he was there.
I was already on the downhill slide when he moved forward to help, his hands going to my hips to help me down. And, deliciously, I slid down every hard inch of his body until his hands held me aloft about a couple of inches off the ground.
I was pinned between his hard body and his truck, and I couldn’t remember how to breathe. Let alone think.
He stayed like that for so long, his hands clenched on my hips, that I forgot where we were.
Didn’t think to do anything but attempt to breathe.
His hands at my hips felt like a brand where he was touching bare skin, and when he finally took a step away, putting me down onto the asphalt, I wanted to scream.
I wasn’t sure why I’d expected a kiss… but I’d wanted one.
Badly.
Hayes made me feel like a freakin’ teenager. All the butterflies that were swarming underneath my skin felt like I was high on something that only he could give me.
I’d had boyfriends before.
Ryan my most recent—his freakin’ brother that had a great body—but Hayes? Well, Ryan wasn’t even in Hayes’ league.
It felt like something I never should have touched. Mostly because the further he stepped away, and the more distance he put between us, the more I wanted to bring him back into my hold.
Hayes glanced over my head through his truck window and he sighed, pulling back even more until we weren’t touching at all.
My shirt was hiked up around my belly, and I slowly tugged it back into place.
The motion caught his attention, and his eyes lingered there on where my bare skin once was.
“Yo, fucker. You comin’?”
I licked my lips and glanced through the truck’s window, seeing one of the members that I didn’t know all that well. Nathan Cox.
He’d also been a professional baseball player, which was really the only reason that I knew him at all.
Ryan had admired him, and we’d always watched the games that Nathan had played in.
“Yeah,” Hayes said, reaching for my hand. “We’re coming.”
Nathan had seen me standing there, of course, but he’d studiously ignored me until Hayes closed the door and I was revealed.
I blinked at him, grinning when I saw what he was wearing.
Swim trunks.
Why was he in swim trunks?
My confusion must’ve shown on my face because he grinned.
“Spilled coffee on my pants on the way here. Changed in the truck,” he said. “This was all I had.”
I snickered, loving the bright pink floral design.
“They’re cute,” I said.
Someone caught his attention from across the parking lot, and Nathan called out, catching his attention, too.
Sammy, aka Samuel Adams Spurlock.
“Hey, thought you weren’t coming,” Sammy said as he caught up to us. I looked over to where Sammy was looking to see him eyeing me speculatively. “What are you doing here?”
I opened my mouth to tell him who I’d come with when Hayes said, “None of your fuckin’ business.”
My mouth fell open.
“Hayes,” I reprimanded. “What the hell?”
Sammy and Nathan burst out laughing.
“Like that, is it?” Sammy’s eyes returned to mine. “He’s a good fit for you, girl.”
I rolled my eyes and went to reach for the door handle, but Hayes pulled me back and Sammy knocked my hand away.
I sighed. “Y’all are so archaic.”
“Manly,” Nathan said. “I think you meant to say ‘manly.’”
“Since when do you have a problem with a man opening the door for you?” Sammy asked, looking down at me curiously.
I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t,” I said. “I just think it’s funny that I reached for it and Hayes pulled me back while you knocked my hand out of the way.”
“Oh,” he said. “Good. I’d hate to dislike you.”
I snorted.
“You couldn’t dislike me if you tried,” I countered.
That was true.
All of us SWAT kids grew up together. The kids of Luke, Nico, Michael, Foster, Miller, Bennett, James, John and my father were more like siblings at times than we were friends.
“I feel like I’m not even in the same circle that y’all are in sometimes,” Nathan said as he walked up to the hostess stand, hands in his swim trunks pockets. “Like y’all talk on this level that the rest of us can’t even get to.”
“Agreed,” Hayes said. “When they’re working together during