Jumping In (2 page)

Two hundred pounds and six and a half feet meant Hawk Black was too huge to pull off a fancy suit, but pull it off he did. The smooth fabric draped his broad shoulders and tight ass so enticingly that Clint often fantasized about ravaging the guy with his clothes on, something that had never been his kink.

And it wasn’t just Black’s appearance. Though Clint didn’t know what a deputy mayor’s duties included, he would have thought it’d be mostly glad-handing, but this man wasn’t the type to kiss up to people or blow smoke up their asses. Hawk Black was more stoic than bubbly but, in yet another contradiction, he was also friendly. As a detective, Clint reported to the sheriff so he didn’t have cause to interact with Black for work, nobody at the station did, and yet, Black was frequently there, making conversation and inspiring hard-ons.

“Sally prefers chocolate.”

“Sally?” Clint had been paying attention that time, just not to the conversation. But, honestly, who could blame him with that bulge on display? He wondered if Black wore underwear.

“Ms. Bouvier,” Black said, arching his eyebrows and grinning. “Your friend. You said you were going to buy her flowers. I thought you might want to know that she’d rather get chocolate.”

“Oh.” Though he wanted to ask how Black knew anything about Sally, Clint couldn’t think of how to phrase the question without being insulting. Aside from which, the answer was none of his business. “Thank you.”

“How was your camping trip?” Black asked as he leaned his left shoulder against the wall, folded his arms, and crossed one ankle over the other.

If he wore underwear, they were loose, like boxers, because the tube snaking down his right thigh couldn’t be anything other than a cock and it looked the furthest thing from restrained.

“Clint?”

After shaking his head to clear the hormonal haze, Clint blinked and cleared his throat. “I, uh …” With the thin fabric of his pants, if he wore boxers, wouldn’t lines be visible along the legs? Clint was a jeans guy through and through. He owned a couple of pairs of Dockers for formal occasions but not a suit so maybe he was wrong.

“From the look of your truck, I’d say you must have gone off-road.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Clint licked his lips. “It was great. I did some hiking, found a lake and fished.” He caught his gaze dropping again, internally smacked himself, and looked the deputy mayor in the face. “Cooked over a fire at night.”

“No phone, no computer, nature surrounding you.” Black nodded. “That sounds like almost the perfect trip.”

“Almost?”

“It’d be even better if you had someone with you.” He paused. “Someone who’d enjoy the surroundings and appreciate the company.”

“I took my dogs.” Even if he hadn’t left town to get away from Ewan, Clint never would have invited his ex to go camping. The man wouldn’t have been willing to walk away from his phone or his computer for that long. And while Clint would have loved to fuck out in the fresh air, having Ewan around for other parts of the day would have been less enjoyable. They didn’t share the same interests and Ewan would have complained the entire time about insects, wildlife, and not having access to a shower. “My girls are good company.”

“Speedy and Fluffy, right?” Black chuckled. “I bet they enjoyed having you all to themselves day and night.”

He didn’t remember telling the deputy mayor his dogs’ names but who knew what he said when his brain was on hiatus and his focus was on his dick. And on Black’s dick. Seriously, if Clint didn’t get this unusual attraction under control, he’d end up embarrassing himself and making Black uncomfortable. Unfortunately, he didn’t have anyone to help him out with that project, so he needed to go home and beat off alone. Again.

“Yeah, they did. Good pups.” Clint knocked both hands against the desktop and straightened. “All right, I better get going.” He cleared his throat. “Sally said I need another shower.”

Shoving himself off the wall, Black raked his gaze over Clint again. “You look fine to me.” He stepped closer and inhaled deeply. “Smell fine too.”

Suddenly, Clint wondered if Hawk Black was coming on to him. The idea seemed preposterous. Even if Black was into men, something Clint had never considered as a possibility, they were standing in the middle of the police station. Sure, nobody else was around, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t walk up at any moment or that somebody couldn’t hear them from an adjoining room—two things Ewan often pointed out as his rational for why they needed to stay away from one another.

“Thanks.” Clint furrowed his brow and looked at Black appraisingly, but all he saw was a large, handsome man with intelligent eyes looking back. He didn’t know what he’d expected—for the deputy mayor to drop to his knees and ask to suck his cock? He snorted at the ridiculousness of his own thoughts.

“I’ll, uh, see you later.” He paused and wondered whether that comment could be misconstrued. “Next time you’re here, I mean.” He gulped. “If I’m working, which I probably will be because I have the weekday shift and that’s when you come here for…” He had no idea what the deputy mayor did when he was at the station or why he came there. “Sorry.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “It’s been a rough day.” And he needed to stop rambling like an idiot. Disgusted with himself, he raised his hand in a wave, said, “See you,” and turned on his heel.

“Clint?”

He twisted his head and looked at Black over his shoulder.

“Yes?”

“Nothing to apologize for. Let me know if you need…” Black quirked one side of his mouth up in a lopsided grin. “Anything.”

Grateful his back was to Black so his now barely repressible hard-on wasn’t visible, Clint dipped his chin in thanks and then uncomfortably walked out of the building. He’d go home, beat off, take a shower, beat off, find something to eat, beat off, and then, maybe, his mind would be clear enough to figure out if the deputy mayor was flirting with him. Whether or not he’d come up with an answer, at least he’d be distracted from thinking about Ewan Gifford’s upcoming nuptials.

As if being relegated to a dirty little secret from the man he…liked, most of the time, and returning to town only to hear his ex was engaged to be married and starring in the town’s most exciting social event hadn’t been bad enough, Clint came home to more bad news.

When he’d lived in Detroit, Clint’s apartment window had faced a dilapidated church. When he’d looked at the crumbling building, he’d thought about the war-ravaged neighborhoods he’d been in during his time abroad, but as he stood next to the mailbox in front of his current apartment, it was the fading sign painted on the flaking church wall that he remembered.
The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.

He had
intended
to come home and stay there. He had
intended
to have a quiet night putting a dent into his bottle of lube. Unfortunately, his
intentions
didn’t last because he was being evicted.

Reading the letter a second time didn’t change the facts. His landlord was selling the building to a developer who was going to tear it down, which meant Clint was being evicted. The thirty-day notice had arrived on the same day Clint had left so he now had two weeks to find a new place to live. He tried to shake off his frustration at the latest knee to the nuts.

Short on distractions, he flipped through the mail as he walked to his door. Solicitations, bills, and a heavy cream envelope.

No. There was no way he was holding what he thought he was holding.

His fist itching to punch a hole in the wall, he tore open the paper and saw another envelope inside. A gold one. Had Ewan Gifford lost his damn mind? Who invited a person he’d been fucking to a party celebrating his engagement to the other person he’d, it now seemed, been fucking?

The pain hit Clint before the realization that his foot was inside the stucco wall. Kicking a hole in the side of his house was better than kicking Ewan’s ass and getting fired, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying. Plus, he was sure to lose his deposit.

“Damn it!” Clint wiggled his foot free and tried to find his way back to calm.

The cause was hopeless anyway, but when he noticed the rip across the top of his boot he fell deeper into the abyss. He loved those boots.

“Fuck!” he shouted. And there went another hole in the wall.

After counting to ten three times, Clint decided he could walk into his house without scaring his dogs. He shook off his only-slightly sore foot—those were damn good boots—and put his key in the lock while making a mental list of everything he had to do. He’d washed his truck on the way home from the station, but he still had to do laundry, go grocery shopping, find a new home, pack, possibly fix the holes in the wall, and repair his boots.

His hard-on was well and truly gone. He could probably resurrect it if he focused on Hawk Black for thirty seconds because the man was that hot, but right then, Clint was pissed as hell and the only logical course of action was to get pissed as hell. He’d skip dinner and go straight for the beer. Getting off would have to wait.

With his evening plans laid out, he pushed his front door open and tossed his keys and mail on the chair slash coat rack slash everything-holder. Waiting for him inside was good news and bad news.

Excited puppies rushing up to greet him were always a welcome sight. Fluffy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but nobody had ever been happier when he came home. She whined and wiggled, her entire back end shaking from side to side. Speedy was on her tail, nosing Clint’s thighs in a combination greeting and request for scratches.

For a few seconds, Clint’s bad mood started to lift, but then he saw the white poof from the corner of his eye. Not understanding what it was at first, he squatted low and petted his dogs. He noticed another white something, and then another.

Squinting across the narrow portion of the living area he could see from his position in the small walled-in entryway, he straightened and said, “What is that?”

The answer became clear when he took one step and got a view of the entire room. The entire
destroyed
room. Clint’s jaw dropped. The source of the white fluff, also known as his sofa, was spread around—the frame was close to the original location and what once were cushions were strewn everywhere else. The coffee table top was flat on the ground with the legs splintered and, if he was seeing right, chewed. He took a moment to be grateful that he had chosen to spend the extra money for the wall-mounted plasma television. But then he saw the cord, which he’d had to plug into the outlet near the floor because the rental house didn’t come with an outlet at television height.

“You ate the TV cord?” he asked his still wagging dogs. “Why?”

He walked toward the television, at first carefully moving over the debris and then giving up and stepping right on top of it. The occasional crunching sound was both disconcerting and oddly satisfying.

“You did,” he said when he reached the TV. “You two never destroy things.” He paused. “Almost never.”

Squatting down, he picked up the cord.

“Why?” He shook the cord at his dogs.

They ran over and licked his face.

“Stop.”

They didn’t.

“Cut it out.”

After coordinating a dual-jump where three paws landed on his chest, they did. Unfortunately, he had toppled backward by then.

“What is it Sally says about bad things?” he asked himself. “They come in threes, right?” The dogs didn’t answer. “So we have Ewan’s a fucker, I need a new place to live, and my furniture is destroyed. That’s three.” He shoved himself up. “But my boots make it four.” He brushed his hands down his sleeves, trying to get the various sofa and table particles off, when he encountered something sticky. “What the…?” He moved his palms to his face and sniffed. “What is this?”

The dogs still didn’t answer.

“Fuck it, never mind.”

He shook his head, stomped into the kitchen, and yanked the refrigerator door open. Not surprisingly given his day so far, the top hinge snapped and the door started tilting toward the floor.

“Damn it!”

He tried to catch it but then his heel slipped on something—not the sticky substance from the living room, because this was slimy—and he went down, taking the door with him. The refrigerator followed but, in what might have been the only good thing to happen that evening, it hit the floor directly beside him instead of landing on top of him.

“Is this a joke?” he shouted as he jerked his gaze around the room. “This is a joke, right?”

The sound of shattering glass followed by the sight of amber liquid seeping out from underneath the destroyed appliance told him there was nothing funny about the situation.

“Not the beer!”

He scrambled to his knees and, with a grunt, flipped the refrigerator onto its side. He hadn’t gone shopping since he’d returned home so there wasn’t much in there: condiments, baking soda, bottles of water, and beer. Everything except the beer had survived. The only thing he wanted was beer.

“You know what?” he yelled to the still empty room. “I know where to get a drink.”

He stood up and marched toward the front door.

“Biggest party in town, huh? Bet that means an open bar.”

He scooped up the mail he’d left in the entryway along with his keys and walked out.

“Ewan thinks it’s funny to invite me to this bullshit? The least that asshole owes me is a beer.”

***

The engagement party was being held at the golf course country club. Clint had been there once for a wedding and another time for the animal shelter’s big fundraiser. Neither event had valet parking but when he turned to pull into the parking lot, he was thwarted by orange cones and a sign reading
Reserved for Valet
. Why people would have trouble parking themselves in a lot not thirty feet from the front door, he didn’t know, but the orange cones gave him no other alternative. With a sigh, he changed course and went to the circle drive in front of the entrance where a handful of men wearing bright blue vests stood around a temporary podium.

“They’re closed today for a private event, sir,” said one of the valets when Clint pushed his truck door open with a squeak.