I would’ve been advising her, if she were my patient, to not do dangerous things like descend a ladder from twenty feet above while she was pregnant.
Pregnancy did weird things to your balance, and most women didn’t think their balance was altered until they fell or did something bad to themselves.
“It’s okay,” I said, waving my hand in the air as if to clear it. “Benny here protected me.”
“Benny? You call him Benny? He lets you call him Benny?” The woman asked with a smile in her voice.
I raised my eyebrows. “Let? The man has no control over me.”
The woman laughed.
“Oh, I think I’m gonna like you,” she breathed, latching onto my hand and pulling me along in her wake.
She was surprisingly strong for her small stature, although she was still taller than my five foot two.
“Where are you taking me?” I whispered, looking over my shoulder to see Bennett, Michael, and the red headed man talking.
Bennett’s eyes were on me, watching as the oriental woman stole me away, and not caring in the least.
“I’m taking you to meet the rest of the crew. We’re all up front. The rest of the guys are in the back room moving some big…thing that I don’t know what it’s called, around. We’re playing on the stripper pole. Or I was when my husband came in there to check on me and started throwing a little hissy fit,” she explained before pushing through a swinging door into the front of the strip club.
I’d never been in there before, so I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to find.
What I wasn’t expecting was the elegant red hues, and the rich hardwood floors. The stage was even beautiful.
“Wow,” I said, surprised. “I never thought it’d look like this from the outside. I always pictured trashy.”
She shot me a smile over her shoulder. “That’s what we all thought, too. We thought the guys were freakin’ nuts when they told us they were getting this place. We went along for the ride, though, and helped them clean up. It looks pretty good, too.”
My eyes moved from hers to the huddle of women that were sitting in chairs around the front of the stage.
Apparently they’d abandoned the stripper pole for drinks.
My kind of girls.
“Hey!” The woman still holding my hand yelled, bringing the attention of all the women. “Look what I found!”
“She didn’t use to work here, did she?” One of them asked.
She was a blonde with hair down to her mid back. It was styled in waves around her beautiful face, and I knew instantly that I would kill for her hair.
It was probably a hundred percent real, too.
“Umm,” I said. “I came with Bennett. I’m not a stripper.”
They all stared at me, blinking in surprise.
“You came with Bennett?” Another one asked.
This one was a brunette.
“That’s true,” I confirmed, continuing around the table. “My name’s Lennox.”
“I love that name!” The first blonde said. “My name’s Blake, I’m married to Foster. The woman who still has yet to let you go is Memphis, and she’s married to Downy, since I’m fairly sure she’s not stopped talking long enough to introduce herself.”
I smiled at them both.
Memphis looked sheepish that she’d forgotten to introduce herself, and I patted her on the hand.
“It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “My best friend’s the same way.”
She grinned. “Right, then let me introduce you to the rest of the SWAT women.”
Ten minutes later I knew everyone’s names, and who they were married to. Nico to Georgia. Luke to Reese. Downy to Memphis. Foster to Blake. And last, but not least, Mercy to Miller.
“Alright,” I nodded, once Reese introduced herself. “I will try to remember, but please forgive me if I slip up. I’m horrible with names.”
They all smiled in understanding.
Reese got up and asked, “Is there anything you’d like to drink? We have a full bar… I don’t know how to make actual drinks, so if you want something specific, be prepared for it not to be what you wanted.”
I laughed. “How about anything non-alcoholic?”
“Coke?” She asked.
I nodded. “Dr. Pepper is fine.”
She grinned and walked behind the bar, leaving me alone with four very interested women.
“So you’re seeing Bennett?” Mercy asked.
I nodded, then frowned as I thought about it.
“Yeah…no…I don’t really know. I’m not really sure if you could count this as a date,” I admitted.
Mercy raised her brows at me. “What aren’t you sure about?”
I ran my finger along the collar of my shirt, stretching it out slightly.
“I asked him what he was doing after I took his stitches out of his hand, and I think he felt obligated to ask me to come out with him,” I explained.
They all started laughing. Every single one of them.
“What?” I asked, starting to feel uncomfortable not being in on whatever joke I’d just told.
It was Reese who explained as she walked up with my Dr. Pepper.
“Bennett doesn’t do anything that he doesn’t want to do. Trust me. He’s got the hardest head of the entire bunch of men, and he has no problem letting you know that he has a problem doing what you’re asking of him,” Reese informed me.
I blinked. “Really? He seems pretty standard in the man department.”
“She bet him he couldn’t climb the rope out in the warehouse. He proved her wrong and I expect she now has to do something naughty to him later,” Memphis teased, throwing me a smile.
I blushed. “He didn’t say that…exactly.”
“Oh, I can’t freakin’ wait to hear how this pans out!” Reese gushed, smiling widely. “Bennett’s such a sweetheart. And that girl of his…don’t let her get to you. She likes to test out Bennett’s women. Most of them don’t stick around because his daughter’s a vicious little she-devil. Once you get past her act, though, she’s very sweet.”
I raised a brow at that.
“I just saw her, actually. She wasn’t bad at all. In fact, she was very sweet,” I admitted.
They looked at each other. “Were you going out on a date with him?”
I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t. She threw a French fry covered in ketchup over to the booth I was sitting at. It landed right in my lap. Which was pretty good aim since I was wearing white pants. I’m sure you can guess what it looked like once my best friend, Melissa, tried to clean it off.”