Page 18 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Twelve

I may not put a twinkle in your eyes, but I can put that WTF crease in your forehead.

—Gunner to Sutton

GUNNER

“Where is the monitoring for the west half of the campus?” I asked, watching a couple of blank screens that were giving us a huge blind spot.

“Wiring over there is atrocious,” Yates swore. “Whoever wired this building is a complete imbecile and should be shot in the face.”

He’d been working on the west side of the building all morning, and had yet to get the cameras up and running.

Something caught my eye on the monitor all the way to the left, and I grinned when I watched Webber scale the fence and hop over like he was a young buck, instead of the old fart that he was.

“Be right back,” I said as I left the office.

I met Webber in the parking lot and called out, “You didn’t make it this time, either.”

Webber had a habit of sneaking into my job sites.

Actually, all of them did.

Most of them liked to offer me help when they could, and usually we had a set day and time for them to come out and test all my systems.

However, they did randomly show up from time to time.

“Good.” Webber offered me his hand. “Did you find my accomplice yet?”

My brows rose. “Accomplice?”

“Accomplice.” He grinned wickedly.

I looked out over the grounds and sighed. “Fuckin’ wiring on the west side is complete and utter bullshit. We’ve spent the majority of the morning trying to get it online but it’s slow moving.”

“Hide and seek.” Webber winked. “I need that key, though. And when you find my accomplice, tell them that I need my sweatshirt back.”

“Will do.” I shoved my hand into my pocket, pulled out the key and tossed it to him.

He caught it, shoved it into his pocket, and saluted me before heading back to the fence he’d scaled earlier.

I saw the back end of a black SUV, and my eyes narrowed.

I didn’t know anyone with a black SUV.

From the looks of it, it was new. So maybe one of the guys had bought their wives a new car?

I stuffed my hands back into my pockets and headed back inside, stopping in the office to see if I could spot any movement on any of the motion detectors or monitors.

Finding nothing, I walked myself to the west wing and quietly moved around.

My first mistake was assuming whoever had come with Webber would be outside.

After finding nothing, I moved to the inside of the building.

At first, I spotted nothing.

But then little clues were given here and there.

One clue in blue wiring spelled out on the ground: Hi.

Another clue of movement nearest the teacher’s lounge spelled out in Cheerios—part of my lunch, might I add—were the words: Hello, Moto.

Shaking my head in amusement, I headed a little farther into the west wing, not stopping to look through all of the rooms like I probably should have.

When I got to the part where there were cameras that would definitely pick up the movement, I pulled the feed up on my phone to see if I could spot any movement again.

I did, but only the briefest of flashes as they ducked around one pillar and disappeared around a corner.

I did note, however, that I was intimately familiar with that flash of a body.

I’d know that ass and legs anywhere, even mostly covered by a sweatshirt that definitely wasn’t mine.

Irrational anger suffused me at the thought of Sutton wearing Webber’s sweatshirt.

It didn’t matter that the man was very happily married.

It also didn’t matter that technically, Sutton wasn’t mine.

What did matter was that my caveman brain hated the idea of her wearing another man’s clothes, and the irrational urge to rip it off of her was overwhelming me.

I moved to where I’d seen her last, expecting to find her in the gym, but I was assaulted before I could get there.

She jumped from a shadowed alcove I’d dismissed onto my back, her arms wrapping around my neck and her legs around my waist. “Got you!”

I chuckled and twisted quickly, pulling her over my shoulder and into my arms as I hunched over.

She shrieked, laughing wildly.

It was the most beautiful sound in the world.

It must’ve been the way she looked, or the way her eyes lit with laughter, that made me lean in and kiss her.

I didn’t know, and I didn’t question the instinct.

I just went with my gut and kissed her, pulling her into my arms and following her body to the floor where I pressed her into the cool white tile that led to the entrance of the gym.

She groaned and fisted her hands into my long-sleeved t-shirt, kissing me back.

At least until Yates cleared his throat and said, “This is a school, you know. That kind of behavior is strictly frowned upon.”

I pulled back, my eyes taking in the beautiful woman underneath me for a few long moments before I got up and yanked her up with me.

She came to a hop next to me, then extended her hand. “Hello. I’m Sutton.”

Yates took her in, all of her, and then grinned like a damn fool before offering his own hand in return.

I hated that he was touching her.

“Yates,” he said. “You and boss man, huh?”

Sutton flushed as she pulled her hand out of his before saying, “Ahhh, no. We’re just friends.”

“Just friends don’t kiss like that.” His eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that Webber’s sweatshirt?”

Sutton pulled the sweatshirt away from herself and said, “Oh, yeah. It is. I need to give that back to him before he leaves. I was freezing earlier. The cold front came out of nowhere.”

“They’ve been talking about that cold front all week, doll.” Yates smirked. “It didn’t come out of nowhere.”

“It did.” She winced. “But I forget that I’m not three hours away from Dallas anymore. It hits here quicker than it hits back where I used to live.”

Yates looked over at me. “We found a hidden way in?”

“Where did you come in?” I asked.

She walked us back through her steps, stopping to pick up the bag of Cheerios that I was going to eat for lunch before continuing.

I watched her with amusement as she led us to the smallest window in existence before saying, “There’s where Webber gave me a boost up. They should really put a lock on this one.”

“To be honest,” Yates admitted, “I didn’t think it was humanly possible to fit through that window.

It’s too high for a little kid to get up there and pull through.

Plus, they’re not strong enough to even hoist them out.

The other side is a ten-foot drop-off to the ground.

But now that we’ve been made aware of the accessibility from a little slip of a woman, I guess we’ll start marking these windows. ”

“Yeah, you will,” I mumbled. “I’m taking lunch since this woman seems to be inhaling mine.”

Sutton flashed me a Cheerio-filled grin, which, might I add, was completely unrepentant.

“I get hungry,” she said. “Plus, I knew this one was yours because of the Bluey stickers.”

I shook my head.

“Bluey and The Lorax.” I groaned. “I’m so tired of hearing both of those!”

“Introduce her to How to Train Your Dragon,” Yates suggested. “My niece loves them.”

“I tried, man. I tried.” I caught my sweatshirt off the stool in the break room as we passed. “Let me know if you think you need more of the crew. The school is closed for the next three days for fall break. We need to be finished by Sunday, no later than six p.m.”

“I’ll have a better idea by the end of the day,” he said. “Enjoy your lunch.”

The way he said lunch made me think he wasn’t talking about food.

I handed over my sweatshirt and said, “Here. Switch them out and we’ll drop the sweatshirt off at his shop before we go to lunch.”

“What makes you think I’ll be going to lunch with you?” she teased. “I’m supposed to be in training.”

“Because you are literally eating Cheerios right now,” I pointed out, reaching out to snatch the Cheerios back only to find them wholly out of my reach before I could move even an inch.

“True,” she said as she popped a few more into her mouth before sweeping the sweatshirt off and tossing it at me.

I gave her my sweatshirt, and she yanked it on before she brought the sleeve up to her nose and inhaled. “I don’t know what you do with your laundry, but I love it. The sheets last night smelled amazing.”

“I’d like to admit that it’s something special, but I just use the baby shit from Tide, and dryer sheets that are also supposed to be for sensitive skin. I think Downy makes them,” I admitted sheepishly.

“Well, whatever combination you’re using is perfect.” She dropped her arm, then took another bite of my Cheerios.

I jerked my head toward the front office and said, “Let’s go.”

She followed me, waving at the men that were half in the office, half out, going through a mess of wires that we’d had to pull at the front door to rewire the front entry once we’d put in the new blockade.

Parents and visitors would have to enter into a small room once they were buzzed in, and they’d have to go through a metal detector before the inner door would open to allow them entry into the school.

“Wow,” she said as she looked at the mess of wires that extended onto the outside of the building. “This is a complicated mess.”

“Boone is a fuckin’ master at wiring. He was in the bomb squad when he was in the Marines, and spent quite a bit of time defusing bombs when he was deployed.

He joined with Oklahoma City and worked with their bomb squad for about eight more years before I lured him away.

He’s one of our biggest assets right now, because we don’t have to hire an outside technician to work on all the wiring.

He’s a certified electrician on top of everything else. ”

“Wow.” She stepped over the wires and skipped down the steps. “My car is around the corner.”

“Leave it, I’ll drop you back off at it later,” I suggested.

She bit her lip. “It’s kind of hanging out in the road, though.”

“This whole road is closed down to thru traffic when school isn’t in session. The only other entities that use this road are the trash people—and they’re on vacation as well since it’s a holiday.”

“Okay.” She paused. “Or we could just take my car?”

“I don’t sit bitch in anyone’s car.” I chuckled. “Sorry.”

“You can drive.” She dangled her keys in front of me. “It’s brand new. Twin turbos!”

I snatched her key up. “You got a new car?”

“I did,” she admitted. “The last one I had was great, but we decided in the divorce that Jackson would get that, too, since there was still so much left to pay on it. I loved it, though, and decided to get the same exact kind, only the newer year model. This is actually next year’s model.

I went up to the dealership on my way back home from your place a few weeks ago.

” Her face blushed as her mind likely went exactly where mine went.

“I was just going to look, but the owner of the dealership recognized me. Said that his daughter idolized me and wanted to run with me. I offered to do just that, and he was so thankful that he offered to sell me the new car for his cost.”

“Nice,” I said. “What dealership?”

She told me which one as we rounded the corner, and I got my first look at her car.

I whistled through my teeth. “Shit. Look at those red brake calipers. And those tires.”

The whole thing looked like a sleek missile.

“It drives like a dream,” she admitted.

I unlocked her car and circled it.

“Very nice,” I said as I took in the brand-new Audi R8.

“My dad also helped pay for it,” she admitted.

“He thought it would be a funny ‘fuck you’ to Jackson when he saw that I was still driving the car he refused to let me take in the divorce. I tried to fight him, but he said that it was his lot in life, and he got to do whatever he wanted because he was the dad.”

“That’s true, I can confirm.” I chuckled.

A buzz came to life against my leg, and I reached into my pocket for my phone to see if it was anything important.

When I opened the message from Yates, I frowned and studied it for a long moment.

Yates:

Nice, boss. Really nice.

Yates had taken a still photo of me kissing Sutton in the middle of the hallway and had sent it to me.

Though I liked the photo, I didn’t like that he’d sent it to me.

I also didn’t like that he’d taken time out of his day to go back through the video feed to find it.

Then again, maybe he was trying to spot how she’d gotten in, or tried to spot how the cameras hadn’t picked her up.

Consoling myself in the knowledge that he was just doing his job, I let the weird comment and the photo go and got into my truck.

“Where to?” I asked.

She turned those stunning brown eyes to me and admitted, “I’m not really sure about anything here. Everywhere that I have considered trying seems really busy, and the parking situation really freaks me out.”

Dallas was like that. Especially when you were downtown.

“They have a really good Mexican food place around the corner,” I said as I started her car up and listened to it purr.

“Great chips and queso. Decent hot sauce. They also have a taco salad that they rave about, not that I’ve ever had it before.

It is a little bit more popular around lunchtime, but I have an in with the bakery next door to it. ”

“Is it the same bakery that we went to a few weeks ago?” she asked innocently.

I put her car into drive and let off the gas, pulling back onto the little back road that would take me to the main drag in front of the school.

“One and the same,” I teased, quickly checking both left and right before pulling out. “We can stop in for a cookie when we’re done.”

She looked torn. “If I get the salad and eat a minimal amount of chips, I can eat that cookie and not totally ruin my eating day.”

“Eat the food, honey,” I said as I headed toward the restaurant. “There’s always tomorrow to eat good.”