Kansas Nights [Kansas Heat 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Jenny Penn

  “O-M-G!” Rosy gasped, pointing a finger at Jack like she was about to accuse him of something. “I know who this is!”

  “Will you stop all that texting language?” Kathy snapped, in no mood for her friend’s dramatic shrieking. The situation was bad enough without Rosy losing it. “You know I don’t have a clue as to what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying he’s one of those military men that’s taken up residence out at the Reese Ranch.”

  “They’re a security detail,” Kathy filled in, not bothering to correct the lie. “And this is Jack Daniels. He’s in charge of the detail.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be a very good date if I didn’t know that, would I?”

  “You call this a date?” Rosy lifted a brow at that. “Because that’s not exactly what it looks like.”

  “Fine, you can call it whatever you want.” Kathy didn’t care. Her main worry right then was getting rid of the evidence. “But can you help me while you do it?”

  “Help?” Rosy looked pointedly down at Jack. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about him.”

  “Help me move him.”

  “To where?”

  Kathy would have begged her friend to help send him to the moon if Rosy could have. Even then that probably wouldn’t be far enough away to spare Kathy Jack’s temper when he woke up. That would be an unpleasant experience for him, confused and hungover, but it would be all the worse if he were both those things in her living room.

  “His truck.”

  Her request got an instant crack of laughter from Rosy. “That man has to weigh over two hundred pounds. There’s no way the two of us are carrying his ass out to his truck.” Rosy paused to study Jack’s cramped position on Kathy’s little couch. “Maybe we could roll him onto the floor, be a little more comfortable for him.”

  “No. He’s not staying here.” Kathy wouldn’t do that to him, considering the last face he’d want to see first thing in the morning was hers. “Don’t worry about getting him to the truck. I have a plan.”

  “Oh no,” Rosy groaned. “No, I don’t want a plan. Let’s just dump him on the floor and prop him up on his side.”

  “No.”

  “Damnit, Kathy,” Rosy pouted. “If you don’t want him here, then why did you bring him here?”

  “It’s a long story.” With no simple explanation and unsure of just how much she wanted to reveal, Kathy knew her vague answer wouldn’t satisfy Rosy’s curiosity. That didn’t stop Kathy from trying to duck out of giving the long version of the truth. “I had no choice. I needed privacy.”

  “Why?” Before she even finished asking the question, a blush started racing across Rosy’s cheeks, making her bulging eyes look all the more comical. “Did you sleep with him?”

  “No!” It wasn’t a lie, but an evasion—one Kathy couldn’t stand behind when Rosy pinned her with an all-too-knowing look. “Okay, some things might have happened—”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re not getting details,” Kathy shot back in annoyance, mostly because she didn’t want to remember them herself.

  It wasn’t like she volunteered to do any of those things. Jack had outright demanded them, and the man was a pervert. An exceptionally talented pervert. Kathy smiled as she considered the truth in that statement. The man knew how to make a woman’s body sing with those nimble fingers. Oh God, and that wicked tongue.

  “You’re blushing.”

  “It doesn’t matter what did or didn’t happen,” Kathy stated tightly. After this night, she figured Jack wouldn’t be issuing any more kinky orders in her direction. The next time he suggested a little bondage, he’d probably be wearing his badge and carrying handcuffs. She’d have to worry about that later. Right then, Kathy had enough to deal with.

  “What matters is getting him the hell out of my house.” Casting an eye at the pink kitty nightshirt Rosy still wore over her pajama bottoms, Kathy’s gaze slid all the way down to Rosy’s fluffy slippers. “You might want to take those off. We’re going to need traction to lever him onto the chair.”

  “Chair?” Rosy glanced around in obvious doubt. “What chair?”

  “My desk one,” Kathy answered, pulling it out form the corner. “It’s big enough to fit him and has wheels so we can move him around.”

  Kathy wiggled the chair to prove her point, but that arrogance quickly faded away as they had to move most of the furniture out of the way to get the chair up next to the sofa. Before they attempted to move Jack, Kathy very carefully extracted the truck keys from Jack’s pocket.

  It wasn’t an easy task. Despite all the alcohol, Mr. Macho’s erection retained enough vigor to deform his jeans. With the denim stretched so tight, Kathy had to wiggle her fingers down the long, hard edge of his cock to find the keys. The thin slip of fabric separating her skin from his offered no protection against the pulsing heat searing her hand.

  She hadn’t gotten a chance to play with him the way he’d played with her. For a moment, Kathy actually regretted not having had her chance to make him beg for release. At the way he sighed and shifted, letting his thighs fall wide open, she knew she could have made him moan the way he’d made her. Even with him drop-dead drunk she managed to get a moan.

  “Oh, yeah.” Jack began to pant as Rosy groaned.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Rosy muttered. “I am standing right here. You can stop petting him at any time.”

  “I’m not petting him,” Kathy snapped, keeping her voice low but tense. “I’m trying to get his damn keys.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  Kathy shot Rosy an annoyed glare for being so obnoxious. Her friend had a one-track mind, which gave her something in common with the big brute starting to pant beneath her hand. If Rosy hadn’t been looming over her shoulder, Kathy might have taken a little more time to see how many noises he could make.

  “I got them.”

  “About damn time,” Rosy complained. “He’s about to break that zipper.”

  “Yeah,” Kathy whispered as she straightened back up. “Wouldn’t that be a shame.”

  “Seriously, Kat”—Rosy leaned in closer as her voice dropped—“that thing is huge.”

  “And I bet he knows how to use it well.” Kathy was getting warm all over just thinking about it.

  “Not in this condition.” Rosy snorted. “No matter how ready he is.”

  That perked Kathy up slightly. “I guess it all depends on whether or not a woman’s willing to do all the work, because he’s not exactly in a position to say no. Is he?”

  Rosy shot her a hard look at that observation. “I think they call that date rape.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think he’d swear out a complaint.”

  “You don’t think or you know?”

  The level of disdain in Rosy’s tone had Kathy snapping at her despite the fact that being bitchy never convinced a person to help. “I know. So you going to work with me or just continue to criticize?”

  “I guess I don’t have any choice,” Rosy muttered, giving Kathy a dirty look. “We better move him before you do something stupider than whatever you’ve already done tonight.”

  Kathy didn’t think that was possible, but then again she hadn’t yet tried to lift the oversized agent. With both arms looped around his chest and his heavy shoulder weighing down on hers, she grunted and huffed as Rosy slipped his arm over her shoulder and tried to lift. In a stumbling crash, they managed to get his ass off the couch and sort of onto the oversized office chair.

  Jack kind of helped with the rest. Grumbling to awareness, he complained to nobody in particular. With each incomplete and barely coherent phrase, he shifted his weight until he sat more properly in his seat. Kathy held her breath as he stilled, tensely waiting to see if he fell back to sleep. After a moment, his breathing started to even out, allowing Kathy’s to do the same.

  “Let’s wheel him over to the door.”

  That was t
he easy part, taking less than a few seconds. Trying to lift the chair over the threshold and down the slight step to the porch without dumping him face-first on the floor took a little more effort. They managed, though, and then it was just three feet to the top of the steps leading to the yard.

  Rosy straightened up on her side of the chair as she studied the steps before casting a dubious glance Kathy’s way. “And how are we going to get him down that?”

  “We’re not.”

  “We’re not?”

  “Just stay here and make sure he doesn’t fall over,” Kathy ordered without any further explanation.

  Leaving Rosy to watch over Jack, Kathy headed for his truck. She’d been raised driving four-wheel-drive vehicles, which gave her enough familiarity to feel confident as she slid in behind the wheel. Confidence, though, didn’t make up for a lack of height, and as she maneuvered the large truck around her front yard, Kath had to rely on Rosy to signal her to stop.

  Only Rosy’s nervousness had her waving early and leaving Kathy a few inches short of the porch’s top step. Kathy glared at the gap, knowing there was no way they could roll the chair over it. Popping the brake and letting the truck roll back the tiniest bit should fix the problem.

  “You need to come back a little more, but don’t hit the porch.” Rosy backed away from the edge, leaving Jack there on his own. “I’ll wait here.”

  Kathy shot Rosy a dirty look for the lack of help and climbed back up into the cab. She’d left the engine running and had almost grown accustomed to the rumble vibrating up from the seat to make her spine tingle. Taking a deep breath and turning to watch the bed ease back through the rear window, Kathy released the foot break.

  Crash!

  “Oh my God!”

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  It all happened so fast Kathy wasn’t really sure what had actually happened. One second she was sitting in the cab and the next Rosy was screaming and Jack was roaring. Throwing herself from the truck, she stumbled to the ground only to look up and see the tailgate bent over her crushed top step.

  Two big black boots stood at the edge of the wreck. Kathy’s gaze followed them up over thickly muscled thighs and across the hard width of chest to find Jack standing and looking around in total confusion. Whatever he managed to figure out in those few seconds, he knew enough to start yelling.

  “What the hell did you do to my truck? Who the hell are you?” His gaze lit on Rosy, who had started backing up with a look of abject horror on her face. “What the hell is going—”

  “Watch out for the—”

  Too late, Kathy’s warning didn’t stop Jack from tripping over the metal twisted up over the splintered wood. His boot caught on the wreckage, and down he went. With the grace of a tree being felled, Jack crashed into the bed of his truck with enough force to make the massive vehicle shudder. When he failed to so much as grunt over the impact, Kathy’s heart stopped.

  Her gaze met Rosy’s, and they shared a moment of fear before Rosy snapped forward and rushed onto the bed. Kathy had to go around, unable to even see over the edge thanks to the truck’s jacked-up suspension. It was a tight fit getting up the steps, and she had to climb over the gate to make it all the way. By the time she reached Rosy’s side, her friend already had a finger pressed into Jack’s wrist.

  “Is he dead?” Kathy whispered, afraid to give that option more life by asking it too loudly.

  “No, but he knocked himself clean out.” Rosy cast a worried glance in Kathy’s direction. “Maybe we should take him to the hospital and make sure he didn’t do any real damage.”

  It pained Kathy to have to say, “We can’t.”

  “Why not?” Rosy rose up, gesturing to the man. “You haven’t done anything illegal to him, have you?”

  “No.” Kathy grimaced over having to give her friend another half-truth. “At least I haven’t broken any laws I know about. It’s just if we take him in now, they’ll have questions.”

  “And you’ll have answers.”

  “Which might be enough under normal circumstances, but I’m thinking since he’s a DEA agent everybody might take this situation a little more seriously.”

  “He’s a what?” Rosy jumped back and instantly started shaking her head. “Oh, this is not good.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Kathy insisted, needing to believe that. “Technically, I haven’t done anything illegal.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve done,” Rosy shot back, already moving as fast as she could away from the agent. “And I don’t want to.”

  “I haven’t done anything.” Kathy rushed after her friend, desperate to keep Rosy from abandoning her now.

  “Why’d you call me? Huh?” Rosy threw back over her shoulder. “Did you just have a moment of inspiration and think, ‘Hey, I think I’ll get my friend Rosy arrested tonight. Let me go call her and wake her up from a sound sleep’?”

  “You’re not going to get arrested.”

  “No I’m not, because I’m not going to be anywhere near you or that man when the police show up.”

  “Come on, Rosy. I need your help.” Kathy had no choice but to whip around and block Rosy from her car door. It brought her friend to a temporary stop, but didn’t convince Rosy to stay.

  “Get out of my way, Kat.”

  “No.”

  “Damnit!” Rosy hollered with pure frustration. “I don’t even know what the hell is going on here except that you got a passed-out DEA agent that you’re desperate to get rid of.”

  “And I’ll explain everything,” Kathy assured her. “Once you help me—”

  “What? Get rid of the body?”

  Kathy shot Rosy her own annoyed look for that crack. “I just need you to follow me over to Studs & Spurs, where I’m going to leave him and his truck. No damage done.”

  At Rosy’s pointed look at the tailgate, Kathy amended her last statement. “No real damage done. After all this, how much worse can simply following me in your car to the bar make anything?”

  “You owe me more than an explanation.” Rosy leveled a finger at Kathy. “You owe me details. Now get out of my way.”

  Kathy did just that, knowing she’d won for the moment. It would probably be the last time for a long time. Once Jack woke up, Kathy felt sure she’d stumble into a losing streak. She’d worry about that later, though. Right then she had to get rid of the body.

  Chapter 3

  Tuesday, August 26th

  The tips of Collin’s boots wavered over the bumper of his truck as he fiddled with his phone. Parked not two feet away, Jack’s damaged truck looked as sad as its owner. Passed out in the bed and looking like he’d been rolled over for loose change, Jack looked worse than Collin had ever seen him. That was saying something given their history.

  Those tales might be long and sordid but not a single one began with, “there was this librarian…,” though that certainly had a ring to it. From what Collin had seen of Jack’s little librarian, she might even be worth a dent or two to his truck. That thought led to another and another and it wasn’t long before Collin’s thoughts had deteriorated altogether.

  He could almost hear the bump-and-grind music playing in the background of his fantasies when Jack finally roused himself with a gross enough snort to destroy the porno playing in Collin’s mind.

  “Ah, man.” Smacking his lips and shoving himself up to sit with enough force to make the big truck sway, Jack flinched away from the sunlight as his haggard and narrowed gaze focused on Collin.

  “Collin?”

  “Hey, man.” Collin left it at that, sensing that Jack hadn’t really come to full awareness. If he had there would be more tension starting to grip the big man.

  “God, but I feel like shit,” Jack muttered more to himself than Collin. “I can’t even remember…where…Collin?”

  “Yep.”

  Collin bobbed his head, wondering when Jack had gotten so old it took him so long to figure out what was going on. Still looking confuse
d, Jack shoved himself to his feet and started to step over the gate before freezing. In that second, Collin could see full awareness rush over his old friend like a bitter breeze.

  “What the hell happened to my truck?” Mouth hanging open, staring at the damage with his gaze hardening, Jack looked so damn funny it was almost all Collin could do to keep a straight face as Jack turned a murderous gleam on him. “Did you do this?”

  “Uh, no.” Collin might be guilty of a lot of things and capable of a lot more, but even Jack should know he’d never stoop to messing with a man’s truck. “That would be your date’s handiwork.”

  “My date?” At that Jack’s nose scrunched up as if the very idea was repugnant. “I didn’t—oh, crap.”

  “I don’t think she handles a stick that well.” Collin smirked as he gazed speculatively from the tailgate back to Jack’s glower.

  “Ha. Ha.” Jack shot him a dirty look for that attempt at a joke. “Aren’t you just a bucket of chuckles?”

  “Me? Nah.” Collin shook his head. “Just observant, and I have to tell you, man, your taste in women remains at the bottom of the barrel.”

  The words slipped out before Collin realized what kind of opening he’d just left for Jack. His old friend didn’t take the bait. Instead Jack did what Jack did best—took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and regrouped. When Jack’s gray eyes pinned Collin for a second time, they were clear and focused.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be back behind some desk?”

  “Got tired of sitting.” Collin shrugged. “Fattens the ass. I don’t know a lot of women who like fat asses, do you?”

  “Never bothered to ask, but I wouldn’t think a married man like you would be concerned with the ladies.”

  “I’m not exactly a married man anymore.” There was so much more to that story, but Collin kept it simple.