Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(11)

Seeing Dax Tremaine in bed with his tanned skin pressed against cool white sheets?

Holy hotness, Batman.

“Perfect,” she said. “Now just lie there like you’re about to take a nap. Ruffle the pillows. Perfect.”

I leaned my back against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest so that my nipples wouldn’t betray me.

I watched as Avery stood over Dax, straddling his big body on the bed, and took picture after picture.

I felt tingles shiver down my spine as he looked over at me at one point, a small grin on his face.

“This is really weird, isn’t it?” he asked.

I tried not to betray how ‘not weird’ I was feeling right then.

“It’s gonna be cool,” I admitted.

His answering wink had my heart rate shooting through the roof.

I backed up again, this time being sure to position myself so that I was against the wall but out of Dax’s direct line of sight.

Once there, I contemplated how nice Dax was being to me.

And then I realized why he was being so nice to me.

He felt bad for me and my bald little head.

Understanding dawned, and I nearly slapped my forehead with my hand in reaction.

There I was getting ideas, and there Dax was just being nice to the poor soul that had all her hair melted off.

Feeling decidedly more down now than I had in the office while I was telling my father what happened, I stayed silent and watched the rest of the shoot happen.

Dax never moved out of the bed.

As Avery stood over him, taking multiple angles this way and that, I tried not to admire the way he looked.

I also tried not to study his tattoos, or think about anything, really.

By the time Avery was announcing that she was finished and Dax jumped off the bed, I was more than ready to get home.

Dax, once allowed to get up, put his compression shirt and t-shirt back on, then tucked it all back into the waist of his pants.

All the while I studiously avoided looking at him.

“Ready, Freddy?” Dax asked.

It was then I realized that he was talking to me.

I gave a short, sharp nod. “Ready.”

“I’ll get back to you on which shot I choose,” Avery said as she started to go through the shots on her camera. “I’ll send a picture of it to the number you supplied for the photo release.”

Dax grimaced. “If it’s all the same, I’d rather not see it at all.”

Avery’s brows rose and she looked up from the camera.

“Okay,” Avery drawled. “Anything you want.”

Dax grumbled something under his breath and walked to the door, but on his way, he stopped and picked up my hat.

Detouring my way, he handed me the hat, waited for me to fit it onto my head, then gave a sharp nod.

“Let me go check to make sure that they’re not watching,” Dax offered.

I’d completely forgotten all about my brother being out there.

“I’ll get Dad to text him or something,” I muttered. “Or call. He’ll go somewhere quiet for that.”

Dax poked his head out of the room, then closed it behind him.

“He’s waiting while facing the door,” Dax said.

I pulled out my phone and texted my dad, who responded back immediately with, “Two seconds.”

And it wasn’t but another thirty seconds later that Dax opened the door to find Derek gone from the room.

“Let’s roll,” he said, swinging the door wide.

Avery called out a distracted goodbye, and I gave a half-hearted wave before following quickly on Dax’s heels.

I don’t know what I expected when Dax led me outside to his vehicle.

But I wasn’t expecting to find a big black motorcycle airbrushed with flames.

I stopped when he picked up the helmet and handed it to me.

Blinking rapidly, I absently took the helmet, then stared at it as if I didn’t know what to do with it.

“You ever ridden before?” he asked.

No.

I swallowed hard.

“Dad never had a motorcycle,” I told him. “And though I dated a guy back in high school that had one of those sport bikes, he refused to allow me to get on it. Said it was dangerous, and if he ever caught me on the back of it, he’d write the kid a ticket. So I never got on it.” I paused. “Does he know that you ride a motorcycle? Because I don’t want him giving you a ticket when he realizes that he asked you to do something that would require me putting my life on the line.”

Dax chuckled then, taking the helmet out of my hand and then removing the hat from my head.

I felt the heat from the sun start to seep into my bald head.

It felt utterly nuts to me.

So wrong on so many levels.

“We’ll talk to him about that if it ever comes up again,” he said. “But I doubt he writes me a ticket seeing as I’m the one doing him a favor here.”

Doing him a favor.

Right.

Swallowing hard and looking away from Dax, I looked out at my car. Or where my car once was.

Now it was gone, and I assumed that my dad had it towed or something.

“Where’d you get this hat?” Dax asked as he fitted the helmet onto my head.

It was too loose.

By the time that he’d had it fastened all the way, tightened down as tight as it would go, it was still wobbling on my head.