Free Packing Heat by Kele Moon Page B

intimidation tactic he’d
    perfected over the length of his solitary adulthood. Every hurt he
    had puled to the forefront before he went to sleep suddenly
    surfaced. The raw emotions made him feel vicious, and he let them
    al spil out of him without an ounce of censorship. He caled Gavin
    things that would make even a firefighter blush if his temper weren’t
    boiling to the point of atomic explosion.
    The bitch of it was, nothing Brad said fazed Gavin. No threat
    hit its mark, and the more Brad raged, the less interested Gavin
    seemed. Brad was in the process of describing what he planned to
    do to him once he was free, including a vivid description of where
    exactly he planned on shoving these handcuffs, when it occurred to
    him that Gavin probably heard the ravings of crazed, handcuffed
    lunatics on a daily basis and had become completely desensitized to
    them.
    Breathless and sweaty from the struggle, Brad finaly calmed
    his raging down to the panicked panting of a trapped, wild animal.
    He squeezed his eyes shut, horrified to be fighting actual tears.
    “What’d you want?” he asked, hearing the quiver of
    completely breaking down in his voice. “Just tel me what you want,
    and I’l fucking do it because I don’t wanna be where I am right
    now.”
    “I wanna know why you decided to drop-kick me to the
    curb without warning,” Gavin said simply. “’Cause I don’t believe
    it’s what you realy want.”
    “Cocky much?” Brad asked because he was stil furious.
    “The sex was good. I’m not even gonna argue that, but I like my
    own company. I’m not shopping for a boyfriend. That was never
    what I wanted from you. A good lay’s not gonna have me ordering
    monogrammed towels. I’m not that guy, not even close.”
    Light eyes narrowed, and Gavin tilted his head, studying Brad
    before he snapped, “I cal bulshit.”
    “Wel, I can’t help you with that,” Brad said, feigning
    indifference. “The fact is I’ve never had a real boyfriend, and it’s
    unlikely you’re gonna break that pattern. I screwed plenty of cops
    before you, and I’l probably screw several after you’re gone.
    Fucking with you guys is sorta my thing.”
    “Considering you’re naked and handcuffed to the headboard,
    you might wanna start being a little nicer and a whole lot more
    agreeable.” Gavin’s powerful body practicaly vibrated in fury. “I
    gotta work in a few hours, and I’m more than happy to leave you
    here and pick up the conversation when I get back.”
    “Like hel!” Brad jerked at the headboard once more. “This
    is some sorta cop mind fuck! I don’t fucking believe you!”
    “Try me,” Gavin countered, his voice holding grim promise
    that was more than a little unnerving. “You’ve never had a
    boyfriend? Not once? There was never someone you thought might
    be worth spending more than a few days with? I find that hard to
    believe. You couldn’t have always been a cynical asshole. At some
    point Brad Archer must have believed in something more than shitty
    endings.”
    Brad couldn’t help but look away, feeling exposed in a
    different way.
    “Tel me what happened,” Gavin pressed, a hand faling to
    Brad’s shoulder and squeezing lightly.
    Brad heard the compassion seep into Gavin’s steely
    demeanor, teling him what he’d suspected al along; the bad-cop
    act was just that—an act.
    He didn’t want Gavin’s compassion, not about this, not about
    anything. Accepting compassion meant he was weak, and Brad
    more than anyone knew that weakness left him open to getting hurt.
    “What?” Brad laughed bitterly, trying and failing to force the
    pain out of his voice. “You want me to tel you that my first love
    helped my brother and the other assholes I thought were my friends
    beat the shit out of me the day after my father kicked me out of the
    house? You want me to lay here and cry over that? Does that get
    your dick hard?”
    Rather than take the bait, Gavin just choked out, “Is