Chapter 10
*tries to do the speed limit.* All right, that’s boring AF . Time to skirt skirt.
— Gable’s secret thoughts
GABLE
The next morning at work, I was already fighting off a headache.
That , and I hated that I was about to go to my dad and beg for a few weeks off so I could go chase down a certain someone.
After hours of overthinking it, I made a few calls, pulled a few strings, and talked to my local representative to see if he could fast track my passport.
Ol ’ Louie had agreed, and by the sixth hour of the morning, I was driving to go pick it up.
That was why I was late for work.
I was back to working where I was needed.
And I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like where my dad wanted to put me.
With the passport burning a hole in my pocket, I headed into the station and went straight to my dad’s office.
I had to force myself to skip past his old office—when he’d held the assistant chief position—and into his new corner office that was upstairs and looking out over the entirety of the station.
If he turned around to the window outside, he could even see the communications building.
That was where Athena worked—when she was at fucking work—and I avoided it at all costs.
Knocking on his door, I tried not to wince at the look on his face.
“ You’re late.”
I winced anyway. “ I , uh, had some matters to attend to before coming to work. And to be honest, you sprung this on me last night after I already had these plans.”
He took his glasses off his face, the same glasses style that I used when the contacts decided to irritate my eyes, and placed them on the desk.
“ Have a seat,” he gestured toward the chair. “ Close the door.”
I really wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked me to close the door.
He expected a fight.
And when he said what he said next, I realized why he expected a fight.
“ I’m sorry, but you want me to what?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t heard my father right.
My father was the newest chief of police for Dallas Police Department .
Technically , in this moment, he wasn’t my father, but my boss.
“ The neighborhood watches,” he repeated himself. “ I want you to work with the leaders of twelve neighborhood watches.”
I blinked.
And blinked some more.
But nope, the expression on my father’s face didn’t change.
“ Why me?” I asked carefully, hoping not to piss him off when I was about to ask for a few days off.
“ Because you need to lay low, and this is a good way to do it,” he answered. “ You pissed on a hornet’s nest, Gable . I really need you to stay alive.”
He was right about that.
Every last member of the Aided Aimers was out for blood, and they had their sights set on me.
They hadn’t known that Tyrone and I were behind the arrests until Madman was brought in and let them know that a cop had been in their ranks.
They might be locked up right now, but they wouldn’t be locked up forever.
Right now, they were up for bond, and the only thing saving us from having them all back out on the street was that their bail was so high.
High enough that it’d take some serious cake for even one of them to be bonded out, let alone all of them.
Our new DA , the one who’d taken over after our old DA had let out a couple of criminals who’d then hit my sister-in-law with a car, was much better and stricter. He wasn’t going to be caught dead letting out known violent criminals.
Though Pepper , my sister-in-law, was doing much better than she had been a few months ago, she still spent every day in pain.
“ Okay , kid?” Dad asked, seeing the change overcome my face, I was sure.
We all adopted that look when we thought about how badly hurt Pepper had been.
I still remembered when that car had hit her. When she’d flown through the air. The sound of her body hitting the ground. The sickening thud of the car making contact with her body.
How my nephew, Forest , had cried out, and how my heart had physically ached at the sound.
I felt like I could still hear it in my nightmares.
I scratched my head. “ Okay .”
“ Good ,” he stood up and handed me a stack of papers. “ There’s a meeting in an hour in the conference room.”
Before I could ask him about the time off—something I was technically due—he was out the door and into another meeting in the conference room.
I went to follow, but then saw the mayor of Dallas sitting in the chair that Dad had just walked to.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I got up, sat in my dad’s chair, and wrote him a note.
I want a week off.
— Gable
I probably wouldn’t have put up such a fight had I known I would be working directly with a certain female I couldn’t get out of my head.
A female I hadn’t realized was home.
I narrowed my eyes at her as I walked into the room.
She glanced at me, then quickly glanced away, a pinched look crossing her face.
“ Ladies ,” I said to the room full of women. “ How can I help?”
The meeting took three hours.
Dealing with twelve—though technically only eleven truly participated—women who all had differing opinions was tough at any time.
But when it came to their homes and their families, they all wanted to be heard.
I wondered how Athena had gotten herself roped into this.
Her neighborhood—at least the one she was living at last I knew—wasn’t in an area that was on the neighborhood watch list Dad and a few others had created in order to help higher crime areas.
The one she was representing was one that I’d never known she had any connection to.
“ All right,” I said as I gathered up the papers with notes I’d taken. “ Our first order of business is to plan those National Night Out parties. Any and all police representation you want at these parties is granted by DPD .”
They all stood, some filtering out of the room, while others hung back and chatted.
Meanwhile , the one who was doing her best to escape without talking to me was one of the first out of the room.
I followed behind with a silent swiftness that had her thinking she was getting away, completely ignoring the rest of the women as I went.
Only when we were about to pass my brother Quaid’s , office, did I catch her arm and pull her into it with me. Closing the door, I whirled her around and pressed her against the door.
“ I’ve been waiting for you to come home for days,” I tried to say as calmly as possible. “ I’ve come by your brother’s house four and five times a day, and you haven’t been there.”
She was shaking her head before I could finish. “ I don’t live at my brother’s place, though. Why would I go there?”
She didn’t live at her brother’s place?
I frowned. “ What ?”
“ I live on Eleventh Street ,” she explained. “ And I just got home like eighteen hours ago. I wouldn’t even be here if Margerie wasn’t sick and asked me to cover for her.”
Eleventh Street .
Of all the fuckin’ streets she could’ve lived on, she had to choose the most dangerous in the damn city?
“ You live on Eleventh ?” I croaked. “ But your address is listed as the one you say is your brother’s.”
She shrugged. “ I like his address better. The voting is easier. My packages don’t get stolen off the front porch. The DMV is a freakin’ bitch, too. Getting anything changed over is near impossible.”
I couldn’t believe she’d just said that.
She hadn’t changed her address because she didn’t want to go to the DMV to do it?
I opened my mouth to scold her when I realized that the address being different might do her a favor in the long run.
“ Madman was arrested,” I said carefully.
She nodded. “ Maven told me. Garrett said that he might still be able to get out on bail, though.”
I tried to control my anger at the thought of her talking to Garrett and not me.
“ Why are you talking to my brother?” I asked carefully.
Very carefully.
“ Because he was at the shop when I stopped by last night on the way home,” she answered.
I forced myself to calm down.
My brother wouldn’t do that to me.
Especially when I was so fuckin’ open with him on my feelings for the woman standing in front of me, staring at me so defiantly.
“ Why didn’t you call?” I asked. “ Me .”
She shrugged. “ One would have to have a phone number to do that, Gable . Not to mention, you’re the one who made it loud and clear that you didn’t want to be around me.”
I most certainly had not.
“ I overreacted,” I said. “ That day we were doing that raid on the Aided Aimers clubhouse. I didn’t want you there. It would have been disastrous if a random member had shown up at the bar before he headed to the clubhouse, and I couldn’t have you anywhere near that bullshit again. They’re dangerous as hell, and I don’t want that filth touching you if I can help it.”
“ Oh ,” she said. “ Well …”
My phone rang in my pocket, and I made the mistake of answering it. Though I did put it on speaker.
“ Hello ?” I asked, sounding just as short as I felt.
I wanted to talk to the woman in front of me. Not the one who’d called me on the phone.
“ Hey ,” I said to Callena . “ Now’s not a good time.”
“ O -oh,” Callena , my FBI contact who didn’t quite know that we had a professional relationship, and not a personal relationship, stuttered. “ Well , I’m calling because I wanted to see if you had time to meet up for dinner tonight? To , uh, discuss the case?”
Athena stiffened and twisted, reaching for the door handle.
I caught her before she could get her hand on the knob, pressing her up against the door with my body.
Fuck , but she was in another damn dress.
Though this one was longer, all the way down to her ankles.
It was flowy, while also covering nearly everything.
The only real skin I saw were her toes peeking out of the overflowing material at her feet, her arms from about elbow down, and the V of her chest where her dress plunged down into her cleavage.
I’d been enraptured with it since I’d seen her wearing it a few hours ago.
I tried really hard not to inspect how well the material fit against her skin.
If she turned just right, would I see a glimpse of her nipple?
I …
“ Are you there?” Callena asked.
Callena was a great person.
I liked her a lot.
Had I met her a few years ago, I might’ve gone for it with her.
But I hadn’t met her a few years ago.
I’d met her six months ago.
And that was after I’d met Athena .
Athena , who was angry and spitting mad, but still trying to keep quiet enough that Callena didn’t hear her.
“ Yes ,” I said as I placed my phone down on the bookshelf next to Quaid’s door.
I accidentally knocked over a photo of him and his wife and couldn’t have cared less.
Maybe I’d fix it on the way out.
“ Okay , great!” Callena chirped. “ Where would you like to meet?”
“ Oh ,” I paused as I ran one blunt finger down the length of the V along Athena’s chest. “ I was agreeing that I could hear you. Not that I’d like to meet. I’m busy today, Callena . But thank you for thinking of me. You should ask Tyrone . I know he’d love to go.”
“ Oh ,” she sounded distant, but Athena whirled around, leaned forward, and bit me on the collarbone.
I hissed in a breath, loving the way she’d just done that.
I loved even more that when she pulled back, there was more than just anger in her eyes.
“ I gotta go, Callena ,” I said. “ Bye .”
I didn’t bother hanging up.
Hopefully she did that on her own, because I seemed to have my hands full when Athena tried to twist out of my hold and once again reached for the door.
“ Let me talk to you,” I urged. “ I just want to talk.”
Okay , I wanted to do more than talk, but I wasn’t going to fuck this up by doing things she wasn’t willing to have done to her.
But she shocked the hell out of me by reaching for my shirttails and yanking it over my head.
I was so stunned by the act that I didn’t think to protest the move at all.
She tossed the shirt down on the floor, then started to hike up her dress.
“ What are you doing?” I asked, watching her.
She brought the fabric to her hips then hooked her fingers in her panties and pushed them to the floor.
I had the barest of glimpses of her pussy—she had hair covering her, but just a smattering—before the fabric dropped back down to her feet.
“ Let’s just be honest with ourselves, Gable Carter .” She rolled her eyes and reached for me, her hand going to my belt. “ I’ve been staring at you for the last few hours, and you piss me off. Not a good combination.”
I didn’t bother to argue with her.
I watched as she tugged my belt open, reached for my jeans, and tugged those wide, too.
My cock was so hard that I could barely think as her knuckles brushed past it.
“ This time, though…” She reached into her purse and pulled out a condom. “ We do this the correct way.”
My eyes went to the condom she had in her hand between her thumb and forefinger, then smirked.
“ If you want to be in charge,” I teased as I locked the door behind me, then tugged the rolling chair from behind Quaid’s desk to position it right behind the door.
“ This time, I definitely want to be in charge.” She narrowed her eyes, as if I was questioning her bravery.
I sat in the chair, then waited for her next move.
I loved seeing her like this, so I didn’t help her at all when she warred with herself.
“ You don’t think anyone will see into these windows, right?” she asked as she reached for my jeans again.
I hefted my hips up off the chair and grinned as she struggled to get the jeans down over my ass.
I helped her out because her glare was so damn cute, and sat back down, bare ass on leather.
She dropped down to her knees between my thighs, and I cursed.
“ What are you doing?” I whispered.
“ The windows?” she pushed.
“ We’re at the corner office that leads outside. And the only people who come down this hallway are important people. And all of them were in their offices last time I checked,” I said. “ Plus , you’d have to be looking to see.”
And most people didn’t actively look with the lights off.
“ Good ,” she said as she reached for my cock.
The moment her tiny little hand closed around me, I had to fight back the urge to come.
Yes , I had that little control when it came to Athena Murphy .
My cock looked obscene against her hand.
She was all soft and feminine with her perfectly painted nails and soft, feminine hands, and my cock looked all mottled and angry. Her fingernails were a soft lavender, and they stood out starkly against the ruddy red of my cock head.
“ Taste me,” I pleaded.
She scoffed. “ As if I wasn’t going to do that.”
Then she bent forward and swiped her tongue across my tip like one did when licking a lollipop.
My entire body jerked with just the single touch.
“ Fuck ,” I growled.
She looked up at me, her sheet of thick, black hair narrowing her vision.
I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for that thick hair and fisting it in my hand.
It was so fucking soft.
I wanted to see it spread over my chest as she slept on me.
She took another swipe, and I forgot all about sleeping.
All I could focus on was how worked up she got me with just a few stray licks.
“ More ,” I pleaded.
She ignored me and squeezed my cock.
“ I know that I want to come, too,” she said. “ And the way you’re acting makes me think maybe you don’t have the control needed for me to keep going.”
Well , she had me there.
I didn’t disagree with her, so she took that as acceptance and rolled the condom onto my cock.
I didn’t know that lavender-colored nails against my cock as she wrapped me up in a rubber was going to be one of my favorite sexual situations I’d ever been in, but there I was, really getting into it.
She wasn’t good at it, either.
Which reminded me that she was very, very new to this.
Had she ever had someone in her mouth?
I knew that I’d been the first one in her pussy.
I also knew by the way she struggled to get the rubber rolled down to my base that she’d likely never done anything with a condom, either.
Which made sense if she was a virgin.
“ Grab it about halfway down,” I instructed. “ Then roll it down from there.”
She did, this time managing to get it into place.
It was only slightly lopsided, but neither my dick nor my brain cared.
All it wanted was her in my lap, bouncing on my cock like she was trying to revive it.
“ Hop up here, pretty girl,” I urged.
She did, moving so her knees were on either side of my thighs.
Remind me later to thank Ellodie for getting Quaid the big and tall chair he said he didn’t need last Christmas .
She pushed herself up high on her knees, then reached for my cock.
I helped her by grasping the base and angling my dick so that she could sit on it, which she did seconds later.
I expected it to take a while to get me inside of her, but apparently she was just as worked up as I was, because she slid halfway down before she had to rise up and come down a second time.
It took three solid tries before she was taking all of me, and by the time she came to a halt with her sweet ass on my thighs, both of us were panting.
I couldn’t help but look down at the way she was taking me.
The only light in the room was what streamed in through the windows on either side of the office door, giving me a view, but only a shadowed one.
I was desperate for a better look, but I didn’t dare turn on the light.
I liked my job and wanted to keep it.
But if I had to go down for an offense, fucking Athena Murphy just might be worth it.
A gasping breath had my gaze jerking up to meet hers.
“ What is it?” I reached up, curling my hand around her throat.
“ You ,” she breathed. “ You fill me so full. Is that normal?”
“ It’s going to be normal for you until I’m fuckin’ dead,” I shot back.
She bit her lip and slowly started to undulate her hips, not exactly lifting up, but still swirling herself enough that my cock was reacting.
I caught both hips, my calluses snagging on the soft fabric of her dress, and helped her.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she whispered, “ God yes.”
“ That’s right, baby.” I watched her breathing pick up. “ You can take me so good, can’t you?”
She really could.
No woman had ever taken me as well before.
“ Well ,” she murmured. “ I can take you so well.”
I loved her fire.
I loved her brains.
I loved her…
Fuck .
I loved her.
I forced myself to quit on that thought.
Loving her? It was way too soon to admit that to myself. She was just a woman I was really, really in to.
She was…
Fuck , she was clenching down on my cock, making my eyes cross.
“ I need to lift…” she breathed.
I helped her do that, my head falling back onto the chair as I looked at the ceiling and tried to hang on.
Even with the damn condom covering my cock, she felt too good.
Too hot.
Too wet.
Too mine.
“ Goddamn , baby,” I breathed. “ You’re so wet and hot for me. And you stretch so well around me, I feel like you were made just for me.”
“ Gable ,” her voice quivered. “ I think I’m going to…”
Voices sounded from outside.
Laughter .
Then a bunch of bodies.
SWAT team was back.
They always used that hallway.
But I couldn’t find it in myself to care.
I was too focused on how she was making me feel.
I cupped her breasts, wishing they weren’t plastered so successfully to her body with her stupid tight dress.
She came, falling so hard and fast that she dragged me right along with her.
I felt my balls draw up tight, and before I could stop myself, I let out a short bellow.
She slapped her hand over my mouth, and I groaned into her palm.
“ Shh ,” she gasped. “ We have to be quiet.”
I couldn’t see straight, yet she wanted me to be quiet?
That was cute.
Sadly , reality set in when I heard the talking from the other side of the door.
My brothers this time.
“ Why is my door closed?” I heard Quaid ask.
“ Locked , too,” another one of my brothers confirmed.
Athena hastily got off my lap and readjusted herself.
I scooped up her panties and tucked them into my pocket.
Next to go was the condom, which I pulled off and tied in a knot, then shoved it in my other pocket.
No way was I using Quaid’s trashcan.
He might very well murder me.
I’d had sex in his car one time when I was in high school, and had accidentally left the wrapper in there, and he’d used my face as a punching bag for a total of two minutes before Mom had stopped him.
It’d been worth it, though.
And this time would be, too.
I gave her a once over to make sure that she was presentable, and other than the flushed look on her face, she looked edible.
Perfectly fucked.
I was never going to hear the end of this.
But there was something about her, something I just couldn’t resist.
Something that made me make terrible decisions, like fucking her in public.
I pulled her into my arms and said, “ My brothers are out there.”
She was frantically nodding her head.
“ It’ll be okay,” I promised.
She bit her lip and didn’t say anything.
I rolled the chair back to where it belonged, then drew in a deep breath before heading for the door.
I unlocked it, then pulled it open, to find all of them staring at me.
And I do mean all.
Even Quincy and Auden , who no longer worked at DPD , were there.
At least my parents weren’t with them.
“ I know you didn’t just defile my office,” Quaid snarled.
I rolled my eyes. “ Payback from when you and Ellodie decided to fuck on my bed last month.”
And they had, too.
He hadn’t been the least bit apologetic about it, either.
“ That was an accident,” Quaid declared.
There was a snort of laughter, followed by outright guffaws.
“ You accidentally fell into Ellodie’s vagina on his bed?” Quinn asked. “ Sure you did. Kind of like you accidentally fell into her vagina on my brand new pool float.”
“ Gross ,” Garrett said. “ But since y’all are here, do you want to go to lunch?”