Chapter 16
Khaki leaned back against the picnic table with Mac and her photographer from the newspaper, Zak Gibson, dining on Becker’s incredible barbecue ribs and smoky bacon-stuffed burgers while watching the guys play volleyball in the big sand court that dominated the area behind the training-slash-maintenance building.
Mac sighed. “I never get tired of watching sweaty, muscular men playing around in the sand.”
Khaki couldn’t agree more. She’d played a few games but decided it was much more fun to watch sixteen shirtless men run around in the sand as they spiked the ball than it was to participate. Jeremy’s sniper attack had left Xander with some seriously spectacular scars across his chest, something all the guys were quick to point out. Khaki had never thought much about the sex appeal of scars, but on Xander, they looked good.
“Should you be saying that out loud?” Zak asked in between bites of food. “Seeing as you’re engaged to be married.”
Mac laughed. “Probably not. But it’s not my fault that I have a thing for sweaty, muscular men. It’s a weakness we women have to deal with.”
Khaki couldn’t help laughing. She was insanely in love with Xander, but it was hard not looking at all that hunkiness running around out there.
Even Tuffie, the pit bull mix they’d saved from the junkyard, was sitting there watching with her tongue out and a smile on her face—when she wasn’t begging Becker for more food. Khaki couldn’t blame Tuffie. Becker knew how to work the grill. His burgers were to die for, and he looked damn good wearing nothing but cargo shorts and an apron.
The dog still limped a little if she ran around too much, but she was doing well, and the vet was sure the dog would make a complete recovery. After all the work Alex and Trey had put into making sure the dog survived, it was a foregone conclusion that she’d come to live with the SWAT team. Tuffie spent her days at the compound, and each night, a different member of the team took her home. There was supposed to be a duty roster, but most nights she ended up going with Alex or Jayden, who had really bonded with Tuffie during her rehab.
Tuffie wasn’t the only one getting along well. It had been about a month since all the craziness with Jeremy, and the rift between Sergeant Dixon and Xander had been pretty much repaired. Things had been a little tense between them for the first week or two, but after she and Xander ran a few incidents together, Dixon finally realized everything was going to work out. Xander still had a protective streak that Khaki had to constantly keep in check, but they made it work. The alternative wasn’t something either of them wanted to think about.
Deputy Chief Mason showed up as the game was winding down. While the rest of the guys grabbed food, Dixon went over to talk to him.
Khaki forced herself not to eavesdrop. She’d been shocked when Mason hadn’t called her and Xander in to give their statements. But the deputy chief never said a word to them. She wondered if he was one of those hide-your-head-in-the-sand types, but it didn’t fit. The way he looked at them made her think he knew something was going on. He just never asked.
Mason’s lack of apparent concern with the details of the case could have stemmed from the fact that the media had made Jeremy Engler out to be as nutty as a fruitcake. The ex-cop, who’d been dropped from the Lakefront PD like a hot potato, had carried on about the Dallas SWAT team being full of monsters the whole time he was in the local lockup. He’d even tried to bring it up during his arraignment, which had gotten him a seventy-two-hour visit to a mental facility for a psych evaluation. The media assumed the man was a stalker-turned-killer who was working an insanity defense. Regardless, no one paid attention to a single word he said.
As Xander came over to join her, Khaki couldn’t help but listen in a little to Dixon’s conversation. Mason wasn’t talking about what had happened at the junkyard at all. Instead, he was saying something about crime picking up in the city thanks to the power vacuum being left behind after the death of the crime boss Walter Hardy. Mason predicted that crime would only get worse as other power players moved in and tried to take control.
Khaki was still considering what that would mean for the SWAT team when Mason changed the subject.
“You’ve done a good job bringing Blake in,” Mason said to Gage. “She fits in with the rest of your team perfectly.”
Xander leaned in close to her ear, whispering in a voice so low no one but she could hear it. “Wonder if Mason realizes exactly how perfectly you and I fit together?”
She laughed. “Maybe we should take a picture of that position we tried out the night before last so he can see how perfectly we fit. Well, how perfectly you fit at least.”
Xander’s eyes flared. His arousal teased her senses, making heat pool between her thighs. They’d been spending a lot of time together since they’d been outed, but all it took was one look from him and it was like the first time all over again—pure and immediate animal attraction.
“You are so bad,” he whispered, sitting back.
For obvious reasons, they refrained from any PDA while on duty, but they were also careful to keep their hormones in check around the rest of the team. The guys were fine with the fact that she and Xander were a couple outside the job, and they claimed they barely noticed when she became aroused. Still, it was embarrassing to think of the whole team knowing about it every time she got all hot and bothered. But it was tough when almost anything about your man could set you off.
She sighed and took a deep breath, telling herself that all she really needed was a good dose of Xander’s scent to make her happy. Well, maybe not all, but it would hold her over.
Xander wasn’t dealing quite as well. There was still a glint in his eyes and while his yummy I-need-you-now scent was less intense than it had been, it still lingered in the air.
“Calm down, big boy,” she told him softly. “You’re just going to have to wait until later.”
“Speaking of making me wait, where were you last night? I know you went out shopping with Mac, but I thought you’d come by after.”
She smiled. “Things with Mac ran late. We stopped at Tiny’s place, and his wife spent four hours finishing my tat. I figured you’d be asleep by then and didn’t want to wake you up.”
Xander’s eyes flared. “It’s done? Show me.”
Khaki laughed at his eagerness. She’d gotten the outlining portion done last week, but had kept the work covered with a gauze bandage. She didn’t want to spoil the big reveal when she finally showed him the ferocious, but still very feminine, wolf’s head positioned perfectly in the middle of her lower back. She had no doubt it was going to drive Xander crazy, in a good way.
She was about to answer when she realized that the entire SWAT had stopped what they were doing to look at her. Sheesh, talk about pressure.
She looked at Xander. “Should I show everyone at the same time, or do you want to see it first?” The guys didn’t even wait for Xander to answer. They all jogged over and crowded around her.
Xander’s mouth edged up. “While the idea of a private showing is definitely intriguing, I think that in this case, everyone deserves to see it. We’re a pack, after all.”
She smiled coyly at the guys as she turned around and pulled up her shirt, showing off the tattoo on her lower back. They “oohed” and “ahhed” as soon as they saw it.
“That looks outstanding,” Xander said, admiration in his voice as he lightly ran his finger over the tattoo.
The wolf head was a lot like the ones the guys had on their chests, but she’d had a few little additions to make it unique, and since she was the only female werewolf around, she figured that was okay.
“Um…exactly how far down does the wolf’s ruff go?” Becker asked curiously. “Your shorts block the view.”
She dropped her shirt and turned to pin him with a stern look. “Trust me, Becker, you are never going to know how far it goes.”
Becker groaned in disappointment, but before Khaki could say anything else, the other guys began ribbing him about not having the imagination to even know what she was teasing him about.
“So how far does the ruff go?” Xander asked in a seriously sexy voice after the rest of the team went off to play another game of volleyball.
She smiled. “You’ll just have to wait until we go home. Then you can put me in all kinds of interesting positions so you can find out for yourself.”
The growl that vibrated from Xander’s throat was music to her ears—and other parts farther south. Taking her hand, he dragged her toward the parking lot.
“Sorry we have to blow off the cookout,” he said in a voice Khaki knew the other werewolves could easily hear. “But something suddenly popped up.”
The guys laughed.
“How about you take a photo of the whole tattoo for us?” Becker asked as Xander opened the door of his truck and helped her in. “You need to throw us a bone every once in a while, at least until the rest of us find The One.”
“Don’t worry, Becker.” Khaki grinned. “I’m sure your girl is out there somewhere. You just need to be ready when you find her.”
Whatever Becker might have replied was cut off as Xander cranked his truck and sped out of the parking lot. Khaki scooted across the bench seat and snuggled close to him.
“You really think there’s someone out there for each of the guys?” Xander asked as they headed for his place. “Even Becker?”
“I hope so,” she murmured. “I’d hate to think that we and Sergeant Dixon might be the only members of the Pack lucky enough to find our Ones.”
Xander didn’t say anything to that, and when she looked at him, he was regarding her seriously.
“What?” she said.
“We really are lucky, aren’t we?” he said. “Finding each other like we did?”
Khaki put her head back on his shoulder with a smile. “Yeah, we really are.”
She’d had to go through a lot of ups and downs to get to this really good place. But the journey had definitely been worth it.
Order Paige Tyler's next book
in the SWAT series
In the Company of Wolves
On sale December 2015