Maybe Swearing Will Help

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  It didn’t work.

  Not only didn’t it work, but it also made me even more angry.

  When I turned back around next, it was to find Ashe staring at me from only a foot away.

  I cursed as my heart started to pound.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

  I looked around and found that not one single person was paying us any attention.

  Then, without thinking first about what I was about to do, I hooked my hand around her neck and yanked her to me.

  She squeaked and came, her body colliding with mine.

  I couldn’t feel a fuckin’ thing due to the body armor I had on, as well as the thick weapons belt that was around my waist and hers.

  But the skin of her neck?

  It was soft.

  So fucking soft.

  And her lips when mine met hers? Those were soft, too.

  They also tasted like cherries.

  At first it took her a long moment to respond, but when she finally did, it was with her whole entire heart and soul.

  My kiss was, sadly, interrupted by a clearing of a throat.

  We both pulled back as if we’d been lit on fire.

  “What,” Luke said, looking between the two of us. “Was that?”

  Neither Ashe nor I said a freakin’ thing.

  At least, we weren’t planning on it.

  But Luke’s unforgiving gaze had Ashe shrugging.

  “Let’s call it a momentary lapse in judgment brought on by adrenaline, and me almost being ran over by that truck that took out my cruiser.” She pointed.

  A cruiser that was now in the middle of the road and slowly being pushed up onto a flatbed tow truck.

  Luke’s eyes went from me to Ashe.

  “You almost got taken out by what?” he asked.

  I was sure he was hoping for a different explanation, but he wouldn’t be getting one.

  “It happened exactly like I just said.” She shook her head. “Little fucker.”

  “He broke his hips.”

  We both turned to see Sammy standing there, arms crossed, watching the three of us.

  He was paying extra special attention to the amount of space that wasn’t between Ashe and me.

  A gap that was slowly being closed without either of us consciously doing it.

  I stepped back, causing Ashe to frown.

  She looked down at her feet as if she was surprised to find herself standing where she was.

  “How do you know?” I grumbled darkly.

  “Because he has a hip bone poking out of his torso on each side,” Sammy answered.

  I kind of felt bad now for yanking him out of the car the way I did.

  Then Ashe shifted on her feet, and I suddenly wasn’t upset at all.

  The little fucker could’ve killed her.

  More so, I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to handle Ashe having this job.

  But I couldn’t bring that up with her or she’d lose her shit.

  Thinking about what could’ve happened was putting me in such a terrible mood that I didn’t know how to function.

  I ran my fingers over my brow as I said, “I can’t even think straight right now. I’m fucking starving.”

  “Follow me to the sub shop up the road,” Luke ordered. “We can discuss what happened. And what to tell Downy when he has to tell people what happened later.”

  I looked at Ashe, contemplating asking her to follow us, but someone called her name, and she skittered away.

  “Ashe was first on scene,” I admitted. “You should maybe ask her to come, too.”

  Luke looked at me with amusement.

  “Trammel,” Luke called. “When you’re done here, meet us at the sub shop.”

  She gave a thumbs up as she spoke quickly with another officer.

  I followed Luke to the sub shop, not liking how the farther I got away from Ashe, the worse my hands were shaking.

  Luke eyed me as I purchased my sandwich and drink.

  Before I’d even made it to my seat, the lady was bringing it out, momentarily taking my mind off of Ashe and to something much less heart-attack inducing.

  Ten minutes later, I was halfway through my sandwich when Ashe walked into the shop looking hot and annoyed.

  She came right up to me and poked me in the chest.

  “What was that?”

  My brows lifted. “What was what?”

  “Telling Samuel not to let me walk.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

  That was what sucked so bad.

  She could take care of herself.

  She didn’t need me.

  And she didn’t need us watching over her.

  Yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself from trying.

  “Y’all aren’t going to make me separate you, are y’all?” Luke asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  I narrowed my eyes at Ashe, and she flipped me off surreptitiously.

  “I saw that, Ashe,” Luke said.

  “You did not,” she countered, looking at her uncle like he’d just lied right through his teeth. “Your eyes were closed.”

  He opened them and pinned her with a glare.

  “I’ve been dealing with your antics since you were a babe,” he said. “I know you better than you know yourself.” He paused. “Now don’t y’all have some work to do?”

  “No.” Ashe crossed her arms over her chest, making my gaze go there even though I couldn’t see any cleavage due to the Kevlar vest she was wearing. “I’m off as of twenty minutes ago. Now I’m just keeping you company. Like a good niece would.”

  Luke shook his head and continued to eat his food.

  Ashe sat down at the end of the table, two chairs down from each of us, and stared while we ate.

  “What?” I finally asked.

  “I don’t have my wallet. So I figure I’ll just sit here and watch y’all eat until one of you is ready to take me home.”

  After the shooting and the kid hitting her cruiser, it’d been taken by a wrecker to the repair shop.

  Meaning that Ashe was stuck with one of us until we were ready to go.

  “Where’s your wallet?” Luke asked curiously.

  “In the cruiser,” she answered. “Somebody should’ve probably checked with me before they took it. I don’t even have my keys.”

  “That would be my fault,” Luke said, opening his eyes and pinning his gaze onto Ashe. “I told them to take it. I’ll run by on my way home, bring it by tonight after the town hall meeting.”

  She nodded once as if she wasn’t really worried about it after all.

  “Sounds good.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the two of us as we ate.

  If I hadn’t been so hungry, I might’ve been uneasy by how hard she was staring.

  But, as it was, I just couldn’t find it in me to be bothered by her unusually discomforting stare.

  “How are the babies?”

  I looked over to Luke at Ashe’s question to see him grin.

  “They’re doing good,” he answered. “The twins aren’t quite sure what to do with the new baby now that she’s home. They’re jealous and curious all at once. And they’re fairly sure that they don’t like her.”

  “Dad says I was the same way when Coal came along,” Ashe said, speaking of her brother.

  Coal idolized the ground that Ashe walked on.

  “How’s Coal doing in school?” Luke asked. “Last I heard he was having trouble with a teacher.”

  My brows rose, and I looked to Ashe to get the inside scoop.

  “That was just a misunderstanding, from the way Coal tells it.” Ashe laughed. “What I think it was, and I could be totally wrong, but Coal didn’t like the teacher because the teacher always called him out in the middle of class on his bullshit. He didn’t like that, and he complained to Mom about hating school. And you know how my mom gets
when it comes to her baby.”

  I snorted.

  Coal was treated like a prince by both their mother and father. The only person to treat him like the asshole he was, was his sister.

  Torren and Tru would’ve likely had that kid pulled from the school because they thought he walked on water.

  I had a feeling Ashe likely had a talk with Coal about it.

  “I told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to figure out why he didn’t like the teacher and quick, because if Mom went up there and called him out on it, she would be going to jail,” Ashe snickered. “Y’all know how she is when it comes to her kids.”

  Tru wasn’t much different with her kids than my mom was with hers.

  She loved them with her whole heart and soul.

  “My brother is having problems at school, too.” I grimaced. “Ever since that shooting.”

  The ‘shooting’ that I was talking about was actually a shooting that happened with my brother’s best friend’s father, Trager McInroy. Trager had a mental breakdown or something, and when my father had come on scene, Trager had his wife at gunpoint.

  Things escalated quickly, and in the end, my father had ended up shooting my brother’s best friend’s father, killing him.

  Since then, Vance and Banner hadn’t gotten along. Not for lack of Banner’s trying, anyway.

  He’d made a sincere effort before he’d realized that things just weren’t going to get better. They were getting worse.

  “Vance,” Ashe stated.

  Luke grunted. “I keep expecting to hear that your brother is suspended.”

  I laughed then, because I did, too.

  Ashe was grinning by the time we left.

  “Bye, Uncle Luke,” Ashe said, waving at him.

  He held out his arms and Ashe didn’t even hesitate.

  “You’re allowed to give me hugs,” he grumbled.

  Ashe shrugged as she pulled back.

  “I don’t want to tarnish your reputation.” She paused. “Or get shit when I didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that giving you hugs and shit means that people will pay attention,” she answered. “And everybody already thinks that you’ve given me the moon because I’m your niece. I don’t really want to give you a hug and reinforce that fact.”

  Luke frowned. “They don’t think that.”

  Ashe snorted and walked to the passenger seat of my cruiser. “Whatever you say, Uncle Luke.”

  With that, she got inside and slammed the door.

  Luke turned his gaze toward me.

  “They don’t think that, do they?” he asked me.

  I raised a brow at him.

  “You gave her an office, put her in with the detectives when you normally have to have at least five years of both experience and tenure in the force.” I paused. “She works only during the day. She has the best shifts. What do you think?”

  Luke groaned and scrubbed his face.

  “I’m thinking that I need to address it before it gets any worse,” he admitted. “But I gave her all that because I really want her to work at Kilgore. I’m lucky she said yes.” He tilted his head. “But I have a feeling that all the things I gave her aren’t really what’s keeping her here.”

  The words ‘you are’ hung in the air.

  He may not have said them, but he didn’t really need to.

  Not when he knew I knew.

  “I…” I didn’t know what to say.

  “Just know that she’s got a lot of people on her side,” he said softly. Menacingly. “And I may like you, kid, but I don’t like you that much.”

  With that, he walked away and got into his own cruiser, leaving me alone in my thoughts.

  I must’ve been there for a while, thinking, because Ashe began to impatiently knock on the glass.

  Blinking and tilting my head to stare at her through the windshield, I saw that she was annoyed with waiting.

  It didn’t take me long to get into the vehicle after that.

  Sensing that I wasn’t really in the mood to talk, she kept silent and still as I drove us home.

  When I pulled up to my place instead of hers, she didn’t say a word.

  “You hungry?” I asked curiously.

  She nodded. “I am. I skipped lunch.”

  I frowned.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you hadn’t eaten?” I asked.

  She looked at me with a brow raised. “Because it didn’t matter?”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have eaten in front of you had you told me. I would’ve gotten you something. All you had to do was ask.”

  She cursed under her breath and got out of the car, not bothering to reply to my words.

  Which pissed me off, and I wasn’t sure why.

  I got out of the cruiser, locking it up, and followed her to the house.

  “What would you have made me do if I’d asked?” she wondered. “Would you have made me go out to some fake double date?”

  Just as I was fitting the key into the lock, Ashe’s stomach growled again, pissing me off even more.

  I looked at her as I opened the lock and threw open the door.

  “There are no conditions when it comes to me and making sure you have what you need,” I told her bluntly. “If you’re hungry, tell me. I’ll get you something to eat. If you’re tired, tell me. I’ll find a way to get you somewhere to sleep. If you—”

  She interrupted me.

  “If I’m horny?”

  Chapter 12

  I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.

  -Ashe’s secret thoughts

  Ashe

  “If I’m horny?”

  I literally couldn’t believe those words had just come out of my mouth.

  I hadn’t meant to say them.

  Honestly, I’d meant to say something else. Interrupt him and tell him that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

  Yet, those words hadn’t come out of my mouth.

  What had was the exact opposite of what I’d intended to say.

  My question hung in the air for all of twenty seconds before I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

  I had to know.

  I had to see if he was as deep as I was.

  Bypassing him, I started to strip out of my uniform.

  At first, it looked like I was just getting comfortable.

  But as my boots came off, followed by my gun belt, then my uniform shirt, followed shortly by my Kevlar vest, my breathing started to pick up.

  By the time I was shrugging off the undershirt and exposing my bra, Ford realized rather quickly where I was going with this.

  It was only when I was shimmying out of my panties and bending over to do it that he came unstuck.

  The door that I’d gotten naked in front of slammed closed.

  The lock clicked home.

  And when I turned around, it was to see Ford staring at me like I was exactly what he’d always wanted.

  “I’m tired of playing this game, Ford,” I said softly. “Either we do this, or I’m leaving. I can’t… I can’t do this anymore. It’s slowly killing me.”

  And I was sure he knew what I meant.

  If he said no, there’d be no more fighting. There’d be no more teasing.

  There’d be no talking at all.

  There would be nothing, because I couldn’t be here and not have him anymore.

  Not when I knew what I was missing now.

  Before, when we’d both been hating each other—or pretending—we hadn’t realized what we could accomplish when we were together.

  Then, when we’d taken that step, I’d thought for sure that I could pretend that it’d never happened.

  But I’d underestimated Ford’s power that he wielded over me.

  I didn’t realize that I would think about him day and night.

  I couldn’t work nex
t to him and no longer feel a thing.

  Because my body knew what it was missing now.

  It was missing Ford.

  Badly.

  My fingers no longer cut it.

  Hell, the dildo I’d ordered off of Amazon wouldn’t even cut it.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” I told him. “Working with you, seeing you…” I moved until we were only inches apart. Dragging my fingers down his chest, feeling the hardness of the Kevlar vest underneath my palms, I said one last thing that broke his control completely. “All I think about is how you felt inside me. How full I was. How right it felt. How hot and wanted and needed I was. Ford… I want you. I’m done trying to deny it.” I looked into his eyes. “Either fuck me or leave me alone.”

  He didn’t leave me alone.

  In fact, he did quite the opposite.

  I should’ve expected it after the kiss today.

  But his desire. His need?

  It was like a pasture fire deep in the middle of a Texas drought.

  He went from one extreme to the other.

  A whisper of smoke to totally consumed in point five seconds.

  His arms went around my naked body as he bent down and picked me up.

  I gasped at the feel of his gun belt pressing into my hips. The way his fingers dug in just a little too tightly. The way his uniform shirt rasped roughly against my nipples.

  And then he was tossing me down on the bed and following me down, his body leaning heavily into mine as he situated himself between my thighs.

  I forgot about everything after that.

  Only focusing on the way he felt pressing against me—and boy, there was no hiding his cock and how hard it was digging into my mound.

  I didn’t feel the gun belt digging into my thighs. Didn’t feel the pile of socks that he’d somehow forgotten about and laid me down on top of.

  I didn’t even question the near subzero temperatures that he kept his place at when he wasn’t there.

  All I focused on was the way his mouth consumed mine.

  The way he felt like he was saying goodbye without moving his body away from me.

  Then a thought occurred to me, and I shook my head violently.

  “No,” I said, pushing away. “No. Either say yes or let me go.”

  He didn’t get up off of me, which was when I realized how cold I was. How lumpy the bed was underneath of me. And the way his gun was digging into my inner thigh.