“It was a DUI trap. I wasn’t drinking. You can check your little monitor thing. But they decided to run my plates. Did you know you can earn a lot of parking tickets when you’re in a coma?” A pained inhalation. “Are they always so brutal with those tow trucks?”
“Generally.”
“My poor baby. So I was told to let you know that there were extenuating circumstances. I suppose I should call a cab.” The tone suggested a cab ride was a minor improvement over a ride in a manure truck.
“Where’d they get you?”
“I was hoping you knew. Doesn’t this handy-dandy device strapped to my body keep you informed of my whereabouts?”
It did, but only sent out an alert if the client went somewhere out of bounds or triggered the ethanol detector. Tai wasn’t about to give Beauchamp that information. “You have no idea where you are. And you aren’t drinking?”
“I was between here and there, according to the route in my GPS. Hang on a moment.” No waiting for Tai to agree, only the assumption that he would. And then Beauchamp’s voice again, tinny, muffled. “Might I inquire where on God’s green earth I find myself stranded?”
The guy would be lucky if he didn’t end up busted just for being an asshole.
“I’m in some wilderness known as Boston Street, east of the intersection with South Haven. Brewers Hill. Apparently they felt that an apt location for their trap.”
“Beauchamp. Shut up.” Tai released the punishing grip on his phone and flexed his fingers. Beauchamp would have a hell of a time getting a cab down there. But he was DiBlasi’s problem now. Tai was about to tell Beauchamp to call his new PO when he remembered DiBlasi’s Did you fucking forget my daughter’s getting married tomorrow? They’d done each other favors before. And if it were anyone but Beauchamp, Tai wouldn’t have hesitated to bite the bullet now. So that meant if he wanted to pretend nothing had happened, he’d be better off treating Beauchamp like a regular client. Even if nothing about Beauchamp was regular. “Yeah, I know where that is.” And it wasn’t far. All the more reason to pitch in and save DiBlasi from a different kind of hangover when he came in on Monday.
“How useful for you.”
Before Tai could respond to the condescension, a deep exhalation whooshed over the line. “My apologies, Officer. It’s one thing to face consequences for your actions while awake, quite another to have them thrown at you for something out of your control.”
Maybe Beauchamp was digging for sympathy, but that sigh had acted like a balloon deflating, taking the snotty brat with it. With a sigh of his own, Tai muttered, “Fine. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Stay there. I’ll pick you up and take you home.”
Beauchamp’s answer wasn’t at all arrogant, and the hair on the back of Tai’s neck stood on end as the man purred, “How very gallant. I’ll be waiting.”
THE COPS still had their checkpoint running when Tai pulled over to the side, holding out his badge for the cop who came up to his window.
“Jez, stay down.” He used his sternest voice, and he heard her settle across the back seat with a grunt. He had to be honest, he hadn’t brought her out of necessity. He’d walked her at lunch and taken her for their long walk after dinner. No, he’d brought her along as a big, furry chaperone.
The cop checked his badge, then scanned the interior of Tai’s Focus hatchback. Tai knew the exact moment the cop saw Jez, the way he reared back, hand on his piece.
Tai had no doubt Jez was holding her stay. He might have fucked up more often than he’d care to admit, but saving her from doggie death row was the one sure good thing he’d done in his life. She was completely broken of all her bad habits.
The cop moved his hand away from his holster and tossed Tai’s badge back at him. “You here on business?”
“Picking up a probie. You impounded his car.”
“Yeah, the smart-assed gimp.” The cop straightened and waved. “All yours. If you feed him to the dog, I wanna watch.”
Beauchamp limped across the beams from Tai’s headlamps, one hand on the hood, the other shielding his eyes as he peered through the window. Was he expecting a friendly wave? A thumbs-up?
Tai jerked his thumb at the passenger door. With a grin, he released Jez. “Good stay, girl.”
She stood on the back seat, shaking herself as Beauchamp opened the door, then thrust her head into the space between the seats. Even Tai still startled when faced with the size of her head, the gleam of teeth closing in.
Beauchamp stood motionless as Jez loomed at him, then tilted her head. Tai kept a cautious hand near her collar, but he wanted to see how it would play out.
Beauchamp’s gaze flicked over at Tai for an instant before he lowered his lids and performed what Tai could only describe as a bow—to the dog.
“The honor is mine.” Beauchamp eased his hand forward in a closed fist. Jez hesitated.
“Okay, Jez.”
She sniffed around Beauchamp’s fist, then his wrist. In the rearview mirror, Tai spotted her stub of a tail wiggling around in Jez-speak for happy.
“You getting in?” Tai drummed on the steering wheel.
“If everyone agrees to that course of action.” Again Beauchamp spoke directly to Jez.
Jez licked Beauchamp’s hand, and he opened it to rest the palm on her head. She nudged for pets.
“Everyone’s on board. Get in. Lie down, Jez.”
Beauchamp lowered himself into the passenger seat, placing the cane between his legs. “You know, there’s no difference in the way you snap commands, whether to me or your dog. Are you like this with all the people you supervise, or am I special?”
That was exactly what Tai didn’t want to think about.
After Beauchamp had hooked his seat belt, Tai reversed them back onto Boston Street, grumbling, “So are you supposed to be the dog whisperer?”
Beauchamp pressed himself into the corner so he was angled toward Tai. “Isn’t the dog a bit over the top? You have a badge, a gun, and a chest that could double as the deck of an aircraft carrier. Did you actually need a rottweiler?”
“She’s a rescue.”
Beauchamp’s rigid posture softened. Jez’s face popped up between the seats again, and Beauchamp stroked her forehead, rubbed behind her ears.
“If she’s being a pest—”
“I love dogs.”
“Should have seen her when I brought her home.”
“Hardly her fault if she was abused by people who damn well ought to be neutered.”
Tai grunted agreement. That would have been the least of what he’d have had in store for the assholes trying to start a dogfighting business out of Armistead Gardens. Still, not even the judge who’d initially ordered her put down or, hell, Tai’s ex-boyfriend Donte could argue Jez’s transformation from the unpredictable snapping animal she’d been into a model citizen.
Back when Tai thought he knew why things had gone to shit with Donte, Tai had shown Jez off, shown how docile and obedient she could be when treated the right way. And it had seemed to work, Donte kneeling to let her lick his face. But in response to the question Tai had only half been able to ask, his muttered, “So?” with a nod around the apartment, Donte had given Jez a last rub around the ears and, with his hand on the back of his own neck as if for protection, said, “I didn’t leave because I was scared of the dog, Tai. I left because I was scared of you.”
One thing about Beauchamp. He didn’t scare. Even when he probably should. His fancy Ferrari impounded, being driven home by his probation officer, and he took up space there in Tai’s passenger seat with lazy confidence. Like he’d set the whole thing up to get chauffeured home.
Thank God it was a short trip to the address Tai remembered from the file. A short trip to Beauchamp getting the hell out of Tai’s life before he did something he’d really regret.
Beauchamp’s address was one of those new apartment complexes for the beautiful people coming to Fell’s Point and blocking the view f
or the people who’d lived there through the shitty times. Tai hated the way going past the gate made him feel, so he flashed his badge before Beauchamp could offer his own ID to the guard.
When they pulled up in front of the chrome and glass and fountained entrance with the artsy iron fire pit and sculpture, he knew he couldn’t get Beauchamp out of the car fast enough. Tai’s palm itched with the need to wrap around Beauchamp’s neck, drag him down, put his face into the footwell. And for the worst reasons. Reasons that made it hard to trust himself.
Avoiding temptation, Tai stared straight ahead at the row of birches lining the drive. “Here you go. Made your curfew.”
When Beauchamp didn’t move, Tai leaned across him and popped open the door.
Beauchamp put a hand on Tai’s forearm.
The skin to skin contact froze him, muscles tightening under the light touch. Now he wanted his hand on the back of Beauchamp’s neck for an entirely different purpose.
When Tai didn’t pull away, Beauchamp gently closed his fingers. “I wonder if you’d be so kind as to take me into the parking garage, up to my floor. I’d invite you in, save you a trip for that home visit you promised.” His voice was silk and sunshine, teasing the edge of open seduction. “You can check for all the illegal substances you want. Of course, Jez would be welcome too.”
Tai dragged his arm back. “No, thank you.”
“I’m disappointed to hear there’s nothing in my apartment you might find of interest. Are you sure?” Beauchamp’s self-mocking humor kept the line from being over the top.
Tai regripped the steering wheel as he imagined smooth, warm, and wet sliding down his dick instead of hinting in his ear. Not happening. Beauchamp might not be his probie anymore, but he was still in county custody.
“Get out.” Tai clenched his teeth against the wave of disappointment when Beauchamp pushed open the door.
“On second thought, I hear this is the best sport-fishing season they’ve had in a long time off the Eastern Shore. I’d like to head out to Ocean City, see if I can’t beat my record white marlin.”
Tai had expected Beauchamp would have some kind of parting shot, but a ramble about fishing was hinky, even for him.
Tai stared at the guy. “You can’t leave the county.”
“Well, not officially….” Beauchamp looked down at his cane, shifting it from hand to hand. “But as you seem to be giving my case such special attention, I thought you should be able to arrange it.”
The shock of understanding delivered a round of rabbit punches to the gut. Disappointment, disbelief, anger, and over it all, head-shaking amusement that bubbled into a laugh. “Shit. You’re a walking disaster. You’re not even good at blackmail.”
“Excuse me. If you don’t want to land yourself in hot water, you’ll do what I tell you.”
“Close the door.” Tai delivered the demand in a low, steady voice so he didn’t spook Jez.
The first attempt had been funny. This—Beauchamp acting full of affronted dignity—got deep under Tai’s skin.
Beauchamp shut the door and looked over with a smug expression Tai would have slapped off him in any other situation.
“No, David.”
Beauchamp’s lips parted, but Tai kept talking, leaning over, driving Beauchamp back into the door. “No, that’s not how it’s going to go. And I’m going to tell you why.”
Beauchamp licked his lips.
Tai smiled. “One. I’m not your PO anymore. I had your ass transferred to another officer as soon as I figured out I’d had my dick up it.”
Beauchamp’s breath did the hitch Tai had found so fucking sexy.
Tai watched the flush across Beauchamp’s freckled cheeks, the pulse and bob in his throat, the trapped-animal stare in his eyes. “Yeah. Hungry ass too, begging, grinding on my dick in the fucking bathroom. Which brings us to point two.” Tai was pretty sure Beauchamp was holding his breath. “It’s not going to go like that because you were that guy, David. And you wanted to be. You don’t want to tell me what to do. You’re desperate to have someone tell you what to do and to make you do it. I could have you strip off every stitch for me and put you out of the car, and you’d thank me and call me Sir and mean it with every bit of breath in your body.”
Beauchamp released a shaky exhale, but his gaze didn’t stray from Tai’s face.
“And we both know I’m right.”
Beauchamp acknowledged that with the slightest dip of his eyelashes.
“Good. Now get the fuck out of my car.”
Chapter Four
THE DREAM that jerked Beach out of sleep was dark and hot and featured his erstwhile probation officer in ways that made his dick hard and his head swim. He just didn’t know if his head was swimming to or away from something. He threw off the sheet and duvet, and the air-conditioned chill dragged at least his little head back from the brink. Sprawled like a starfish across the king-sized mattress, he tried to pin down one of the dream fragments. But all the pieces were slippery, squirting away from his grasp like a handful of too much lube. Beach only knew he had been in them. Threat and promise in his commanding body, the growling voice.
And Beach didn’t even know his name. The probation-office listing had been for T. Samuel Fonoti. He tested the name. Sam.
Call me Sir and mean it with every bit of breath in your body. The words rumbled against Beach’s ears from inside his head, driving him fully awake, unable to drift back into his dream.
After rolling from bed, he staggered to the bar, a tumbler and bottle of Pappy Van Winkle in hand before he remembered the damned anklet. Treasuring a sniff of the caramel-praline scent, he put the bourbon carefully back on the bar and filled the tumbler with orange juice from the fridge. Naked but for the damned anklet, he pressed his forehead against the black glass separating him from his balcony.
I could have you strip off every stitch for me and put you out of the car. Public nudity didn’t hold a great deal of shame or interest for Beach. The thrill of hearing those words in his voice had been from the command. The implication that by following the order he might earn that grudging praise, hear that voice telling him it was good or sweet. That was what sent warmth rushing through his veins as surely as if he’d been sipping seventeen-year-old bourbon and not orange juice. Beach slid the door open and stepped out into the hot July night.
Five floors up and at 3:00 a.m., there wasn’t much potential for exhibitionism. No lighted boats prowling the harbor. But the buzz under his skin drove him back inside for his phone. Framing his nude body with the harbor at his back, he snapped a picture and keyed in the number for T. Samuel Fonoti with the text Ready when you are, Sir.
But his thumb hesitated over Send.
Beach knew only too well the futility of chasing a high. One perfect moment was all you got, and then things went downhill quicker than a knife fight in a phone booth.
But this, whatever this was, they’d barely scratched the surface. There were words for it, words he shied away from naming. Words he’d uttered with disdain or mockery for people who felt the need to complicate sex with silly games and costumes, when fucking was as simple and natural an act as breathing.
But what had happened, what he wanted to happen, touched more than just the happy pleasure parts, though they were certainly involved, he noted with a glance at his half-hard dick. Beach wasn’t one to be counted on for deep thoughts, but standing naked on his balcony at 3:00 a.m. seemed to dredge them up. Staring at the black water of the harbor, he had to admit those dizzying moments under the thrall of the other man’s authority had touched what Beach could only call his soul.
No way in hell was he going to have a bare taste and then spend the rest of his life wondering what might have been. He pressed Send as if he could reach through the phone and touch the man on the other end.
The thought tugged at his guts, then lower. If Sam—Sir?—were here now, if he sent back a hot demand…. Beach dropped the phone on the glass table and grabbed his dick, thumbing t
he slit to work out some precome. It wasn’t the risk of getting caught driving him but the imagined presence on the phone. Faster, tighter. Even if it burned. He shivered at the idea. How much sensation, how much pain would there be in chasing this high?
The thought of pain was almost always enough to send Beach running in the other direction, but all it did right now was make his dick harder, drag his nuts up.
No.
If Officer Fonoti called back, Beach could be waiting. Aching for it. He yanked his hand away like his dick was on fire, clenching his fist in frustration as the smooth build to orgasm turned into a knotted mess in his balls.
“Now would be good,” he whispered at his phone.
This was crazy. Sweating on the balcony with a chafed, aching dick when there was lube and air-conditioning on the other side of the glass. He was the only person in Baltimore awake.
His phone vibrated against the tabletop, and Beach dove for it.
Don’t contact me again.
The response might have been unequivocal to some people. To Beach, the quick answer meant a lot more.
Why? Beach’s finger shook when he tapped Send.
I can’t.
Beach smiled as he read the answer. The space between I can’t and I don’t want to held infinite possibilities.
GAVIN SMILED beatifically as he lowered the mimosa to the table. “Nothing like fresh-squeezed.”
Beach’s mouth watered at the thought. Miss Shirley’s did them right. It wasn’t the buzz he was missing. It would take more than the champagne bubbling through the orange juice to go to his head, but he wanted that taste. Could feel it at his lips, sliding over his tongue. How sensitive was the damned monitor? One little sip probably wouldn’t register.
Gavin tipped his glass back again, smile going wicked. “I’m sure they could make you a virgin mimosa.”
“The sweet tea is fine.” Beach gripped the tall glass and glared across the table. He knew the bastard had ordered the mimosa on purpose.
“I’m sure it is.”
Bad Behavior Page 4