I did a lot of damn things for Doucet, though.
Shit.
Even stranger photoshoots.
Growing a pair, I knocked on the door of my fellow SWAT officer’s house and waited.
Nobody answered.
I knocked again, and the door was yanked open by a frazzled looking Avery.
She had what looked to be spit up in her hair.
“Hey!” She smiled, looking relieved to see me standing there. “Would you mind holding her?”
Before I could say yes or no, there was a baby shoved into my arms, and she looked very unhappy with her new predicament.
But before I could say or do anything to the child, Derek pulled into his driveway and bailed out of the truck, motor still running.
“Oh, where’s her shit?” Derek asked, looking as if he was frazzled himself.
Before I could answer, Avery was opening the door again, shoving a bag my way, and then walking away.
“Don’t come back before four o’clock, Derek!” she called.
Derek gave me a roll of his eyes. “Don’t ever get married, man.”
“I heard that!” Avery called.
“She put silk sheets on the bed for you.” Derek’s eyes gleamed. “I can’t wait to try them out later.”
“You won’t be trying anything out if you don’t leave!” Avery came back, eyes narrowed.
Derek pulled her to him, hit her with a kiss, took the baby and the bag from my arms, and was gone before I could so much as get a word in edgewise.
“I put silk sheets on the bed for you,” she said, “and Amelia.”
Amelia.
I liked that name.
Not many people were named that.
But…
“Silk sheets?” I asked, sounding just as worried as I felt.
She gestured for me to follow her inside.
“Amelia is outside on the phone,” she said as she walked through the living room, kitchen, and then into the back bedroom.
I came to a stop at the bed that was sitting in the middle of the room.
“Umm,” I said. “You redecorated?”
I lived just down the road in the same subdivision as the rest of them.
I’d been to Derek’s house multiple times over the last year that I’d been on the SWAT team, and never once had I seen this bed.
Or their room so empty.
“I had all the furniture moved into the other room,” she said as she pointed to the room next door. “And I bought a new bed, specifically for this.”
“You bought a new bed,” I said slowly. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Our bed was kind of boring, and I wanted it to be big, ornate, and badass. Plus, this one’s pretty. Now we have an awesome bed to use after we do this photoshoot.”
I looked at the bed.
She was right about it being big and ornate.
It was one of those massive ones. It stretched all the way to the ceiling and had gauzy curtains hanging from the poles that ran around the top. The poles at the bottom of the bed were made of what looked to be lions or something, and they definitely looked like they could withstand some… movement.
“It’s big all right,” I said. “What exactly do you want us to do today?”
My eyes went to the blood-red silk sheets, and I wondered how they would feel against my skin.
I’d heard a little bit about what we would be doing from Derek, since he was the one who’d asked me for Avery, but ‘taking some photos and shit’ could mean anything.
“Derek didn’t tell you anything?” Avery asked.
“Derek told me that we would be ‘taking some pictures and shit’ with another chick that I didn’t know.” I paused. “That was it.”
Avery’s face went red with annoyance. “That man.”
The way she said ‘that man’ made me nervous.
“I told him to tell you everything,” she said as she fiddled with the big white lamp, looking at things that were on either side of the bed. “Umm...” She hesitated. “This is what they call a stranger photoshoot.”
My brows went up. “Okay…”
“A stranger photoshoot is what you would call, ummm, more erotic in nature.” She winced. “I take photos of y’all, together. As if y’all were a couple. Some can be intimate. Some can be whatever y’all want, really. Whatever y’all are comfortable with.”
My gut clenched.
“Avery…” I was about to tell her not only no, but hell no, but then who I assumed was Amelia walked into the room.
My breath caught at the first sight of her, and the aching burn of my lungs needing air started to filter through me.
“Sorry about that,” the woman who entered said, oblivious of me being in the room. “I’m… oh.”
The woman was short, about my breastbone in height. She had long, curly black hair that reached down to her waist. Her eyes were what I would call green, but holy fuck were they a brilliant green, and they really popped with the tank she was wearing.
And God, she was in cut-off shorts.
Cut-off shorts, on a pair of shapely thighs, were my weakness.
My eyes trailed from the top of her head to her boots—goddamn, she was wearing cowboy boots with her cut-off jean shorts—and then back up again.
“Your eyes are gorgeous,” I found myself blurting. Why had I said that? Shit. “Green’s my favorite color.”
She grinned hesitantly, a quirky smile that looked as if she was unsure of whether she should be liking the comment. “They’re actually hazel. They pick up the colors of whatever I’m wearing. Today, green.”
She touched the army green of her tank top and smiled tremulously at me.
“Umm, you’re Adam?” she asked, holding out her hand. “I’m Amelia.”
I reached forward and took her hand in mine, struck fucking stupid at the small, delicate hand that felt like the world in mine.
God, it was soft. I could crush it with one squeeze.
Not that I ever would, but the fact that she was so delicate made all sorts of protective instincts start to march to the forefront of my mind.
“Adam didn’t know what y’all were doing today.” Avery sighed. “Dammit. I’m going to kill Derek.”
Amelia looked at me and blushed. “Yeah, this is weird. Isn’t it weird?”
It was weird.
But suddenly I didn’t find myself quite so reluctant to be doing a stranger photoshoot with this particular stranger.
She tugged her hand away, and that was when I realized that I’d been holding it for a long, inappropriate amount of time.
Jesus, there I was coming off as a creeper, and she was about to take erotic photos with me.
Nice.
Good going, Stoker.
But, as she dropped her hand, it looked like it was almost as if she was reluctant to do so.
“Okay,” Avery said as she ran her hands through her hair, momentarily taking my gaze away from Amelia. “Let me go grab a few things… y’all… get to know each other.”