Bending his head, he kissed her right there in front of everyone. It was shocking how turned on he could get from a simple touch of the lips, especially after everything that had happened tonight. Unfortunately, scrubs did a lousy job of hiding boners.
Lacey laughed as she broke the kiss and pushed him out of the ambulance. “See you later.”
Alex heard Kelsey giggle as the paramedic closed the door. “Does that mean you two will be making out at the apartment on a regular basis now? Instead of running off to the bedroom like you did the last time I nearly caught you, I mean.”
“We’ll talk about how often Alex will be hanging out at the apartment later,” Lacey said, clearly back in big-sister mode. “After we talk about underage drinking and when you started having sex with random strangers.”
“They weren’t strangers by the time I was done with them,” Kelsey pointed out as the paramedic closed the doors of the ambulance.
Alex cringed. Maybe he’d give it a couple of hours before he showed up at the hospital. Something told him that Lacey and her sister were going to be in for a long discussion.
Chapter 20
Lacey sat at one of the picnic tables in back of the SWAT compound, watching the volleyball game. It was hot as sin out today, but you’d never know it from the way everyone was running around the sand-filled pit. While she was totally in love with Alex, she had to admit it was fun ogling his teammates, especially since they were playing with their shirts off. Every single one of the SWAT guys was seriously built and outrageously attractive. Being in love didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a good-looking man when she saw one.
It wasn’t just all the muscles that caught her attention, either. The wolf-head tattoo that each of them sported on the left side of their chest was extremely eye-catching, as well. Of course, the tattoo meant a lot more to her now than it had the first time she saw it on Alex. Back then, she’d thought it was nothing more than cool art. Now she realized the ink was an inside joke for the Pack. Just another way for them to hide in plain sight.
Part of her was still stunned by the reality that werewolves existed and that she was in a committed relationship with one. But overall, she was handling the big secret rather well. Surprisingly, seeing Alex shift from man to wolf the first night they’d spent together since rescuing Kelsey made everything easier for her. Okay, the transformation part was kind of scary, but the end result—a great big, lovable-looking wolf—made it hard to think of him as anything but adorable after that.
She heard a familiar laugh by the volleyball net and looked up to see Kelsey on her butt in the sand. It was hard to believe, but her sister seemed even more uncoordinated than she was. Alex had tried to drag her out there to play with them, but Lacey had firmly refused. She was smart enough to keep her butt over here on the sideline and avoid the embarrassment of proving to the world that she couldn’t play volleyball to save her life. Kelsey clearly didn’t have that hang-up.
Then again, there was a good chance the only reason her sister was out there was because that’s where all the hot guys were, especially one particular dark-skinned hunk by the name of Moe. Lacey smiled as Moe took Kelsey’s hand and helped her to her feet, then gently wiped a bit of sand from her face. Not that long ago, Lacey would have been worried that her sister was too young to get involved with a guy, or that she should focus on school, or that the guy was just out to get her in bed—or any of a dozen different concerns. But over the past two weeks—and after a lot of long talks with Alex, Everly, Jayna, Wendy, and even Kelsey—Lacey had finally come to the realization that she was going to have to take a step back from her overprotective big sister role and accept that Kelsey was old enough to make her own decisions about men and about life.
Besides, if Kelsey were going to get involved with a guy, Moe was a good choice. Not only was he the same age as Kelsey and enrolling in RTC in the fall, he was also as polite, gentle, and thoughtful as any big sister could ever hope for. Then there was the whole beta thing. Lacey was still trying to get a handle on the difference between alpha and beta werewolves, but she knew one thing for sure. She never had to worry about Moe dragging her sister off to Mexico on a whim. According to Jayna, Moe would never stray more than a couple of miles from his pack—ever.
It was probably manipulative—and completely against Lacey’s promise to let her sister make her own decisions—but she liked knowing that if Moe and Kelsey got involved, they wouldn’t be backpacking through Europe or anything crazy like that as soon as she finished college.
Alex had warned her not to get her hopes up, of course. The chances that Moe and Kelsey were The Ones for each other were slim to none. Apparently, it was exceedingly difficult for a werewolf to find their soul mate. Still, a big sister could dream, couldn’t she?
She was still thinking about that when Remy called out from over by the grill that the food was ready. Everyone went running, grabbing up paper plates and piling them high with chicken, steak, and burgers, all seasoned with some kind of Cajun spice. Even Leo and Tuffie got into the food fest, each getting a bowl of steak pieces—minus the spices, of course.
“Hey, Brooks. Where’s Vaughn?” Remy asked as he came around the tables with a big pot of sausage gumbo and started ladling it out to everyone. “I thought she was coming today.”
The big SWAT cop grimaced. “She was, until I showed up wearing my graduation ring. Once she realized I went to school at LSU, it was over. She said there was no use being with a man she could never take home to meet her parents.”
Lacey stared at him, a spoonful of gumbo halfway to her mouth. “She dumped you because you went to LSU? Why?”
He shrugged. “Because she’s an Alabama fan, born and bred. Can’t really blame her. Once I realized she was a Crimson Tide girl, I probably would have had to dump her if she hadn’t dumped me first.”
Lacey frowned. “But what if she was…you know…The One?”
Brooks shook his head. “She couldn’t be, not if she pulls for ’Bama. Fate would never be that cruel.”
Lacey shook her head. “That’s insane.”
Remy laughed and leaned over her shoulder to place a piece of corn bread on her plate. “That’s not insane. That’s SEC football. It’s not something you can understand, just something you have to accept.”
Around the table, everyone nodded in agreement, so Lacey dropped it. But she still thought it was stupid. Who the heck would put football before a chance at love?
She snuggled up closer to Alex and finally tried the gumbo on her spoon. Dang, Remy could cook his butt off.
As it usually did whenever Alex and the other SWAT guys got together, the conversation quickly turned to bad guys and crime, in this case what the DA was going to do with McDonald, his black-market transplant ring, and drug operation.
“Technically, McDonald wasn’t involved in the drug part,” Alex clarified. “That was mostly DeYoung. The little weasel never told McDonald that he was using his research lab facilities to make fireball. Apparently, he didn’t tell Bensen either, even though Bensen supplied the start-up capital for the drug operation and took all the risk distributing the drugs through his junkyard connections.”
“So, what’s going to happen to those three?” Brooks asked. “There has to be enough on DeYoung, Bensen, and McDonald to put them all away for a long time.”
