Take Me in the Dark (Take Me #2)

by R. L. Kenderson

  I was about ten articles deep into the possible case when I felt someone enter my office.

  I didn’t turn to look because I was too busy reading.

  “Do you want me to go back to Brook Creek?”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized it was Tommy. But I didn’t have time to talk right now.

  So, I did what I always did when I was busy. I answered questions as fast as I could, so I could get whoever was talking to leave me alone. “No, I don’t.”

  I went back to reading, clicking on a Reddit thread. Those were always fascinating because they could have wild theories and were out there, but sometimes, the people were pretty close to the truth with their guesses.

  “Do you want to see me go back to Virginia?”

  “No,” I answered, irritation making my tone clipped.

  “Good, because I don’t want to go back. You know why?”

  I sighed. “No.”

  “Because I love you, and I think you love me, too. Do you love me, Olivia?”

  I gritted my teeth. Can’t he tell I’m in the middle of something important?

  “Yes, I love you. Now, will you please go away?”

  Part of me heard Tommy laugh, but our conversation didn’t really hit me until he walked over and pushed my laptop cover closed.

  “Hey,” I said, looking up at him.

  He was grinning. Something had just happened.

  “Oh crap. What did I miss?”

  “You told me once that when you’re busy at work, you answer things quite honestly. So, you, my dear, just gave me some great information.”

  I ran back the conversation in my mind and gasped. I cupped my hands over my mouth.

  And damn it, I started crying again.

  “Did…did you say you…” I couldn’t quite finish.

  Tommy took my hand and pulled me up out of my seat. He guided me around my desk and into his arms. “I said I love you. I don’t want to go back to Virginia. I don’t even want to go back to Brook Creek. I want to stay here with you. And you might have let it slip that you love me, too.”

  “But what about the bedroom stuff?”

  His brow furrowed in confusion. “What bedroom stuff?”

  I started playing with his T-shirt. “Me. I’m not so good in there. I’ve had numerous exes break up with me because of that.”

  The guy had the nerve to throw his head back and laugh.

  “Ouch,” I couldn’t help but say.

  He quickly shook his head back and forth, but he couldn’t quite stop his laughter. “No, Liv, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at them.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes, because you’re the best goddamn lay I’ve ever had.”

  I frowned. “Do you have to be so crass?”

  He laughed again. “You like it when I’m crass.”

  I smiled. “Maybe I do.”

  He snorted. “No maybe about it.”

  I took a deep breath. “What about work? You don’t have a job.”

  “I was thinking maybe you’d like to hire me?”

  “For what? I already told you, the firm is not going to pay for a bodyguard. And I don’t really need one anymore.”

  “I thought I could fill that investigator position. I looked into it. I need to get certified, but I don’t need a degree or anything. But if you’d put up with me for a while, I think I’d like to work on getting my criminal justice degree if I’m going to do this full-time.”

  I leaned back in his arms and studied him. “You’re not just settling for this job because you want to be close to me, are you?”

  “No. The other day, when I was knocking on doors and calling the bank, I loved it. I haven’t had that much fun working in a long time. Is it as fun as being a SEAL? No. But nothing will be. And this is the closest I’ve ever gotten. I think I’d like to explore it.”

  “I think that sounds like an amazing idea.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.

  Tommy pushed me up against my desk. “I think it’s time for some celebration sex.”

  Epilogue

  Tommy

  SEVERAL YEARS LATER

  Maddox and I bumped fists.

  “Ready to beat the Donaldsons once again?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Will they ever learn that they’re not going to win?”

  I looked over at Frank and his cousins with their heads down as they strategized. “I don’t think so.”

  At this point, it was becoming an annual tradition to beat them every year at Brook Days.

  We separated, and I got into my position on the field. I glanced over at the sidelines, where Olivia was rubbing her belly as she spoke to Addison. Addison was patting the back of her new daughter while Spencer and Thane ran literal circles around the two ladies.

  My Olivia was due in a month and a half, and I couldn’t wait. At first, she hadn’t been certain that she wanted kids. I didn’t push because I knew how important her career was to her. But after I got my associate’s degree in criminal justice and passed my certification with the National Association of Legal Investigators, I thought she’d decided it would be a good time to try.

  We’d gotten pregnant the first month, and knowing that a part of me was growing in my wife’s womb was better than any mission I’d ever gone on in the military.

  Olivia looked over at me and smiled.

  Every single day, I understood Maddox’s words more and more.

  “Things change. Sometimes, for the better.”

  He’d sure gotten that right.

  Take Me in the Night Excerpt

  Maddox

  I didn’t know who was more surprised—Addison or me.

  I certainly hadn’t expected her to walk through the door. When Foster had told me that he was going to get a lawyer, I had been so surprised that Brook Creek had one that I didn’t even think to ask who the person was.

  She turned around. “Please close the door,” she said to Whitlock, her voice firm and full of authority.

  It wasn’t the only firm thing in the room.

  Whitlock shot me a dirty look before closing the door, and Addison turned back around.

  She gestured toward the table. “Can we please sit?”

  I shrugged, pulled out the chair closest to me, and sat.

  Addison did the same and took out a notebook and pen from her purse. She started writing things down, and I took the opportunity to study her. Her chestnut hair had been down to her ass in high school, but now, it was only a couple of inches past her shoulders. Her breasts strained against the top, and I was pretty sure they’d gotten bigger since I last saw her, which was saying something because she’d had a pretty impressive set of tits back then.

  And I couldn’t see it now, but I had noticed her nice, round ass before she sat down. Her black pants were so tight that I was ninety-nine percent positive she was going commando or wearing a thong. No panty lines for Addison.

  She looked up at me. “So, can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Foster picked me up from the airport. I was driving my brother’s car when I got pulled over. Next thing I knew, Whitlock was putting handcuffs on me.”

  “What for?”

  I scowled. “Fuck if I know. That asshole’s always had a hard-on for me.”

  She sighed. “What was his reason? What did he tell you?”

  I snorted. “That I was speeding.”

  “Were you?”

  “I was going fifty-eight in a fifty-five.”

  “Anything else unusual?”

  “Other than the fact that I was driving? No.”

  “As I recall, you didn’t always follow traffic laws.”

  Her comment had me thinking of all the times we’d driven around in my beat-up Chevy truck and the things we’d done in it besides driving. It seemed Addison was thinking the same thing.

  I totally recognized the look on her face.

  It was the same one she used to give me before she pulled down m
y pants and sucked my cock into her mouth.

  I’d grown up around adults with loose morals, so it was no shock that I’d lost my virginity at fourteen to my mom’s friend’s daughter. She was sixteen when she came to my house, looking for her mother. Her mom and my mom had left twenty-four hours earlier to go on a bender.

  So, Sheila took me to the room I shared with my brother and showed me the things she liked to do in bed. I lasted all of twenty seconds before blowing my load, but thankfully, Sheila gave me a few more rounds that I used to make it up to her.

  That was just the beginning. For a while, I had fucked anything that I could.

  But Addison had grown up completely different from me. She had been a virgin when she and I started dating. Everything she knew in the bedroom, she’d learned from me. Including how to give the best fucking blow jobs.

  I tilted my head to the side. I wondered if she still gave good head.

  My eighteen-year-old self demanded I find out. My thirty-year-old self didn’t need the complications of being inside Addison Graham again.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve changed along with my driving habits. I was going the speed limit. He had no reason to pull me over.”

  She wrote the information down and stood. I stared at her ass as she pounded on the door.

  “Sheriff, come in here, please.”

  The door opened thirty seconds later.

  “What do you need, Counselor?”

  “My client said he was doing fifty-eight in a fifty-five. Give him his speeding ticket, so he can leave.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t know if he’s been drinking.”

  “Did you give him a Breathalyzer? A sobriety test? Did he smell like alcohol?”

  Whitlock gritted his teeth. “No.”

  “Is he under arrest?”

  Whitlock looked pissed. “No.”

  I shoved my chair back and stood as Addison said, “Then, he’s free to leave.”

  Whitlock stepped around Addison and marched up to my face. “I am going to break you. You’re not going to get away with anything like you did twelve years ago.”

  He was so close; I could smell the stale coffee on his breath despite our six-inch height difference.

  I just crossed my arms over my chest and tried not to look bored. This man had no idea the things I’d gone through to be a SEAL. There was nothing he could do to hurt me. I’d already lost everything once, and that was the biggest blow I’d ever taken.

  “I didn’t get away with anything,” I told him.

  Movement out of the corner of my vision caught my eye, and I looked over at Addison. She clearly looked confused.

  I looked back at Whitlock, who was staring at me, steam practically coming out of his ears. I smacked the top of his arm like we were old friends because I knew it would piss him off, and I walked around him. “Later, Whitlock. Call me when you’re ready to break me. You know where to find me.”

  I walked past Addison and nodded my thanks. I found Foster waiting for me outside the sheriff’s office, pacing with panic all over his face.

  His look turned to relief when he saw me. “Oh, thank God.”

  “You can thank Addison.”

  I heard the sound of her heels coming up behind me.

  “I didn’t really do anything,” she said as she came to stand beside me. “He was just trying to intimidate Maddox, I think.”

  Foster burst out laughing. “What a putz. My brother is a Navy SEAL and has been to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. He is not scared of Sheriff Whitlock.”

  Addison whipped her head and looked at me. “You’re a SEAL?”

  “Yep.” There was no point in denying it.

  She turned her whole body toward me. “What did Whitlock mean by, ‘You’re not going to get away with anything like you did twelve years ago’? Have you been in the Navy this whole time? Did you even go to prison?”

  I just raised an eyebrow at her. She didn’t need me to confirm the answer she already knew.

  She looked at Foster. “How long have you known this?”

  About the Author

  R.L. Kenderson is two best friends writing under one name.

  Renae has always loved reading, and in third grade, she wrote her first poem where she learned she might have a knack for this writing thing. Lara remembers sneaking her grandmother’s Harlequin novels when she was probably too young to be reading them, and since then, she knew she wanted to write her own.

  When they met in college, they bonded over their love of reading and the TV show Charmed. What really spiced up their friendship was when Lara introduced Renae to romance novels. When they discovered their first vampire romance, they knew there would always be a special place in their hearts for paranormal romance. After being unable to find certain storylines and characteristics they wanted to read about in the hundreds of books they consumed, they decided to write their own.

  One lives in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and the other in the Kansas City area where they’re a sonographer/stay-at-home mom/wife and pharmacist/mother by day, and together they’re a sexy author by night. They communicate through phone, email, and whole lot of messaging.

  You can find them at http://www.rlkenderson.com, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, and Goodreads. Join their reader group! Or you can email them at rlkenderson@rlkenderson.com, or sign up for their newsletter. They always love hearing from their readers.

  Also by R.L. Kenderson

  NOVELS IN THE FORBIDDEN SERIES

  Paranormal Romance

  Forbidden Blood

  Forbidden Heat

  Forbidden Temptation

  Forbidden Addiction

  Forbidden Claim

  Forbidden Seduction

  Forbidden Mate

  * * *

  BOOKS IN THE DIRTY LOVE SERIES

  Contemporary Romance

  Rumor Has It

  Friends with Benefits

  One-Night Stand

  Meant to Be

  It’s Complicated

  * * *

  BOOKS IN THE TAKE ME SERIES

  Contemporary Erotic Romance

  Take Me in the Night

  Take Me in the Dark

  * * *

  STANDALONE NOVELS

  Contemporary Romance

  Wicked Chemistry

  Object of My Desire

  Five Dates Only

  Wrong number

  * * *

  STANDALONE NOVELETTES & SHORT STORIES

  Summer Heat

  The Hottest Player

  French Kiss

  Moon Craving