Joke’s on You by Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,11

bed like I should be.

After getting out and practically running up Booth’s front walk, I knocked quietly on his door and waited impatiently for him to answer.

I’m honestly not sure what I expected, but for him to answer the door in a pair of sweatpants and nothing else definitely wasn’t it.

At first, my eyes were drawn to the lower part of his belly where the waistband of his pants rode.

Low.

Oh, so low.

I could see dark hair that extended from his belly button all the way into his pants.

Then there were the deep muscled valleys that formed the V that rode down the length of his groin, also disappearing into his pants.

And the bulge of his pants? Yeah, we wouldn’t focus on that too hard.

Forcing myself to lift my eyes, I once again moved them past his lower abs, but stalled out at the large, black circular bruise that was right below his left ribcage.

I swallowed hard as I found another.

And another.

And another.

Seven in total.

All on his chest.

All forming bruises so big that they’d likely form into one large formation by tomorrow morning.

I blew out a shaky breath and finally lifted my eyes to his.

“You avoided answering my question,” I said softly. “So I had to come see for myself if what I was thinking was true.”

My eyes once again went to his bruises.

But there was one that was different than all the rest.

I reached out and barely grazed his skin with one finger.

“What happened to that one?” I asked.

That one just didn’t make sense in my head.

He backed up, turning to the side, and pulled a black object off of his mantle.

When he came back to the door, I saw a twisted piece of… stuff.

At first, it took me a few seconds to realize what it was.

Then it dawned on me.

I was looking at his phone that was also sporting a hole through it.

“What… how?” I asked in confusion.

“It was in my left front pocket on my vest,” he said softly.

Meaning, when Booth was shot eight times in the chest, one of those had taken out his phone before it’d buried itself in the Kevlar vest that had saved Booth’s life.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

I looked at the destroyed phone, then moved my eyes to Booth’s gaze, only to allow it to return to the phone.

“Booth, that could’ve been so bad,” I whispered.

His eyes met mine.

“I know.”

I blinked and looked away, taking a step back.

“I just had to know,” I said stiffly. “I felt like there was something…”

“Something that you needed to know?” he filled in the blank.

I jerked my head stiffly in the affirmative. “Yeah. Something that I had to know.” I swallowed. “Are you okay?”

He pressed his hand to his chest. “Sore.”

He gestured for me to follow him in, and I did.

When I got there, I closed the door behind me, only to turn around and see him shrugging a t-shirt on over his head.

A Kilgore SWAT one.

I swallowed hard.

I didn’t like the idea that he was hurting in any way.

More so, I didn’t like that I wanted to reach forward and yank his shirt up just to make sure.

“Where’s Asa?” I asked quietly.

“My dad and mom stopped by. He practically begged to go over there.” He sighed. “I’m just not as cool as my parents. Plus, after he got kicked off the bus…”

“He got kicked off the bus?” I squawked.

Booth’s amused eyes met mine, then he gestured for me to come farther into his house.

I held my breath as I took steps that would take me farther into Booth’s place than I’d ever been before.

Side note, I didn’t self-combust.

Though, it was a near thing.

Seeing his shoes discarded on the floor? Sexy.

Seeing a glass of half-finished beer on the kitchen table? Also sexy.

“Yeah,” he said as he walked into the kitchen.

Then there was the fact that his kitchen was sparkling clean. So, so sexy.

Even my kitchen wasn’t that clean.

And it was obvious that he did use it since there was a pot in the drying rack next to the sink, as well as a few spoons and forks in a coffee cup also next to the sink.

“Want some coffee?” he asked as he held out the half-filled coffee pot to me.

I licked my lips.

I really should say no.

I really, really should just turn around and leave right now.

I’d had a long ass day, and an even longer night.

This doing two jobs thing was absolutely killing me.

I mean, there wasn’t a person alive that could survive on the amount of