“Hey, what’s going on with those break-ins you’ve been working?” Ted asked.
Bruce, diverted as he’d intended, started grousing about the burglar he’d been trying to catch for the last couple of weeks. Alex used the opportunity to slip back into the training room toward Frank, who stood talking to Sergeant Diane Gaffney and the Able lieutenant, Chris Davis.
The Dom’s gray eyes widened when she stepped out of the crowd, his astonishment obvious. He really hadn’t known she worked for the MCSO.
Alex gave him a carefully professional smile, aware of the crowd of deputies who surrounded them, eavesdropping shamelessly. Cops were nosy as hell and loved to gossip. Which was why she decided to pretend she’d never seen him in her life.
“I’ll . . . definitely give it some thought,” Frank was saying.
“Do that,” Davis said. He was a short, muscular man, balding and intense. “I need a good sniper on my team, and I think you’ve got just the experience we need. It’ll mean additional training every week, but you probably won’t be called out more than a couple of times a month.” Besides heading Able shift, Davis led Special Weapons and Tactics; he was probably trying to talk Frank into volunteering. MCSO didn’t have a standing SWAT team. Officers volunteered, and the unit responded to the more dangerous calls whenever necessary. That might mean anything from serving high-risk warrants to the thankfully rare hostage rescue. It could be dangerous duty, and Davis was always looking to recruit experienced military vets.
The lieutenant handed Frank his card. “Think about it and give me a call,” he said, and strode off, probably to go do one-armed push-ups or something.
“Frank,” Sergeant Gaffney said, “this is Deputy Alexis Rogers. She’s with Charlie Platoon.”
Frank smiled, cool and professional, as he extended a hand. “Frank Murphy.” You’d never have known he fucked her to a screaming orgasm the night before.
Alex let those long, warm fingers engulf hers. A wave of heat rolled over her, but conscious of the interested eyes of the surrounding cops, she restricted her reaction to a distant smile. “Call me Alex. It’s nice meeting you.”
“The pleasure’s mine.” But if his smile was professional, his gaze was not.
Oh, God. That hot Dom stare. And that body. He was wearing a bulletproof vest under his uniform, and it made him look even broader than he actually was, no mean feat in itself. His badge gleamed just below her eye level. He’d hooked his thumbs in his duty belt, with its pouches and holstered pistol and Taser. The short sleeves of his uniform revealed a tattoo of the SEAL insignia nicknamed the Budweiser—an eagle gripping a trident, anchor, and a flintlock pistol—decorating the biceps of his right arm. She vaguely remembered noticing it the night before, though frankly, her attention had been on other things.
He thrust his cock into her, his big hands holding her down with her ass in the air as he ground and ground until she . . .
Alex shut the memory down hard. The last thing she needed was to get wet in front of the entire goddamned department.
* * *
God, the way she was looking at him. Her hooded green gaze was enough to give him a hard-on even if her body and his memories hadn’t already done the job. He caught his left wrist with his right hand at crotch level, hoping to camouflage his far-too-interested dick.
Alex shouldn’t have looked so damned sexy. She wore a department tee neatly tucked into a pair of artfully faded jeans that hugged every inch of those endless, endless legs. Her breasts were full and round and mouthwatering under the tee’s soft gray fabric. Remembering the taste of those luscious pink nipples made his breathing go harsh. He started contemplating the state’s penal code, trying to get himself under control before his hard-on mortified both of them.
As if realizing she was about to blow their sexual cover in the worst possible place she could do it, Alex turned to the officer with him. Sergeant Diane Gaffney was a stocky deputy who wore her brunette hair in a pixie cut as short as a man’s. She’d been his field training officer for the past two months. Gaffney was cheerfully Out to absolutely everyone; she’d told him she was a lesbian within half an hour of meeting him. “I like to find out if I’m dealing with a bigoted asshole,” she’d explained. “That way neither of us gets surprised.”
“How’s it going, Sergeant?” Alex asked.
“Fair to middling,” Gaffney drawled. She nodded at Frank. “Been training Murph here. He’s gonna be a damned good cop.”
Alex lifted a brow. “Rare praise, coming from you.”
The sergeant smiled a little at that. “Gotta admit, I’m gonna miss his ass. Meanest drunks in the county take one look at him and go right to jail, peaceful as little lambs. My life is gonna get interesting without him looming behind me like a brick wall in a black uniform.”
“I can see that.” Alex laughed. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Murphy. See you, Sarge.”
She walked away. Unable to help himself, Frank dropped his gaze to that round, muscular little ass, remembering the silken feel of it in his hands.
“Yeah, good luck with that, Romeo,” Gaffney told him.
He snapped out of his erotic trance and blinked. “What?”
“Rogers. Half the cops in the department have hit on that girl—includin’ me. None of us has had any luck.”
He barely managed not to grin. He’d had a lot more than luck. “Likes to play hard to get, huh?”
“She don’t play at all, son. That’s the problem.” The sergeant considered him with shrewd brown eyes. “Though if anybody could change her mind, it would be you. Hell, if I didn’t bat for the other team—”
“I’d never survive.” He gave her an exaggerated suck-up’s smile. “Not that I wouldn’t die happy.”
Gaffney laughed, one of those uninhibited belly laughs that made anybody around laugh with her.
Before Frank could start grilling the sergeant on what she knew about Alex, Major Dominic Jennings raised his voice in a bass boom that silenced everyone in the room. A big, graying cop, Jennings had skin the color of dark chocolate and hands big enough to palm a basketball. “All right, boys and girls, we’re gathered here to celebrate the sheriff’s birthday, among other things. So y’all try to sing on key for once.”
He started belting out “Happy Birthday,” his deep voice surprisingly pure. The other cops joined in, most of them considerably less talented.
Standing next to Jennings, the birthday boy listened indulgently. Sheriff Bill Ranger had enough belly to suggest a heart attack lay in his future, thinning white hair, and a round face with a nose like an Irish potato. “Thank you kindly,” he said when they finished the serenade. “Major’s right, though. Some of y’all wouldn’t know the right key if your mama raised it as your brother.” He eyed the cake, on which a single candle burned. “I see you can’t count to sixty either.”
“Fire marshal wouldn’t let us put that many candles on the cake,” the major told him. “Said it could cause global warming.”
Ranger eyed him. “You’re a funny guy, Jennings. A funny, funny guy.”
The deputies laughed. Ranger blew out the candle to a chorus of cheers and whistles, then straightened. “Now before y’all start stampeding for the cake, we have some business.” Turning, he gestured to Frank. “Get over here, Murphy.”
Frank, having been told this was coming, worked his way through the crowd to join him.
“In accordance with the department policy of hiring military veterans, I’d like to introduce our newest officer, Frank Murphy . . .”
“Hell, Sheriff, what did you do?” somebody called. “Fill two slots with him?”
“Nah, he was a bargain. The giant, economy-size deputy,” Ranger shot back.
Frank, who’d been hearing variations on that joke for years, smiled anyway.
“Frank is a decorated Navy SEAL with two Bronze Stars and a Silver Star—but don’t try to get him to tell you what for, ’cause then he’d have to kill you.” Ranger slapped him on t
he shoulder. “Smart guy, too. J.P. Strom Award winner.”
Which meant he’d graduated at the top of his South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy class. Becoming a SEAL had taught Frank how to study, something he’d never been particularly motivated to do when he was in high school.
“The Field Training Board cleared him for full duty today, so he’s officially off probation. Not that anyone’s surprised.” The sheriff turned to him and held out his hand. “Great having you aboard, son.”
Frank took it and pumped. “Thank you, Sheriff. I’m honored to be here.”
With a last squeeze and back slap, Ranger turned to the cake, picked up the knife provided for the purpose, and started cutting slices as the cops lined up.
Frank, though, was interested in something much sweeter. He bypassed the cake queue and stepped out into the hall beyond. Before he could reach for his personal cell, he heard the door open and close again. “Let’s get one thing straight, Frogman.”
Turning, he found Alex’s faux father glowering up at him. “Hello, Ted.”
“That’s Master Deputy Arlington,” Ted corrected in an icy voice. He smiled, a baring of teeth that would have done Jaws proud. “Like the cemetery.”
The man was a foot shorter than Frank was. How the hell could he be so fucking menacing? On second thought, dumb question. Short men were often the meanest. They grew up that way. “What can I do for you, Master Deputy?”
“I won’t ask you to stay away from Alex. I can see that’d be a waste of breath. But I will tell you this, Froggy.” He took a step closer and upped the menace to eleven. “If you hurt her, I will fucking kill you. I don’t care how goddamn big you are.”
Looking into those chilly blue eyes, Frank believed him. “I have no intention of hurting Alex.”
“Good. Then we’ve got no problem. Make sure we don’t get one.”
Enough was enough. Frank leaned down until they were nose to nose, deliberately emphasizing the height difference. “Don’t threaten me, Master Deputy. I appreciate the fact that you feel protective of Alex, but I ain’t Gary fuckin’ Ames.” A trace of respect flashed in Arlington’s eyes before he pivoted on his heel with a military snap and stalked back into the training room.
Frank sighed and pulled his cell off its belt clip. “Gotta love overprotective Doms.”
* * *
Alex’s personal cell vibrated on her belt, where it hung next to the one the department had issued. She plucked it out of its clip, expecting to see a text from her mother.
But when she swiped open the text app, she saw Frank’s number. They’d called each other a time or two, during their D/s . . . courtship, she supposed you could call it. She checked the text.
I’m off duty. Are you?
Yes. I don’t go on until midnight.
Do you want to play?
Her fingers didn’t hesitate as she typed back, Yes. God yes. Fuck, yes.
Fuck, period.
Heat streamed through her, lighting up her veins until she was surprised she couldn’t see them glowing through her skin. She wondered if she was blushing.
He texted an address next. 362 Lighthorse Street. Do you need directions?
That’s why God made GPS.
I’ll see you there. If you have trouble finding it, call me. Twenty minutes?
It seemed she wasn’t the only one who was hungry. And she didn’t want to wait either. Yes.
Alex escaped the building after being accosted only a couple of times by various friends and acquaintances. She invented an errand and fled as gracefully as she could.
Ted didn’t stop her, though his disapproving gaze did not waver as she headed for the door. Her mentor had always had a Dom’s talent for reading minds. Especially when you didn’t want him to.
For once, she ignored him.
* * *
Alex followed the car’s GPS instructions automatically, making the turns it called for with only half her attention. Her body felt like melting caramel below the waist, sweet and hot and creamy. It was damned distracting.
Meanwhile, a voice from the back of her brain was sounding the alarm. It was one thing to carry on an affair on the weekends under Cap’s protective aegis. It was another to start something with a guy who lived in the same freaking town and worked the same freaking job. Was she nuts? Hadn’t Gary and his Gucci-loafered kicks taught her anything?
The rest of her lust-addled gray matter insisted Frank was nothing like Gary. He obviously believed in a Dom’s duty to protect and care for his sub, a principle Ted had always called the bedrock of a BDSM relationship. Just look at the way he’d been so careful not to hurt her during their little wrestling match last night. Another man might have gotten carried away on a wave of blue balls, but Frank had never lost control. He wasn’t an abuser, and he sure as hell wasn’t stupid. He . . .
Lived out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Which wasn’t exactly unusual for Morgan County. Its population of 250,000 lived scattered across eight hundred square miles that included the city of Morganville, one airport, several factories, and a whole bunch of churches, but most of it was as rural as Mayberry.
At last her GPS’s mechanical voice directed her to make a left at a sign with flowing script that read Patriot Commons. Looked like an older development, she decided as she drove along its narrow main road. The houses had greater variety than you’d see in more modern complexes, where a developer might use the same four or five house plans over and over. Patriot Commons included everything from seventies-era split levels to homes built since the turn of the millennium. Stands of trees bordered each neatly trimmed yard, and the few empty lots were covered in thick woods and brown, frost-killed kudzu.
Headlights flashed in her rearview mirror. Alex looked up to find a patrol car on her tail. She blinked, recognizing the driver as the car pulled even to pace her. At his gesture, she lowered her window.
Frank gave her the kind of cold stare normally reserved for somebody caught doing sixty in a school zone. “Pull over.”
“I wasn’t speeding.”
“I don’t care. Pull over.”
Alex’s heart began to pound. She had a feeling she was in for a rousing game of Bad Cop. “But . . .” she began, playing Hapless Pretty Speeder to the hilt.
“I said, pull over.” He stabbed a finger toward a set of tire tracks that led off into the woods between one house and an empty lot.
“Yes, sir.” Hoping her beater of a car was up to it, she drove off the street and onto the bumpy, weed-strewn tracks. A tangle of brush blocked the way, but she drove into it, listening to it crackle under the Honda’s wheels and hoping Frank knew what he was doing. At least all that brush should hide them from any nosy neighbors who might otherwise wonder why a cop was pulling somebody over in the woods.
When she was younger, she’d had her share of Bad Cop fantasies. Not so much anymore—she knew too many deputies, who were a relentlessly straight-arrow bunch unlikely to do anything like this. But she wasn’t exactly averse to pretending otherwise.
Especially with Frank in the starring role.
Alex drove down the bumping, rutted track as it curved through the trees, the Dom right on her tailpipe. Finally he flashed his headlights at her again. She stopped and threw her car into Park. They were well into the woods, thoroughly screened from the road.
“Why, Officah,” Alex purred aloud in her best Scarlett O’Hara drawl, “whatevah do you have in mind?”
She rolled down her driver’s side window as he swaggered up to the car. Big, brawny, and black-clad—her fantasy Bad Cop come to glorious life. He even wore a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses and a menacing scowl. “Get out of the car, please.”
Her panties were already soaked, and he hadn’t even started yet.
Alex put on her best Don’t give me a ticket, I’ll do anything expression. “But, sir, I wasn’t speeding.”
“I didn’t say you were,” he told her coldly. “Get out of the car.”
/> She gave him big, worried eyes as she obeyed, closing the car door as softly as she could to keep the sound from carrying to his neighbors. “I don’t understand. I haven’t done anything!”
“Quit trying to play me, lady. There’s a warrant out for your arrest.” Grabbing her wrist, he dragged her to the trunk of her car, then spun her around so her back was to him. “It says you’re armed and dangerous.” He pulled her little .38 from the pancake holster on her belt, and displayed it with a threatening flourish. “And look here—you are.”
Alex swallowed. Had he been anybody else, she might have broken out into the giggles right about then. But this was Frank. Something about him made this silly fantasy scenario feel a lot more real than it should have. “I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can.” His voice hardened. “Hands on the trunk, feet apart.”
Before she could obey, he planted his palm between her shoulder blades and forced her to bend over as he kicked her feet wide. “I said, hands on the trunk, feet apart!” Automatically, she caught herself on her palms.
God, she was already wet.
He started searching her. Never mind that no male cop ever searched a female suspect if he could avoid it; that was why there were female cops. And this was why they had that rule.
What Frank did wasn’t a crude grope—he understood the fantasy too well for that. Instead, he ran his hand down her body in twin slow caresses. Until he reached the curves of her ass.
Pausing, Frank cupped the sensitive flesh through her jeans, squeezing gently, with just enough force to arouse. Breathless, Alex waited for him to circle around between her legs.
He sank to his haunches to continue the search down her legs in that same lazy way. Instead of guns, knives, or drugs, Frank’s clever fingers sought bundles of nerves she hadn’t even known she had. And made them fire messages of lust and arousal and pleasure until it was all she could do not to writhe.
Regaining his feet, Frank swept his palms around her rib cage to the underside of her breasts. He slid his hands up and around, dragging her bra out of the way, baring the curve of her breasts for his cupping palms, exposing her nipples to plucking fingers. The raw delight of the contact was so intense, it seemed to sting. She moaned, unable to bite the sound back.
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