Chapter One

“Brix, you’re next.”

“Yes, sir.” Cadet Eden Brixton’s pulse took a quick, ready pounce. She spared a glance at the classroom door before stepping to the front of the semicircle of fellow students completing the twenty-week basic training academy at Kentucky’s Department of Criminal Justice. Instructor McMasters acknowledged her with a brisk nod and resumed inspecting the class roster on his clipboard in an effort to pair her with another cadet for the frisk exercise.

The delay didn’t fray her nerves. Like most of the curriculum, this particular practicum she could do in her sleep. Conduct a pat down, find the concealed weapon, disarm the suspect. That Chief Shaun Buchanan of the Bluelick PD—her new boss, once she completed basic—was expected any moment only added to her anticipation. Buchanan termed the visit “new recruit outreach,” but she suspected it also involved sizing up the cadet her father, SEAL Team Commander Noah “Brick” Brixton, had possibly pushed on his former subordinate. She looked forward to demonstrating to Chief Buchanan that she actually knew her ass from her elbow. And she was confident she would, so long as…

“Swain,” McMasters barked.

…shit. Talons of a tension headache scratched at the back of her right eye as she watched the cocky son-of-a-bitch wield his allegedly panty-dropping smile and saunter his empirically perfect ass to the front of the room to stand on the other side of McMasters.

Their instructor handed Swain a shoebox and pointed to the door that led to the room behind the whiteboard wall. Her least favorite classmate shot her that smile he used like a fisherman with a surefire lure—all the more lethal thanks to the flash of white teeth against sun-gilded skin—and walked toward the anteroom to conceal whatever weapon McMasters had placed in the box. The SWAIN stenciled across the back of his T-shirt in big, block letters mocked her as much as the curve of his lips. He moved his six feet, three inches of athletically honed muscle with a loose, unhurried grace that suggested the man refused to be rushed, even with a classroom of cadets and one senior instructor waiting. His bone-deep self-assurance always managed to raise her hackles.

Those sneaky talons sank a little deeper, causing a muscle around her eye to twitch. Perfect. Swain embodied everything she detested in a person—joker, wild card, devil with deep blue eyes and deceptively heroic shoulders. He did absolutely nothing by the book but still managed to stay a measly five points behind her number-one status in the class ranking. He was creative, which she could admire, and unpredictable, which she distrusted, but it was the occasional flashes of genius that really troubled her. She was a nose-in-the-books, outstudy-everyone, do-more-work-than-humanly-possible-and-then-do-it-again kind of student. Swain did the bare minimum, as far as she could tell, but damn, the man read people, or situations, or whatever the hell. And perhaps because she hadn’t dropped her panties in response to the fuck-me grin, he routinely baited her. He was quick. He was tricky. If she wanted to look good in front of her new boss, Swain was the worst possible cadet to be partnered with.

If Marc Swain messed with her today, she was going to kick his ass all the way back to whatever bilge-water bayou he hailed from.

To reclaim the protective shell of professionalism she prided herself on maintaining, she used the wait time to run through the procedure in her head, adjusting for tactics she imagined Swain might stoop to. Would he hide the weapon somewhere inappropriate? Yes, of course he would. Any excuse to remind the world he had a penis and wasn’t afraid to use it. But the joke was on him if he thought she’d shy away from patting down a personal zone. She would do the job. Thoroughly. Competently. Successfully.

When Swain returned to the classroom, she noted he’d untucked his shirt from his academy-issue blue sweatpants—all the better to conceal a weapon in the waistband. He approached, hands raised, palms facing her. “I’m all yours, choux. Be gentle with me.”

Refusing to respond to his idea of humor, she took hold of the arm closest to her, twisted it behind his back, and maneuvered him chest-first against the whiteboard. His breath burst out of his lungs with a satisfying “Oof.” Eden had inherited a generous genetic dose of her dad’s height, but Swain had a good six inches on her. He outweighed her by about a hundred pounds. No way was she giving him a chance to leverage those advantages. The sound of the classroom door opening to admit Chief Buchanan and another uniformed member of the Bluelick Police Department only emphasized the importance, for her, of coming out on top in this particular encounter. “I’m going to release your arm, sir. Put your palms to the wall, head level so I can see them, and step out of your shoes.”

“This what you had in mind, ma chouchoute?” he drawled as he assumed the position and toed his cross-trainers off.

A little over a week ago, she’d finally broken down and googled the meaning of the word he insisted on referring to her by. Little cabbage. Supposedly an endearment, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was also Swain’s version of clever commentary on her ass. Now it took a deep breath and a purposeful swallow to keep from snapping, “I am not your fucking cabbage, you swamp-running redneck,” but she held her tongue. Following procedure, she used her boot to sweep his shoes aside and then position his feet shoulder-width apart. And if she kicked his foot a little harder than necessary to get him to widen his stance, nobody detected it except him. She knew he felt it, because she saw the corner of his mouth twitch into the tiniest of smiles. Lucky her. A masochist as well as a smart-ass.

“I’m going to pat you down now, sir. Remain as you are unless I instruct you to move. Understand?”

“It’s like my dreams comin’ true, choux.”

A muted but collective laugh rose from the observers behind them. She ignored both the innuendo and the classmate reaction and instead got started on the frisk. Per the textbook, she approached the pat down methodically, starting at the head, running fingers through Swain’s short-cropped, dark-blond hair. And although the sensation of sifting soft, thick strands through her fingers tempted some renegade part of her to take a longer, more leisurely sweep, she kept her inner renegade in check and advanced to open-palmed pats along his shoulders. When she curved her hands around his biceps her fingers brushed bare flesh just below the sleeves of his T-shirt. Muscles low in her stomach weakened as she took in the contrast of her warm brown skin against the lighter tone of Swain’s. Pushing past that detail, and her completely irrelevant reaction to it, she moved on to pat down his back, chest and torso. Swain’s jaw tightened as she progressed down his abs. Getting close, was she? God, why were some men so predictable? He made a warning noise—part growl, part groan—when she patted the front of his hips. Something long and hard prodded the heel of her hand. She honed in on the area.

Her fingers outlined the rodlike shape. “Weapon of some type hidden in his right pocket,” she announced, feeling the dimensions. He inhaled sharply, but she blocked out the distraction. “Blackjack, or”—she traced the length of the object—“possibly a gun, or…” She followed the diagonal slant of the weapon, eliciting another low sound from his throat.

Oh, fuck. She yanked her hand back. Seriously?

Swain let out a choked laugh. “I hate to break it to you, choux, but that weapon you’re handling is one I’ve been packing since birth.”

Over classmate laughter and the instructor’s call for quiet, she muttered, “You’re disgusting.”

“Hey, I’m just a red-blooded boy doing my best to submit to your search. It’s not my fault you found more than you bargained for.”

The comment provoked another round of laughter from their classmates. Humiliation doubled her heartbeat. Her palms started to sweat. She let none of it show. “More than I bargained for? Please.” She shoved him face front again and scrambled for the right retort to turn the power dynamic back to her. “Don’t flatter yourself, Swain. I figured it for a small-caliber weapon, and I stand by the ‘small’ part of that assessment.”

The volume of laughter rose several notches at her comeback. Instantly, equilibrium restored. But now wasn’t the time to bask in triumph. She continued the search, crouching to feel around his ankles. And there it was, pushed deep into his sock. She traced the outline until she was certain, then announced, “Knife concealed in the left sock.” Withdrawing the switchblade as she stood, she held it aloft for the class and her instructor to view.

McMasters took the weapon and ran through the finer points of the procedure. She backed away and faced their instructor. Swain turned around, lowered his head, and murmured directly into her ear, “Learn anything new, choux?”

Her face heated despite the air-conditioned room. She had learned something. Marc Swain might easily qualify as the most infuriating, overconfident man she’d ever met, but he was an infuriating, overconfident man with the most impressive dick she’d ever wrapped her hand around.

Thank God he was going to some godforsaken county sheriff’s department rather than the Bluelick PD. Once they graduated, she’d never have to deal with his sly comments or impressive dick again.