Some Kind of Hero (Troubleshooters #17)

He laughed. “My bad. I just thought…But you’re keeping it together really well.” He paused. “Unless you were just kidding about the diving under the table, and the earthquake helmet?”

She shook her head. “Inside, I’m a mess. Outside, I’m Mom. Last thing I ever want to do is scare the boys, or somehow transfer my fears to them. Of course, they’re older now. Tevin’s definitely aware that earthquakes aren’t my favorite thing. That’s why he was texting me with all the science.”

As she spoke, Pete tried to listen, but that I’m Mom reverberated in his head, and all he could think was that the world had changed enormously from the days when moms went to bed with rollers in their hair and mud masks on their faces. And Shayla may have been focused on being Tevin and Frank’s mom, but she was also a tremendously beautiful, sensual, incredibly strong, sexy woman, and he wanted to…

He wanted…

She’d stopped talking and he looked up and into her eyes, suddenly aware that he’d been staring at her mouth. Her mouth, and the soft curves of her body beneath that shirt that was so thin, he could see right through it.

She was aware, too, of the direction his thoughts had turned, but she didn’t back away. She didn’t say a word. She just sat there, looking back at him.

She wanted, too.

He waited a moment, just looking into her eyes, because God, he didn’t want to get this wrong. But she just held his gaze—until she didn’t. Her eyes slipped down—just for a fraction of a second—to his mouth.

So he leaned in, slowly, and even reached to touch her face and gently pull her chin up and…

He kissed her.

As far as kisses went, it was G-rated. His lips against the sweet softness of hers. No tongues, no way. He wanted to—Jesus, his heart was pounding—but he didn’t.

He just pulled back to look into her eyes again, and time seemed to slow and not-quite stop, but change and expand. He’d experienced something similar a few times, while out on ops with the teams. There was a name for it, that sense of being present and acutely, intensely aware: kairos. The word also meant opportunity, and he was not a fool, so he slowly leaned in and when, once more, she didn’t pull away, he kissed her again.

This time, she opened her lips to him. This time, she leaned in, too, and he took that as an invitation to put his arms around her, even as she slipped her arms up and around his neck and her tongue into his mouth.

And their G rating was instantly revoked as he tried to devour her in return, because the way she was suddenly hungrily kissing him completely ignited the fire in his veins that he’d been trying to control.

Pete pulled her up and onto his lap even as she tried to move closer, and she straddled him as he wrapped himself more tightly around her. Her arms and shoulders and back were cold, but the softness between her legs was hot against him. Jesus, her fingers were back in his hair as she kissed him and kissed him, and Christ, he was going to come, her breasts soft against his chest, his body straining and sliding against hers through their thin layers of clothes.

He needed to be inside of her. He needed a condom, and he needed it now.

He started to pull back to tell her that—that he was going to pick her up and carry her inside. But as he moved his hands down her back to the incredible softness of her ass, the added pressure pushed her even more tightly against him, and God, God, God, the way that felt both against his dick, and in the palms of his hands…So instead he kissed her harder, deeper, longer as she rubbed herself against him, and then his fingers slipped beneath the thin fabric of her shorts, and he found her—hot and soft and wet.

He pushed one finger, and then two, just a little bit inside of her, and she came almost instantly, with a moan, right there in his hands, pressed up against him, and it was such an incredible, mind-blowing, total turn-on that he came, too.



The earth was shaking again and Shayla lifted her head from Peter’s shoulder.

“Aftershock,” he murmured. “Just a little one. We’re okay.”

Aftershock. Was that what this was?

Shay was still clinging to him, her legs still tight around his waist, the tips of his fingers still inside of her as he smiled into her eyes.

“That was a first for me,” he said.

So okay, they were going to have a conversation right now. Like this. Before moving and adjusting and doing all those awkward post-orgasm things. She had to clear her throat to get her voice to work. “Sex in the backyard?” she asked.

“Well, that, too,” he said. “Sex—or not quite sex—with our clothes still on.”

“It’s called dry humping, and you’ve seriously never…?”

“Nope. In high school I was pretty single-mindedly in love with Lisa. And back then, she wasn’t having sex with me.”

That’s right, he’d told her they hadn’t hooked up until college, in the relative comfort of their dorm rooms.

“For the record, that name for it is deceptive. I’m pretty sure it can’t be called dry humping at this point,” he said. “At least not on my end.”

Shayla laughed—which caused her body to tighten around his fingers and push him a little more deeply inside of her. She drew in a sharp breath, and their gazes met and locked. His eyes were hot.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. “I have a sudden burning desire for us to achieve a sexual hat trick. I’m thinking, I’ll make you come with my mouth while my gentlemen’s accessories catch up, and then, a little later, we can finish with good old-fashioned full penetration.”

Sweet God, yes please. But then Shay said, “Gentlemen’s accessories?”

“Isn’t that what you called it? It’s a nice euphemism, although I wasn’t in a position to discuss it at the time.”

Dear God, this man actually listened to the words that came out of her mouth—even after getting whacked in the balls and hit with a bucket of shit. So she told him, “Tevin and I were out shopping when he was just learning to read, and there was a sign—I think it was in Macy’s—and he thought the accessories were specific to the male anatomy, although that puzzled him, because aside from a jockstrap, he wasn’t sure what that might be. For a while, we called athletic supporters gentlemen’s accessories, and somehow it transitioned to become the full euphemism.”

He nodded, then leaned in and kissed her, and it was a replay of their first kiss—tender and gentle—and God, his lips were so soft and warm. “Let’s go inside,” he breathed against her mouth, before kissing her again—really kissing her now.

He tasted as delicious as he smelled—Navy SEAL–flavored, had to be—and she lost herself in the sweetness of his mouth, the feel of his hair between her fingers, the heat of his chest against hers.

But then she felt him start to shift, as if he was going to just stand up and carry her inside, so she made herself stop kissing him. “Wait.”

He waited, but the heat in his eyes had ramped up in its intensity.