Joke's on You (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 6)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  But I didn’t care—at least not about that.

  I did care about the fact that I was so close to coming that I was nearly tasting it.

  “Fuck,” I cried out. “Booth, please. Fuck.”

  “I am,” he growled, his hands tightening on my hips. “What does it feel like I’m doing?”

  I cried out on one particularly exuberant thrust, causing him to slow his pace.

  When he did, I pushed backward, letting him know that I was okay.

  He picked it back up again, and I closed my eyes as I focused on what I was feeling.

  With his finger no longer working my clit, I was surprised that I could feel my orgasm building as fast as it was.

  But the longer and harder he thrust into me, the better that it felt, until suddenly I just couldn’t take it anymore.

  I cried out, and little colorful starbursts exploded behind the lids of my eyes.

  My pussy clamped down hard on his cock, rhythmically pulsing all around his entire length.

  It must’ve felt good, because by the time that I was able to draw in breath and think coherently, he wasn’t.

  Booth’s curse, followed by his abrupt departure from my pussy, and a hot splash of his cum hitting my back followed my release.

  I couldn’t stop myself from bemoaning that he hadn’t spent inside of me.

  But I understood his actions.

  We hadn’t talked about kids.

  We really, really needed to get to know each other a little better.

  Yet, we were continuing to play with fire by not protecting ourselves from pregnancy.

  But, the longer that I thought about how I’d feel when it came to carrying Booth’s child, the more excited and reckless I became.

  The idea was exciting.

  “Fuck,” he breathed. “You slay me.”

  I panted with him, then pointed to the bar behind him.

  “There’s a roll of paper towels behind you,” I said breathlessly.

  I couldn’t move since he’d released on the small of my back, but it didn’t matter. Even if I could, I wouldn’t have. He was right about the ‘slaying’ thing. He very much did that to me.

  He pulled backward and grabbed the towels.

  Seconds later, he was wiping off my back and tossing the soiled towels into the trash can that was behind the counter by our feet.

  Before I could lift my underwear and jeans into place, though, he pressed himself against me once again, gathering me into his arms so that he could bury his face into my hair.

  “This definitely would’ve gotten the health inspector pissed,” Booth murmured into my hair.

  At that, I burst out laughing.

  He was not lying.

  This wasn’t something that I would think the health inspector would’ve liked.

  “We’re going to have to Lysol this entire freakin’ counter,” I said. “Just in case.”

  He chuckled, then sat me back before grabbing a roll of paper towels and unwinding a handful.

  He handed me some, then went about cleaning himself.

  “This is not your usual cream filling,” he joked.

  I gagged.

  “That just seriously made me think about stuffing a donut with it.” I dry heaved. “Oh my God. Did you know that there was a show where a guy fed his fellow college students his dog’s semen? I think that I almost died after that. I don’t trust anybody with food. Ever. But seriously, after that? If it’s not store-bought and sealed, I have a hard time eating it.”

  “What makes store-bought any better?” Booth asked as he jerked up his jeans. “Because the workers who made it could’ve done it.”

  He’d literally just shattered my entire world with one statement.

  “That’s…” I paused. “Insane. Please, don’t remind me of this conversation ever again.”

  He laughed and tucked himself back into his jeans. “Noted.”

  Chapter 10

  Nobody expects you to throw ten boxes of Ramen Noodles into their jacuzzi.

  -Just sayin’.

  Dillan

  I ran my hand over the counter that Booth had taken me up against the night before and blushed.

  I was smiling wide when I played the messages on my phone.

  That smile died the moment that I heard my father’s voice.

  “Dillan,” my father’s cool, gruff voice came over the line. “This is your father.” I rolled my eyes as he said that. I knew exactly who it was. Even if my caller ID hadn’t said ‘private’ I would’ve known who he was the moment he said my name. He always said it so condescendingly that it could be nobody else. “I would like to schedule a meeting with you and your sister to discuss these recent new developments that I’ve been hearing. If you could call my secretary back to schedule this meeting at your earliest convenience, that would be acceptable.”

  “If you could call my secretary back to schedule…” I mimicked his cool, courteous tone. “Yeah, fuckin’ right.”

  Just as I was about to put my phone down, it rang in my hand.

  Delanie’s face popped up onto the screen, and I smiled as I placed it to my ear.

  Before I could say hello, she was already talking.

  “I think you should go with beach themes today,” I heard my sister say into my ear.

  “Why are you awake?” I asked.

  She’d left for Austin last night with Bourne, and I honestly wasn’t sure why she was talking to me so early.

  “I’m…” She paused. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

  I laughed, thinking that whatever was bothering her likely had a lot to do with a certain man that looked a lot like my man.

  Only, he had a lot surlier of an attitude.

  “Okay,” I said. “And I think that I’m going to go with emojis today. Beach themes tomorrow.”

  “That’ll be cute. Make sure you send me a picture,” she said. “I love seeing what you come up with.”

  “Do you think doing the poop emoji on the chocolate ones will be too gross?” I asked as I hefted the bag of trash that was still inside the trash can.

  I shouldn’t have taken my trash out so early.

  Last night, Moshe had closed for me and she hadn’t ever closed for me before.

  She didn’t know that the trash had to be taken out.

  She also didn’t know that she set the alarm incorrectly.

  But, in a pinch, she’d done just fine. And I could handle taking out the trash.

  “No,” Delanie answered. “I think it’ll be adorable. And, honestly, all these kids are buying poop emoji pillows and shit. It’s highly doubtful that they would even care that they were eating one. The parents might be a little hesitant. But you know that they normally give their kids whatever they want whenever they want when it comes to those donuts.”

  That was true.

  If they were coming into my shop, then they were getting whatever they wanted. Including a four-dollar donut that was decorated with a poop emoji.

  “I still haven’t decided whether I’ll start tomorrow with the weekends, or just wait until next weekend,” I found myself saying as I pushed open my back door.

  “I think you should take the week off, start over fresh next weekend,” Delanie suggested. “You haven’t had any time off in a really long time. And you’ve got plenty of money in the bank.”

  I did.

  After Delanie’s and my business started to take off, any and all money from my father was refused.

  We now both lived solely on the earnings we made on our own merits.

  It was a great feeling.

  What was even greater was the more the sum in the account grew, the more pissed off my father got because he thought I was being ‘stubborn and bullheaded’ when I really just didn’t want anything more to do with him.

  Something in which he just couldn’t wrap his head around.

  “Speaking of my father,” I said
as I allowed the back door to close behind me and headed for the dumpster out back. The one that I shared with the little Italian place that was directly behind me. “He called me yesterday.”

  “We weren’t speaking of him,” Delanie replied. “And what did he want?”

  “He wanted to meet with both of us,” I said. “Something more to do with, I think, me and Booth being seen together rather than anything else. I’ll bet Kerrie went and tattled. I think him seeing Booth and me together yesterday really hammered it home. And he decided that telling Daddy on us was the next best thing.”

  “I’ve never liked him, Dill.” Delanie sighed. “And I hate that you ever gave him a chance.”

  I hated that I gave him my virginity.

  Honestly, I’d felt filthy the next day after doing it. I’d hated myself.

  And that’d been the day that I finally started staying away from Kerrie.

  “Are you going to go?” Delanie asked as I tossed the trash over the side of the dumpster.

  “Hell no, I’m not going to go,” I said. “Whatever he has to say isn’t going to change a thing. I’m in love with Booth. Our father will not change that with his words.”

  A low, menacing growl had me freezing in place as I turned and saw a black dog with a leash attached to his collar baring his teeth at me.

  I swallowed hard, feeling the lump in my throat as I said, “Good doggy.”

  The donut that I had in my hand felt like a lead weight.

  I slowly tossed the donut to the dog, and he bent down, sniffed it, and picked it up with a gentleness that I hadn’t expected.

  He chewed it with even more gentleness.

  I’d never in my life seen a dog eat so delicately.

  I wish I had more.

  After finishing the last bite, he turned on his heel and walked away, dragging his leash through a puddle of nasty water that was next to the dumpster.

  “Are you okay?”

  I hadn’t even realized that I was still on the phone.

  My heart was pounding a mile a minute and I couldn’t breathe.

  “Yeah,” I said breathlessly. “I just literally fed my donut to a really scary Belgian Malinois. He growled at me and scared…”

  Another low growl had me freezing in place for a few long seconds.

  I turned to find myself facing not a dog, but Kerrie.

  This time, I couldn’t stop myself from dropping the phone from my ear.

  “What do you want, Kerrie?” I asked stiffly.

  I was really, really fucking tired of the man showing up here.

  It was getting old, and the more that he did it, the more that I was getting the feeling that this was going to have to be stopped the hard way—by a restraining order.

  “What do I want?” Kerrie asked. “That’s rich.”

  I frowned. “What’s rich?”

  “You know that I want you,” he said.

  I felt my belly sour on the donut that I’d eaten before I’d come out here.

  I was almost thankful that my second one had gone to the dog.

  “Well, the feeling isn’t mutual so…” I couldn’t finish my sentence, because the next thing that I knew, Kerrie had me pinned against the brick wall using his massive bulk to hold me there.

  I gasped, tried to pull away, but quickly realized that I wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  “Kerrie, no!” I twisted my wrists, but he easily, and quite laughably really, overpowered me.

  Seconds after I tried to pull away, he had my wrists slammed up against the building. I felt the hard scrape of the bricks against my sensitive skin, and knew that I’d be sporting not only bruises, but cuts and scrapes.

  If I made it out of this alive, that was.

  The thought had me glancing at the phone that was lighting up the alleyway.

  The call had dropped.

  But my screensaver, which was a selfie of Booth, Asa, and me, lit up the screen.

  At seeing that photo, I struggled even harder to get away.

  He once again proved his superior strength.

  “You know,” Kerrie said as he pressed me up against the wall, grinding his hard cock against me. “You were much easier to do when I gave you roofies.”

  My skin went numb.

  That explained a lot.

  Unfortunately.

  That night, I’d gone out with him because I’d been sad. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about my sister and Booth being together, and I’d just… needed to escape.

  So I’d gone out with Kerrie and started drinking.

  I’d done some pretty heavy drinking to the point where I was slurring my words, but by the end of the night when Kerrie and I had left that party, I’d stopped drinking and started to sober up. I remember Kerrie giving me a bottled water when we got in the car, and from there, I hadn’t remembered anything until the next morning when I woke up naked beside him.

  I’d blamed it on poor decisions and alcohol content.

  Except… everything I’d always thought was a lie.

  Hell, I should’ve realized from the moment that I suspected that Booth and Delanie were drugged.

  Boy, was I dumb.

  “Let me go,” I snarled, ramping up my kicking and hitting.

  I would scream, but it was freakin’ three o’clock in the morning.

  Nobody would hear me.

  And my sister would probably think that I’d lost signal like I always did at the shop.

  With any luck, she would try to call me back.

  And when she couldn’t get a hold of me, she’d look at my cameras that she had access to.

  One that was pointed outside. It was likely that she’d be able to see me.

  I’d had to get cameras out here as well as out in the front of the store because of a couple of break-ins that I’d had when I’d first moved in. The only way that the insurance company was willing to keep covering me was if I got cameras on the front and the back of the store to cover the entrances.

  God, please let her look.

  Just as I decided to say fuck it and scream, Kerrie’s hand came down on my throat and he started to squeeze.

  Now, I’d never done the whole ‘not being able to breathe thing.’

  I guess that I expected it to feel differently.

  What I didn’t expect was for my face to get hot, or sweat to bead on my upper lip.

  I also didn’t expect the pounding headache that followed almost instantly.

  Kerrie’s eyes were narrowed, as if he was literally about to kill me.

  I gasped and clawed at his hands, feeling the soft, thud-thud-thud of my heart pounding in my ears.

  My face started to tingle, and I could no longer feel my lips.

  I was making a gasping, gurgling, choking sound that was hurting my ears, and my eyes started to water.

  With tears running down my face, I tried one last ditch effort to get away, because my strength was quickly waning.

  With a great heave, I pushed back off the wall, levered my legs upward, and then kicked Kerrie for all I was worth in the thighs.

  He went back several feet, thankfully letting go of my neck in the process.

  I drew in a great, heaving breath, and went to run.

  Only, I didn’t get far because before I could even blink, Kerrie had a hold of my hair and he was dragging me backward.

  Just before he caught me up in his arms, I saw a flash of black.

  A menacing growl—one that I’d heard earlier which had caused me to give up my donut—and then a pain-filled scream.

  The pressure on my hair released, and I whirled around in time to see the black dog on top of Kerrie, followed by a large man hurrying in the direction of the dog.

  The soft curse of the large man, filled with Kerrie’s scream of pain again, had me backing up until my back hit the dumpster.

  I stepped into something sticky, but I didn’t care.

  I
couldn’t care.

  My eyes were locked solidly on the large man pulling the dog off the now-prone Kerrie.

  “Bobo, heel,” the large man growled ferociously.

  Bobo heeled, but not before he got one more good bite in.

  Kerrie screamed all over again.

  My phone rang on the ground, and I couldn’t make myself move to answer it.

  Sirens sounded in the distance, and soon the red and blue flashing lights were bouncing off the narrow confines of the alley walls.

  I, on the other hand, was still frozen in fear.

  I slid down the metal container, wrapped my arms around my knees, and stared in shock at the bleeding and crying Kerrie.

  Chapter 11

  You never know what I’ll have up my sleeve. Today, for example, it was a pair of Asa’s underwear.

  -Text from Booth to Dillan

  Booth

  “You okay now, buddy?” I asked, pushing my son’s hair out of his face.

  “Yeah,” Asa sighed. “Daddy, can we watch something cool?”

  I chuckled and took the seat next to my son—the one I’d been occupying almost the entire night—and flicked on the television.

  My stomach was in knots as I stared at him.

  Asa had started throwing up again yesterday at around two in the afternoon and hadn’t stopped since.

  I now had an appointment with his pediatrician today to talk to her about what was going on.

  My kid had literally had dozens of these bouts of sickness randomly over the last few months.

  And, after talking to Delanie yesterday, I’d realized that she’d had a few with him, too.

  It wasn’t until we were comparing notes that we realized that the situation was a lot more serious than we’d thought.

  Speaking of Delanie.

  My phone rang, and I frowned.

  It was three-fifteen in the morning. Was she really that worried?

  “Hello?” I answered hesitantly.

  “Oh, God. Booth,” Delanie gasped. “Dillan is being strangled by Kerrie outside of the donut shop!”

  I was on my feet in an instant, gathering Asa in my arms.

  “Did you call 911?” I asked as I all but sprinted out the door.

  “Yes,” she cried. “I was on the phone with her. The call dropped, but something made me go and check the feed just in case. And I saw Kerrie attack her. She’s in the alley behind the donut shop. She was taking out the trash, and he ambushed her there.”