Convict: A Bad Boy Romance

by Roxie Noir

  “It went fine,” I say, and give him the rundown as we walk to a row of tool chests in the back of the garage. We go through them together, looking for spark plugs, and the entire time I force myself to think about anything but Luna on her back, underneath me, her nails digging into my flesh.

  When I get home, I’ve got my cock out the minute my door is shut behind me, because it still feels like it might explode right off my body if I don’t get some kind of relief.

  I barely make it to the disgusting jizz towel I keep under my bed, and come hard thinking of Luna, her head thrown back, my tongue lapping at her pussy. Then I sit on my bed, breathing hard and thanking all the powers that be I don’t have a roommate.

  Arson. They’re shaking the tree harder.

  They still don’t know you’re here, I remind myself. When they do, they’ll come after you, not set fire to cars.

  Don’t do anything. Keep your head down.

  Most of all, don’t fucking run.

  I throw the towel back under my bed and go heat up leftovers for dinner.

  I eat. I watch TV. I jerk off again, thinking about Luna. I do the dishes, take a shower and jerk off, then finally get in bed and jerk off again. Yeah, there’s a pattern, and it’s that I’ve lost my goddamn mind over a cop.

  I don’t know what’s happening. Before I went to prison at twenty-four — I was never in juvie, of course, but it’s a good cover story — I would only ever fuck girls once or twice before I got bored of them. I didn’t obsess over girls.

  I’ve got a spank bank, just like anyone. But I’ve never practically been a walking Viagra commercial before.

  Even in prison, when time to jerk off was scarce and women were scarcer, there wasn’t a time when I just couldn’t get someone out of my head like that. Granted, I had other things to worry about, like being in supermax, or getting Valdez to talk without making him suspicious.

  I think about burnt cars again, and a cold prickle goes down my spine. I fall asleep a long time later, praying I don’t have a wet dream for the first time in fifteen years.

  Maybe I’ll see you around, she said. Well, I know where we meet sometimes.

  I’m in the water by six-thirty in the morning. It’s cold. The water’s a little choppy. I haven’t surfed in a week, and when you’re not very good at something, a week is a long time to go without practice.

  But the thing that really matters is that Luna isn’t there. I’m not surprised. It’s what I deserve. At least I catch two good waves, and though I get knocked off once, it’s not so bad.

  I really am getting better.

  At home I shower, eat, and get dressed for work. Her business card is right there on my kitchen table. I haven’t touched it since I first put it there, and I eat cereal standing at the counter, looking at it.

  I toss my bowl into the sink. I drink some more coffee. I find my car keys.

  Then I give up and text Luna. I’m wildly out of practice, so I go simple.

  Good morning.

  I wait twenty seconds, but she doesn’t text back.

  Don’t be desperate, I think, so I go to work.

  She doesn’t text back, even though I text her a few more times — once around lunch time, and once a few hours later.

  Maybe she realized I was right about being bad for her and changed her mind, I think, standing under a car on a lift, staring up at a brake rotor without really seeing it.

  I’m still a suspect, and she still doesn’t trust me. She could at least text me that, though.

  If this is nothing, if last night was just a bad mistake she made, I still want her to tell me. She needs to say something, not just ignore my texts.

  By the time I’m off work at four, I’ve got a plan. I don’t know why she’s ignoring me, but I am not letting this go without a fight. I’m at least going to make her tell me. In person. Face to face.

  I take a couple of face masks from the garage without Eddie noticing. On the drive home, I stop at the hardware store and buy a few cans of spray paint: purple, gold, blue, and green. I park on the street in front of my house instead of in my driveway.

  Then I get to work.

  12

  Luna

  I’m watching very blurry security camera footage on my computer. In it, a guy wearing a hoodie fills a red canister with gasoline from a Shell station in Emerald Bay.

  I can’t see his face, how tall he is, or what his hair looks like. Hell, it could be a flat-chested woman.

  I sigh and rewind, going back through the thing frame by frame. I’m just hoping I’ll notice something that will help, because we’re quickly hitting dead ends.

  Earlier, when I asked Heloise, our technical expert, whether she couldn’t make the video clearer, she just rolled her eyes.

  “This isn’t CSI: Tortuga,” she said, obviously annoyed. “How many times do I have to tell you people that I’m not a fucking wizard?”

  In fairness, she’d told me at least a thousand times before. I just keep hoping.

  The phone on my desk beeps, the red light next to DISPATCH flashing. Something new, at least.

  “Rivers,” I say.

  “I’ve got another vandalism report,” says the guy on the other end of the phone. I think it’s Brad, the chief’s kid, who needed a summer job.

  “Shoot,” I say.

  He pauses.

  “Tell me about the report, please,” I say, tapping my pen against the pad of paper.

  “It was made by Stone Williams, who says that his property at 2313 Manzanita Avenue has been vandalized,” Brad says, clearly reading from his notes. “His garage has been defaced by one or more persons, and he believes the property damage to be in the hundreds.”

  I sit upright in my half-broken chair, still tapping the pen on my desk. On my computer screen, the guy is mid-fill. Batali’s desk is empty — she’s in San Luis Obispo for the day, testifying in court.

  “Did Mr. Williams give any more details?” I ask.

  Brad keeps reading from his notes, and finally gets to the important part: a dollar sign, in a circle, in a triangle. He tells me more details for a few minutes, but by then, my mind’s wandering.

  I knew he was involved, I think. He lied about it, and now they’re targeting him.

  Should have let us fucking help you, Stone.

  I look at the clock. Just past six. Time for me to go home anyway, but I should go to the crime scene and throw the book at Stone. See if I can’t get him to tell me the truth.

  “Brad, could you please call Mr. Williams back and tell him I’m happy to stop by the crime scene in thirty to forty-five minutes?” I ask.

  “Yes, Detective Rivers,” he says, as polite as you please.

  I tie up a few loose ends, clear my desk, turn off my computer, and go. On the way out I check my phone one more time, but Stone hasn’t texted me for a couple of hours, and I just haven’t gotten a chance to answer him yet.

  Of course, now I’m worried that something is wrong and he knew it, that he was trying to get my help all day.

  Shit, I think, and get in my car.

  2313 Manzanita Avenue isn’t what I was expecting. It’s a charming little adobe bungalow, painted mint green. There’s a wooden fence around a neatly tended front yard, a concrete driveway leading to the back, and lace curtains hanging in the front windows. With the sun going down behind it, the house looks positively idyllic.

  It doesn’t track at all with what I thought Stone’s house would look like.

  I frown and double check the address against my notes, but as I do, Stone steps out of the front door. He’s wearing jeans and a short-sleeved black t-shirt, and he waves from his front steps.

  I was right about tattoos. Both his bulging forearms are covered in ink, hardly a blank spot anywhere. Honestly, I’m half-surprised that he isn’t wearing a jacket or a long-sleeved shirt, even though it was warm today.

  “Detective,” he says as soon as I get out of the car.

  “Mr. Williams,” I say, alread
y slightly annoyed.

  No one else is here. He could just call me by my name.

  “You reported a vandalism?” I ask, bringing out my notepad and pen.

  “It’s on the garage,” he says.

  I follow him, but there’s something a little off about this. Hell, there’s something a little bit off about everything where Stone is concerned.

  But he seems almost pleased. At the very least, he’s not upset.

  We round the corner and then stand there, facing the side of his garage.

  This wasn’t the same people who vandalized Eddie’s.

  The colors are right, and the way the words and symbols are written are an approximation of what was on Eddie’s, but it’s not even a close approximation. Best of all, ROYALE is spelled ROYAL.

  Either whoever did that this sent the new guy to tag Stone’s garage, or it’s a copycat.

  “This was here when you arrived home?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Stone says.

  “And it wasn’t here when you left this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Meaning your garage was vandalized in broad daylight, in a well-trafficked residential area,” I go on.

  He just shrugs.

  “Any idea why they might target you?” I ask. I’m not even taking notes. “Any details you might have left out previously?”

  As I talk, I get closer to the paint on the garage and pull gloves from my pocket, because between the texts and the obvious copycat, I’ve got a suspicion.

  “Nothing,” Stone says, coming up close behind me. “No idea who would do this.”

  His voice is low and rough, and he doesn’t even have to touch me for it to send a shiver down my spine. I clench my teeth, pull a glove on, and touch the graffiti in the shiniest spot.

  The gloves sticks, just a little. It’s still tacky, which means it’s not more than an hour old. Maybe two.

  I turn and face Stone.

  “Am I in danger, Detective?” he asks, his voice raspy, but he’s nearly smiling, his eyebrows going up just a hint.

  I step around him, and when he turns to face me, I put one hand on his shoulder. It’s hard and sinewy with muscle, but I swallow and ignore my dumb animal brain that notices things like how sexy suspects are.

  “Stand still,” I command, and stand on my tiptoes, looking at his hair.

  I brush my fingers along it lightly, and then, on the crown of his head, I find what I’m looking for: tiny gold droplets clinging to his dark hair.

  “Any idea how gold spray paint might have gotten into your hair?” I ask.

  “Probably from work,” he says.

  I take my glove off with a snap and ball it up in my hand, then cross my arms in front of me, looking at Stone.

  “All right, let me summarize,” I say, my eyes locked to his. He pushes his hands in his pockets, and I force myself not to look at his tattoo-covered forearms, the way his shirt stretches around his biceps, or the way I can just barely see his muscular chest underneath it.

  “During daylight hours, possibly as early as four forty-five but likely closer to six, an unknown person or persons vandalized your garage with several of the same words and logos that appeared on Eddie’s garage, as well as the symbol that appear at both the garage and the underpass. However, the art style is notably different from the graffiti at Eddie’s, with the graffiti on your garage being decidedly more... let’s say, amateur.”

  Realization is starting to flicker across Stone’s face.

  “Also of note is the fact that ROYAL here is spelled without its final E. Furthermore, there’s paint in your hair that, at first glance, seems to match the gold paint used in the vandalism.”

  Stone glances away, but it only makes me more annoyed.

  “Finally, you’ve texted me several times today, even though you knew I was at work,” I say, and take a step toward him.

  We look at each other for a moment.

  “You think it’s a copycat?” he finally asks, his voice low.

  “I think if I check your trash cans I’m going to find spray paint cans that match this wall,” I say, jerking my head toward the garage. “And worse, I think you must believe I’m stupid.”

  Stone’s jaw flexes.

  “I needed to see you,” he says, keeping his voice low. “You wouldn’t answer me, and like hell was I letting you get away without an explanation.”

  I just blink at him, because I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.

  “I was at work,” I say again, in case he didn’t hear me the first time. “And are you seriously getting upset that I didn’t contact you for a full day?”

  He looks away again, his jaw flexing below his sideburns. The orange sun is starting to dip below the other houses in his neighborhood, lowering us into the blue shadows of twilight.

  “I thought you’d changed your mind,” he finally says, glaring off into the distance. “You had a lot of reasons.”

  “So call my desk at work, or come by, or something,” I say. “Don’t vandalize your own garage, file a false police report, and assume I’m too dumb to figure it out.”

  “I didn’t think that.”

  “Really?” I ask. I’m getting exasperated, because I’m starting to think that I was right all along, that no matter how insanely sexy Stone is, he’s not worth the trouble.

  “I didn’t think beyond you getting here,” he says, and looks at me again, his green eyes blazing even in the twilight. “I’m not good with consequences.”

  “I thought you were in trouble,” I hiss. “I thought they’d started targeting you, for God knows what reason you won’t tell me, and I thought you were in danger.”

  He cracks a smile.

  “You were worried about me, Detective?” he asks.

  “I’m a public servant,” I say. “I worry when anyone is in trouble.”

  Stone just chuckles.

  “I can be a damsel in distress if you’re the knight who comes running to my rescue,” he says. “Help, my wicked stepmother’s locked me in a tower.”

  I bite the inside of my lip to keep myself from smiling.

  “You gonna tell on me?” he asks, cocking his head just slightly.

  I give him a long, slow look. I want to be annoyed with him for wasting my time, wasting department resources, and being kind of a dumbass, but I can’t quite muster it.

  The man vandalized his own house, hoping I’d come investigate.

  Crazy? Yeah.

  Kind of sexy? Also yeah.

  “I told you, I’m not a tattletale,” I say. “Even though I could have you fined for filing a false police report.”

  Stone steps forward, and I glance at his driveway. We’re at the side of his house, and anyone who walks down the sidewalk has a clear view of an officer of the law standing much too close to a guy who looks like he’d be at home in a biker gang.

  “Anything I can do to convince you not to have me fined?” he says, his voice low and raspy. “I don’t have a Beemer, but I bet I can make you learn to like a Ford Escort a little better.”

  Heat crawls up my face and burns in my cheeks. In the past twenty-four hours I’ve come up with several ways Stone could make me come on the hood of a car, but I keep my composure and look him in the eye.

  “Do you have a trash can where I could throw this away?” I ask, holding up my latex glove.

  13

  Stone

  I look from Luna’s face to the glove and then back, then shrug.

  “Sure, there’s one over —”

  I stop mid-sentence, because Luna’s got a devilish, wicked look in her eyes, her lips just barely curving up at either end. I clear my throat.

  “I’ve got a trash can inside the house,” I say, figuring it out. “Would you like to throw that away?”

  “If you don’t mind,” she says, almost sounding nonchalant.

  “Not at all,” I say, keeping up the overly-polite, sounding-like-a-church-lady charade even though my dick is close to bus
ting through the zipper on my pants.

  I hold the door for Luna because I’m a fucking gentleman, then close it behind us.

  “When did you move?” she asks, looking at my living room, which consists of a futon, a TV, and piles of boxes, which I’ve been using as tables.

  I walk up behind her and slide my hands around her hips. She’s dressed in a matching gray blazer and pants — does that make it a suit? I don’t fucking know — and even though she’s flawlessly professional, her ass looks incredible right now.

  “Sleuth it out, Detective,” I say into her ear, my voice low and gravelly.

  “It looks like you moved a week ago,” she murmurs. “But I’ve got a bad feeling that’s not the case.”

  “Not quite,” I say, and pull her hips back, pressing the swell of her ass against my rock-hard dick.

  I groan into her ear at the delicious pressure and Luna arches her back, moving her hips back against me like she’s just as desperate for this as I am.

  “Take your hair down, Detective,” I say.

  “Only if you stop calling me detective,” she says, but she’s already pulling pins out, shaking her mass of curls until it falls to her shoulder blades. Then she pulls off her blazer, depositing it gently on a box next to us.

  I have no idea what happened to the glove she wanted to throw away.

  “I like how dirty it sounds,” I say, moving my hands to her belly. She’s wearing some sleeveless thing, and she’s warm underneath it, her muscles moving and flexing as she breathes.

  “It sounds like I’m at work,” she says, her head against my shoulder. “Like you’ve got paperwork you need me to fill out.”

  “Like you’re the bad cop,” I tease, sliding my hands over her small, full breasts. Luna inhales sharply, and I can just barely feel her nipples harden beneath her bra. “You can cuff me and frisk me any time you want, Detective. Lock me in the interrogation room and have your way with me.”