“I live in Idaho under duress,” Cole groused. “If I didn’t totally dig Brooklyn and think Remy’s the shit, I would’ve protested our move from Arizona.”

Brooklyn was my teammate Rhode Daley’s fiancée and Remington was their son. A son Rhode didn’t know existed until a job took us to Spokane, Washington. Normally a situation such as this would be fucked, but Brooklyn didn’t hide her pregnancy or hide Remy from Rhode. She simply couldn’t find him to tell him that their no-name-night-of-fun in a Washington D.C. hotel room had resulted in Remy. From the moment Rhode found out about Remy, he was all-in. And not just with getting to know his son and helping to raise him but winning Brooklyn over. Thankfully he accomplished both those tasks. So when Takeback was faced with losing Rhode or moving the operation from Arizona to North Idaho where Brooklyn and Remy lived to keep Rhode, Wilson made the right decision to keep the team together and move headquarters to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I personally preferred the mild summers of North Idaho to the feel of my skin melting off in the desert. I also preferred the lush-green and beautiful lakes to Southern California traffic and smog.

But living in a beach house for a spell certainly didn’t suck.

“Though,” Cole continued, “nothing beats SoCal women.” His neck was craned to the right and he was staring out the window at two women walking down the side of the highway with wetsuits pulled down to their hips, bikini tops visible, carrying boards.

Before I could stop it, a ridiculous image of Sloane popped into my head, and I wondered if she knew how to surf. I doubted it, which was insane to think because I didn’t know the woman. I knew her credit score, I knew she rented an apartment in Encino. I knew she drove a Subaru Crosstrek and not because I’d seen it at the mansion. I also knew she was an only child, and her parents were divorced. I knew her work history, her high school GPA, and that she dropped out of CSUN after one year.

What I didn’t know was her personality, not her likes or dislikes, why her parents got divorced, or why she stopped going to CSUN. Everything I knew about Sloane was from reports I’d read or the times I’d seen her while she was working. So I had nothing to base my opinions on except for a gut feeling. And my gut told me Sloane wasn’t a beach girl, she’d dig the mountains. She’d get off on the beauty. But more, she’d like the challenge of the hike to get to the summit.

I shouldn’t have been thinking about surfing or hiking or what the pretty woman looked like in the morning. And I certainly shouldn’t have been thinking I’d seriously like to know what she looked like tangled in my sheets after I fucked her rough. I wanted to know everything about Sloane and not because it was my job to get close to her. Sure, I wanted to know why the fuck she was working at a sex club when she very obviously found it distasteful. I wanted to know why she’d quit her job as an event planner at a large management company to work for Club Joi. Why she left a waitressing gig she worked three days a week when she’d made decent money. She wasn’t rolling in it, but she was far from hurting. Her bills were paid, her car paid off, money in savings. So why the hell was Sloane working in a sex club when it was obvious she didn’t have a taste for kink?