Page 24 of Memphis Heat
Callahan held open the door to Snorrasan’s office, acting like the gentleman his mother had wanted him to be and not the horny teenager he felt like around Amanda.
“Black.Callahan.Glad you could make it.”Snorrasan’s humorless tone still managed to convey his general dislike at being kept waiting.“Sit down.”Snorrasan didn’t waste time with preliminaries.“We all lost friends in that clusterfuck last month.Now that Black’s back on full duty, I want you to work together.I’m officially assigning you Black as your new partner, Callahan.Try to keep this one alive.”
Keep this one alive?Fury ignited deep in Callahan’s chest.It’d been an ambush, plain and simple, and no one had asked the question he needed answered.“Yeah?That’d be a hell of a lot easier if I know someone’s got my back.”Where the hell had Snorrasan and his team been?
“Funny you should mention that.”Amanda slid in smoothly, looking down at her long fingers, inspecting her nails like a queen addressing a peasant.“White and I were supposed to have a team coming in behind Callahan and Reginald.If I’m not mistaken, that was the plan devised by…” She trailed off as she looked up at Snorrasan, capturing his gaze in one so cold, Callahan was sure the room chilled by ten degrees.“You.”
Snorrasan stiffened.“Just what are you trying to say, Black?”
“I’m saying, before you go making snide remarks to my Lieutenant, get your fucking facts straight.If anyone dropped the ball, it wasyourteam.Not Callahan.”
That was way more than insubordination, but Callahan wasn’t touching it.He suspected Snorrasan wouldn’t either.Mainly because Amanda was dead on right.
Snorrasan smiled.“Just as I suspected.You two will be perfect for one another.”
Callahan bristled at that one.“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Why the fuck do you think I promoted you, Callahan?Not for your charm, that’s for damn sure.You’re one of the most insufferable, hair-triggered bastards in my squad.As for Black, you take insubordination to new levels.You’re also two of the finest cops I’ve ever worked with.You’re both too damn honest to keep your mouths shut, even when it’s in your own best interest.Which means I can trust you.And right now I can’t say that of everyone on this squad.”
All Callahan’s animosity drained away at the deadly calm in Snorrasan’s tone.A spike of electricity ran up his spine like the razor edge of a needle.“What are you sayin’, Boss?”
“I’m saying, watch your backs.You’re asking the right questions, but you need to ask them a little more carefully.We were set up out there, all of us.I don’t have all the answers.Yet.You’re going to help me find them.You’ll be working with Lieutenant Carson and Officer Regan on this.I want to know who sold us out, and I want to know before we lose another team.Don’t trust anyone else, pack or not.Are you in?”
Damn it.Under any other circumstances, Callahan would have gone off on Snorrasan for assigning him the hottest single woman in the precinct for a partner, but Snorrasan was right.If the squad had been compromised, there was no place Amanda was safer than in his sight.His dick would just have to learn to ignore her delicious body and let his other brain focus on work.“Fuck, yeah.I’m in.”
Amanda turned to look at him while she answered Snorrasan.The tip of her tiny pink tongue crept out to wet those already shiny, chocolate-covered-cherry lips.“Do I wanna partner up with the hottest hunk on theMen of the Memphis PDcalendar and go hunt down the bastards who murdered our partners and made me and White into werewolves?Oh, yeah.I’m liking the sound of this.”
She’d seen that damn calendar?Alarm bells went off in Callahan’s head.“You know you’re insane.”
Amanda’s grin turned feral.“I’m glad you finally noticed.”
Callahan stifled a groan.“It was for charity, and I’m your commanding officer.Regulations…”
Snorrasan snorted.“I’m not hearing a word of this.I know you’ve been skating around one another for months, trying to ignore what the rest of us already knew, but I don’t need to hear about it.Yet.I need the two of you together.Right where you are.You work the rest out however you need to -- just keep your private business private until this is cleared up.”
Callahan closed his eyes.I am so fucked… Snorrasan had all but given them permission… No.He couldn’t do this.It went against everything he’d ever believed.Didn’t it?Regulations were there for a reason and he’d always followed the regs.
He looked up and saw Amanda grinning down at him.“What’s the matter, white boy?You got a problem with black pussy?”
Yeah.He was fucked.
“Go.You have work to do.”Snorrasan shook his head and waved them away.“And I know it’s against your natures, but try to use a little discretion!”
He was an idiot.He’d read her so wrong.She’d been leading him around by the cock ever since she got out of the academy, and he was the only one who hadn’t known it.And his commander was feeding him to the wolves.Literally.“You’re black?I hadn’t noticed.”
“Baby, I’m just a bitch.A bitch in heat, and you’re looking a lot like lunch these days.”
Callahan grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her out of Snorrasan’s office, but kicking the door shut in his wake couldn’t drown out the sound of his commander’s laughter.
* * *
Callahan stared through his field glasses at the warehouse off in the distance.The night made it nearly impossible to see anything clearly even with his night vision goggles, but he could sense movement.What, he couldn’t tell, but movement nonetheless.This was it.This had to be it.All the intel they’d managed to gather pointed to a string of warehouses rented under this company front, and spotters had seen three tractor-trailers arriving just this morning.
“Looks like a go,” he said over the radio to the rest of the team.“Red Bandits on the move.Proceed with extreme caution.”
“Red Bandits?”Amanda gave him a sidelong glance.“We’re part of an elite team of werewolf cops and all you could come up with was ‘Red Bandits’?”
He shrugged.“They’re not paying me for creativity, sweetheart.”Then they both shifted and crept down the slope to the warehouse.
