Ask Me If I Care (SWAT Generation 2.0 4)

Sensing that he really didn’t want to be on this subject, but he felt that he needed to keep me updated, I changed it back to his dad.

“Was your dad in the military?” I asked curiously.

He shook his head as he accelerated across the intersection into the restaurant’s parking lot.

And, like all men, he overshot his parking spot, and then backed into it so expertly that I envied him.

My dad and my brother could do that, too.

Me? I had to back in, straighten up, then back in one more time.

And that was if I was having a good day.

“Not in the military,” he said once he was in his spot. “My dad is a criminal psychologist. And he pretty much freelances. We go where the crime is. Or we did. Me and him, when I was younger, anyway. When he met my step-mother, I stopped traveling around so much and got to have a normal childhood.”

“That actually sounds like a lot of fun—at least from a kid’s perspective. When you think about it, it’s kind of terrifying from an adult’s. I mean, going where there is major crime enough that you need to call someone in like that?”

He grinned and bailed out of the truck.

Just as I got my door open, he was there.

I was already on the downhill slide when he moved forward to help, his hands going to my hips to help me down. And, deliciously, I slid down every hard inch of his body until his hands held me aloft about a couple of inches off the ground.

I was pinned between his hard body and his truck, and I couldn’t remember how to breathe. Let alone think.

He stayed like that for so long, his hands clenched on my hips, that I forgot where we were.

Didn’t think to do anything but attempt to breathe.

His hands at my hips felt like a brand where he was touching bare skin, and when he finally took a step away, putting me down onto the asphalt, I wanted to scream.

I wasn’t sure why I’d expected a kiss… but I’d wanted one.

Badly.

Hayes made me feel like a freakin’ teenager. All the butterflies that were swarming underneath my skin felt like I was high on something that only he could give me.

I’d had boyfriends before.

Ryan my most recent—his freakin’ brother that had a great body—but Hayes? Well, Ryan wasn’t even in Hayes’ league.

It felt like something I never should have touched. Mostly because the further he stepped away, and the more distance he put between us, the more I wanted to bring him back into my hold.

Hayes glanced over my head through his truck window and he sighed, pulling back even more until we weren’t touching at all.

My shirt was hiked up around my belly, and I slowly tugged it back into place.

The motion caught his attention, and his eyes lingered there on where my bare skin once was.

“Yo, fucker. You comin’?”

I licked my lips and glanced through the truck’s window, seeing one of the members that I didn’t know all that well. Nathan Cox.

He’d also been a professional baseball player, which was really the only reason that I knew him at all.

Ryan had admired him, and we’d always watched the games that Nathan had played in.

“Yeah,” Hayes said, reaching for my hand. “We’re coming.”

Nathan had seen me standing there, of course, but he’d studiously ignored me until Hayes closed the door and I was revealed.

I blinked at him, grinning when I saw what he was wearing.

Swim trunks.

Why was he in swim trunks?

My confusion must’ve shown on my face because he grinned.

“Spilled coffee on my pants on the way here. Changed in the truck,” he said. “This was all I had.”

I snickered, loving the bright pink floral design.

“They’re cute,” I said.

Someone caught his attention from across the parking lot, and Nathan called out, catching his attention, too.

Sammy, aka Samuel Adams Spurlock.

“Hey, thought you weren’t coming,” Sammy said as he caught up to us. I looked over to where Sammy was looking to see him eyeing me speculatively. “What are you doing here?”

I opened my mouth to tell him who I’d come with when Hayes said, “None of your fuckin’ business.”

My mouth fell open.

“Hayes,” I reprimanded. “What the hell?”

Sammy and Nathan burst out laughing.

“Like that, is it?” Sammy’s eyes returned to mine. “He’s a good fit for you, girl.”

I rolled my eyes and went to reach for the door handle, but Hayes pulled me back and Sammy knocked my hand away.

I sighed. “Y’all are so archaic.”

“Manly,” Nathan said. “I think you meant to say ‘manly.’”

“Since when do you have a problem with a man opening the door for you?” Sammy asked, looking down at me curiously.

I rolled my eyes.

“I don’t,” I said. “I just think it’s funny that I reached for it and Hayes pulled me back while you knocked my hand out of the way.”