Handcuffs and Trouble
Series: Rawlings Men (Book 4)
Genre: Male/Male, BDSM, Erotic Romance
Length: Glimmer - Short story (15,300 words)
Publisher: Resplendence Publishing
Release Date: November 2010 - Available Now
Blurb:
As the newest constable in the station, Trent Rawlings isn’t entirely surprised to find himself being hazed by the other cops. Determined not to make any more of a fool of himself than is absolutely necessary, he’s merely biding his time and going through the motions until he gets to the punch line. It has to be a hazing. If it’s not, he’s in real trouble.
Kieran Osmond doesn’t know what the hell the little fool thinks he’s doing, stumbling into the middle of an undercover operation. All Kieran knows is that he has to rescue the younger man before he gets them both killed. Luckily for them both, Trent seems to be good at obeying orders and following a more dominant man’s lead. He may even be too good at it for Kieran’s peace of mind.
Maybe Trent isn’t the only man who’s in trouble.
And here's a quick excerpt:
He’ll fill you in when you get there.
Trent Rawlings would have felt a hell of a lot better about being told that, if any of the men who kept ordering him from pillar to post had bothered to mention exactly where the final ‘there’ might be, or if he’d received at least a general description of the ‘he’ who’d eventually be willing to do the bloody filling in.
The duty sergeant had told him that Inspector Jarvis would fill him in when he got to the incident room. The inspector had merely ordered him into plain clothes and said that Sergeant Thomas would tell him what was going on when he reached the address Jarvis had hurriedly scribbled on a piece of paper. But Sergeant Thomas hadn’t even bothered to give him a clue who he was supposed to be looking for next.
Hunching his shoulders, Trent kept his head down as he fought his way through the crowd of people crammed into the old warehouse. It didn’t do any good. Everyone was still staring at him. That was the thing about being the only person in the place who looked even vaguely normal. Somehow, when everyone else was tie-dyed a million different clashing colors, it was the guy in the inconspicuous black jacket who ended up looking like the pillock. That just wasn’t fair!
It was a hazing thing, Trent told himself. It had to be. He was the new guy in the station, and they were winding him up, sending him running around in circles looking for the police equivalent of glass hammers and sky hooks. It was a hazing. All he had to do was go through the motions, and laugh along with everyone else when he finally stumbled on the punch line and everything would be fine.
Heat and noise pressed in on him from all sides making his head spin and his stomach turn. Everybody was shouting and laughing, damn near everyone seemed either drunk or high. The thumping music seemed to get even louder as he forced his way deeper into the mass of gyrating bodies.
The constable only just held back a curse as a drunken raver’s elbow connected sharply with his ribs. The guy reeked of cheap cider and weed. The stench hung in the air even after the man stumbled off, purple Mohawk quickly disappearing into the chaos. It was almost as bad as the cloud of whisky vapors that had surrounded Sergeant Thomas as the older man yelled at Trent for being late and thrust directions to the warehouse into his hand.
Definitely a hazing.
“You lost, kid?” someone shouted over the blaring music.
Trent might not have been sure exactly where he was heading or who he was looking for, but he’d cheerfully be damned before he answered to being called a kid. He was nineteen years old and a serving police officer. He wasn’t a kid. He pushed on, trying his best not to get crushed as he searched for anyone who looked even vaguely familiar in the throng.
A huge, meaty hand landed on his shoulder and spun him around. In any other situation, Trent was pretty sure the guy standing in front of him would have looked ridiculous. Men built like mountains should look silly in orange camouflage and purple paisley. It was practically a law of nature. Except the guy also had an extremely non-silly looking flick knife in his hand, and quite a few friends with him.
“I said—you lost?” He didn’t sound the least bit like the kind of guy who got involved in hazing new constables into the local station.
Trent looked from him to the knife and back to the small portion of the man’s face visible between the sunglasses, bandana and beard. The cutting edge was currently folded back into the handle, but the chances of it staying that way seemed to bee get more remote by the second.
Right on cue, the guy flicked his wrist and the blade swung out.
“He’s with me,” someone cut in from behind Trent.
The mountain hesitated.
Trent looked over his shoulder. The guy didn’t look any more like the kind of man who’d be able to fill him in on what the hell he was supposed to be doing there than anyone else in the chaos.
He wore the same jumble of clashing clothes as all the others. The multi-colored theme had even spread to his spiky hair, dying it all sorts of weird and wonderful colors. Even his eyes were a bizarre shade of violet. Yet, in spite of all that, there was something ever so very slightly familiar about him.
Or maybe Trent just wished there was. There couldn’t be many men on the planet who could still appear hot as hell when it looked like a rainbow had thrown up all over them.