving the feel of him inside of me to notice or care, though.

  It wasn’t until I came back to myself, once again under control of my body, that I started to laugh.

  “What?” Dax asked, pulling out of me.

  I felt his release drip, running down the length of my thighs and I was sure also onto the bed.

  Yet I couldn’t find it in me to care.

  “I can’t remember,” I admitted.

  And I couldn’t.

  Normal brain function wasn’t operational that close to a Dax orgasm.

  “You’re making a mess on the bed.” He laughed, slapping my ass.

  I reluctantly got out of bed and walked to the bathroom to clean off.

  He stripped the sheets and tossed them onto the floor to be washed later.

  “Where are your other sheets?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “There are none. I only had the one set.”

  “Okay then,” he said, gathering me up, naked, in his arms.

  I gasped in surprise and would’ve protested, but he was out the back door before I’d even had a chance to tell him anything.

  The next thing I knew he was leading us into his kitchen, then farther into the bedroom.

  Once there, he pulled me down into his arms and threw his top sheet over the top of us.

  “Good?” he asked.

  I snuggled into his chest, rubbed my face along his pecs, and said, “Yeah. Couldn’t be better.”

  Chapter 13

  Twunt- because sometimes ‘twat’ and ‘cunt’ just don’t cut it.

  -Dax’s secret thoughts

  Dax

  “Unit 453, I need you en route to 44554 Eleventh Street,” the dispatcher said into the mic that was next to my ear. “We have a woman saying that her husband won’t wake up. Volunteer firefighters and an ambulance are en route. Ambulance is ten out.”

  I looked at the clock on the dash and groaned.

  I’d miss my date with Rowen.

  I just knew it.

  “10-4, Unit 453 responding,” I said as I depressed the button on the mic.

  The woman I was writing a ticket to looked at me warily.

  “Slow down,” I said as I handed it to her. “And make sure you get him a car seat ASAP.”

  The woman nodded.

  I looked at the kid that was only restrained by a seatbelt in the back seat.

  He would’ve probably been fine, but the law was the law and the kid wasn’t even six yet. The law stated that he had to be or at least four-foot-nine. They usually hit that height by the time they were eight years of age. Which he was not.

  Turning on my heel, I walked back to my cruiser, annoyed and pissed off that I’d be missing my movie date with my girl.

  I just knew that I wouldn’t make it back in time to grab dinner, and the movie was definitely going to be questionable, too.

  Getting into the cruiser, I tapped the ‘responding’ button on my computer and headed out, making a quick call to Rowen on my way.

  She answered within two rings.

  “Hey!” she chirped. “I’m almost done.”

  I sighed.

  “I’m not,” I admitted. “I caught a call about two minutes left in my shift.”

  She sighed. “That sucks, but it is what it is. I have some work I can finish here… will you text me when you’re done? Then I’ll leave and we can still meet for dinner?”

  I loved her.

  She didn’t cry or get bent out of shape when she knew things weren’t going to go her way.

  She didn’t try to make me feel bad like my other girlfriends did.

  Hell, she just said to call her when I was done.

  What kind of special, alien girl had I been given?

  “Are you real?” I teased.

  Her husky laugh made my balls tighten in reaction.

  “You do realize that I grew up with a man that was on the SWAT team, right?” she asked. “I can’t tell you how many family dinners, birthday parties, or Christmases he was called out on. And it never failed. When we were all out and about together, and he got a call, we were left stranded. So… yes, I’m used to it. And I’m more than capable of doing stuff on my own. And figuring out a way home.”

  I’d forgotten that I’d dropped her off that morning. Our original plan had been to meet at a restaurant that was within walking distance of her office, meaning she wouldn’t have far to go before I picked her up and took her home with me.

  Shit.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I promised.

  She snickered.

  “Don’t worry,” she ordered. “I’ll be okay. And if you’re too late, I’ll just call my dad. He’ll understand.”

  With that, we said our goodbyes, and I was left driving to a call that I knew was going to be bad—because shit, it was on Eleventh Street, and that was the baddest of the bad in our town—and contemplating what I needed to do next when it came to Rowen Roberts.

  I knew I wanted to make it more official.

&n
bsp; We hadn’t really talked about being boyfriend and girlfriend, but we were. We also hadn’t shared any feelings that we were feeling, though the ones that went through my head all day every day when it came to Rowen Roberts were anything but platonic.

  And never would be.

  I wasn’t sure how she’d managed it, but one second she was just a friend. Hell, not even that. A child of my boss likely the better description. Whatever way I described it, though, I knew that we’d changed.

  We’d morphed into a relationship that men often killed for.

  Picking up my mic, I said, “This is Unit 453, arrived on scene.”

  “10-4,” came the dispatcher’s more even, slow drawl.

  Once she knew I was there, I got out of the SUV and headed up to the front of the gate.

  There were three men outside, all of which were likely carrying.

  All of which were looking at me like I was an outsider and a snitch.

  When I got to the call, I wasn’t sure what I expected.

  I mean, yes, an unconscious man for sure.

  I walked into the room and took it all in.

  There was a woman smoking pot in the corner of her trashy single-wide trailer. She was staring at the commotion in her kitchen as if she wasn’t sure what to expect.

  “You the owner?” I asked her, eyeing the pot.

  She blew out a breath and nodded.

  “For today,” she admitted.

  I looked at all the drug paraphernalia on the counter. A bong. A couple of spoons that I’d bet my right nut had cocaine on them, and what looked to be ecstasy in a couple of plastic baggies.

  Jesus Christ.

  Could they not have at least tried to clean up?

  Pressing the mic on my shoulder, I said, “Dispatch, this is Unit 453. I have a 374 in progress. Requesting backup.”

  A 374 was a drug dealer, or the equivalent of one.

  I wasn’t sure, yet, if that was exactly what we had, but I had a suspicion that it was.

  “10-4, Unit 453,” dispatch said.

  I gave the woman one last look then walked into the bedroom where I could hear the volunteer firefighters trying to get the man to wake up.

  Since it was so far out of the city, I hadn’t really expected anybody to be here. I definitely knew that the fire department wasn’t the one to respond to this particular section of backwoods trashy homes since it was so far out of the city, but sometimes jurisdiction lines were blurred between ‘city limits’ and ‘not city limits.’

  This particular house hugged that line.

  And since I was so close, I’d been the one to respond.

  Looking at the drug paraphernalia in the house, I almost wished I hadn’t.

  This was going to be a lot of paperwork.

  There were pot plants growing in this man’s room. I could see thousands of pills spread out on every available surface.

  And to put the icing on the cake, there was a rat in the corner chewing on a white pill that was likely some kind of pain pill if the bottle’s label could be trusted.

  “Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath.

  A big man that was obviously there and wished he wasn’t turned to look at me.

  “Gave a sternal rub,” he said. “Didn’t wake.”

  A sternal rub was a way of waking a person in hopes that he’d have a response to pain.

  “I…” I trailed off as the man that was lying flat on the bed went from non-responsive to up, moving like a freight train, and heading right for the young volunteer firefighter that’d been taking his vital signs.

  The young woman being Avery Flynn.

  “Oh, shit,” Avery said.

  I made a split-second decision.

  One moment, I was across the room, and the next I was grabbing the very angry, very big, very crazy man by his throat and body slamming him back down to the bed.

  He bounced off the bed, went about two feet into the air with his momentum, and fell to the floor in the next second.

  I crossed over the bed in one hop and came down on the other side of the room, dropping to the ground in the next second to put all of my body weight on the man’s back.

  Seconds later, I had him cuffed.

  A heartbeat after that, he went absolutely fucking nuts.

  He trashed the walls. He trashed the roof. He trashed everything.

  And each new hole that appeared in the plaster, the more drugs that fell out, until there were drugs everywhere.

  I’d never seen anything like it before in my life.

  On one such pass into the wall, he hit so hard that an entire imprint of his body in plaster fell right out of the studs.

  And he was in the other room.

  “Shit!” I said, hurrying out of the room.

  I found him with his hands on the locks, trying to open the door backward.

  But each time he’d make an attempt, he’d hit himself in the head.

  Yet, he continued to try as I came closer and closer to him.

  On one such tug, he hit himself in the head so hard that his head split open and blood started to pour down his neck.

  “Sir,” I said. “If you could…”

  He launched himself at me with such speed that I barely had enough time to react.

  I did manage to deflect his momentum enough that he didn’t land on top of me.

  My head, unfortunately, busted in the hollow door of the kitchen cabinets.

  Good news, a bag of meth the size of my head broke my fall.

  ***

  It was two hours later that I finally got to leave the call.

  At first it would’ve been strictly routine.

  But then the drugs had happened, and it’d gone from a crime scene to a containment scene where the area had to be cleared before anything could happen. I.e. personnel go in, and out.

  When I was finally able to leave, I knew that I’d still be writing reports until late tonight on what happened.

  That was okay by me, though, seeing as I’d have Rowen at my side while I did it.

  “Thank you for the ride,” Avery said. “I really appreciate it.”

  I nodded once. “Derek’s got your car. I’ll give him a ride back to the station when he gets here.”

  We both looked backward as her vehicle pulled to the curb and Derek bailed out of it.

  He took one look at Avery in her fancy skirt and high heels and shook his head as if to clear it.

  He tossed the keys in her direction, and Avery, not expecting them, didn’t catch them in time. They hit her in the face.

  “Sorry.” Derek said, then turned to me, gesturing with his head.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were once again at his cruiser, and I was heading to pick my girl up.

  When I arrived at her work, I was surprised to find every light blazing, and not one but two cars in the parking lot.

  Parking at the front door instead of a designated parking spot, I went inside to see two of the last people on earth I expected there. And one very pissed off Rowen on the phone.

  She was standing in the mouth of her office while Rachelle and Jerry stood in the receptionist area.

  “What are you two doing here?” I barked.

  Rachelle’s eyes came to me and froze.

  Jerry didn’t freeze.

  He looked pissed.

  “What are you two doing here?” I repeated again.

  When neither one of them spoke, I turned to Rowen who was still on the phone.

  “…I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to work with them. There’s a conflict of interest,” she said. “And I don’t think I’d do them a good enough job. I didn’t want to say no in case you decided you… okay. I’ll tell them.”

  When she hung up, her eyes were on mine.

  “They’re needing a lawyer because of what we told them yesterday,” she said. “Jerry feels that you’ll take this farther and that you’ll do it just to sp
ite them. So they’re contacting a lawyer to prepare for the inevitable.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Your boss?” I gestured to the phone.

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t feel like we should take the case, just like I assumed she’d say. But she did give me some recommendations for them. I’m to share those with them and ask them to leave.”

  I curled my hand around the side of her neck, bringing her in close.

  Pressing a kiss against her lips, I pushed her away and gestured toward the two people that I knew were watching.

  “Get that done,” I said. “I’m ready to get you home.”

  After dealing with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, I got Rowen in my cruiser and started home.

  “Do you want to stop for food?” I asked. “I think I have enough to cook some grilled chicken or something. But I don’t have anything to go with it.”

  She shook her head.

  “Honestly, I think I’d be happy with eating cereal for dinner if that’s all the same to you. I’ve had a really long day,” she admitted. “Jenny and Clancy’s caseload is unreal. I had no clue that they’d be so busy or popular.”

  I was already nodding my head. “Clancy and Jenny set up practice out here when Todd Masterson retired.”

  She was already nodding her head.

  Everyone knew who Todd Masterson was—an ex-military old-school lawyer that was so good at what he did he’d never lost a case.

  “He was the reason that I wanted to become a lawyer in the first place,” she said as she gathered her things.

  Rachelle and Jerry had left in a huff about five minutes before, leaving us blissfully alone as she gathered her things.

  “Really?” I asked as I leaned my ass against her desk and waited.

  She shrugged her coat on, followed by her purse straps.

  I stood up and offered her my hand as we walked together toward the door.

  “Yes,” she said, answering my earlier question. “You know the circumstances of my real dad, right?”

  Rowen’s real father had been an FBI agent. He’d gotten caught up in a lot of crazy shit and had ended up passing away during an operation gone wrong.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I think.”

  She grinned up at me and started sifting through her bag looking for her keys.