I growled when my release hit me.
Hot cum poured from my cock and splashed against her insides, coating the two of us equally as I worked myself inside of her, until the last dregs of my orgasm abated.
Then, right on cue, I heard the sounds of Clayton as he started screaming at the top of his lungs to be let out.
“Shit,” I growled, reaching forward and to the side to yank the dishtowel off the peg where Nikki insisted we hang it.
“Not my good towels!” she cried.
But it was too late.
I’d already pulled out and placed the towel over her entrance to catch my release before she could protest.
“Dammit, Michael,” she growled, holding the towel between her legs and glaring.
I raised my hands. “So now that you know what I need,” I said, buckling my pants. “How about you… fuck.”
My pager went off, and I looked at it over on the table, then back to Nikki.
“Dammit!” she cried when I walked to it.
Wincing, I looked at the readout and sighed.
“I’m sure the rest of the ladies will be able to come help you. Just remember not to run the water in the main bathroom,” I ordered as I started walking to our bedroom.
Nikki followed me, moments later, with Clayton on her hip and a hardness to her eyes.
“What are we supposed to do when we need to wash our hands?” she asked.
I raised a brow at her.
“Wash them in the kitchen. Put a bottle of the eighteen million bottles of antibacterial shit you have lying around every surface of the house. I don’t fuckin’ know,” I said, shoving my foot into my boot.
She sighed.
“You better be here by eight or I’ll kick your ass,” she growled in mock anger.
I knew she wasn’t mad.
She knew what she was getting into when she married me.
She knew that the SWAT team was a huge part of my life.
And she accepted it… and me.
“I love you, baby,” I said, kissing her softly on the cheek.
She smiled. “I love you, too.”
With a final kiss on Clay’s head, I rushed out of the house, only to come to a stop when my father and mother pulled up with Carolina.
“Hey,” I called, veering around their car to my truck.
They all waved, and Carolina’s baby blue eyes followed me.
“Daddy, where are you going? I wanted to show you my new cat!” Carolina held up a stuffed cat with a huge, fluffy tail.
It was in a box that distinctly marked it as a Build-A-Bear.
I narrowed my eyes at my parents. “Nikki’s going to kill you.”
They grinned unrepentantly.
Rolling my eyes, I blew a kiss to my little girl and said, “Daddy has to go to work.”
She pouted but blew me a kiss nonetheless.
Just like her momma, she knew when Daddy had to leave to ‘go save lives.’
“Take care of my girls, Pop,” I ordered my father.
He winked and helped my mother out of the car.
“Will do, son, see you tonight.”
I made it to the station twenty minutes later and was just in time to see Luke and Bennett walking from their trucks.
I caught up to them at the door to the station.
“What do we have?” I asked them.
“A multi-city wide fuck up, that’s what.”
Wonderful.
***
Nikki
“Momma, I got a cat!” Caro called the minute she made it through the front door.
I smiled and handed Clay off to Elizabeth and caught Carolina just as she barreled into my legs.
I smiled and picked her up, looking at her new cat.
“Oh, yay,” I said, looking up into her crystal clear blue eyes. Every time I saw them up close my heart clutched.
We’d had Caro’s cataracts removed from her eyes when she was exactly one month of age, and it’d been the most terrifying experience of my life.
She’d gone through the surgery remarkably well, but the sheer horror of having to watch my baby be wheeled away from me was torture.
Now, though, she was healthy and happy.
And those eyes that looked exactly like Michael’s sure had a way of making my heart melt.
Each and every time.
“Yeah, Grammy and Poppop spent a hundred dollars on her. They said I better like her. And treat her well, because that was the last time they took me there,” Caro continued.
I smiled and winked at ‘Poppop.’
They were such suckers.
I’d known, of course, the minute they’d said that they were taking Caro to the Boardwalk, that they were in for a rude awakening.
Caro was my child.
She could shop until she dropped and did so daily.
She could talk just about anyone into anything, which was why her room was filled with all kinds of toys, clothes, and shit she didn’t need.
“Hey! Let go of my kitty!” Caro screamed when Clay latched onto the kitty and wouldn’t let go.
“Caro,” I said sternly. “Clay is just a baby. You can’t yank stuff out of his hands like that. You could hurt him.”
Caro stuck out her tongue at her brother, who was all of eight months old so the effect was lost on him, and crossed her arms.
I smiled and looked down at my hands.
She looked so much like Michael when she did that that I could barely stand it.
“If y’all wouldn’t mind watching them, I have to go to Lowe’s… again… and get a coupling for the plumbing underneath the house. And pick up the cake,” I said, trying valiantly not to blush and failing miserably.
“Okay, dear. Don’t forget to pick up that prescription you made me call in,” Manuelo said.
The blood in my veins froze.
Motherfucker!
Shit!
Fuck!
“Okay,” I said shakily, walking to the front table and clutching my keys in a tight fist.
I was out to the car when I managed to quietly pull out my phone, open the door to my Tahoe, and slide inside.
When I started the truck and started to back out of the driveway, I hit the call button and immediately called Michael.
He didn’t answer, of course.
I didn’t expect him to.
But I wanted his voicemail anyway.
This is Michael, leave a message.
“Michael,” I said quietly. “If you managed to knock me up again today, I’m going to fucking kill you,” I growled, then slammed the phone button on my steering wheel.
Ineffective but it made me feel better, nonetheless.
I’d run out of birth control pills two weeks ago and had completely forgotten until just yesterday that I’d not been taking them.
Michael and I lived busy lives.
We both had some really odd hours, so on the off chance that we had been able to find time to do the deed, in the past two weeks, I’d forced Michael to use a condom.
Something he absolutely loathed doing.
Today, though, I’d completely forgotten.
And I knew, like I’d known with Clayton, that he’d just knocked me up.
There was something about Michael and his damn bad intentions that made me lose my mind. Forget that I didn’t want to be pregnant.
But there Michael was with his ‘magic dick’ as my lovely friends liked to call it, and all my inhibitions flew out the window.
And with it went my ability to drink.
Shit.
***
Four hours later, with all my family and friends around me, I realized that maybe another kid wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Especially not with Georgia and Nico’s fourth baby in my arms.
“He’s just the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen!” I said, rubbing my nose along Heath’s head.
Heath
was all of two weeks old, and the very definition of his father.
“You did good, big brother,” I said, smiling up at Nico.
Nico winked. “I know.”
“And so humble,” Georgia laughed.
“Nico, humble?” Downy asked after taking a sip of his beer.
The whole group laughed.
And I looked around at my extended family.
They were all there.
Luke and Reese with their three children.
Nico and Georgia with their four kids.
Downy and Memphis with their two children.
Miller and Mercy, with their three.
Foster and Blake with their two.
Bennett and Lennox with their two.
My sisters and their husbands and boyfriends.
The Chief and his wife.
My parents. Michael’s Parents.
Joslin and Dean.
Madden and his kiddos.
My husband and children.
Hannah and Wolf – although, that was a new thing.
They’d spoken on and off for the last few years, but with the way they were acting, looking at each other but not going near the other, I knew something had transpired.
I just didn’t know what, but I had a feeling that something would break soon.
And then they’d be just as happy as the rest of us.
And I was happy
Ecstatically so.
“Here you go, Mama,” Michael said, handing Clay over.
He took Heath from my arms and handed me my own little butterball, and I smiled as Michael gazed longingly into Heath’s little face.
For a man who hadn’t wanted any children, he sure was adamant about having more and more.
And as I looked around at all the children running and playing happily in the yard amongst their parents, I decided that just maybe another baby wouldn’t be a bad thing.
As long as I had Michael, I could totally get on board with another kid.
Because I loved him.
With my whole heart and soul, and I knew he’d always be there for me.
He was just that type of man.
A man who always had his woman’s back, no matter what it took.
That’s what true love was.
A SWAT Call Before Christmas
Chapter 1
I do it for the Ho’s.
-Coffee Cup
Luke
“Our last order of business is this,” I said, holding out a sheet of paper for the first man to take.
Nico did, looking at it and frowning.
“Pass it around,” I ordered.
He passed it to the man behind him, and then to my son.
My son didn’t bother to hide his disgust.
“You’re wanting us to pose for a calendar?” he questioned. “Why?”
“Because we’ve been asked to do it as a way to help establish rapport with our fellow citizens. What better way than to have a calendar for them to ooooh and ahh over?” I said simply. “And it’s for a good cause. If you pose, you’ll be able to donate your portion of the money to your favorite charity.”
“Are we being forced to do this?” Dax asked from the corner.
“No,” I admitted immediately. “But if you step out, then one of us old guys has to step in, and we want these bad boys to sell. My belly ain’t what it used to be.”
I still had a flat stomach, but the abs weren’t quite so prominent.
“Girls love that salt and pepper look,” I heard said from someone in the back.
I snorted and picked up the paper again once it made its way around the room.
“When is this?” Bourne asked.
“In a couple of weeks,” I said. “One of our own is going to be taking the photos of you. You may know her. Avery Flynn.”
Murmurs of agreement were heard as they recalled what they knew about her.
“I’m in,” I heard.
Booth said that.
“Me, too,” Dax muttered.
One by one, each new member of the SWAT team pledged to volunteer.
“Good,” I said. “In that case, it’s time to eat.”
“We’re not going to have to appear nude, are we?” Nathan asked.
I looked at him and raised my brows. “No. Not unless you want to.”
There was some good-natured ribbing after that.
Nathan used to be a professional baseball player before he had torn a couple of ligaments in his hand. He eventually got control of his hand back, but it wasn’t what it used to be.
Nathan had, in his career, posed for Got Milk ads. Ads where he was completely nude except for a glass of milk blocking his dick and balls from sight.
“All right, children,” I called out, hoping to get the men to stop talking long enough for me to explain what we were going to do. “Let’s eat.”
Every newly sworn in member of the SWAT team got up on quiet feet and left the room, excited for what was to come, I was sure.
“They’re all going to be fine,” I heard said from my left.
I looked over to see my wife, Reese, and grinned.
“Even your baby boy?” I teased.
Her eyes sobered and went soft all at once.
“You’ve raised him right,” she said. “You’ve taught him everything he knows. Am I worried about him getting hurt? Yes. SWAT calls make me nervous, but I think he’s fully capable of handling himself.”
I fully agreed.
“Ready to go eat?” I asked, offering her my elbow.
She took it, placing one delicate hand onto my forearm and leading me toward the kitchen where I could already hear all the boys gathering food.
Our original SWAT team was also eating with us, but they’d left me to do all the talking and had, instead, chosen to get dinner out and ready to go along with their wives.
There were no more children around, though.
Each and every one of the children were now grown, adults themselves.
It felt like just yesterday when our children—Katy, Rowen, and Derek—were begging to open a Christmas gift right around now.
Instead, Rowen was driving here from San Antonio. Katy was spending her night with Logan at their new place. Starting new traditions. And Derek, our baby, was currently filling his plate to the brim with food. But he would eventually be heading back to his own house for the night.
“Do you ever wish we’d had more kids?” I asked curiously.
Reese looked up at me and shrugged. “Sometimes. But others? When Derek was a baby? No. I’m happy with our three children. I’m also happy that they’re out of the house.”
I caught onto her meaning instantly.
I was happy they didn’t live here anymore, either. I loved my kids and all, but it was nice to be able to bend Reese over the couch and take her without having to worry about the kids coming downstairs and catching us.
Lord knew that happened enough when our kids were growing up.
“Are y’all gonna eat?” Derek called. “’Cause I want to know how much I’m allowed to get.”
I rolled my eyes at my son’s comment and caught Reese by the hand and led her into the line of people getting food.
After loading my plate up, I took my food to the back porch where our original SWAT team had gathered.
The door was wide open, and for it being Christmas Eve, you sure couldn’t tell it by the weather.
It was bright and sunny.
Beautiful weather.
“Hey, when we get done, do you want to go grab a football and throw it around?” I asked Michael.
Michael shrugged and said, “If you want to.”
Snorting at his lack of answer, I took a seat on the lounger, leaning my back against it and placing my feet on either side of the chair. Reese took the seat between my legs.
“So when can you stop buying your adult kids thousands of dollars worth of Christ
mas presents?”
That was from Nico. He hadn’t become more talkative in his old age. He had become more standoffish, though.
With other people. Not his team.
“Never,” I muttered around a bite of bread. “I tried to just give them some cash last year and they all about lost their shit because it was ‘too impersonal.’”
“It is,” Reese said, rolling her eyes. “Which is why I told you to suggest it to them to see what they’d say.”
“They’ll accept money out of my wallet. Why would a gift card be any different?” I countered.
Reese rolled her eyes and centered them on me.
“All I’m saying is that you need to put some effort into your presents,” she said.
“Meaning you haven’t bought her anything good and you’re doing a piss poor job at making sure that she has a good Christmas,” Foster muttered around a bite of mashed potatoes.
I grinned. “She already has everything. What more could she want? Plus, we buy our own Christmas gifts every year anyway. It’s easier to do that than possibly get something the other wouldn’t like.”
Reese grinned at that.
“What did you get?” Miller asked, placing his empty plate onto the railing and leaning against it, his eyes on his brother.
“I got myself a new shotgun,” Foster said. “It’s a semi-automatic with a drum and can hold up to thirty rounds.”
“It’s heavy,” Blake said, licking her lips. “I don’t even think I could hold it up to shoot it.”
Miller’s eyes lit.
“Let’s take it to the shooting range tomorrow,” he suggested.
Mercy smacked him on his leg. “Tomorrow is Christmas, dummy. You can’t go to the shooting range on Christmas.”
“Sure I can,” Miller said. “All of our kids are grown. They don’t even get there until around noon on Christmas Day. Plus, you could come with me.”
Mercy only shook her head.
“I’m not getting out of my nice warm bed to stand out in the cold and watch you play with that. I’ll sit in my bed with a nice warm cup of coffee and read if it came down to it. But it’s not going to come down to it because you’re not going to go. End of story,” Mercy informed him.
“You just want him to stay so he’ll cook you pancakes,” Foster murmured.
Mercy turned to survey her brother-in-law.
“So?” she muttered.
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 144
