This heralded the beginning of the brawl, including shouting, grunting, flying beer bottles and broken furniture. One second, Lee was the show, the next second, everyone was in on the act.

Two new guys came at Lee and he turned to one, not a small guy, not even average, though he wasn’t huge, and Lee grasped him by the collar of his t-shirt and belt of his pants, picked him up and threw him four feet across the room.

Just… like… that.

The guy that Lee jabbed was recovering and going toward Lee so I felt it was time to wade into the action. I hit the switch on the stun gun, it started to crackle and I moved forward and touched the guy with the prongs. He went still and went down.

Holy shit!

That was cool.

Lee’s eyes locked on mine, he gave a small shake of his head and then turned and dispatched another guy with a smooth uppercut. The guy went sailing.

“Hey, whitey! What the f**k you doin’?” I turned to see a black woman, hand on hip, head wobbling from side to side. “You can’t just stun gun my man… you can’t just… eek!”

I put the prongs to her, she went still then went down.

“Yo, bitch! Who you messin’ with?” The girl’s girlfriend was coming at me, all pissed off attitude, definitely in bitch smackdown mode. So I leaned forward, put the prongs to her too and she went down as well.

Regardless of the bedlam, people were giving me, and my crackling stun gun, a wide berth. Then, two hands settled on my waist. I was lifted up and my butt was planted on the bar. Lee bent, grabbed my ankles, swung my legs around to the back of the bar, then with a hand between my shoulders, he gave me a shove and I fell over to the other side.

Bobby came in and spotted Lee immediately. He fought his way to Lee, they both bent down and I couldn’t see them over the bar. The place was pandemonium and twice I had to duck, once to dodge a flying beer bottle, the second time to duck and run from a flying chair.

Bobby and Lee came up with the humongous guy, cuffed now at the back.

Bobby pushed humongous guy forward, half-walking him, half-scooting him along. The big guy was either mostly knocked-out or stunned. Bobby, who was even bigger, in fact bigger than anyone in the room, didn’t have a problem handling humongous guy or wading through the crowd.

Lee jumped the bar, lifted me up and planted me on the bar again, reverse action. He went back over the bar, snagged me around the waist and hauled me out of there.

Sirens were blaring and a cop car had already rolled up. Willie and Brian were headed into the bar as we came out and I saw another squad car approach.

Brian’s mouth dropped open when he saw me.

Willie’s eyes turned to Lee. There was some nonverbal male communication going on that I couldn’t decipher except I had a feeling that Lee was not going to win the Cop’s Daughter Boyfriend of the Year Award.

“I’m droppin’ Indy, I’ll meet you at the station,” Lee informed Bobby as Bobby shoved the humongous guy in the backseat of an SUV, then pulled out some ankle shackles.

I was jazzed. I’d never been in a bar brawl before, if you didn’t count what happened at BJ’s Carousel. Personally, I was classifying that as a shootout rather than a bar brawl.

I discovered I loved stun guns, stun guns were righteous when they weren’t used on you.

And Lee could kick ass.

He was calm, cool and totally in control.

No one touched him, no one even got near him.

Lee drove down Colfax, going fast, weaving in and out of traffic and not saying anything.

“You’re thinking of cuffing me to the bed again, aren’t you?” I asked.

“No, I’m wondering if I should skip town before getting lynched.”

Hmm.

“Can I keep the stun gun?” I asked.

Lee didn’t answer.

He pulled up in front of my house and I turned to him, I couldn’t contain my excitement any longer.

“Is it a bad thing that I’m, like, totally jazzed?”

Lee twisted toward me, his face in shadow. “No.”

“Did you learn to fight like that in Special Operations School?”

“I learned to fight like that in bar fights.”

“Aren’t you jazzed?” I asked, he seemed so calm.

“Yeah, I’m jazzed. And I’d like you to get out of the car so I can go to the station and deal with the paperwork and get home so I can work that feelin’ out with you.”

Holy crap.

“Okay!” I chirped, leaned forward and gave him a quick peck and hightailed it out of his car.

Lee took off when I was safely inside.

I let Chowleena out the front for a change of scenery.

I ran upstairs and yanked out my red lace undies and garter belt.

There was gratitude owed not to mention I was allowing happiness to seep through those walls Lee said I had built around me.

And I had one seriously hot, badass, good-looking boyfriend.

I didn’t have any stockings that weren’t black so black would have to do. I had a pair of black pumps with a dangerously pointed toe, a thin stiletto heel and a saucy ankle strap and I yanked them out of their box. I pulled off my clothes, put on the underwear, threw on a short robe, and ran and called Chowleena in. Then I smoothed on the stockings and lit the room softly with a small lamp on my dressing table that gave just enough light to see but not enough light to see.

Then I paced, waiting for Lee. It couldn’t take that long and he was jazzed, he’d want to get home.

I put the shoes by the side of the bed so I could put them on when I heard him come in.

I laid down on my bed to wait.

Immediately my adrenalin crashed and I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-One

We Aren’t Practice for the Real Thing

I heard Lee mutter, “Fuck,” and my wrist was circled by his fingers.

I opened my eyes and saw him lay back in the bed, his hand at his jaw.

“Hey,” I said sleepily.

“You didn’t wait long,” he answered, letting my wrist go.

“I crashed.”

He was settling against the pillows, shirt unbuttoned all the way down, belt gone from his jeans. He looked warm and comfy so I snuggled up to him, burrowing my face in his neck. One of his arms slid around my shoulders, the other hand was rubbing his jaw.

“Why are you rubbing your jaw?” I asked.

“I was gettin’ into bed, you turned and clocked me.”