Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 9) Read online

  Her head jerked up. “That’s… no.”

  I nodded my head. “You want to know the real reason that I was upset? I wanted to see you. Talk to you. Hear your voice. Hell, you could’ve told me to fly up to Alaska for half a day, and I would’ve done it. I looked out that window four times a day to see if your car was back in your driveway yet.”

  Her lighthearted laughter made something inside of me that’d tightened over the last couple of days loosen.

  “I need a shower,” she finally said once her laughter had dimmed. “Do you…” She scrunched up her nose. “Tricks are for kids.” She looked at the ceiling. “Do you want to, um, pew, pew, pew.”

  “If you’re asking me if I want to join you in the shower, the answer is yes,” I said.

  Her mouth fell open and she stared at me. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to sleep in my room.” Her cheeks were bright red. “But, if you want, you can totally take a shower with me.”

  I stared straight into her eyes as I said, “If you’re not ready yet, then I can wait.”

  Her eyes were full of mischief as she said, “I’ve done nothing but think about you and your body and how you made me feel for weeks now. So you taking a shower with me sounds like the next best thing to heaven.”

  “You don’t think we should take this slow?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement.

  She tilted her head. “We haven’t taken it slow so far. Why start now?”

  She gestured toward her bedroom. “Let’s go.”

  I frowned. “I need to go grab some clothes.”

  She twisted her hand in her shirt. “Do you want me to come with you?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “You haven’t seen the work yet that they did while you were gone, have you?”

  Her eyes went lighter as she said, “No.”

  “Then let’s go.” I held out my hand. “And don’t point out that my place is a mess. I haven’t felt much like cleaning it lately.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ll save the lecturing for next time.”

  And that was exactly what she did.

  When we got to my place, I showed her the kitchen. And when she was busy checking out the work that the contractors had done while she was gone, I went to the laundry room and grabbed a pair of sweats to change into after the shower, and my uniform for the next day.

  Then I said, “Hey, there’s a pile of socks on the counter. Can you find me two that match?”

  I got a muffled ‘yes’ as I searched for a clean pair of underwear.

  In the end, I decided it’d be easier to fold my clothes that’d been sitting there a week than it would to just go through them one by one.

  When I finally found a pair, it was at the bottom, and I only had one more thing to fold.

  I left that pair of pants in the bottom of my laundry basket for next time and headed back out to the kitchen to find her separating all of my socks out.

  And when I said there was a pile, there was a massive, probably not going to find a match for them all, pile. A pile that was easily the size of the full toilet paper pack that I’d gotten from Sam’s the day before that was sitting next to it.

  “Ummm,” I said as I looked at the mountain of socks she’d already matched. “I didn’t mean for you to do that.”

  She flashed a grin at me. “Do you have a thing against doing socks?”

  I shrugged. “I have a thing against all things housework in general,” I admitted. “Socks. Folding clothes. Cleaning toilets. Pretty much anything that requires time from me on my days off, I don’t like to do it. At least when it comes to chores. Now, I’ll do like repair shit.” I gestured toward the new paint on the wall. “That’s actually fun. I like making myself useful that way. But this?” I gestured to the kitchen sink that had three days’ worth of dishes in it, then to the socks, followed by the large pile of laundry on the floor. “This sucks.”

  She snickered as she put another pair of socks together.

  “I have Aurora come over and clean for me,” she said. “I was going to hire it out, but then when she found out how much I was willing to pay the cleaning lady, she said she’d do it for half the price if I took her to lunch afterward.”

  “I need an Aurora,” I teased as I picked up a pair of socks. “Are you ready to head back?”

  She nodded as she eyed me curiously. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 12

  The sun is high and so am I.

  -Coffee Cup

  Hastings

  “I’m beat,” Sammy said as he tugged his shirt off over his head and tossed it on the floor next to his feet. “How about you?”

  My mouth went dry as the expanse of his chest was revealed.

  “Okay.” I paused. “You got a new tattoo.”

  He turned sideways slightly and lifted his arm, allowing me to see the full thing.

  “Oh, wow,” I breathed as I ran my fingers along his rib cage. “It’s exquisite.”

  It was a Viking shield.

  It was cool as hell and very wonderfully done.

  “Thanks,” he said. “It took about twelve hours straight work to do. I… I had a lot of time to kill while you were gone.”

  I immediately felt like utter shit. Again.

  “I really am sorry.” I sighed. “I… I just felt like… I was doing you a favor.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why would you be doing me a favor?”

  I gestured to myself. “Hot mess express, Samuel Adams. You have no clue what you’re getting when it comes to me. You don’t even know me yet. You’ve literally seen me for all of a day and a half altogether. Tops. I’m broken, Sammy.” I paused. “Did you know that I could pass Tourette’s down to the baby?”

  He stared. “I had a heart condition as a kid. Almost had to have open heart surgery to fix it.” He paused. “Luckily, the hole healed up on its own. But there was a time there that I couldn’t even run. Would you be upset if I passed that down to the baby?”

  I was immediately shaking my head. “No way. That’s not something you can help.”

  He raised his brow at me as if to say, ‘and how can you?’

  I scrunched up my nose at him and groaned. “I’m just… I don’t see my worth, Sammy.”

  And that wasn’t a lie.

  I couldn’t see why anybody would want to be with me, Samuel Adams Spurlock included.

  To be honest, Sammy was absolutely worse than anyone I’d ever dated before. Sammy was… he was the hero in my stories.

  He was the guy that I would describe in the first couple of pages in my book. Tall, handsome, and alpha. A man that, no matter what you put against him, would always succeed. A man that, likely, could get all the girls in the universe.

  Yet, Sammy was choosing me?

  That didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

  “You’re worth it, Hastings,” he told me bluntly. “It’s only you that doesn’t see it.”

  I opened my mouth to say something more but he caught my hand up and tugged me into the tiny bathroom.

  “We should’ve taken a shower at my place,” he admitted. “You have a shower meant for an RV, not a house.”

  “I have a tiny house,” I pointed out. “Technically, it really is considered one. It’s three hundred ninety-nine square feet.”

  He shook his head as he opened the shower door that really was meant for just one and flipped on the spray.

  Steam started to fill the air almost instantly.

  “Let’s shower,” he ordered. “And it’s not like I have anything against you rubbing all up against me while we do. In fact, I’ve done nothing but fantasize about you since the moment I left your bed.”

  A shiver of excitement trailed down my spine at the thought of being pressed up against him and rolled through me.

  “I…” I turned quickly and winced, feeling the tug in my back. “I am down for that.”

  He frowned. “Maybe not down for everything that I
’d love to do to you, though.”

  I smiled then. “Maybe not standing up in the shower, no.”

  When he backed away and started to undo his pants, I knew that the next time I went and wrote, I’d be putting this exact scene into my book.

  “What’s that look for?” he asked as he slowly kicked off his boots.

  I bit my lip. “I’m not sure that I want to tell you.”

  His eyes twinkled as he shoved his pants down to the ground.

  Everything that was in his pockets clunked against the hardwood floor underneath our feet.

  He kicked them off to the side where they hit once again with a thunk before saying, “Tell me.”

  I gave him a slow once over.

  “I was thinking about how sexy of a scene this would make,” I said softly. “The steam from the shower is heavy and hanging above our heads. The way you just unbuttoned your pants and allowed them to fall to the ground? Even sexier. Now you’re standing there in your boxer briefs. I can see the long column of your cock running down the right side of your thigh. I was thinking that it would make a really, really hot scene.”

  My shrug made him smile.

  “It’s about to get hotter,” he teased as he walked over to me and started to undress me.

  I licked my lips as my shirt was taken off, followed shortly by my leggings moving down my legs.

  His eyes stalled out when he caught the red lace panties that matched my red lace bra.

  “I didn’t see something so sexy coming when you were wearing something so comfortable on the outside,” he murmured as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of my panties and slowly dragged them down my legs.

  I’d never been a very self-conscious person when it came to my body.

  I’d always been more worried about what I said than what I looked like.

  I knew that I had a great body. A body that most people would kill for.

  But it’d never mattered to me. Just because I had a nice body, great looks, and a shapely ass didn’t make up for the fact that I couldn’t fucking be a normal person.

  But with Sammy kneeling on the ground in front of me, his face hovering inches above my mound as he took me in from head to toe, I realized that with the right person, I never once thought about what I was saying or doing.

  All of my concentration was solely on him.

  And there was no anxiety here.

  It felt right—being in his presence.

  Silently I cursed myself for pushing him away over the last couple of months.

  I could’ve had weeks of this, and I’d deprived myself of it.

  How stupid was I?

  Suddenly Sammy’s hands were on my face and he was pressing my cheeks together so that my lips turned up. “Stop thinking so hard. Forget about the past. Let’s live in the now. Mistakes happen.”

  Between scrunched up lips I said, “I don’t usually make them.”

  He winked. “Shower.”

  Then the rest of our clothes were gone, and he was somehow fitting us into the shower together.

  “I think as long as you don’t need to shave,” he said, “we should be good.”

  I looked down at our bodies that were plastered together from head to toe.

  His hard cock was resting against both of our bellies, and my breasts were smashed against his chest. Water was sluicing down the length of both of our bodies, and the bottom half of my hair was plastered against my skin.

  He dragged his finger down the length of my arm, his eyes warm and happy.

  I looked up into his face and found myself wishing that he would kiss me.

  As if he’d read my thoughts, he dropped his mouth to mine then said, “Now where’s your shampoo?”

  I looked around dazedly.

  “Umm,” I hesitated. “I forgot to bring more in here. I used the last of it this morning.”

  He sighed and looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes of his.

  “What am I going to do with you, Hasty?” he asked.

  I laughed into his chest. “Hasty?”

  “It was shorter than Hastings. That’s a mouthful,” he admitted as he pushed the shower door open and then walked, naked and dripping, across the room to my vanity.

  When he opened it he saw my stockpile of shampoo, conditioner, and soap.

  Oh, and razors. I had a shit ton of razors.

  He looked at me as he said, “What all do you need? It looks like you robbed a store under here.”

  “Shampoo and conditioner,” I said. “Shaving will be next to impossible with you in here, remember?”

  He nodded as if he completely remembered that, coming back with shampoo and conditioner.

  Placing them on the top rung of the shower, he climbed back inside, once again plastering himself to me.

  I shivered at his chilled skin, and my already hard nipples went even more erect.

  He noticed and grinned down at me while he pulled back just far enough that the hot water could slide down his front.

  “Can I wash your hair?” he asked, pulling the showerhead off the wall and pulling my hair back by tugging lightly on the wet ends.

  I licked my lips and said, “Yes.”

  So that was what he did.

  After getting an overly generous six pumps of shampoo, he started to work it through my hair.

  Soon I had to close my eyes due to the amount of suds, but I couldn’t help but feel giddy at the way he was touching me.

  His fingers felt divine in my hair, and there was a second or two there that I almost purred.

  “Your hair is a lot longer than it looked when you had it up,” he murmured softly.

  I didn’t open my eyes, but I did say, “It’s wavy and I wear it in a ponytail a lot because I don’t want to fix it. It takes too long, and if it’s humid, it won’t matter anyway.”

  He hummed as he pulled the showerhead once again off the wall and washed the suds free of my hair.

  When I next opened my eyes, hoping that it’d been long enough for all the soap to be washed away, it was to see pleasure lighting the hard features of his face.

  “Now, you’re gonna want to use the same amount of conditioner,” I said. “I have to keep these even.”

  His tone was amused as he said, “Is that right? Why?”

  I shrugged. “That’s the key to finishing the shampoo and the conditioner at the same time. A couple of years ago, one of my readers commented about how it was impossible to finish them both at the same time. So I started to see if I could do it. And realized that the majority of the time I would finish my conditioner wayyyy before I finished my shampoo. Now I do even pumps.”

  He reached up to get six pumps of the conditioner, accidentally spraying water over the shower stall when he didn’t put the head back in its holder.

  “Whoops,” he said as he hung it back up and then brought the conditioner to the top of my head. “Didn’t mean to do that.”

  A cynical inner voice cut through my thoughts as I studied his beautiful face.

  He really was gorgeous. And wet, with his hair slicked back from his face, and water running down his face and falling into the hollows of his dimples, only seemed to add to his attraction.

  But to be honest, I wasn’t in his league.

  He was tall, muscular, and handsome as hell.

  Though I found myself pretty, I didn’t think that I would appeal to Sammy when he realized what he was getting with me.

  “Your face is all scrunched up in a frown, Hasty,” he teased. “Why is that?”

  I sighed and dropped my head to his chest, momentarily drowning myself in the water before moving my face sideways to rest against his shoulder where there wasn’t any water pouring down.

  “I have these thoughts,” I said. “I’ll try to get over them.”

  He hummed as he worked his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp.

  “The bottle says to leave it in for t
hree to five minutes,” he murmured as he reached above my head and pulled the soap down. “So we’ll let that do its thing while I get you clean.”

  “What about yourself?” I found myself asking.

  “I’ll get to me in a second,” he teased as he brought the bar of soap down between my breasts and thoroughly soaped up my boobs.

  I couldn’t help the laughter that fell from my lips as he made sure to get me extra, super clean.

  “I think that’ll do for now,” he said as he moved on to my arms. Then my back, followed by my legs.

  He had to bend down shortly after that, coming face to face with my pubic area.

  “Oh, what I wouldn’t give,” he teased as he pressed a kiss to my right hip, followed by my left. Then, when he came to my belly, he said, “Do you think that babies can hear when they are this small?”

  I had no idea.

  Taking care of kids wasn’t something I’d ever done before, so I had zero experience.

  I hadn’t ever been around kids.

  Not ever.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  He leaned down and whispered something against my stomach, his lips moving against the skin of my navel. I couldn’t hear his words, but based on Sammy’s smile? It had to be something funny. Or naughty.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’ll never tell.”

  Chapter 13

  Well, well, well. If it isn’t Little Mr. I’m never drinking again.

  -Beer mug

  Sammy

  My heart was still fucking racing.

  All I could do was continue to replay Patman and Hastings’ altercation over and over again in my head.

  Each time I closed my eyes, or let my mind wander on its own for a few short seconds, I once again saw her flying through the air.

  I saw her slamming down hard onto the faux wood floor.

  Saw her head bounce off the ground and her arms flail.

  Even worse, I saw myself beating Patman senseless. At least, daydreamed, anyway.