Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) (12 page)

However, I managed not to, and made it all the way back home in less time than it’d taken me to run half way down the street.

Once back inside, I hung the taser back up at the back door and locked it, peeking out of the window coverings to make sure he hadn’t followed me into the backyard as he’d done once in the past.

He didn’t, thank God, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

My phone rang, and I ran to answer it.

Then became disappointed when it was only my mom.

“You forgot the lasagna yesterday; when you come get your mail, will you pick it up out of the fridge? I even made more fresh baked bread for him, too,” my mother told me excitedly.

I rolled my eyes.

She’d always loved Booth.

And he could get her to make things only by batting those eyes at her.

“Alright,” I agreed. “But I won’t get over there until after my shift tonight,” I informed her.

“That’s okay, honey. Your dad and I are going to Shreveport for a little gambling. We’ll most likely stay overnight,” she enlightened me.

I grimaced, not wanting to think about her going to Shreveport.

When there was free booze involved, like there was at the casinos in Shreveport, Louisiana, she tended to be kind of free with her words. And I would rather not have to hear about her doing anything that remotely rhymed with hex if I could help it.

“Alright,” I said. “Be safe.”

“Will do, honey. I love you,” she responded.

I smiled as I replied with, “I love you, too.”

After hanging up, I got into the shower, purposefully leaving the phone in the kitchen just in case Booth called.

Which he didn’t.

I washed my body quickly, but slowed down some when I got to the apex of my thighs.

The soreness there surprised me.

I wasn’t a virgin.

Booth had made sure of that before he’d left.

So why was I so sore?

Then I snorted and let the water fall directly over my face.

Booth was big.
That
was why I was sore.

There was no other reason for it. It was just the plain, hard fact.

And I was not all hot and bothered.

Just perfect.

Shutting off the faucet, I stepped out of the steamed up shower stall and walked into the bedroom without a towel.

I’d folded them all, but they were all sitting on the side of the bed.

“Fuck!” I cried, seeing Mia sitting on the side of my bed.

Her eyes looked me up and down.

Mine, however, veered away.

“You’ve been laid!” She cried, pointing at me accusingly.

I ignored her.

“What are you doing here so early
?” I asked, crossing my arms across my chest and staring at
her with annoyance.

When she didn’t immediately answer, I decided to get into some clothes since it seemed to be freezing in here for some reason.

She didn’t say a word, and I was too pissed at Booth to care at this point.

“Your socks don’t match,” Mia said when she saw me grab two out of the pile.

“I know,” I countered, slipping them on. “I don’t like to sort them, so I just grab two that look kind of the same in the morning.”

Mia snorted.

“You grabbed an ankle sock and a long sock. Two different colors,” she observed.

I shrugged. “I know. I’ll just fold the long sock over so it’s the same size as the ankle sock,” I showed her.

She giggled.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked, laying back on the bed.

I sighed.

“Booth and I got together yesterday,” I said. “And I think it was a mistake.”

The bed jolted as Mia jackknifed to a sitting position.

“You what?” She shrieked.

I nodded miserably.

“We had sex. Loud, awesome sex on his parents’ counter. Then continued in the pantry when they came home unexpectedly,” I groaned miserably, burying my face into my hands.

My hurt finger throbbed, reminding me that I’d punched him last night, too.

“I also punched him in the face,” I added through my hands.

When nothing came from the peanut gallery, I looked over at her.

She was staring at me like I’d grown horns.

“You are such a liar!” She said. “Do you remember all those nights I stayed up with you to hear you crying about that stupid man? You told me, over and over again, that you’d never go back to him, even if he was crawling on his knees!”

I wanted to say she was wrong…but she was right.

So hideously right I wanted to smack her.

“Shut up,” I sighed miserably.

“No,” she bared her teeth. “And what’d you do to already hate him?”

What’d I do?

“I didn’t do anything! It’s what he did!” I said, standing up and walking to my chest of drawers.

Picking up the stupid pink compact, I opened it and popped today’s pill out, then walked with purpose to the kitchen for a glass of water.

But before I could get there, I tripped over the rug and bit the dust.

Literally.

My hands caught me, but they slipped underneath the couch, reminding me that I seriously needed to clean more than I did.

“Gross,” I said, seeing a shirt there on the floor.

I picked it up and stared at it, memories flowing through me.

9 years before

“Wear this one,” I said. “No one will see what you have on underneath it.”

He looked at the white shirt, then shrugged.

“True,” he said, slipping it on over his head.

I smiled, looking at the white shirt with The Punisher symbol in gray directly in the middle of this chest.

“You look beautiful, you know,” he said, looking down at me.

I smiled, looking down at my pink sequined dress.

Tonight was the night of my first Marine Ball.

It’d be Booth’s second.

His first he’d taken his high school girlfriend, Maisy.

And Maisy pulled off the whole ‘dress up’ thing better than I did.

I always tried to look my best, but having Dillard’s taste on a Wal-Mart budget wasn’t easy.

Booth would never know that I couldn’t afford the dress I was wearing.

He would never know that I’d pinched and scraped the pennies together for four long months to be able to buy it at the second hand shop in town for seventy dollars.

Lucky for me that the lady that worked the counter put it away for me, allowing me to pay it out as needed.

Now I was pretty in pink, last season’s pink, but pink nonetheless.

My makeup was done by Mia.

My hair was done by Mia’s mother.

My bra was my mother’s.

My shoes were Mia’s mother’s.

I was literally wearing everything used, and I was sure that Maisy would never be caught dead in the things I was wearing.

But I felt pretty, and it was obvious that Booth thought I was, too.

I could feel the evidence in his pants when he pressed his penis against me.

“Would you stop,” I teased playfully when he did it once again.

“I’m sorry,” he lied. “It’s like I can’t help it. You look so fucking hot. And that slit goes all the way up your leg,” he trailed his fingers to the joint where my leg met my hip.

It did have a slit.

“Stop,” I slapped his hand away and turned to grab his dress uniform top off the bed where it’d been laying on plastic. “Put this on already, or we’re going to be late.”

Booth rolled his eyes, but continued to get dressed.

“I’ll meet you out in the living room, okay?” I called when he went to head towards the bathroom.

“10-4,” he replied.

I smiled and walked out into the living room, laughing when I saw Aaron.

“You need help?” I asked.

He handed me the lint roller.

“Fucking dog,” he grumbled.

I rolled my eyes.

Blitzen was a beauty, but he sure got rambunctious when he saw someone he loved.

He was a little over seven weeks old, and even though he was a Flat Coated Retriever, and would get bigger eventually, he was all of about a foot tall right now.

“You had to have picked him up to get it up here,” I raised my brow with a smile.

Aaron didn’t say anything as I finished rolling him off, getting every single black hair I could.

“Thanks,” he muttered as two strong arms encircled my waist.

I smiled happily as I leaned my head against Booth’s muscled arm.

“Hey,” I said to Aaron. “Would you mind taking a picture and sending it to Daniela?”

Aaron pulled his phone out of his pocket, snapped a few pictures of Booth and I, and then most likely sent them off without another word.

“Thank you,” I beamed. “Y’all ready?”

Aaron grunted in affirmative, and Booth pulled me into the curve of his arm and walked me outside.

“We’re not going on your bike, are we?” I asked nervously.

“No,” he laughed. “We’re going in Aaron’s truck.”

“But what about Aaron’s date?” I asked in confusion.

“She’s meeting us there,” Aaron replied from the other side of the truck.

“Cool,” I said. “But didn’t she want to be picked up?”

Aaron shrugged. “I was going to pick her up, but her daddy doesn’t like me. So I’m playing nice and meeting her there.”

“Why doesn’t he like you?” I asked.

Aaron was a good man.

He was a firefighter and a Marine. How much more awesome could you get?

“He thinks I’m trash from the wrong side of the tracks,” Aaron explained.

I blinked.

“How exactly are you trash from the wrong side of the tracks?” I asked in confusion. “There are no train tracks that divide this city.”

Both of the men sandwiching me in gave me a look, and I snorted under my breath, staying silent as we made our way to the banquet hall where the ball was being held.

When we pulled up, I gasped in awe.

“Wow,” I said breathlessly. “It’s beautiful!”

And it was.

Lights hung from the trees, and valets helped out women from the vehicles.

“Wow.” I was in awe.

“That’s the only word you can come up with?” Booth looked over at me with a laugh curving up the corners of his lips.

I punched him in the ass as he got out, and he grabbed my hand and started pulling.

“Slow down or you’re going to pull my dress down and flash your superiors!” I hissed.

He stopped and turned, studying the state of my dress.

“That dress is going to be the death of me,” he studied me.

And, apparently, it wasn’t the only time my dress would be the topic of conversation that night.

I found out an hour and a half later that everyone else had been looking at my dress, too.

“I like your dress,” Aaron’s date, Tawny, said.

I smiled.

“Thank you,” I replied, smiling happily.

“She got it at the second hand shop,” some snotty woman said from behind me. “I saw that dress hanging there when I had to drop off some donations.”

Humiliation swept over me as every single lady in the bathroom looked at me.

Not in disgust, necessarily, but contemplation.

Shit.

I dried off my hands and walked out without another word.

Tawny caught up to me about five seconds later.

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Tawny said. “Don’t make it one. Nobody can tell if it is or isn’t. All they know is that it looks gorgeous on you, and they’re jealous.”

Tears clogged my throat.

“Thank you,” I whispered to her.

Tawny patted my hand, being sure to let go before we made it back into the ball room.

“Gosh, he sure is beautiful,” she said from beside me.

I looked at her.

“Who is?” I asked.

“Aaron,” she said, tilting her head in the direction of Aaron and Booth who were standing next to our table, a beer in their hands.

All the senior staff had gone home for the night and now all that was left were the younger, more fun group.

Apparently, the senior officers leaving was the signal for the alcohol to be broken out.

I, sadly, couldn’t drink.

Not that I would, anyway.

I was the only one able to drive home, and a grin overtook my face as I took Tawny’s hand and pulled us forward.

“Hey, Aaron,” I said. “Did you know if you drink too much, I get to drive your truck home?”

He turned to me at the sound of his name, then narrowed his eyes.

“You’re not driving my truck,” he denied instantly.

I raised my eyes at him.

“Oh really?” I teased.

He looked down at his beer.

“Yeah, nobody drives my truck but me,” he confirmed.

“Not even me?” Tawny
fluttered her eye lashes at him.

Aaron’s face clouded, and I started laughing.

“Oh, Aaron. You’re screwed.”

Booth took my hand then and led me onto the dance floor, not putting his beer down as he did.

“Stop teasing them,” he said against my lips.

I kissed him, then.

“I love you, Booth,” I whispered, looking up into his eyes.

He lifted his hand, the one without the beer in it, and ran it along the apple of my cheek.

“And I love you, Mase.”

I stood up with the shirt that Booth had worn in my hands, staring at it with love as the memories from that night continued to pour through me.

That had been the happiest night of my life.

And I swore that I’d make this work with Booth.

After I let him know just how unhappy it made me to be ignored and put on hold all night.

I can’t take you back. I already told my mom what you did.

-Note to self

Booth

“Where’d you get that shiner?” Tai asked me.

“Fucking SWAT call last night,” I sighed. “The bitch threw her fucking kid at me. Had paperwork out the ass afterwards, Aaron needed talked down from a ledge, and I wasn’t done until 0700 hours and had to come straight here. No time for fuckin’ ice.”

Or it might’ve been Masen clocking me and breaking her finger.

“She threw her kid at you…” Tai’s face as he asked for confirmation was comical.

I nodded.

“Car seat and all. Just swung it like it was a doll instead of a real, live, breathing person,” I nodded. “Caught the baby. Lucky for him he was in his seat. Bad for me that his seat hit me in the face.”