Free Shock Advised (Kilgore Fire #1) by Lani Lynn Vale Page A

Max.
    Then again, everyone was singing with him.
    Garth Brooks was likely the only singer that everyone knew all the words to, so it was inevitable.
    “Want a drink?” Tai asked, sensing my need to be distracted.
    “No, I’m finished drinking. I haven’t had this much to drink since I was a freshman in college,” I laughed.
    “Oh, boy. We’ll have to fix that,” Tai teased.
    His chest rumbled with his words, and I had to bite my lip to keep the moan from slipping out past my lips.
    “How was your dinner?” He persisted.
    A smile lifted up the corner of my lips. “I’m stuffed. I think that they purposefully give you too much food so you won’t be able to leave for a while in fear of ripping your pants.”
    He looked down at my pants with a raised brow, and I giggled.
    I was still in my hospital scrubs.
    Normally, I wouldn’t wear them out like this.
    There were a lot of things that got on a nurse’s scrubs during the day, bodily fluids being one of them. However, when Tai had come to tell me about my mom, I’d only been at work for less than two hours. It hadn’t had time to get too badly soiled.
    “They’re not stretchy, if that’s what you’re thinking. They’re fitted,” I said defensively with a narrowing of my eyes.
    He chuckled, and I felt the rumble of his chest against mine.
    “You ready to go?” He asked. “I know you have to be tired.”
    I closed my eyes and thought about that.
    Was I tired?
    Yes.
    Did I want to go?
    Yes.
    Did I want him to leave me?
    No.
    And that was exactly what would happen if I said that yes, I was ready to go.
    “No. Not yet,” I said instead of the truth.
    This was the most normal I’d felt in ages, and I didn’t want him to let me go.
    He did, though, thirty minutes later as the last call was announced over the bar’s speakers.
    “Let’s go, pretty girl,” Tai ordered, standing me up from where I’d been leaning against his chest for the last 30 minutes.
    We walked out with the same group that we’d arrived with.
    Although Sam had acquired a drop-dead, gorgeous blonde woman who was apparently his wife.
    She was wrapped around Sam’s chest, laughing into his side as Sam spoke about something obviously very funny to the woman.
    Downy was on his phone talking to who I assumed was his wife since he was talking about his ‘shit head kids’ to nearly the entire bar.
    Tai was silent at my side, his arms down by his own sides as he walked.
    I missed his body heat.
    I wrapped my hands around my chest and looked down at the gravel beneath my feet as my Crocs dug into the loose rocks.
    They made crunchy squish sounds as I walked…right into Tai.
    “Shit!” I cried, startled.
    I looked up at his face to see him staring at a man across the parking lot that was leaning against his truck.
    The man was making out with a woman who he had pressed against the gleaming red paint.
    “What. The. Fuck.”
    It was then I saw the man had his hands up the woman’s skirt, and he was furiously working his digits.
    “Wow,” I said. “Classy much?”
    “Slutty, if you ask me,” Tai grumbled, walking forward until he stopped at the passenger side door.
    He opened it up and helped me in, like he’d done each time I’d gotten in, and slammed it shut.
    When the couple still didn’t move, he got into his side, then started the motor.
    He revved it up for good measure, rocking the truck as he’d done earlier in the night.
    I laughed out loud when I saw the couple scream and scramble away from the truck.
    It really was that loud.
    And we’d gathered the attention of Sam, his wife, and Downy, as they, too, laughed.
    The man that was using Tai’s truck as an object to screw his woman against, glared at Tai. It was a promise that some sort of retribution would be served.
    “Do you know him?” I asked once he pulled out of his parking spot.
    “Yeah. Know the woman better, though,” he answered evasively.
    “Oh?” I asked. “How?”
    “Used to date her,” he mumbled,