You have a smile that could light up an entire psych ward.
-Ford to Ashe
Ashe
Three weeks later
“You didn’t show up to tryouts today.”
I didn’t bother to look up from my contemplation of the floor.
“Nope.”
“Why not?” he asked, pushing farther into the room.
“I wouldn’t have made the team,” I muttered.
“Well, you’ll lose now,” he said. “I’ll have to donate my calendar proceeds to a dog charity or something.”
My back straightened at that, and I narrowed my eyes in affront.
“You wouldn’t.”
“You didn’t try out,” he countered.
I threw up my hands in defeat.
“It was a technicality!” I cried out. “I wouldn’t get on the team because I couldn’t just drop everything I was doing to go to a call!”
Though that hadn’t been the only reason, I’d been told that I shouldn’t bother trying to be a SWAT team member.
Apparently, I had to be able to move a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound test dummy up a flight of stairs and over a small fence.
And I couldn’t do that.
I was five-foot-three inches, and there was no way in hell that I was going to accomplish that.
Fucking Patman.
“This sounds incredibly like giving up, and you don’t do that, Ashe.” He sounded worried.
Which pissed me off.
“Get out of my office,” I ordered.
His eyes flashed at that.
“You… you have a fuckin’ office?” he asked, his eyes taking in the empty space.
Well, almost empty. I had his fucking calendar photo hung up on my wall, which he’d yet to see.
“Yeah,” she said. “Luke’s trying to entice me to stay after I graduate. He knows something’s wrong… and he wants me here.”
Why I felt like I had to explain to the thorn in my side, I didn’t know, but I didn’t like the idea that he thought I was getting preferential treatment like everyone else did.
“You can use my refrigerator if you’d like,” I offered.
His head whipped around.
“You have a fucking fridge?” he blasted out.
My eyes widened.
“Y-yes,” I stammered. “Y’all don’t?”
His teeth gritted.
“I share that fridge with twelve other men that don’t know what the fuck boundaries are. So I just go get lunch every day so I’ll know I’ll actually have food. After the fourth time, I found half of it there or gone completely, anyway.”
I gestured at the full-size fridge that was making a low hum in the corner of the room.
“You’re more than welcome to it,” I told him. “Ford, I don’t think I’m going to stay here anyway. So all this.” I gestured at the room at large. “It’s not going to matter in six months.”
“Why won’t you be here?” he asked, closing the door softly.
I shrugged. “People don’t really like me here.”
I didn’t add more, hoping he wouldn’t push it, but I should have known better. Ford didn’t know when to not push. He only knew full throttle.
“What do you mean people don’t like you?” he barked.
I gestured to myself.
“I was sponsored by the chief of police at the academy. And apparently that’s not normal,” I said.
Ford shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Well I do,” I told him. “And just sayin’, ever since the first day that all that shit went down with Patman and Greeves? It only got worse from there.”
Ford frowned. “What?”
“And then we started the shooting drills. And let’s just say that I’ve gotten nothing but shit for that, too. I get ‘gray-haired Annie Oakley wannabe’ every other time my name is called. And it’s just exhausting. I came in today to tell Luke that I was passing on the job offer. He showed me an office that he acquired for me. And he told me I would start in as a detective, totally bypassing every bit of the ladder that one normally took to get there. Which will only get me more shit from everyone. I can just hear the ‘her uncle’s a chief’ and ‘special considerations’ in the same sentence now. I’m just… you win. I’m not going to play this. If you’re outraged about me getting an office, everybody else will have a shit fit, too.”
Ford’s face turned into a ferocious scowl as he said, “Fuck them then.”
I shook my head sadly.
“Ford, I’ve been here multiple times. Each time I am, Luke gives me even more. All they can see is that I’m an ass kisser. Oh, and you hate me.”
He frowned.
“I don’t hate you,” he denied.
I snorted. “Yeah, right. Listen, Ford. The feeling is mutual. We don’t get along. That’s normal for us. What’s not normal is everyone else’s hostility.” I looked down at my hands. “I took my last test today, which gave me a perfect score for police academy. Patman and Greeves thought I was cheating. So I gave them permission to go through my shit. When they didn’t find anything they reluctantly let me leave. But let’s just say they’re still looking for a reason.”
The more I spoke, the angrier Ford looked.
“I taught you to shoot,” he said. “So they’re accusing me of helping you cheat?”
“I didn’t bother telling them. They’d just turn their hate toward you.” I commented.
He cursed. “What else did they do? What aren’t you telling me?”
I didn’t cave, even though the intense look in his eyes had shivers running down my spine.
Which was why he crowded me against the desk and tried to use his big, sexy body to intimidate me into answering.
“You know that shit doesn’t work, Prius,” I taunted.
He stiffened. “You did not just call me that.”
I snickered. “I so did.”
He crowded me so close that the ledge of the desk started to dig into the backs of my thighs as I tried to shrink away from him. I knew that if we touched, I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I’d have to touch him.
Hell, I’d do more than touch him and I think we both knew it.
A charged moment of silence passed between us, then he was kissing me. My hands went to his shoulders, my fingernails digging into his shoulders so hard that I had no doubt I was leaving marks.
The flimsy cotton t-shirt did nothing to protect him as I dragged my nails down his back.
He hissed and pulled back, eyes hot and intense.
“This is a terrible idea,” he muttered.
I scoffed. “This is a great idea.”
He hefted me up and placed my ass on the edge of my desk, moving until his hips were nestled close between mine.
Then he was kissing me again, his mouth taking possession of mine so completely that I knew this wasn’t like anything I’d ever done before.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I’d always compared everyone and everything to Ford Spurlock. I’d compared every single kiss. Every single touch. Every single word.
And my partners had always come up lacking in some way.
Now I understood why.
Because Ford was Ford.
And nobody else would ever be Ford.
“You’re driving me crazy.” I pulled back only long enough to draw in a deep breath.
Then once again I was leaning forward, my hands now resting on Ford’s impressive chest.
“This means nothing,” I said to him between kisses.
He laughed into my mouth.
“It means less than nothing,” he countered.
That was right. What we were doing wasn’t anything. It meant nothing. It felt like… everything.
Yet, I still told myself it was nothing even though we were both lying to ourselves.
“Just shut up and think of something else,” he ordered.
“I wasn’t
talking,” I told him.
“You were overthinking,” he countered. “Your kisses slowed.”
They had?
Well, we couldn’t have that, could we?
“There’s my girl,” he growled.
I doubled my efforts on making him realize that I was all in, all there, and no longer in my head.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he said against my lips. His petal soft lips, and my most favorite part of him to stare at, brushed against my skin as he spoke.
“Do what?” I asked.
He showed me instead, picking me up and whirling us around so that he was sitting on the chair and I was sitting on his lap.
I felt my head spin as he moved.
And the moment that his cock touched the apex of my thighs, where I most wanted his touch, I nearly came right then and there.
I also had a feeling I knew where this was going.
Which had me feeling anxious all over again.
“Ford,” I said. “I… we can’t… I don’t have…”
He knew exactly what I was talking about without me going into even more detail.
I was allergic to latex. I was allergic to birth control. I was allergic to life, apparently.
I wasn’t sure if he knew about the birth control or not, but I hadn’t been trying to hide it.
Not to mention, the time that I tried to use them, not only had I had a very bad reaction, but I’d been in the middle of a Dixie Warden party, with everyone in attendance, when it’d happened.
I’d lost my vision. Like, completely.
One second, I could see, and the next I couldn’t.
It was found out later at the hospital that what I thought was the flu was actually the side effects of my birth control pills.
So I’d completely come off everything, returned to normal, only to try a different birth control months later.
That time I’d had chest pains.
It was decided after that that I should probably just stick with the guy wearing the protection instead of me.
The one and only time I’d tried to have sex, the man had gotten his penis just close enough to come into contact with my vagina when I started to feel a burning sensation.
He’d immediately backed off and had pulled away.
That was when the hives started, followed by the trouble breathing, a cough, and watery eyes.
After a trip to the ER without the man that got me there, I realized that I was likely allergic to latex.
Needless to say, I’d never had another chance to test the theory.
I thought I was doomed to be a virgin forever.
“Your office door lock?” he asked curiously.
I looked at the door, saw the back of the handle, and nodded.
“Get up and go lock it.”
I blinked furiously, trying to get my brain to work.
“Go,” he urged, pushing me away from him.
I had no other choice but to move or fall on my ass.
Not that he would’ve let me fall or anything.
But it was like my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders just yet.
I stood stiffly for a few seconds, then hurried toward the door to lock it.
When I turned back around, it was to see Ford stepping out of his pants.
My breath caught, and I stared at him in shock.
“Ford,” I breathed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure that this is a long time coming,” he admitted, sounding pissed. “Take your clothes off.”
I did, watching him the entire time.
His eyes went hot when I ripped my shirt off.
Even hotter when my bra followed the shirt.
I got stuck momentarily on my jeans because he started to lower the front of his boxer briefs, exposing long, glorious inches of his lower abdomen and the root of his cock.
“Keep going,” he urged.
I couldn’t.
My mind wasn’t working correctly.
I told myself to push my pants down, but I was floundering.
I’d always wondered about this.
I’d wanted to know what it would be like.
I’d daydreamed, thought that it couldn’t possibly be as good as everybody always made it out to seem.
But seeing the bulge?
“I hate when you wear gray sweatpants,” I told him.
He frowned and stopped moving, his underwear now low enough to show about an inch of the base of his cock.
It was darker than the rest of his skin.
“What?” he asked. “Why?”
I swallowed hard and pushed the pants down the rest of the way, thankful that he’d frozen in his disrobing long enough for me to make my brain work.
I hopped on one foot as I slowly worked my skinny jeans off over my ankle and heel, causing Ford’s eyes to dilate.
“Sorry,” I breathed as I forwent keeping them right side out and just stripped them off. “Taking skinny jeans off definitely isn’t sexy.”
He grinned, his eyes going to my unbound breasts.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “It was pretty sexy from here.”
I looked down at my jiggling breasts and rolled my eyes.
“They’re not much to write home about,” I admitted. “Not like…” I allowed my eyes to trail down the length of his torso, looking at the gap of skin he provided.
His t-shirt covered him from his throat to his lower torso, and the way he was holding his underwear only gave me the barest glimmer of skin.
But oh, boy. It was magnificent, what little I could see.
I licked my lips and stood there in my underwear and nothing else, wondering what to do next.
“Underwear,” he urged.
I hooked my thumbs in the waistband and slowly started to shimmy them off of my hips.
By the time they hit the floor, he’d managed to shrug his shirt off in that sexy way only men could accomplish.
I shook my head, unable to process all of that bare skin.
So much bare skin.
I wanted to rake my fingers down his chest, but the scars on his ribcage and his lower belly made me wonder if that would hurt.
“You’re staring,” he grumbled.
I was.
“I was wondering if it would hurt you if I allowed my fingernails to run over your scars,” I admitted, looking in his eyes now. “Would that hurt?”
He shook his head. “Fully healed now.”
They were.
Ford had gone through some shit while he was in the military that he did not, under any circumstances, talk about.
I hadn’t bothered to ask him, and I knew that he was grateful that I’d managed to control my curiosity.
I hadn’t seen him without a shirt on in years.
No matter if he was swimming. Running. Mowing the lawn.
He had a shirt on.
When before, when he hadn’t had any scars, he was almost always shirtless.
I’d never seen a man sweat as much as Ford did.
Then again, I never looked at other men like I looked at Ford.
So that could possibly be why.
“You forgot to tell me why you didn’t like me in sweatpants,” he said, watching as the underwear that hit the floor were kicked across the room underneath my desk.
“You,” I said softly. “You’re why I don’t like sweatpants.”
His head tilted as he slowly started to lower his underwear the rest of the way.
And boy, did that underwear do a great job holding everything in.
By everything, I meant the massive cock of his.
How that thing was being contained by that underwear? The world would never know.
Someone should probably contact Fruit of the Loom and tell them that their scientists had exceeded expectations.
They should probably get a raise, and a bonus.
A penis bonus.<
br />
“I swear to Christ,” he said, his eyes on me. “What is your malfunction?”
I swallowed hard. “I’ve never seen your penis before, okay?”
He snorted, “That’s a lie.”
That was true.
I’d seen it once when we were in eighth grade, but it’d been nothing to write home about then.
“It wasn’t as impressive,” I told him honestly.
“It was cold, and we’d just gotten out of the fucking freezing ass cold lake. My balls were shriveled up into my body, and my penis was so small because it was trying to join my balls,” he countered. “It’s not cold now.”
Well, it was cold.
It was winter, of course. This was four of the coldest months of the year.
But in my office, it was nice and warm.
“I’ve never seen it this… big,” I told him. “It’s… glorious.”
He started stalking forward, moving like a predator about to come in for the kill and momentarily drawing my eyes away from his cock.
“Sweatpants?” he said again.
“Sweatpants?” I said, eyes now on his face.
“Yes.” He laughed huskily. “Why don’t you like me in sweatpants?”
I snorted. “Next time you wear them, go into Target or something. Somewhere where a woman is likely to be. Let me know what happens.”
His head tilted to the side right as he got to where his jeans were located.
He bent down and retrieved his wallet from his pocket, then dropped the pants once again on the floor.
I watched, fascinated, as he pulled out a condom from his wallet.
“Before you start freaking out,” he said, waving the condom in the air like a flag. “This is latex-free.”
I knew it was.
“Did you know those were made from the intestinal membranes of a lamb?” I asked.
He winced.
“No,” he admitted. “But I didn’t buy lambskin.”
He made a gagging sound.
I grinned and made my way toward him, my fingers practically itching to be pressed against his skin.
He stopped me.
“No, stay,” he ordered. “You touch me and I’ll forget I need this condom.”
I snickered, but stayed put, watching with curiosity as he rolled the condom expertly into place over his cock.
“I want to do that next time,” I informed him.
He shrugged. “There won’t be a next time, remember?”
I nodded. “Oh. Yeah.”
Maybe Swearing Will Help Page 5
