by Paige Tyler
“What’s wrong?” Brooks asked after his pack mates left. “And don’t try telling me it’s nothing. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I can tell when something’s bothering you.”
“Chief Curtis paid me a visit this morning,” Ray said softly without turning around. “He’s not too thrilled with how things turned out at the warehouse. Times are changing, and the department is under a lot of pressure to somehow fix the gang problem. He suggested maybe it’s time for someone else to take over the gang unit. Someone with new ideas.”
“Screw him,” Brooks growled. “You’ve got over thirty-five years on the force with a list of citations longer than your arm. He might be the chief, but he can’t force you out of your unit without reason.”
Ray set the eraser on the tray along the bottom of the board, then turned around to give him a sad smile. “Maybe that’s true. If I wanted to fight it.”
Brooks stared. “Why wouldn’t you fight it?”
Ray pulled out a chair and sat down with a heavy sigh. “Jayden, I’ve been doing this for a long time, fighting the good fight and all that crap. But no matter what I do or how much I do it, things don’t get any better. Gangs are worse than they ever were, and kids are joining them younger and younger, screwing up their lives before they even start.”
“What are you saying?”
The man took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m saying I’m tired, Jayden, and I think maybe it’s time for me to step back.”
That was bullshit. Brooks opened his mouth to tell Ray as much, but Becker stuck his head in the door. “Hey, Brooks. You got a visitor in the admin building.”
“Not right now,” Brooks said over his shoulder. “I’m busy.”
“I know. But you’re going to want to see this person.”
Brooks spun around to tell his pack mate to screw off, but Ray interrupted him. “Go on and take care of business.” He got to his feet. “We can talk later.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid before we talk, okay?”
Ray slid some papers across the table and stuck them in a manila folder. “Don’t worry about me, Jayden. I’ll be fine.”
Brooks frowned. “Promise me. Nothing stupid.”
He gave Brooks a small smile. “You know me, kid. Do I ever do anything stupid?”
That wasn’t really an answer, but Ray was already heading out the door.
Brooks glared at Becker. “So, who’s this visitor, and why couldn’t they wait?”
Becker grinned. “You’ll see.”
Brooks resisted the urge to growl as he followed Becker out the door. Halfway down the hallway, they ran into Mike and the Pack’s newest member, Rachel. Khaki Blake, the team’s only other female member, was with them. They were talking about the demanding physical training program Gage ran and how everyone had to share the open-bay showers in the other building.
“The guys always let me go first, then blame me for using all the hot water,” Khaki said with a grin.
“They won’t have to worry about that with me,” Rachel said in a lyrical Southern twang. “I’m in and out of the shower and dressed in fifteen minutes.”
Mike glanced at Brooks. “You met Rachel, right?”
“Yeah, but just barely.”
Actually, he hadn’t done much more than wave in her direction as he’d headed out on one of the gang task force operations. The moment she’d walked in, the single guys had immediately wondered if she was The One for someone in the Pack, like Khaki was for Xander Riggs, the team’s other squad leader. But Rachel had taken a quick look around, told them they weren’t her type, and that was the end of that. She might find her soul mate someday, but it wasn’t going to be anyone in SWAT.
“How’s the in-processing going?” Brooks asked.
Rachel made a face. “Not bad. I just hate wasting time filling out forms when I could be helping you guys deal with the hunters. Mike told me that you and Zane spent time last night interrogating one of them?”
Brooks winced. “I’m not sure if I’d call it an interrogation. More like a torture session—for Zane and me. Oliver went into great detail about the werewolves he’d tracked down and killed. I think he gets off on telling the stories.”
Rachel shook her head. “This guy sounds like a complete chucklefuck. Did y’all get anything useful out of him?”
Brooks wasn’t exactly sure what a chucklefuck was, but he was willing to trust her opinion on the matter. “We know the hunters don’t know much of anything about werewolves, that most of them are nothing more than paid assassins who care little about who they kill as long as they get paid, and that they get their orders from someone who seems to have an almost endless supply of money.”
Mike frowned. “Any idea who they’re working for? Or at least where he might be located?”
“No. Oliver is being pretty cagey about what he tells us. We have another meeting with him in two days, so I’m hoping we’ll learn more then.”
Khaki was saying something about never having the patience to talk to someone like Oliver when Zane stuck his head in the front door. “Brooks, there’s someone waiting to see you.” He looked at Becker. “Didn’t you tell him?”
Becker shrugged. “I told him.”
Whoever it was, they must be damn important, Brooks thought. Nodding at his pack mates, he headed for the door.
“Who is it?” he asked Zane as his friend walked into the building as he walked out.
“Go see for yourself,” Zane said.
Were his pack mates intentionally trying to piss him off?
Brooks was still steaming when he reached the admin building and jerked open the door, expecting to see some bureaucrat from police headquarters. But the moment he got inside and picked up a familiar scent, he forgot all about the pencil pushers at HQ. He quickened his step, heading for the bullpen, when a certain dark-haired, curvy teacher walked out. Dressed in jeans, knee-high brown boots, and a leather coat belted at the waist, she looked just as beautiful as he remembered. She had her hair up in a ponytail today. He’d been right. It was long.
“Selena?” He stopped where he was, mesmerized by the sight of her. “What are you doing here?”
“I never got a chance to thank you for saving my life yesterday,” she said. “I didn’t even get to properly introduce myself, though it seems you already know my name.”
There was a primal part of him that wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until neither of them could breathe. The urge was so strong, he had to ball his hands into fists at his sides to keep from giving in.
“My commander told me your name before I went into the school to rescue you,” he said as he unclenched his fist in time to shake the hand she offered. Her hand was small in his, her skin warm and soft against his rough palm, and he didn’t want to let it go. “Since you’re here, I guess that means you already know my name, too. Doesn’t mean we can’t do this right, though. Jayden Brooks.”
She gave him a smile that made his knees weak. “Selena Rosa. I’d really like to thank you for saving my life.”
He leaned closer so he could inhale more of her intoxicating scent. He wasn’t sure how it was possible, but she smelled even better than she had yesterday. Then, there’d been fruity flowers. Today, there was a hint of spice thrown in. The scent was like nothing he’d ever smelled before, yet familiar at the same time. He thought at first she was simply wearing a different perfume, but when he took a deeper breath, he knew that wasn’t it. He was smelling her pheromones, and his inner wolf was getting drunk on them.
He forced himself to release her hand so she wouldn’t think he was a weirdo. “Don’t think I’m complaining when I say this, but you didn’t have to come all the way out here to thank me. You could have just called.”
Selena’s dark eyes danced as she held up one finger. “Hold that thought.”
&n
bsp; Brooks’s wolf half wanted to chase her the moment she turned and hurried into the bullpen, and it was all he could do to stay where he was. Selena came out a moment later, an enormous aluminum foil pan in her hands. He thought he smelled chocolate, but he couldn’t be sure, since his nose was still filled with her scent.
“If I hadn’t come in person, how would I have brought these?” she asked.
Grinning, she held out the pan. Brooks glanced down at the thick, gooey brownies inside. Selena might look and smell even better than the chocolate goodness she’d brought, but Brooks never turned his nose up at food. She was damn near overwhelming, but brownies were brownies.
And now he had an image of Selena lying naked on a bed with pieces of brownies scattered all over, from those perfect breasts to the juncture of her thighs. He immediately went hard at the thought.
In an attempt to push the mind-numbing vision out of his head, Brooks took one of the brownies—cut adult-sized, not those little kid-sized snack squares you had to eat half a dozen of—and took a bite.
“Wow,” he moaned as it melted in his mouth. He’d eaten a lot of brownies in his life, but these were on a whole different level. If he weren’t in polite company, he would have shoved the whole thing in his mouth at once. “This is amazing.”
Selena laughed, tilting her head back so she could look up at him. It struck him then how petite she really was. She barely reached his shoulder. “I’m glad you like it. I would have made something special, but I thought it was more important to give you a gift of my gratitude now rather than wait until I could run to the store and grab all the stuff I needed.”
“Special?” he mumbled as he took another bite. “These seem pretty special to me.”
She waved her hand. “These are nothing. I just threw them together at the last minute because I wanted to make sure I got here before you went home.”
Brooks didn’t know what to say to that. Not that he could have said much anyway, his mouth was so full. If this was an example of what Selena could throw together at the last minute, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like when she took her time. Instant foodgasm, maybe?
His head went straight to thoughts of brownies, orgasms, and Selena all at the same time, and he hardened in his uniform pants again. Shit. He needed to get his act together before he started humping her leg right there.
He ate the rest of the brownie, then started to lick his fingers before stopping himself. He gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry. I usually don’t inhale food like that. But that was seriously the best brownie I’ve ever eaten.”
Selena laughed again. “No apology necessary. I never mind watching a man enjoy himself.”
Brooks was considering whether to lick the rest of his fingers clean when the innuendo in her words suddenly dawned on him. He looked up sharply, only to see her regarding him with a sweet, if amused, expression, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Then he caught a glint in her eyes—a lightning-quick flash of coyness—that had him closing the few feet of distance between them. He truthfully had no idea what he was going to do once he got there, but he’d figure it out.
“So, are you going to share any of those brownies with the rest of us or just hog them all for yourself?”
Brooks stopped in midstep to find pack mate and fellow SWAT officer Landry Cooper leaning casually against the doorjamb of the bullpen, a grin on his face that implied he knew exactly what the hell he’d interrupted. No shock there. Every werewolf in the building had no doubt heard him and Selena talking. Smelled them, too, which was a disconcerting thought, since Brooks had no doubt he was putting off buckets of arousal pheromones right then.
Of course, Cooper was the only one irritating enough to actually stick his nose in.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Brooks said, giving Cooper a grin. “Selena only brought enough for me. Too bad, because they’re really good.”
Cooper opened his mouth to reply, but Selena interrupted him with a laugh.
“Of course, there are enough to share.” She gave Brooks a reproving look. “You’d get sick if you tried to eat all these brownies.”
Brooks wanted to complain, but it wasn’t like he could point out that werewolves could eat anything and everything they wanted without it ever affecting them. Instead, he had no choice but to stand there and watch as Selena took out a brownie, then handed the pan to Cooper.
“Could you make sure the other SWAT officers who were at the school get some of these?” she asked Cooper. “I want to let them know how much I appreciate what they did, too.”
“I’ll definitely do that. And I’ll make sure they know how much Brooks was thinking about them, too,” Cooper added, giving Brooks a grin.
Luckily, Selena had her back to Brooks, so she couldn’t see the rude gesture he made in Cooper’s direction, which was a good thing, since she’d probably be shocked. The guy might be like a brother to him, but that only meant he could sometimes be as irritating as one. Cooper just made a show of sniffing the brownies and walked back into the bullpen with a chuckle.
“Don’t worry,” Selena said, coming over to hand Brooks the brownie she’d saved. “I can bring you another batch if you want.”
He bit into the brownie. “You can bring me these things anytime you want.”
“If you’re planning to come back with more,” Cooper called from the other room, “I’ll take a few dozen, if you’re taking orders. I’ll even pay you for them.”
Selena laughed.
“Want to head over to one of the other buildings?” Brooks asked. “So we can talk without constantly being interrupted.”
That earned him a chuckle from Cooper and the rest of his pack mates in the bullpen.
“Sounds good to me,” Selena said.
Brooks popped the rest of the brownie into his mouth as he led her outside, then across the compound into the training building, hoping Mike, Rachel, and his other teammates weren’t there. Fortunately, they weren’t.
The dayroom was big enough for the whole SWAT team to fit, as well as their extended pack, which was a good thing, since it was growing in leaps and bounds. In addition to the two couches and coffee table, there were beanbag chairs and a sweet big-screen TV. Since it was the holiday season, there was also a Christmas tree with all the trimmings. Brooks gestured to one of the couches, then sat down beside her.
“I’m glad we got a chance to talk in private,” she said. “I wanted to ask if you got injured in the rescue but wasn’t sure if I should bring it up in front of everyone else. I know guys can get embarrassed when women ask questions like that around other men.”
He was so distracted by the sexy curve of her hips as she crossed her legs that he almost missed what she’d said. “Injured? Nah.”
“You weren’t? Huh.” She frowned, confusion clouding her eyes. “There was so much blood on my clothes, not to mention the floor, and when I realized it couldn’t be Pablo’s, I naturally assumed it was yours.”
Brooks’s first instinct was to say nothing. That was the standard response anytime someone outside the Pack saw something they shouldn’t. But Selena looked so distressed, he had to tell her something.
“Oh, you must mean these.” He gestured at the freshly healed scars on his forearm from both the small bullet hole up near his elbow and the larger incision he’d gotten when Trey had dug Pablo’s bullet out of him. “I cut myself on a piece of glass picking you up. It was nothing.”
Selena studied the scars, her eyes narrowing a little before she looked back at him. Brooks had no doubt she was trying to figure out how scars that looked like they were a week old could possibly have produced as much blood as she’d had on her clothes. When she stared him straight in the eyes for several long moments, he wondered if this was what her students felt like when they’d been caught lying. He held his breath, sure she was going to call him on it.
But i
nstead, she nodded and broke eye contact. “I’m glad it wasn’t anything more serious. You could have gotten shot shielding me like that.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “It was nothing. I was more worried about hurting you. I slammed into you pretty hard. I didn’t break anything, did I?”
Selena shook her head. “No breaks, thank goodness. The doctor was worried I might have gotten a concussion, though. He could be right. My head was a little wonky last night for sure.”
“Wonky?” It was his turn to frown. “What do you mean? Should you be out of the hospital?”
Brooks subconsciously moved closer, his heart beating faster at the thought that he’d hurt her. He was half a second away from sweeping her up into his arms and hauling ass for his truck to take her to the hospital.
Selena must have read his mind, because she stopped him with a smile and a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m okay…really. I’ll admit my heart rate was all over the place when I was there, and I had a fever nobody could explain, but thankfully, everything went back to normal. As it turns out, the doctor decided my symptoms weren’t related to anything physical.”
“What was it then?”
She took her hand away from his arm as she shrugged. “He seemed to think I’m dealing with post-traumatic stress.”
A part of Brooks was relieved Selena wasn’t physically injured, but at the same time, he was worried. PTSD wasn’t anything to mess around with. He’d known a lot of good cops who’d lost their jobs, their families, and sometimes more because they’d gone through a rough situation they’d never been able to get past.
“Have you thought of talking to someone about it?” he asked.
She sighed. “You sound like my principal and vice principal. They want me to talk to somebody, too. In fact, they’ve essentially kicked me out of my class for the rest of the week, so I can take time off to recover. Whatever the heck that means.”
“Selena, this is serious,” Brooks said. “Someone tried to kill you. It’s normal to be affected by something like that. Normal to feel confused, scared, and freaked out as hell. It’s also completely normal to sit down and talk with someone about it.”
