“Don’t worry,” Jen said. “You can still beat off with the other.”
He chuckled and shoved her over, wrapping his arm around her shoulders.
“If you want to keep that arm, you should back the fuck off,” Jen said, giving him the side-eye.
Luke lifted the offending limb away. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
Jen gave an impatient sigh. “You try every time we’re in the same room together. I don’t even think you’re interested. It’s just a habit.”
He shrugged. “I’m always interested. You could change your mind. Women are fickle. You know I’d show you a seriously good time.” He smiled with the confidence of a man who knew he was good in the sack.
“Your offers might work better if you weren’t also trying to pick up every other woman in the room.”
“Not every one. Just the interesting ones.”
“Bitch, please. Interesting in your world translates into ‘has a hole for your dick.’” I put air quotes around ‘interesting.’ “You’d fuck a pumpkin if it was handy.”
Jen snorted soda out her nose again, grabbing my cocktail napkin and wiping her face. “You could warn a girl,” she told me, sniffing and rubbing tears from her eyes.
I made a face. “It’s not like I think before I speak.”
“True enough. What are you doing here?” She asked Luke. “Didn’t Stacey forbid you from coming here? Something about not wanting to clean up after your romantic encounters? And by romantic, I mean fucking everything that moves.”
“She did. Unfairly, too. I mean, my lovers always leave satisfied,” he said in a wounded voice.
“So why are you here?”
“Stacey told me to be.”
Officer MeatheadandLuke? What was Stacey thinking?
During this entire exchange, Sergeant Mike had continued to watch me through narrowed eyes, his mouth flat.
“Who’s the stiff?” Luke asked, nudging his chin at the other man.
“You don’t know each other?” I asked, surprised.
“That’s gotta be a hate crime. You two havesomuch to talk about,” Jen said with a wicked grin.
“Let me introduce you,” I said, proceeding to throw napalm on the burgeoning fire. “Luke, meet Sergeant Mike Crowe. He believes me, Jen, and Lorraine, are a terrible influence on poor, innocent, virginal Stacey. He thinks she should drop us like a bad habit. He’d like nothing more than to drag her off to a church and then to his cave where he can keep Stacey barefoot and pregnant. Sergeant Mikey, this is Luke Galloway, Stacey’s step brother who's been trying to get into her pants since the day they met. He would like to drag her back to his sex dungeon and fuck her blind.”
The two men eyed one another. Luke looked almost sleepy, but I could see a surprisingly sharp flash of emotion in his gray eyes. Sergeant Mike, on the other hand, looked like he wouldn’t mind putting a bullet in Luke’s head.
Jen pulled out her phone to record the moment for posterity, Stacey, and Lorraine.
Sergeant Mikey lobbed the first shot over the bow. “What kind of man wants to sleep with his sister?”
Luke kicked back and casually crossed his ankles under the table, giving every indication that he was relaxed and maybe a little bored.
“Stepsister,” he said finally. “Shouldn’t a cop at least try to get the details right? Or maybe you’re just piss-poor at your job.”
Mikey’s lip curled and his eyes narrowed. He looked lethal. Dangerous. Bad boy. Stacey always did like a good bad boy. Unfortunately, Sergeant Mikey was actually a boy scout.
“Does it matter? You want to fuck your sister.”
Luke’s mouth curved slightly. “When my father married her mother, I was twenty-two and Stacey was eighteen. She’s no more my sister than Jen or Beck. Our parents divorced about ten minutes after the wedding, so we’re not even related on paper.” He glanced over at me. “By the way, I like to think of it as a playroom, not a dungeon.” He winked.
I couldn’t help myself. I grinned. “I stand corrected. My apologies.”
