SWAT Ed: Fox & Bull (Nothing Special 8)

Until now.

And if this young stud was willing to give Fox even five minutes of his personal time, he wasn’t going to refuse the pleasure. Not anymore. The last job Fox had done had been a huge wake-up call. He’d helped save those hostages… and how had they thanked him? They’d questioned his motives for three hours, then suspended him. No matter how much he bled for this city, it was going to continue to take all he had until there was nothing left of him to give—to himself, or anybody else. The department’s therapist told him that enough times that he should’ve believed it by now.

Fox could hear Bull following him as he walked the almost three hundred feet from his house before he stopped and pointed at some flattened grass off the pathway. Bull frowned, then came and squatted in front of it, running his hand over the recently disturbed earth.

“I checked out here this morning… I don’t see how they could’ve ran all the way up my long driveway without me seeing ’em. I heard the window break, and then I was on my feet two seconds later.”

“That’s because they didn’t run that way. They took a shortcut.” Fox pulled out his small flashlight from his coat pocket and clicked it on. Bull followed where he shone the light into the eight-foot-tall dense bushes that lined Bull’s driveway and separated it from the road. Fox walked over and squeezed between the bushes, shoving a few broken branches aside. “See here? Looks like he shouldered past these, knocked your boards out here.”

“Goddamnit,” Bull snapped. He was too big to squeeze in there with Fox, but he was able to see where his fence was damaged.

“You can’t see it from where you’re standing, but there’s tire marks on the other side too.”

Bull pulled a walkie-talkie from his back pocket. “I’ll get this fence repaired ASAP.”

“No,” Fox countered, stepping out of the tall brush. “You said the vandalism has picked up and gotten more aggressive over time.”

Bull nodded stiffly.

“Then leave it as is, like you still haven’t discovered how they’re getting in. We’re gonna make ’em feel safe so they’ll come back.” Fox glanced up at his bedroom window, which gave him a damn good vantage point. “And when they do… I’ll be waiting on their asses.”

“Evening,” Bull said, coming through the kitchen. It’d been a long day with so many of his staff calling out for whatever reasons. His training sessions and chores seemed to take forever, but he was finally in his home, and he was starving. And buzzing with excitement. Bull glanced around the open kitchen and into the dining room, which had been almost completely set up for supper, but there was no Fox. A twinge of nervousness hit him when he thought maybe he’d had to leave for an emergency.

“I think he’s still napping.” Amelia brushed his shoulder when she walked past with a big bowl of mashed potatoes.

“Who?” He feigned stupid.

Amelia rolled her eyes. “You know full well who I’m talking about. Why don’t you go up there and tell him supper’s ready?”

Bull ignored Amelia and his father’s snickering behind his back as he left the room. He knew they both wanted to see him settled down, but Bull was only going to do it with the right man or not at all.

He tried not to make much noise as he crept down the hall towards Fox’s room. The door was cracked, but there was no light on inside. Bull used his knuckle to tap lightly on the wood before he pushed it the rest of the way open.

The bed was rumpled, and Bull stared at the lump under the covers, his mouth watering. Fox was buried under there, maybe half-naked, resting in his home. Bull’s steps were light, but he didn’t want to seem sneaky. He should say something, but his heart was racing so damn fast. Shit, what if he is naked under—

“You looking for something?”

Bull hollered out in surprise at Fox’s voice coming from the other side of the room. He was immediately pissed off, but not for yelping like a punk in a scary movie. He was mad that Fox had set a trap for him. He gritted his teeth to keep from cursing. “Why the hell are you standing over there like that?”

Fox eased out of the darkness, and Bull worked not to swallow his tongue. He’d changed from the clothes he’d arrived in and now wore a different, more worn pair of jeans and a gray, long-sleeve henley. He’d switched from his biker boots to a pair of charcoal-gray Timberlands that would surely get ruined out in the fields. He was sexy enough to have Bull hardening where he stood. Fox put his hands up as if he were apologetic, but his cocky smile said otherwise.