Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) (26 page)

He tossed me a semi-annoyed look over his shoulder.

“Who bought you that one?” Casten asked.

I looked at the nearly empty bottle, then upended it to suck the last dregs down before I placed it on the bar in front of me.

I wiggled my eyebrows at George.

He held up a finger, and I nodded at him before I turned back to Casten.

“It was free, on account of me winning the first game of the season,” I told him, pointing at George.

George’s daughter was on my volleyball team, and she was quite possibly the best on the team.

Next year she’d be playing for a college team and, most likely, would be getting a full ride.

“Heard about that,” Casten said, offering George a twenty-dollar bill. “Congratulations.”

I smiled. “Thank you. Are you paying after all?” I asked teasingly.

I knew he wouldn’t.

He didn’t want me to get the wrong idea, so he never did anything for me.

Not even open a door.

Or
willingly
give me a ride on his bike.

Because that obviously signified a relationship in Casten Red’s world.

Don’t offer to hold the door for a woman, she may expect you to deposit some sperm in her so she can have your baby. Th
en you’ll be tied down, married, with fifteen children, living in a commune with thirteen cats!

I might have over dramatized that thought, but seriously.

The man couldn’t even bring me a to-go box the last time he’d gone out to dinner with the whole Uncertain Saint crew.

He’d been a dick.

But, then again, I wasn’t the nicest lady, either.

“No. I’m not paying for you, something that I’ve already explained to you,” he grumbled, taking a sip of his beer.

I smiled at George, then offered him a five out of my purse as he handed Mr. Storm Cloud, at my side, his change.

“Keep the change,” I told George.

George smiled at me.

“Thanks, Coach.”

“I’ve finally figured it out,” Casten said.

I looked over at him with a ‘
well
?’ expression on my face.

He didn’t smile.

In fact, I never saw him smile.

It was rare that I even saw anything on his face other than a blank expression.

“What’s that?” I asked him when he waited for me to acknowledge him.

He turned back to the front, then lifted his hand and pointed at the mirror across the bar.

I looked into it, studying the two reflections.

Me, I was nothing special.

Tall with long limbs, my hair was a slight mess due to the run I’d just finished.

I had stray fly-away hairs surrounding the messy bun on top of my head.

My nearly black eyes took in my face.

I was still flushed, and I was sure the beer wasn’t what I was needing at that moment in time, but I drank the hell out of it anyway.

I had on a black workout tank top that fit my small chest like a second skin.

I couldn’t see my capri-length workout pants, but I knew if I had, they’d be just as tight as the top.

I didn’t fit in at a bar.

The man at my side, though, did.

Casten was beautiful, in an ‘I’m going to kill you’ kind of way.

He had dark brown hair that was the typical cop haircut, shaved at the sides and longer on the top.

Gun metal gray eyes that pierced through your soul.

Strong jaw, straight nose, beautiful lips.

His chest was wide, and he was what I would describe as brawny.

He was wearing a tight black t-shirt underneath a flannel long-sleeved, button-up shirt. He had his Uncertain Saints leather vest over the top of that, and a pair of sunglasses hanging from the neck of his t-shirt.

His eyes watched me watch him.

“Well?” I asked him.

It was similar to poking a bear.

I didn’t want to poke the bear, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I just couldn’t help myself.

“Why you’re acting like you don’t give a fuck,” he rumbled, answering my question finally.

I raised a brow at him.

“Oh, well then, please, enlighten me,” I invited.

He shrugged, then explained.

“That guy over there was calling you a bitch,” Casten said. “You were putting on an ‘I don’t care’ face so he didn’t see how much it bothered you.”

I had what they called ‘resting bitch face.’

It was biological.

I got it from my mother, and I had no control over it.

But I was also pissed off.

The man at my back had been talking about me not wearing underwear underneath my pants for over twenty minutes now, and it was getting on my nerves.

The only way I wasn’t breaking my empty beer bottle over his head right then was if I acted like he didn’t affect me, then maybe he wouldn’t keep talking about it.

“So, tell me,” I said, drinking a large swig of my beer. “Why do you also work as a Private Dick in addition to being a cop?”

I may or may not have, been a little buzzed.

Then again, it didn’t take much.

I was a light weight.

My body didn’t handle beer and alcohol like most.

Some people could build up their tolerance over time, slowly taking in more each time they drank before they looked or acted drunk.

Not me, though. It didn’t matter how much I drank or how often I did it, I always got the same result.

One drink of anything, and my mind got fuzzy.

But I’d not been sleeping well lately, so I decided it was time to come down here for a beer.

“Used to be a cop. Got injured. Dam
aged my right side permanently
. Sometimes my vision and hearing go out, and there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Couldn’t pass the physical to get back in,” he said with absolutely no emotion.

No annoyance.

No indifference.

No nothing.

“I tried to get a job at the police station, right after I got my degree in biology,” I said. “They said I was too timid.”

“You are timid,” Casten said, not missing a beat. “If I’d have heard those guys talking about me for twenty minutes, I’d have said something. Instead, you sit here getting more and more bitchy looking, but you haven’t once said a single word to the two of them to get them to stop
or to stand up for yourself.”

“Why aren’t you telling them to stop?” I asked him.

He grunted.

“Gotta take care of yourself in this life,” he mumbled. “You’re not always going to have someone protect you. Grow a thick skin and tell those fuckers to leave you the fuck alone.”

I laughed humorlessly. “That’ll work.”

He raised a brow at me.

“Why do you think it won’t?” he challenged. “Most of the time, people say things like that when they don’t think the person they’re talking about can hear. If they know you hear them, then they’ll either shut up or try to talk quieter. Either way that’s a win for you.”

I thought about that for a moment and, realizing he was right, the argument I’d been forming died on my lips.

“And what if they don’t?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Then every time they say something particularly loud, you take that beer bottle you’ve been fingering all night, and you fuck them up with it.”

And that, people, was the beginning of a bar fight.

This is a companion snippet for two of my older
novels. The books area already written. Bennett’s book, Kill Shot and Payton’s book, Another One Bites The
Dust, are available on Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, and Nook
. Enjoy!

Brotherly Love

“What are you doing?” My wife asked me.

I shoved my hand over her mouth and pulled her down with me.

“Shhh,” I hissed. “Don’t ruin this for me!”

She glared at me, but nonetheless sat down onto her ass in the grass like I was doing, and stared at me with annoyance.

“Payton’s supposed to be home soon,” I informed her. “I made her a present.”

“You didn’t.” Lennox said against my hand. “You know Max is going to kill you one day, right?”

“Max could try,” I responded. “But he can’t.”

“And why not?” She asked, genuinely curious.

“Because my sister loves me, despite the fact that I’m a pain in the ass.” I replied. “Do you see that right there?”

I pointed at the box on the front porch step of Payton’s home, and Lennox groaned.

“You got her a puppy, didn’t you?” She asked.

I turned my head to look at her.

“How did you know?” I lied.

I didn’t get her a puppy.

That was last week.

“Because it’s a fucking dog crate,” she drawled. “Did you seriously get your parents to watch our child for this?”

I nodded my head.

“Yeah,” I nodded my head. “Did you see the look on her face the last time I got her a puppy?”

“Yes,” Nox pursed her lips. “And the dog now resides in our backyard and not hers. Why the hell is that?”

I grinned.

“Because her dog kept trying to make Lucy pregnant.” I supplied. “Which I think she is. Though I’m not quite sure who knocked her up. My guess is on Sam’s dog.”

Nox rolled her eyes.

“That’s going to be fun,” she growled. “Can I get up now?”

“No.” I pulled her back down, straight into my lap, when she tried to get up again.

“Seriously?” She asked. “I just got home from work. I’m tired and my feet hurt.”

I rubbed her distended belly.

“My boy giving you fits?” I asked, turning my eyes up to hers.

Her body melted.

“I think he weighs about fifteen pounds.” She grimaced and I felt her big belly roll with my boy’s movements.

The sound of an approaching motorcycle had me turning to look over Nox’s shoulder, and I started to get excited when I saw her and Max pull up on his bike.

Lennox turned as well, and we both watched as they dismounted the bike, and walked up to the porch hand in hand.

Max was the first one who saw it, and instantly stopped and turned, searching the darkness.

We were on the Free compound.

We didn’t get mail delivered to our doors. So the only ones who would get something at our door was something that’d been delivered by another person that lived in the same compound.

And Max knew this.

He also knew that Payton and I traded off ‘surprises.’

Last week I’d gotten a fucking tarantula.

The week before that I’d given Payton a box of those paper snakes that jump out of the box when you open it and the resistance is released.

I was still laughing at that scream three weeks later, and I’d posted it on Facebook so everyone else could laugh, too.

So yeah, needless to say, Max knew what the box was.

A ‘surprise.’

“Open it,” I whispered.

Payton, not one to act like she’s scared when she really is, walked carefully around the cage.

You couldn’t see what it was because I’d semi-wrapped it so it’d be a surprise when she opened the cage’s door.

And surprise her it did.

As well as me.

The mean little bastards—that had bitten me twice today—ran out of the cage like there was a giant cat on their fluffy littles asses.

Straight for Payton.

Payton screamed and started running, three full grown geese fast on her heels.

The moment she was close enough to Max, she launched her tiny body at him and climbed him like a fucking tree.

The geese that were now at Max’s feet jumped, honked, and pecked at Max’s legs.

Max, being the man he was, tried to push the geese away and hold onto Payton while he did, but only succeeded in dropping Payton off his back on the opposite side.

Payton fell into the grass at Max’s feet, and she immediately rolled to get away from the geese who came in for the attack.

At this point, my eyes were watering from laughing so hard, and I’d knocked Lennox off my lap in the process.

Lennox was okay with it, though, seeing as she was at my side laughing right along with me.

“Oh, God.” Lennox wiped tears from her eyes. “She’s going to so kill you.”

The next morning as I rolled out of bed, I bent over and placed a kiss on Lennox’s belly button, which had turned from an innie to an outie in the last month.

“Thanks,” she muttered, rolling back over. “Wake him up why don’t you?”

Grinning, I opened the door to our bedroom and walked out to the kitchen for a much needed cup of coffee.

After getting back into our house later last night, I’d immediately taken Lennox to our bedroom where I’d made slow, sweet love to her.

Anything else wouldn’t work. Not when she was this pregnant.

When she was pregnant with the last baby, she’d liked it on the rougher side.

This time, though, she only wanted it soft and slow.

I was, of course, willing to oblige her.

I aimed to please.

Since I was thinking about my sated cock and not looking in front of me, I nearly tripped over the box that was sitting in the middle of my living room floor before I ever saw it.

I stared at it like it was infected, and contemplated throwing it directly into the trash.

Since I as the man I was, and knowing it was against the ‘all’s fair’ rule that Payton and I had made up when we were teens, I sucked it up and picked the box up.

It immediately tipped heavily to one side, and I dropped it, not expecting the movement.

And stared at what fell out.

Frogs.

Hundreds of them.

Mother.
Fucker
.

Luke wiped his eyes as tears started to pour out of them due to his laughter.

“And you hear the croaks all night long?” He wheezed.

I nodded my head.

“Yes.” I exhaled. “Goddammit. Lennox is threatening to stay with her parents because I can’t find them all. Even if she did happen to find one, she’d not touch it since she’s scared of frogs. And I woke up last night with one in bed with us. It was in her fucking hair. If she’d not been so deeply asleep, I’d be cut off for the rest of my life.”