Page 19 of Protected By West (San Antonio S.W.A.T. #1)

TRACY

After they'd cleaned up the backyard, the team left and headed on their way. The last one left was Fox. Tracy was a little surprised when he stopped beside her to talk on his way out the door.

"So, what do you think?"

She smiled up at him. "I have to leave a review on the Texas Rangers website or something?"

Fox shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.

He was a big guy, built like a brick wall, but he didn't put her on edge. Duval was a bit of a different story, he looked like a Mac Truck and seemed to have the pedal pressed to the floor all the time.

Duval was a little overwhelming, but Fox was different.

It might sound strange, but she felt comfortable with him.

Not at all like how she felt with Weston. That was... complicated. And then it wasn't.

"Looks like you're doing a lot of thinking."

She smiled at Fox's words. "It's a lot to get used to. Over a week ago I had sworn never to date an officer of any kind and now I feel like I'm a mom to a bunch of badly behaved toddlers bigger than I am!"

Fox leaned in, bumping his arm against her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure Oxy wouldn't mind a spanking."

She rolled her eyes and leaned against the wall. "It's strange. At work it's mostly women. Here it's mostly guys. I don't know how Jack is going to manage it."

"Jack." Fox nodded thoughtfully. "It'll take time, but I'm sure that she'll find a way to deal with us."

Tracy shook her head. "You know, I think I have it wrong.

" She grinned, remembering the way that Jack just seemed to give as good or better than she got.

"I think y'all are going to have to watch yourselves around her.

She's not the kind to suffer fools lightly.

I bet there have been clashes in her past at work, but I'm willing to bet a bunch of them happened because men tried to push her around. "

Fox sighed, a long-suffering sound. "I bet you're right. There are bound to be some growing pains while our team works together." He tilted his head to look at her, his gaze moving over her face from chin to forehead and back again. "I hope you'll be around to help us keep the children in line?"

There was a moment of hesitation. "This is new, relatively new, with Weston.

I'm still coming to grips with the whole law enforcement thing.

" She lifted her hand and settled it over her heart, expecting to feel the familiar ache in her chest when she talked about it.

The subject always brought up memories of her dad.

Well, not just of him, but of the pain that her mother went through.

"It can be scary at times. My family still has moments when they text me. They hear something on the radio, or in the news and if names aren't mentioned, I'll get questions."

Tracy drew in a breath as those words settled in.

That was a part of dating an officer that she hadn't considered.

The first had been her aversion to the job because of all the suffering her mother had gone through, but in all of the years that they'd been alone, even before they'd divorced, she couldn't remember a time when her mother had worried about her dad.

She'd loved him, of course. One doesn't get that angry without other intense emotions on the boiler. Maybe those concerns had been wrapped up in the mix.

Tracy hadn't really been old enough to remember much detail.

Her life was divided into three sections where he was concerned.

The first, with her parents married but with her father mostly absent.

Then when her parents were divorcing, arguing all the time and making home a complete battle zone.

Then the last and longest that she could remember, her life after her father and mother divorced. And he was gone from their lives again.

At this point, the only memories she had of her father were the few pictures that she'd kept in a shoebox that her mom didn't even know she had.

Now, before she'd even had a reason to worry, it was starting to feel all too real.

She heard Fox sigh beside her. "I'm going to get into trouble for opening my mouth."

Tracy shook her head. "You don't have to worry about me. I'm not... I don't have any reason to get mad."

"Then why do I feel like I will."

Fox cleared his throat and stepped aside to put a wide berth between them.

Weston stepped in between.

She gave him points for not putting his arm around her. He might be a bit of a caveman, but he was restraining himself.

Fox gave him a look that said he was already feeling some guilt. "I-"

Tracy shook her head, and he stopped talking. "I'll talk to Weston about it."

Fox looked at West and then took another step back. "I'm going to head out."

Weston dropped his chin and smiled, but it wasn't a good smile. "We'll talk... later."

Fox winced and leaned over to catch her eye. "Sorry, Tracy."

She shrugged. "Someone was going to bring it up at some point. Or I would have thought about it. I'll talk to the big guy." She put her hand down on Weston's shoulder. "We'll talk it out."

Fox turned and jogged down the steps, following the path toward the gate in the fence.

Weston turned to look at her and reached out, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Do I need to go kick his ass?"

She smiled up at him, determined to put a smile on his face before they had this conversation.

"If you do, do I get to watch?" She found that she kind of liked the idea of the two muscled men locked in combat.

Well, play-combat. "Ooh, can you wear those Olympic Wrestling jumpsuit things?

You know, the kind that's super tight? But not those things over your ears.

.." She lifted her hands, and he loosened his hold on her shoulders so she could cup her hands over her ears.

"They kind of look like protective cups that baseball players wear over their junk, but over your ears? "

He was fighting off a smile. So she waggled her eyebrows at him, smiling like she was having naughty thoughts.

And she was.

"I think I'd like to see your butt in those tight outfits. Your jeans already give me many... many thoughts. But seeing all that Lycra stretched over your butt and your-"

He cut off her words with a kiss.

Not just a little peck on the lips, but a hungry kiss.

And she liked the feel of it.

She'd never had someone kiss her like he wanted to climb inside of her right then and there.

The way he took charge and backed her against the wall said he was in complete control of the situation, but the careful way his hands moved over her, from her shoulders, down to her hips, and then up to her breasts?

She knew with complete certainty that he'd stop if she said to. He'd give her what she wanted.

He filled his hands with her, his thumbs brushing lightly across her nipples over her clothes.

With the dark of the early evening stretching over their heads, she reached behind him to grab that butt she'd been talking about and gave him a good hard squeeze.

He hissed and turned his mouth away from hers. "Are you trying to feel me up, woman?"

She gave him another squeeze and kissed his cheek until she was close enough to his ear to whisper. "If I'm not breaking any laws, sure am."

"What if you were going to break a law?"

"I'm not ready to have you use your cuffs on me." She smiled and had to admit she felt a bit of a thrill at the idea, but she meant what she said. She wasn't ready for that kind of thing.

Yet.

"Well, the only law I can think of would be if I was unwilling."

"Hmm..." She looked at him, trying to read his eyes. "Are you willing?"

"Inside? Absolutely. Out here? I can see that I might just have to put up a higher fence first."

"Good." She leaned in and kissed the underside of his jaw. "Now take me inside so I'm not the victim of every mosquito in San Antonio."

Laughing, he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. "I didn't realize that I was going to have to protect you from mosquitoes."

"If you're unwilling-"

He kissed the words right off her lips. "I'm willing, darlin'. I'll just have to cover every inch of you," he gave her another kiss, "with me."

WESTON

He slid the patio door open and stepped inside with her.

The feeling of him squeezed between her thighs was enough to make her spontaneously combust. Feeling his hard chest against hers was enough to make her already tight nipples ridiculously hard.

It wouldn’t take much friction between them for her to burst into flame.

"It took a lot of restraint not to kick the team out earlier than I did. "

She kissed his face, pulling back slightly every so often just to let him get a look at where they were going.

The last thing she wanted to happen was one or both of them ending up in the emergency room with one of those injuries where you have to explain to the nurses that you were doing something naughty and ended up with an embarrassing injury. She did not want to end up on a Reddit thread somewhere.

But like everything else she'd seen him do, Weston didn't seem to need to see around her to get them into his bedroom.

Even better, straight into his bathroom because as much as she wanted to get him undressed and in bed, she had a lot of sunscreen and insect repellent on her skin. He set her down on the tile floor just shy of the shower and bathtub.

Giving her a heated look, he asked the most important question of that moment. "Tub or-"

"Shower," she answered before he'd finished asking. "I can't wait to scrub down and-"

He returned the favor from a moment ago and finished for her. "Get you on those cool sheets."

The very thought of it made her sigh and the shower started with water coursing out of the large square shower head.

It was almost musical, the sound that the water made as they shed their remaining clothing.

WESTON

He almost laughed as her elbow gave him a glancing blow to the breadbasket as they stripped down.