My balls rose, reminding me that I was seconds away from bursting.

  And her mouth fell open and her eyes dilated as if she was getting exactly what she wanted.

  I pulled back and slammed back inside again, watching her breasts jump with the motion.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed. “Yes!”

  My hands went to the pillow that was beside her head, and I yanked it out from under her, causing her head to fall to the bed with a soft thump.

  The next second I had that pillow shoved under her hips to lift her to a better angle.

  When I had her where I wanted her, I pressed her legs out wide and held them there with my hands on the insides of her thighs.

  Then I started to fuck her with hard, brutal thrusts that were sure to cause her to be sore tomorrow.

  But her head was thrown back, and her hair was a wild, tangled mess all around her, and she was writhing on the bed as if all it would take…

  She came hard around my cock, momentarily blinding me when all those muscles clamped down on me at once.

  Somewhere in between one breath and the next, I followed suit, coming so hard that every single molecule of oxygen left my lungs in one sudden rush.

  My hands clamped down on her hips, and I was pressing her legs down so hard into the bed that I knew I had to be hurting her.

  She allowed it, though, not begging to move until I’d come inside of her with a deep bellow.

  My eyes snapped open when her hand cupped my cheek.

  “That’s what I want, every time,” she whispered. “Not necessarily rough, but what you want. How you want.”

  I dropped down so that I could reach her lips, then kissed her softly with a few sweet presses of my mouth against hers.

  “If I have very many of those,” I teased as I pulled away to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “Then I’ll die an early death.”

  She scoffed. “Your heart can handle about eighty of those at a time with the amount that you work out,” she joked, skimming her hands down the length of my side, and then digging her fingers in.

  I squeaked like a girl, pulling both of us out of the bed until we were standing beside it.

  “Want to take a shower with me?” I asked, feeling my cock softening inside of her.

  I was still inside, but barely.

  All it would take was one small shift of our hips and I’d be out.

  She smiled. “As long as you don’t get my hair wet, I’m down.”

  Needless to say, I got her hair wet.

  But she wasn’t too mad about it. Not when I made her come with my mouth while it was in the process of getting wet.

  CHAPTER 19

  Kindness is so gangster.

  -text from Will to Cannel

  WILL

  “Hey,” she answered the phone, which should’ve been the first indication that something wasn’t right.

  Normally she didn’t answer when she was at work.

  I’d called because I was going to leave her a voicemail, detailing the things that I needed to do today, and asking her if she needed anything while I was out running errands.

  Since I was driving, and I didn’t text and drive under any circumstances—texting and driving was just as bad as drunk driving in my opinion. I’d seen enough wrecks to know—calling and leaving a voicemail was what I did.

  Only, she’d answered.

  “Hey.” I hesitated. “I’m going to the store and a few other places, and I know that you said something about needing a new faucet for one of your cabins. Do you still need that? If so, I can get it for you while I’m out.”

  She’d discussed last night, in detail, her plan of getting the cabins at her place up and running by the summer. That meant that she needed to buckle down and make all the final little ‘touches’ by the end of this month.

  She’d also told me yesterday that she’d opened up the books for next month, giving herself a hard deadline of making things happen.

  “Actually?” She sighed. “It looks like I’ll have all the time in the world to do a lot of what I need to do out there. I just quit.”

  There was a long moment of silence and then, “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.” She popped the ‘p’ before sighing. “They tried to give me a patient today. A man in his late thirties that came in for a few heart irregularities. He’s twice the size you are in the strength department. But the guy’s name was Ashley. Meaning, when I walked into the room, I was blindsided. I walk in there, smiling, and all of a sudden I’m having a panic attack in the locker room.” She continued. “He reminded me of one of the guys that took me from that grocery store parking lot.”

  My stomach clenched. “Did they ever find those two guys?”

  “They found one of them. The other—the bigger one that the patient looked like today—is in the wind.” She hesitated. “And since we hadn’t gotten the chance to transfer patients over yet, I’d gone straight in there thinking that I’d run in and see what was wrong, and why the woman—which turned out to be the man’s wife—was calling up to the nurses’ station in a panic.”

  I gritted my teeth. “So you told them to take their job and shove it?”

  “Not exactly.” She paused. “I told the charge nurse that I felt unsafe working in this environment, and she’d be hearing from my lawyer. In the meantime, I would be off with pay until then. I’m not sure if that’s how it actually works or not, but I already called my lawyer and got her assistant. The assistant took all my information down, and she’s going to get back to me as soon as she can. Which, I expect, is soon because I’m apparently a VIP client thanks to being a friend of a friend. Trouper’s wife, Beckham, is someone who helped find me when I was being held. The lawyer, Swayze, is married to another one of the guys in Trouper’s club. She’s a bulldog. And hates when women are treated unfairly.”

  I sighed. “Will you keep me updated on that? Do you want me to talk to anyone that I know?”

  I was sure that I wouldn’t be as much help, but I did know a few lawyers myself. Between the two of us…

  “No. Let’s wait to hear back from Swayze before we do anything else.” She hesitated. “I’m going to go home and work on the cabins. What are you doing today?”

  I could tell that she thought I was going to say I had to work.

  But I could hear the sadness in her voice, and though there were two cases I was working on, both I was waiting to hear back from a few leads on, so that meant that I had a couple of hours of free time on my hands.

  “You want to meet me for breakfast?”

  I was so freakin’ proud of her.

  She’d quit her job.

  Granted, I wasn’t happy for the reason that she had to quit her job, but I was happy that she made the next step in making herself happy.

  I never wanted her to be unhappy.

  “I’d love to,” she admitted. “Where at?”

  I told her the diner—which was one of two breakfast places in town—and headed there myself after hanging up with her.

  I was about three-quarters of the way there when a speeder in a school zone caught my eye—and set off my radar—causing me to swing a bitch and flash my light and siren.

  Getting out of my car and heading to their door, I stopped a good distance away from their car and said, “Is there a reason you’re going forty-five in a twenty, ma’am?”

  The woman’s eyes were large in her face as she said, “Truthfully?”

  I waited, not bothering to warrant that silly question with a reply.

  “I, uh….” she hesitated. “I really have to use the bathroom. Like, on a scale of one to ten, I’m at about a fifty-three.”

  I could see now that she was sweating and looked like she was ready to throw up.

  I sighed. “Having to take a shit is no reason to speed through a school zone.”

  She swallowed hard. “I didn’t notice that it was a school zone, or I surely wouldn’t have sped. I swear to God.”

  A wolf whistle caught my ear, and I looked up in time to see Cannel practically hanging out the window of her car with her fingers in the shape of a circle at her lips.

  When she saw she had my attention, she said, “You’re lookin’ fine, officer!”

  I snorted.

  When I turned back to the woman, completely ignoring Cannel’s cackling, it was to find the woman smiling despite the fact that she was now sweating more.

  “There are other bathrooms closer,” I pointed out. “That wouldn’t require you to speed home.”

  She cleared her throat.

  “Normally, I would agree with you but...” She pointed at her lap, and it was then that I saw the red stain filling up her white pants. “I’m not walking anywhere in this.”

  I shook my head, my eyes widening at the amount of blood that was staining her pants. “Maybe you need to go to the hospital instead.”

  She waved the concern away. “I have bad periods. Like, superbad. And they’re crazy unpredictable. Sometimes they just sneak up on me. Like today. I was in a meeting when I stood up and felt this great red wave hit me. I hurried out of there before anyone could see, but I’m expected at a meeting in half an hour and my boss is a real dick, and he’s already looking for a reason to fire me, and…”

  I held up my hand. “Go. Just don’t speed through a school zone again.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes, sir.”

  I left before I could actually see her cry, then flipped another bitch to head to the restaurant that I was meeting Cannel at.

  When I got there, she was grinning devilishly.

  “You’re bad,” I said as I took the seat next to her.

  Surprise filled her face as I scooted her over.

  “I want to sit next to you so I can do this,” I teased as I threw my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me.

  I was just getting situated, and pulling her into my embrace just a little bit farther, when the waitress showed looking kind of surprised.

  “Detective Schultz,” she said warily. “I didn’t know that you were coming in today.”

  I frowned. “It matters when I come in?”

  She flushed. “I would’ve made sure to have some blueberry muffins on hand. I know how much you like them.”

  Her face flushed even more, and I could feel Cannel giggling beside me silently.

  “Uh, that’s okay.” I paused. “I like other types of muffins, too.”

  The waitress, a girl in her early twenties, stammered out an ‘okay’ and then gestured toward our menus. “Have you had a chance to look at that yet?”

  Actually, I hadn’t.

  But, seeing as I was ordering breakfast, there were only so many ways that a person could order eggs.

  And this place wasn’t a wild place. There were regular breakfast items on the menu.

  Meaning…

  “I’ll have four eggs, over easy. Two orders of bacon. Two orders of toast.” I faltered. “Do y’all have avocado toast?”

  She shook her head, so I scrunched up my nose. “Okay, then I’ll have one pancake.”

  “One pancake?” Cannel drawled from beside me. “That’s it? One?”

  I shrugged. “I want something sweet. But if I have three pancakes, then I’ll eat three pancakes. And I only want one.”

  Not to mention that the pancakes were the size of my head.

  I only needed one because one was actually three regular-sized ones.

  The waitress took Cannel’s order next, making me smile with amusement.

  “I’ll have three pancakes.” She continued. “Two eggs, over medium, and one order of bacon.”

  The waitress looked at Cannel with a narrowed glare. “You’re sure?”

  Cannel’s eye twitched. “Sure.”

  The waitress shrugged then left without another word.

  “So you like blueberry muffins?” she asked teasingly.

  “Actually,” I admitted, grimacing slightly. “Not that much to be honest. I’m more of a pumpkin or a banana nut muffin kind of person. However, the one time that I came here, I asked if I could have the blueberry ones because the banana nut one she gave me tasted like they used salt instead of sugar. And now she thinks they’re my favorites.”

  She started to giggle, and I watched, enraptured, as that sound seemed to pierce the thickness of my chest and wrap around my heart.

  “Do you think she’ll bring you a blueberry muffin even though you didn’t order one? I wonder if she’ll get suspicious because of that.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t come here often enough for that to matter, truthfully. I think, out of everyone here, she’s the only one that would even notice.”

  “Why is that?” She batted her eyelashes at me.

  She knew exactly why.

  “She finds me attractive,” I droned.

  She scoffed. “She finds you more than attractive. She’d have your babies for you if you only asked her. Or hell, she’d probably do it if you told her. That alpha male vibe you have going on is incredibly...” She lifted her hands and mimicked claws. “Rawr.”

  I rolled my eyes just in time to see the waitress come out with a fuckin’ blueberry muffin on a plate, along with our drinks.

  “Thanks,” I drawled as she sat it down in front of me, along with an extra mug of coffee I didn’t order. Again, assuming, just because one time I’d done it, that that was what I always wanted.

  “Oh, no problem!” she chirped. “I made sure to get a fresh one that they just pulled from the oven. Be careful, it might be kind of hot.”

  “Oh, do you mind getting me some milk?” Cannel asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes all over again. “I can’t eat blueberry muffins without milk.”

  The woman opened her mouth, then closed it, anger leeching into her features.

  “Sure,” she replied sharply. “I’ll get that out as soon as I get y’all’s orders put in.”

  She walked away with an exaggerated huff, and Cannel pulled the blueberry muffin over to her with a smile. “I, however, do like blueberry muffins. I also like them most when they’re really hot. With milk.”

  “You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t spit in it,” I teased.

  She rolled her eyes. “She wouldn’t do that. Mainly because this is the place where you can watch them making your food. They’re famous because there’s a large man that makes all the food in the back, and he has like four kitchen staff that help him plate everything. They actually subscribe to his channel and everything.”

  She pulled out her phone and pulled up something through the browser. Once she was where she wanted, she propped her phone up against the extra mug of coffee between the two of us. There, we watched a very large, very tattooed, very muscular, very intimidating, badass biker prepare our food.

  And Cannel was correct. The waitress didn’t spit in our food.

  She did, however, ‘drop’ Cannel’s food, apologizing fakely as she said, “I’ll get right on getting you another stack of pancakes.”

  I rolled my eyes and passed over my single pancake.

  Cannel stared at it in awe. “That’s a big pancake.”

  “It is,” I confirmed. “You can bring me another one when you’re done. We’ll just keep the one pancake.”

  The waitress looked like she’d swallowed something bitter.

  “I was so wrong.” Cannel giggled as she finished off the last couple of bites of her muffin. My muffin.

  Then she had to go and ruin the sweet by licking her fingers of the blueberry juices, making me go hard without a single thought to where we were at, and what we were doing, and how inappropriate it was to have a hard-on in the middle of a damn diner.

  “About what?” I croaked.

  Her phone pinged.

  I forced myself to look back toward my breakfast, picking up my fork and cutting into my eggs.

  “Ugghhhhh,” I heard from the side of me. “What the fuck? Why can’t she leave me alone?”

  “Who?”

  She glanced up at me angrily. “Brianna.”

  I sat back in my chair and thought about Brianna.

  I’d point blank asked her if she’d been the one texting Cannel, and she’d assured me that she hadn’t. I’d believed her.

  Why?

  Because sending texts wasn’t Brianna’s style.

  If she wanted to fuck with you, she’d do it in a much more in-your-face way.

  Like telling it to her straight to her face.

  I…

  “What the fuck?”

  My eyes came up at the anger in her voice.

  “You’ve kissed her?” Cannel asked, hurt.

  My head tilted. “Once. Two days before I met you…” But before I could say ‘it was only a press of my lips against her cheek because she was feeling down about her divorce’ she stiffened and spoke over me.

  Her eyes started swimming with tears. “How the hell are you going to kiss your partner, the one that’s been bothering me for weeks now with little texts about how much she knows about you and I don’t, and not tell me that you did?”

  I frowned. “She’s been texting you that much?”

  Cannel narrowed her eyes. “I told you that she was, Will. I told you she was texting me every day.”

  I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. “This murder case has consumed every single ounce of my energy over the last week. I just… I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. And I’m not even sure that it’s Brianna, to be honest. She’s… that’s not how she is. Brianna is really in your face about the shit she does.”

  “Not that big of a deal.”

  I knew I’d fucked up the moment that she’d repeated the words back to me.

  My trainer, the woman I’d kissed on the freakin’ cheek, had possibly been harassing my girlfriend, for weeks now, and I’d just said I thought it wasn’t a big deal.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Cannel…”

  She stood up in a flourish, grabbing her purse and ripping through the contents.

  I was frowning, wondering what in the hell she was doing when she yanked out two twenty-dollar bills from her wallet and threw them on the table.

  “That’s too much,” I found myself saying.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t fucking care.”

  I clenched my jaw and stood up with her, intending to grab the twenties and hand them back to her.

 

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