Table of Contents
Kitty Kitty
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale
Blurb
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
What's Next?
Text copyright ©2020 Lani Lynn Vale ®
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedications blow. Let’s go have a cookie.
Acknowledgments
Golden Czermak - Photographer
My Brother’s Editor & Ink It Out Editing- My editors
Cover Me Darling - Cover Artist
My mom - Thank you for reading this book eight million, two hundred and thirty-one times.
Kendra, Lisa, Laura, Penney, Brandi, Jen, Kathy, Mindy, Barbara & Amanda—I don’t know what I would do without y’all. Thank you, my lovely betas, for loving my books as much as I do.
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks
Bad Apple
Dirty Mother
Rusty Nail
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Controlled Burn
Put Out
I Like Big Dragons Series
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie
Dragons Need Love, Too
Oh, My Dragon
The Dixie Warden Rejects
Beard Mode
Fear the Beard
Son of a Beard
I’m Only Here for the Beard
The Beard Made Me Do It
Beard Up
For the Love of Beard
Law & Beard
There’s No Crying in Baseball
Pitch Please
Quit Your Pitchin’
Listen, Pitch
The Hail Raisers
Hail No
Go to Hail
Burn in Hail
What the Hail
The Hail You Say
Hail Mary
The Simple Man Series
Kinda Don’t Care
Maybe Don’t Wanna
Get You Some
Ain’t Doin’ It
Too Bad So Sad
Bear Bottom Guardians MC
Mess Me Up
Talkin’ Trash
How About No
My Bad
One Chance, Fancy
It Happens
Keep It Classy
Snitches Get Stitches
F-Bomb
The Southern Gentleman Series
Hissy Fit
Lord Have Mercy
KPD Motorcycle Patrol
Hide Your Crazy
It Wasn’t Me
I’d Rather Not
Make Me
Sinners are Winners
If You Say So
SWAT 2.0
Just Kidding
Fries Before Guys
Maybe Swearing Will Help
Ask Me If I Care
May Contain Wine
Joke’s on You
Join the Club
Any Day Now
Say it Ain’t So
Officially Over It
Nobody Knows
Depends Who’s Asking
Valentine Boys
Herd That
Crazy Heifer
Chute Yeah
Get Bucked
Souls Chapel Revenants
Repeat Offender
Conjugal Visits
Jailbait
Doin’ A Dime
Kitty Kitty
Gen Pop
Inmate of the Month
Madd CrossFit
No Rep
Jerk It
Chalk Dirty to Me
Blurb
This is the story of a man falling in love with a woman.
A man that was supposed to be a role model, and a woman that was just barely twenty-one.
A man who should’ve known better, and a woman that didn’t know that she was destroying his career word by word, innocent touch by innocent touch, smile by smile, until it had already imploded.
The world collapses around Absinthe ‘Sin’ Solomon, and the only thing he can do is try not to take her down with him.
The moment the inevitable happens, and the gavel bangs signaling that he will spend the next nine years in prison for attempted murder, Sin tries to let go. But Blaise Mackenzie has never, not ever, been one to give up without a fight.
Her military career might be over, but her career as a prison guard is just about to get started.
And her favorite prisoner? A pissed-off older man, a drill sergeant dishonorably discharged from the Army that tells himself daily that the new ‘Kitty Kitty’ female prison guard is not for him.
After following him around for years, watching over him from afar in any way she can, Sin is released early. And the first person that he’s going to see? A stubborn little blonde-headed female that should’ve known better than to trust a man like him.
PROLOGUE
Drill Sergeants: they will kick your ass and look sexy doing it the entire time.
-Blaise’s secret thoughts
BLAISE
Six years ago
Oh. My. God.
“Holy shit,” the girl beside me breathed as she got a load of the male drill sergeants.
I didn’t say anything.
Couldn’t.
I didn’t want to be singled out and be forced to do anything more than I was already doing.
When I’d told my parents that I was going into the military—the Army specifically—I didn’t have any clue just how bad it was going to be at first.
It was… hard.
Like, really hard.
One second, I was a happy twenty-one-year-old, and the next I was in the Army, being yelled at by
really screechy female drill sergeants for eating two freakin’ kiwis instead of just one.
I mean, for God’s sake, it didn’t say ‘you can only have one goddamn kiwi.’
How was I supposed to know the limit was one?
Anyway, I digress.
The men standing in front of us were… gorgeous.
But one drill sergeant in particular kept drawing my eye.
The name stitched into his uniform said ‘Solomon’ and he was so sexy I could barely breathe.
Then again, that barely breathing thing might have something to do with the number of push-ups we’d been forced to do over the last hour.
Whatever the reason, I had a feeling that every single eye in the entire unit I was in was currently focused on one drill sergeant in particular.
“Drill Sergeant Solomon,” our female drill sergeant, Drill Sergeant Ames, called. “Would you like to lead the next drill?”
A small flicker of annoyance crossed Drill Sergeant Solomon’s face, then he stepped forward and led the next drill.
I fell over my feet twice as I tried not to stare at his bulging biceps.
How the hell did they not rip the damn shirt?
Jesus Christ.
I…
“Do you have a problem, recruit?”
I shivered at the low, raspy voice of the other male drill sergeant that had come with the sexy one.
The name on his shirt read ‘Brees.’
The shiver that’d run down my spine wasn’t the same type of shiver that Solomon had gotten out of me earlier.
No, this one was one of downright terror.
Because there was something about this particular drill sergeant that had freaked me out from day one.
When I was younger, I’d had a lot of ‘premonitions.’ Not like ‘you’re about to die, don’t step off that curb’ kind of premonitions. No, this was the kind of feeling that maybe the person you just met wasn’t a particularly good person. That they were someone that I needed to stay away from. A man that in this case, if at all possible, I needed to not gain his attention.
“Sir, no, sir.” I went rigid at attention.
The man’s eyes traveled over me, head to toe, and his lips twitched. “Mackenzie.”
I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
“I know a couple of Mackenzies,” he drawled.
God.
Dammit.
Of course, he did.
That meant he was going to be paying more attention to me.
Wonderful.
“Carry on.” He gestured to the rest of my platoon that’d started off without me.
I rushed to catch up, a feeling of utter relief coursing through me at not having to stay with him any longer.
The only problem was, I’d gained his attention.
When a man like Drill Sergeant Brees had you in his sights, things were bound to go bad.
And they did.
• • •
Three weeks later
I. Was. Terrified.
Drill Sergeant Brees had made a comment this morning during our morning drills. One that had left me with my eyes wide open even though I needed the sleep desperately.
You may think you’ve won, but you haven’t. I’ll see you tonight, Mackenzie.
Normally, it was only the female drill sergeants that dealt with the female soldiers.
This morning, though? It was like Drill Sergeant Brees had gone out of his way to make sure that my life was a living hell.
It was boot camp.
I’d expected it to be hard.
But not this hard.
The one shining bright light in my dark sky over the last three weeks had been one single man’s attention.
When I caught Drill Sergeant Brees’ attention, I’d also caught Drill Sergeant Solomon’s.
And not because of anything that I’d done, but because of what the other drill sergeant had done.
He hadn’t liked Brees’ attention on me.
Not one little bit.
And he’d thwarted almost every single attempt of Brees’ at getting me either alone, or almost alone.
But tonight, I wasn’t sure that he would be saving me.
The sick feeling in my stomach grew until it was a pounding ache that nearly doubled me over.
As if these last three weeks weren’t enough, now I was on my period, in need of tampons, and about to head to sick hall for some medication on top of that.
I was blessed with awful, and I do mean awful, periods.
Every month, like fucking clockwork, I had them.
They would tear me down, one cramp at a time, until I was lying sick on the floor.
In bootcamp? That kind of thing wasn’t ever going to fly.
So, even though I felt like utter and complete shit, I forged ahead.
Why couldn’t I just be like those other chicks that were so damn stressed during basic training that I didn’t have a period at all?
Oh, because the universe hated me, that’s why.
“Something I can help you with, Mackenzie?”
Those words, said in an amused tone, had my stomach almost emptying itself right then and there.
Swallowing hard, I tried not to let on how freakin’ scared I was.
“Drill Sergeant Brees.” I tried to smile, but I was sure it came out more as a grimace. “I’m headed to sick hall to get some medication.”
“For what?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
Though his physique was impressive, it wasn’t nearly as impressive as Sin’s.
Absinthe Solomon.
I’d learned his entire name just yesterday when he’d stepped in between me and Drill Sergeant Brees.
Drill Sergeant Brees had all but assaulted him for interrupting us.
Thank God he had.
Now not only did I know his name, but I also hadn’t had to do anything more humiliating than I had.
Thank God.
“Umm,” I hesitated. “I’m having cramps.”
I didn’t see the point of lying.
Maybe the idea of me bleeding would turn him off and make him step away.
If anything, it only made him step closer.
“Cramps?” he asked. “You PMSing, Mackenzie?”
I felt another cramp start, nearly bringing me to my knees.
“Yes, sir.” I didn’t lie.
“Okay.” He gestured. “Let’s go. I’ll walk with you. Keep you out of trouble.”
I’d rather go back to my bed and die.
But when I would’ve turned, he caught my arm in an unyielding grip and didn’t let go.
His grip was so punishing that I didn’t even think to tug it away.
I knew that if I did, the result would only be worse than the original intent.
But, instead of leading me the usual way, he led me the long way, and the ever-darkening dusk started to make me feel very uneasy.
There were now not many people around.
Those that were around weren’t paying us any attention.
Which had to be why, when we slipped past a darkening building, nobody noticed when we both disappeared into the shadows.
“No.” I started to yank my hand away, realizing just how freakin’ stupid I’d been to go so ‘willingly’ this far with him. But before I could so much as get the ‘n’ in ‘no’ out he had his hand over my mouth.
“Say a word or scream, and I’ll kill you,” he growled.
I froze, listening to the sincerity in those words.
He really would kill me.
He’d not even blink an eye at it.
“You know how easy it would be to ‘find’ you?” he asked.
I wanted to scream ‘but people saw us together!’
I didn’t, though.
I stayed still. At least until he had a false sense of security.
He moved his free hand down the length of my body.
“Never seen such a sweet ass before,” he growled. “Twitching and bouncing
in my face around every corner.”
I wanted to knee him in the balls.
Then I thought… why the hell not?
I wasn’t getting out of this alive if I couldn’t fend for myself.
And my daddy, the vice president of the Dixie Wardens MC, didn’t raise no bitch.
I grew up with a brother, Johnny, that was a rough and tumble sort. He baptized me the tough way. If I wanted to learn to protect myself, I was going to learn the hard way.
By him doing the beating.
My brother was great. But back then, he was a rowdy little asshole who’d grown up in a motorcycle club just like me.
His father was Sebastian Mackenzie just like me.
He had hundreds of pseudo-uncles that didn’t go easy on him just because he was a child.
I had an uncle that was former-Army. He taught me to creep and do all of my own dirty work. I had another uncle that was former-Army and a sniper. He taught me everything about a rifle and I could shoot better than anyone I knew. This asshole toad was probably not going to go easy on me, either. Even if he was a male and older.
“Can I let your mouth go?” he asked.
I nodded.
The moment his hand was off my mouth, I struck.
My knee went high, straight into those two little peas he called testicles.
When the breath left him in a whoosh of air as he leaned forward, I kneed him in the face with the other knee.
But, just like my father told me, a determined man wasn’t going to go down easily. Taking a knee to the balls and to the face didn’t take Drill Sergeant Brees down like I would’ve hoped.
So I decided that the next best thing was to run.
I ran.
Hard.
Only, he was faster.
Just like my father said.
A man is always going to be faster. Stronger. Able to go longer than a woman. If you ever truly need to get away, you need to strike hard, fast, and think smart.
I screamed.
Only, my face met the dirt so fast that the only sound that got out was a high-pitched yip before my mouth was full of so much dirt that screaming was impossible.
I struggled hard, but his full body weight pinned me down, forcibly holding me there while he growled behind me.
“Made a mistake, you little bitch,” Brees hissed from behind me. “All I wanted was a fuck. You could’ve given me that without getting this. But… your fault.”