Some Kind of Hero (Troubleshooters #17)

“Okay,” he said. “It makes sense that as long as he doesn’t drive toward her like a linebacker, she won’t get hurt when she hits the wall. And I see how these mechanics work.” He shifted against her. “But he’s also gotta not drop her while they’re having sex.”

“I think that’s what makes it extra hot,” she said. Compared to him, she sounded embarrassingly out of breath, considering she was the one being held, not doing the holding. “The idea that he’s giving her this—” she now moved against him “—while he’s doing this…” She ran her hands down his shoulders and arms and chest, where he was very definitely getting a workout.

“This is extra hot?” Peter asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

He smiled and shifted all of her weight into one arm—what…? That was crazy that he could do that. But then he used his free hand to pull a condom from his pocket. “And I hear on good authority that this makes it even hotter.”

Oh, thank God. Shay laughed. “My panties just burst into flame.”

Peter laughed, too, but then he frowned. “Maybe this is where we bust the myth, because if I’m supposed to put this on with one hand, while kissing you…?”

“Of course not,” she said. “You put me down—just for a few seconds, while we…”

He did and she shucked off her shorts and her panties while he unfastened his shorts and tore open the condom wrapper. As he covered himself, Shay glanced toward the open garage bay door, but the pile of boxes shielded them completely from the street. In fact, someone could stand right in the driveway, and not know they were back here. It was really not that different from having sex in a tent.

Peter was as perceptive as always. “Want me to close that?”

“No.” What was her line? She smiled and said, “Shut up and kiss me.”



Shay was right.

This was fucking hot.

Pete held her, her back against that door as he pushed himself inside of her.

They both had their shirts on and she was still wearing her sneakers, but even that was weirdly hot, too. And the garage door being open added something dangerously sexy as well.

This kind of sex not only put Shayla completely into Pete’s hands, but also completely at his mercy. He alone controlled how slow or fast they moved—she had little to no traction, save for her ability to pull him more deeply inside of her by applying pressure around his butt with her legs. But even then, it took almost no effort for him to resist her.

Unlike Jack from her book, Pete took his time. Maybe he was showing off—look at how long I can hold you like this. But Jesus, he loved the way it felt to surround himself completely with her softness and heat, and then to pull himself almost entirely free and then do it again and again and again, while he gazed into her eyes.

The look on her face…it was killing him. Both her smile and her eyes were dreamy and satisfied—as if he didn’t even need to make her come to bring her unbelievable pleasure. And yeah, that was one page they absolutely were both on together. If he could just spend the entire rest of his life right here, doing this, feeling this…It would be more than enough.

But then she came—and proved him wrong yet again, because Jesus, making Shayla come like this was his new favorite thing in the world. And for those endlessly long seconds, as she unraveled in front of him and around him, it didn’t matter what they called their relationship. This connection, these feelings, this moment they were sharing—it was real. It was truth.

It was there, solid, beneath whatever name they gave it.

And Pete came, too.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


Fiona hadn’t lied about where she’d hidden the key to her mother’s house. It was exactly where she’d told Maddie she’d left it—buried in a bright blue flowerpot that sat out on the back patio, by the pool.

After their conversation with Mrs. Clark, Maddie and Dingo had sat in his car, parked just down the street, prepared to wait for however many hours it took for her to leave her house.

They hadn’t been there long when Maddie’s phone vibrated and she saw that she’d gotten a text from “Dad’s” girlfriend, Shayla. She’d sent another email with another attached installment of the story about Lisa and Peter.

Maddie had just finished reading it aloud—the graduation party and her dad being the first boy ever to say no, which must’ve freaked Lisa out—when the garage door opened, and Mrs. Clark pulled out and drove away.

Since they had no idea how long Fiona’s mother would be gone, Maddie had put her phone back in her pocket as she followed Dingo around to the back of the house. She didn’t even attempt to discuss it with Dingo, or even reply in any way to Shayla’s text as he dug through the dirt for the key. There’d be time for that later. Assuming Nelson’s men didn’t catch them and kill them first.

Maddie watched as Dingo used the pool water to rinse off both the key and his hands, and then unlocked that back door.

It led into a mudroom that was nearly as big as the studio apartment she’d shared with Lisa in Palm Springs. That opened into a kitchen the size of a ballroom. God, Lisa would’ve loved cooking in here.

“Found the stairs going up,” Dingo called—he hadn’t stopped to gape at the granite countertops and real wood cabinets and center island with its own little sink.

Maddie followed the sound of his voice over to a set of plushly carpeted stairs. Together, they went up.

“Find the master, then look for the bedroom farthest from it,” Ding said, and sure enough, there was Fiona’s bedroom at the end of the hall.

“Holy shite,” he said, echoing what Maddie was thinking.

The room was decorated in girly hues of pink and lacy whites—not only the curtains and bedspread, but the furniture was painted in those colors, too. It was a generic decor that held not an ounce of Fee’s own personality. It was like someone had come in and vacuumed every little last ounce of the girl out of the pink carpeting. It made Maddie appreciate the neutral tones of the bedroom furniture that “Dad” had gotten for her, instead of pretending that he magically knew what she liked and…

Huh.

The bookshelf beneath the window was Maddie’s destination, and that was pure Fee. It was filled mainly with DVDs instead of books—mostly horror movies and inane romcoms with an entire shelf dedicated to ancient TV shows. Mr. Magoo and Mr. Ed. My Favorite Martian and Petticoat Junction. Gilligan’s Island and Lost in Space.

In the midst of it all, there were only two books. Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. Neither of which Fiona had probably ever read.

Maddie reached for Anne because it was hardcover, and flipped it open.

Nothing. She turned it upside down and shook, but nothing fluttered from its pages.

She tossed it onto the floor and pulled out Little Women.

And there it was. The pages had been carefully cut out from the center, leaving a storage area in which Fiona had put the roll of bills.

Maddie’s heart leapt, but her elation didn’t last long, because there was no way that this was ten thousand dollars. At the most, it was half. Probably less.

Dingo was thinking the same thing. “Better’n nothing,” he said. “Take it, and let’s go.”

Whrrrrrrrr!

Shit, that was the sound of the garage door going up.