I didn’t have an answer for her other than “people sucked,” but that wasn’t going to get her to see reason or have her dropping the knife.
“This is bad, Carla. Bad for you and bad for your kids. You don’t want to make it worse, do you? You need to put the knife down and just come with me.”
I could hear sirens in the distance, which was great, because the idiot cheater had rallied enough to start screaming back at Carla. He was calling her names and telling her that her sister was a hundred times better in bed than she was ever going to be. He was most definitely not helping the situation. Carla was shaking all over and her face went from furious red to sickly pale. She was going to lose it, so I latched on to the only thing that I thought might shift her anger away from her awful spouse.
“Carla, I know you’re mad at him, disappointed, and no one can blame you. What he did is terrible and unforgivable, but what about your sister? It takes two to cheat and she’s your family, your blood. Don’t you want to tell her how you feel about what she did?”
It was like the sun breaking through the clouds on a summer day. I saw awareness dawn, the rage switch from one target to the other and the fresh betrayal slam into this woman’s body like a freight train. The knife fell out of her suddenly lax fingers and she crumpled into a hysterical ball on the floor in front of me. I let out a relieved sigh and looked over my shoulder to where the paramedics were loading the victim onto a stretcher and getting ready to haul him off. Barrett was talking to someone that appeared to be a neighbor, probably getting a witness statement, and the backup unit was just hovering in the doorway watching the show.
I walked over to Carla and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me with wrecked eyes. “My sister is a bitch.”
I nodded solemnly. “It really sounds like she is.”
“What’s gonna happen to my kids? They’re at his parents’ house right now.”
Well, that was good. At least they weren’t going to have to live with the sight of their mother trying to cleave their father in two with a steak knife.
“I can’t answer that, Carla. But maybe they should’ve been your concern before you picked up the knife.”
I helped the woman to her feet and winced as she wiped a gooey mixture of tears and snot across the back of her arm.
“I’m going to jail.”
I nodded once again. “I’m afraid so.”
She heaved a really deep sigh and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “I wish I had aimed lower.”
It shouldn’t be funny and I wasn’t going to condone this kind of violence, but I sort of agreed with her.
I read her her rights and put her in the back of the patrol car. I knew we were going to have to charge her with aggravated assault at the very least. It took a few minutes to get everything all situated at the scene and to get all the statements gathered for the report we were going to have to write up.
The ride back to the station was filled with quiet sobbing from the backseat and Barrett muttering to himself as I drove us through early-evening traffic. We got Carla processed in and started on the paperwork when Barrett suddenly stopped what he was typing and looked at me with obvious confusion on his face. I was starving since we had to ditch dinner, and just wanted to finish up the paperwork so we could get back on the street to finish our shift and maybe sneak in some Taco Bell.
I had my hat on the desk next to me and reached up to rub my temples. Paperwork was so boring. I hated it.
“What?”
He shook his head at me and turned to look back at the computer screen. “Nothing.”
I snorted. “Obviously something. Spit it out.”
“You just surprised me.”
I sat back in my chair and narrowed my eyes at him. “How’s that?”
He shrugged a shoulder at me. “I didn’t expect you to be so unflappable. I mean, you’re still pretty new on the force, and it’s no secret you and Dom had all kinds of history before coming to work together. I’m not going to lie … I guess I thought maybe you rode on his coattails or something, but nothing could be further from the truth.”
I was blinking in mild shock. Unflappable? I felt like I was ruffled and flapping all over the place most of the time.
“You don’t react when weirdos look at you like you’re lunch. You don’t lose your temper when losers try intimidating you. You have a really easy time talking to victims, which makes hostile situations less dangerous. You don’t freak out or move a muscle when a deranged woman is advancing on you with a knife. And maybe most importantly, you hate sitting at the desk filling out reports almost as much as I do, yet you don’t make a single peep about it, you just get it done. I guess I’m just surprised at how really suited you are to do this job. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but you really don’t look like a cop, let alone a really good cop. You’re head and shoulders above every other partner I’ve been saddled with thus far in my career.”
I couldn’t respond to him. Barrett was a good cop. He had a stellar reputation on the force and was under no obligation to give me any kind of props or validation. There was absolutely no way he could’ve known what the shrink had been asking me about before the shift started. All I could do was clear my throat and awkwardly tell him, “Well, you ain’t so bad yourself, Barrett.”
We finished up the paperwork for the shift. I felt bad for Carla, but people had to consider their actions and how they affected others in the long run. Barrett let me drive and I totally hit Taco Bell as we finished the rest of our mostly quiet shift. All the driving around and little action gave me too much time to think about what the shrink had been poking me with and Barrett’s words.
I had never wanted to ride on any kind of coattails. Not for my looks. Not for the fact that I could bat my eyelashes and have the world handed to me. And most certainly not for the fact that Dom loved me and would always look out for me. It had never occurred to me before today that I wasn’t being looked at as his partner but more as his shadow or lapdog, and I didn’t like that one bit. My biggest fight in life was to prove I had merit, to show I had substance past my face and body, and it sounded like holding on to Dom like a lifeline for so long had hindered my efforts to win that fight.
After my shift I wanted a hot shower and a drink. Well, actually I wanted the guy that was going to serve me the drink, but I still wasn’t sure how all that was going to play out. I had enough questions whirling around in my head that I didn’t want to tangle with the mystery that was Asa on top of it.
I took a shower and watched some TV. I paced around my apartment and bugged Saint by texting her across the hall. I tried to text Dom as well and pouted when all he texted back was:
Go to bed.
It was after one by the time I crawled between the sheets. I wasn’t tired or at least I thought I wasn’t, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out. It wasn’t until a couple hours later that I woke up. I was panting, I was shaking, and a fine sheen of sweat covered me from head to toe. I wasn’t seeing Dom fall. I wasn’t back in the alleyway. No, instead I woke up with one hand in my panties with the other squeezing my breast underneath my tank top and Asa’s name tumbling from my lips.
I groaned out loud and threw myself back against the pillows. I reached over to the nightstand and found my phone. I had totally called myself from his phone when he gave it to me to call Nash so he could bring me a key the other morning.
I’m ready to collect on my rain check.
I didn’t think about the fact that it was really late or that he might not respond. I just sent the text and shifted around on my bed, all keyed up and needing something only Asa could give to me.
The phone sang “Trouble” by P!nk when he texted me back, and that was enough to have my skin tingling all over in expectation. I held my breath as I looked at the phone just in case he was going to tell me to get lost, but the screen glowed bright with the words:
I’ll be at my place by 3.
I sighed and hel
d the phone to my chest as everything inside of me heated up and throbbed with want and anticipation. It was so on.
CHAPTER 9
Asa
I put my phone back in my pocket after I sent the text back to Royal and gave my head a little shake to clear it. She had been on my mind a lot this last week, and not just because I could picture every inch of her naked body without any effort. I was wondering how she felt about finally crossing the line, about finally getting what she wanted. I was actually a little worried that I had succeeded in making her feel bad enough about herself and her desire to tangle with a guy like me that I had finally scared her away. The fact that it bothered me on a visceral level spoke volumes about what a bad idea messing around with the pretty redhead really was. Sometimes waking up and entering the land of the living, where all those tenuous emotions lived, really sucked since I was far from being a pro at dealing with them.
On top of being all twisted up over Royal, other weird stuff had been going on all week. The attractive older lady with the arm candy had been back in the Bar twice. The first time the boy toy was with her, the second time she was alone. She spent the entire evening flirting and obviously trying to get my attention, which I happily gave to her since she was a good tipper. I wasn’t interested, not with a sexy cop doing laps in my head nonstop, but the strange part was that I wanted to warn her about what guys like me would do to a woman like her.
She was obviously well off. She was a really good-looking woman and apparently all about a good time. A few years ago I would have moved in on her like she was a gazelle on the plains. I would have inserted myself into her life. I would have lied to her, told her anything she wanted to hear. I would have taken her to bed and let her think she was special, that I loved her … and then I would’ve cleaned her out. I would have taken everything she had that wasn’t nailed down and I would’ve done it without a second thought or any remorse. Now I just wanted to tell her not to be a victim, to watch herself, because even her brainless boy toy wasn’t with her without wanting something from her.
Instead I just served her martinis and easily flirted back. I knew logically I couldn’t stop anyone from being a victim, just like I couldn’t stop Royal from courting trouble. When the woman left me her number on a cocktail napkin, I actually fought a little internal battle before chucking it in the trash. It was still really hard for me to let a sure bet go. Easy money, all the dirty and easy things that rested on the bottom, where I was so used to spending time, still had an allure that I couldn’t turn a blind eye to. Eventually the reality of the fact that keeping the number meant I would use it and the woman it belonged to hammered hard in my blood. With a curse at my own internal struggle I crumpled up the napkin and tossed it away, disgusted that the battle between the good and bad was still being waged inside of me over something so obviously wrong.
I was also having an issue with Avett.
She hadn’t shown up with any more black-and-blue marks, probably because there was no way Darcy hadn’t told Brite about the showdown with their daughter. There was nothing like an angry father that looked like an ancient Viking warrior, or a modern-day warrior for that matter, to get a handsy boyfriend to back off. But she was sullen, withdrawn, and acted really skittish and jumpy anytime I spoke to her or one of the other staff approached her. I had hired one of Dixie’s friends to work the floor with her and two part-time bartenders to relieve Rome of his shifts during the day. One was a preppy guy still in school that would fit in with the college crowd on the weekends and the other was an older guy that had been around the block a few times. He was a retired Army Ranger and was just as gruff and no-nonsense as Rome, even if he was probably twenty years older. He would be a good fit for the grizzled and grumpy day crew that lingered at the bar. Avett had gone out of her way to be rude to and dismissive of everyone. I was starting to wonder if she needed a good old-fashioned spanking to make her act right instead of getting her ass canned. I just couldn’t figure out what her deal was.
On top of her generally piss-poor attitude and penchant for snarling at anyone that got too close to her, she had asked for her paycheck early and then an advance on her check for the following week. Rome was a nice enough guy to cut her one early, but when he told her no way on the advance she had freaked out. I’d never seen a mostly grown woman throw a tantrum like that, but I was used to watching people, used to reading what was really behind their actions, and I could tell it was an overreaction fueled by fear not greed. Something was going on with the pink-haired handful and it was something not good. I would bet good money it all tied into that shithead boyfriend of hers.
Tonight, when I had cashed the bar out and tried to show the new guy what to do, it had taken three tries of counting out the drawer to realize the drop was a couple hundred dollars short. I counted it, counted it again, and then had the new guy count it twice. Two hundred and twenty bucks was gone, and the only way for it to be missing was for someone to have taken it. The new guy was freaking out, swearing he didn’t give anyone the wrong change, and it took fifteen minutes to assure him that I wasn’t blaming him for the shortage. I also reminded him that there were cameras covering pretty much every single inch of the bar, and that if he ever did want to try something shady, the eye in the sky was watching.
I made the drop short, left a note on Rome’s desk for him to call me in the morning, and briefly told him my suspicions without naming names. I couldn’t imagine Avett was stupid enough to take money out of the till knowing she was being watched, but I also knew firsthand just how brazen and bold desperation could make a person.
I only had a few minutes when I got home to make the place look presentable, not that it ever was going to look like anything other than a dump, but I tossed the clothes littering the floor into the hamper, changed the sheets, and made sure there weren’t any dirty dishes in the sink. I shouldn’t care if Royal thought I lived like a pig, but old habits died hard, and being seen as lacking even if it was simply all I could afford grated on my ego.
I looked at the clock on the microwave and realized I wasn’t going to have time to take a shower if she showed up right at three, so I poured some scotch into a plastic cup and tossed it back. I think I was nervous that she wouldn’t show. It was stupid. This was Royal. She chased down danger and jumped feetfirst into the fire on purpose. A soft knock hit the door right on time.
I pulled it open and then grunted in surprise when she swept past me with obvious impatience. She had a giant purse on her arm that she threw on the recliner and then turned to look at me with a deliberate toss of her long hair. She had on shiny black heels, and her hair was down and glimmered like a luxurious pelt. All she seemed to have on was a black peacoat that was belted at her waist and hit her right in the middle of her bare thighs. There were endless miles of bare legs on display and that sent every thought I had fleeing and all the blood in my body rushed to the part of me rising in readiness below my belt. I felt my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline as I shut the door behind her dramatic arrival and leaned back against it as my heart slid all the way to my knees and then back up.
“So you finally have a coat on.” I couldn’t keep the humor out of my voice even if the timbre changed as she turned to look at me with heavy-lidded dark eyes.
The corner of her mouth kicked up in a sexy little smirk and I wondered if she would hurt me if I tackled her to the floor with zero finesse.
“Not for long.” She lifted her hands to the top button and watched me as she popped it open. I felt my breath freeze in my lungs, and every single thing in the world hinged on her moving down to the next button on that coat.
“Couldn’t sleep again?” I asked. She shook her head slowly from side to side and her fingers moved to the second button. She kept her eyes locked on mine as she slipped it from the hole.
“I was asleep. You woke me up.”
I wanted to put my hands in her hair and I wanted to put my mouth on that tantalizing trail of skin that she had bared on the t
op of her chest. I thought maybe it would hurry her little game along if I narrowed the playing field a bit. I was a master at playing games … and winning. I reached up and tugged my shirt off over my head in one move. I tossed it on the recliner and felt a swell of masculine pride when I saw the pulse at the base of her throat flutter in response. Her fingers moved on the third button and circled it. She also took a step back toward the bed, which had me automatically moving toward her.
“I woke you up?”
She took another step back on those crazy, sexy shoes and dipped her chin down and looked at me from under her long lashes. She was really the most remarkable thing I had ever seen in my life and I still couldn’t figure out why she was here wasting any of herself on me.
The third button pulled free and I really had to fight the urge to pounce on her. The coat split just enough that I caught a hint of pink areola and the curve of plump, high breasts.
“I woke up saying your name and touching myself. I was achy and figured why take care of it myself when you owe me anyways.” The spark of humor in her chocolate eyes really undid me. I couldn’t keep the space between us anymore.
She was playing with the bottom button on the coat and my patience was lost. Part of the reason I was so good at games was because I made my own rules, and more often than not cheated. I prowled toward her with long steps and had her toppled back on the bed with the coat splayed open behind her and had her laid out like a naked buffet all for me to gorge on in seconds. I braced my hands on either side of her head and gazed down at her with raw longing I could feel filling every part of me.
“What if you had gotten pulled over, or in an accident, or had car trouble on your way over here?” The idea of anyone else seeing those long legs with nothing covering them suddenly had murder seeming totally logical in my caveman mind. Not that I didn’t appreciate how easy she made getting into her pants—I mean, when she didn’t have any on, it was obvious what was going to go down. Beyond the lust and passion swallowing me up, I was worried about her, and that was a new sensation for me.