______________________
FALCO
I walked through the front door of my apartment which led into my living room. I saw no sign of Irina at first, leading me to wonder if Hicks was right. I tossed my keys on the coffee table. That’s when I noticed the shopping bags on the couch.
I told her I’d be home at six o’clock so she was not expecting to see me for two and a half more hours. She may have gone back out.
The shopping bags were from Walmart and Goodwill. I pulled the contents of the bags. From the Goodwill bag I found two pairs of jeans and two tops, one medium heavy jacket and one pair of sneakers. From Walmart, she bought one bra, sized thirty-two C, I noted, two pairs of boy shorts underwear, one red, one blue, two pairs of ankle socks, one pair of knee socks and one pair of thermal underwear.
I pulled the receipts from both bags. I had asked her to try to keep her purchases under four hundred dollars. I did some quick math. At Goodwill and Walmart combined she had spent a total of one hundred twenty-two dollars. It certainly did not look like the spending pattern of someone who intended to fleece me and run.
But, where was she?
On the kitchen counter top, I noted another shopping bag, this one from Kroger Grocery Store. A bottle of wine sat next to it. The bag was empty, but the receipt was still inside. I scanned the sales slip. One tasteful but inexpensive bottle of wine, Fourteen Hands Red Blend; one bag of frozen fries, one package of buns, some dark mustard and . . .
I chuckled out loud when I saw the final item; one package of Ball Park Hot Dogs. She remembered they were my absolute favorite. She intended to make a special dinner, a throwback to the time we first met. It had to be.
Next to the empty grocery bag were brochures from the Nashville Career Advancement Center, the Tennessee Employment Resource Center and Labor and Workforce Development.
I went into my bedroom to change shirts. It was when I reached the hallway that I heard the shower running. The door to the bathroom was wide open. Irina was taking another shower. I could see her standing in my shower stall through the foggy mirror. Her back was to the shower head, and I saw the reflection of her fully nude body.
Over the last fifteen years, I’d seen a lot of naked women: short women; tall women; chubby; skinny; voluptuous models; white; black; Asian, Hispanic . . . but none of them stopped me in my tracks the way Irina’s body did just now.
Her breasts were perfectly shaped and natural. Her body was long, but shapely and lean. Despite her obvious beauty, there was a tragic side too. I saw scratches, marks and bruises on her body that were in the process of healing and scars that never fully healed. Who knows what injuries life on the streets had caused her.
I tried to slide my arm toward the doorknob unnoticed. I was going to pull the door closed as quietly as possible to give her some privacy but I had no such luck. She busted me fumbling with the knob.
“Jackie?” she said, turning the shower head off. “I was not expecting you until later.”
“I know,” I replied, looking down. “I got home early. I was just trying to close the door.”
“Give me one moment,” she said. “I am finished. I will be right out.”
“No problem,” I replied, now fully embarrassed. “Take your time.”
“By the way, you might want to change out your razor blades,” she said.
“What?”
“I can’t even remember how long it’s been since I shaved my legs and pits.”
I chuckled, “Ok. No problems.”
“While you are here, I could use another towel,” she said.
I looked at the towel rack and noticed there was only a hand towel hanging there. I looked up and saw her smiling. She shrugged.
“Sure,” I said, turning to the linen closet across from the bathroom. I heard the familiar clank of the shower door opening. I grabbed a large, fluffy bath towel from the closet and turned back toward the bathroom. There she stood once again, this time outside the stall, stark naked, dripping wet.
Her smile had disappeared. Her glacier colored eyes were locked onto my face. Her wet red hair hanging in a sexy mop; her lips luscious and inviting. Her expression was nearly indescribable.
This time I did not avert my eyes from her magnificent form. I felt my loins beginning to tingle, reacting to her beauty and her almost hypnotic hold on me. I held up the towel. She stepped forward and took it, never averting her eyes from mine.
“I’ll . . . I’ll be in the other room,” I said, fully mesmerized by her beauty. I backed away feeling her eyes following me, burning a hole in me.
I walked into my bedroom, breathing heavily, wondering what I would say to her next. This was so unlike me. I’d had so many women before, I knew how to act, I knew what to say, but Irina . . . she had frozen me in my tracks. For the first time in twenty years, I didn’t know what to do. I was speechless.
The point would be inconsequential, however, as she appeared in my bedroom doorway, dry except for her damp hair, the towel wrapped around her body. She walked right up too me, her magnetic gaze pulling at me.
I leaned in. Her mouth opened as I made my move and we locked lips in a burning kiss. She moaned as my tongue found the inside of her mouth and I slid my arms around her back and squeezed her tightly.
She reached for my belt buckle as she kissed me, deeply and passionately. I pulled away from her just far enough to get my shirt off as she found my pants buckle and zipper. She pulled my pants and boxers down to my ankles and exhaled when she saw my manhood, fully erect. She stood, facing me. I stepped out of my pants and she let her towel drop to the floor.
She sighed as she ran her fingers across my chest and up and down my arms. I began kissing her again with an open mouth. Her lips parted and we allowed our tongues to freely explore each other. I pulled her to me, pressing her stomach against mine. I could feel the cool dampness of her lower stomach rubbing against my warm shaft. I began to slowly move my hips to feel more of her skin against me. She tiptoed, causing my cock to rub against her pubic hair. Her movements were driving me wild.
I slid my hands around her waist and down to her behind, squeezing her behind, kneading the smooth flesh with my fingers. I felt her begin to breathe heavily. My heart was racing I wanted her so much.
I picked her up. She wrapped her legs around me, squeezing me tightly, moving her mouth from my lips to my cheek to my neck. The tip of my cock was now rubbing against the opening of her vagina and I felt the swelling of her labia, her wetness oozing onto my shaft.
“Jackie, I’ve been waiting for this for so long,” she said, in between kisses to my neck. “I’ve thought about you every day.”
“I want you, too, Irina,” I replied. “I’ll get a condom from my nightstand.”
“There is no need,” she said. “I want you like you are.”
I backed up to the bed and sat on its edge, her legs and arms still wrapped around me. I lowered her onto my lap. I slid into her wetness easily. She gasped and cried out in pleasure. I was moaning as well. I took her left nipple into my mouth as she began a slow motion, raising and lowering her hips. My right hand moved to her rear once again and I squeezed and pulled at her smooth flesh, forcing her downward trust to be a little harder.
She quickened the pace. It felt so good I thought it would drive me mad.
“Stop,” I said. “I’m going to come.”
“I want you to,” she replied.
“No, not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to taste you.”
She slowed to a stop and I gently moved her off my lap and onto her back on the bed. I grabbed her ankles and pulled them high, positioning her calves on my shoulders. I put my hands on the front of her thighs and pulled her toward me. I began kissing her calves and shins, moving my way down to her knee and inner thigh. I saw her hips moving up toward me, her back arching, silently begging for my tongue to travel downward.
I kissed my way down to her labia and began licking it
in circles, all around the entrance. Her wetness was covering my face. Her scent was making me so hot. Finally, my tongue found its destination. She cried out again. She arched her back, making it easier for my tongue to go deeper. Her clitoris was hard, wet and swollen. I took it into my mouth and began working it with my tongue.
She began to breathe harder and harder, moaning each time she exhaled.
“I’m going to come, Jackie, I’m going to come,” she said. “Don’t stop.”
I kept the motion going until I felt her body stiffen. She cried out long and loud as the orgasm pulsated through her body. She writhed on the bed in an after-glow, still breathing rapidly, looking exhausted and spent.
“That was incredible,” she said.
“It was,” I agreed.
I slid up on the bed. She curled up under my right armpit, laying her head on my shoulder, tracing the lines of my pectorals and stomach muscles with her finger tips.
“You are a gifted lover, Jackie,” she said, sighing. “I haven’t had an orgasm like that since . . .”
“Since when?”
“Never mind,” she said. “It’s your turn now. She moved her body down mine, kissing my pectorals and stomach along the way. She glided her fingers over my cock, which stood at attention, still wet from being inside her. She squeezed the base of it with one hand and massaged the head with her palm and fingers of her other hand. It felt incredible. Finally, she wrapped her fingers around the base of my shaft again and squeezed it, taking it into her mouth.
The action she created with her tongue and mouth was sending sensations through my body unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
I could have sworn I was in heaven.
______________________
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
______________________
HICKS
I had just finished modifying my report, printed a copy and was standing to leave. I turned quickly and rammed into a man. It felt like I had just run into a concrete wall.
“What’s up, Hicks?” Nico Mayson said to me. “I thought this was your day off.”
“It is, Nico, but you know how it is with cops,” I replied. “It’s just like taking a crap. The job isn’t over until all the paperwork is done.”
He leaned against the desk, “So, what paperwork are you working on?” he asked.
“Just incident reports that I’m a little behind on,” I insisted.
He nodded, his body language clearly told me he was fishing for something.
“Tell me about Falco,” he said. “He seems like a pretty good guy.”
“He is a pretty good guy,” I told him. “He has a little too much boy scout in him for my taste, but that changes over time when the realities of the job set in.”
“By ‘boy scout’ you mean he is an honest cop who likes to do things by the book, and not break the rules, right?”
I looked at him quizzically, “Something like that.”
“So, by that definition, you’re a boy scout too. Isn’t that right, Hicks?”
I offered him a bit of a smirk, “Of course. Why would you think otherwise?”
Nico smiled and let out a breath, pausing for a few seconds.
“I’m hearing through the grapevine that you’re drawing some heat over this whole ‘excessive force’ shit with the perp who took you hostage. Is that true?”
“I think it will all work out,” I told him.
“For Falco . . . or for you?” he asked.
“What is this, Nico? Are you and Falco in the ‘hot cops with tattoos club?’ You boys gotta stick together, right?”
“I just don’t want to see anyone get fucked over,” he said. “Not him, not you.”
“We agree on that,” I said.
“But sometimes, a girl has to do what a girl has to do, right?” he asked, suspiciously.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, from what I hear, you and he have already gotten naked with each other, and now it’s over,” he said.
“You jealous, Nico?”
He laughed, “Not in the slightest, Hicks. I have my boom at home. She’s all I need and all I want.”
“Then why the question?” I wondered.
“Well, I’ve always heard stories about a woman scorned,” he said. “It just occurred to me that if there ever was a scenario where you had to, say . . . sell out a partner to save your own ass, that doing it to a guy who jilted you would be double the fun.”
“Well, for your information, he didn’t jilt me, Nico,” I rebutted. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we called it off before we got to the main event. It was mutual, Nico.”
“That’s almost word for word what Falco told me,” Nico admitted.
“So, why the third degree?”
“Well, because it’s been my experience that people who are in the throes of passion don’t always say what they mean,” he said. “Let’s face it, Falco is a hot guy. He could probably get any woman he wants. I’m sure you told him that a relationship with him was a bad idea. I’m just wondering if you meant it.”
“You know about Captain Paulson’s conversation with me, don’t you?”
Nico shrugged, “I’ve been around a while, Hicks. I hear things.”
I stood and walked away, pausing by the door to face him one last time, “Well, you heard one thing right, Nico.”
“And what’s that?”
“Sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do.”
“Oh, by the way,” Nico said. “The guy, Franklin Jones . . .”
“Who?”
“The manager of the Home Depot employee you shook down.”
“Yeah, what about him?” I asked.
“Earlier, I overheard Falco talking with the guy on the phone.”
“What about?”
“He called in to file a complaint, Hicks,” Nico said, “a complaint against you for abuse of power. Can you imagine that?”
I sighed. More bullshit to deal with.
“What’d Falco say to him?” I asked.
“Falco talked the guy out of it,” Nice said. “The girl, too. Falco smoothed things over.”
“Well, good then,” I said.
“Yeah, that Falco is a cop who is always loyal to his partner,” Nico said. “He’d lose his job before he fucked you over. I sure am glad he is with you.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you always gave me the impression that you were the same way,” he said. “You are the same way, right?”
I held up the report I intended to give to Paulson first thing tomorrow morning, “I’m not really sure where you are coming from, Nico, but this is the modified report I intend to file. It’s done, already. I’m not changing it.”
He nodded, “And does it tell a story with a happy ending?”
“For some, perhaps,” she said. “Maybe not so much for others. Have a good evening, Nico.”
______________________
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
______________________
FALCO
Irina had just exploded with her third orgasm. My second one came two minutes later. Every muscle on my body felt sore. This woman made me feel things like no woman ever had.
Irina rolled to her side and used her elbow, arm and hand to prop her head up, facing me. “You are incredible, Officer Jackie,” she said, chuckling.
“No one calls me Jackie, anymore,” I said. “Not since high school.”
“No? What do they call you?”
“Only a few people I know call me by my given first name, John,” I told her. “Almost everyone just calls me Falco.”
“What about Billy and Manny?” she asked. “Don’t they still call you Jackie?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Billy is in prison. He has another five years left on his sentence.”
“Oh no,” she replied. “What happened?”
“He murdered a biker who was beating up on his mom,” I answered.
&n
bsp; “I’m so sorry. You two were so close.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t too surprised. You got a first hand look at his temper when you were fifteen. It got worse from there.”
“What about Manny?”
“He died four years ago. Liver cancer.”
“I am so sorry for your loss,” she said.
“Shit happens,” I replied. “I miss them both.”
“I like the name, ‘Jackie,’” she insisted. “You will always be my Jackie.”
“’Jackie’ is fine by me,” I said.
I had been avoiding the elephant in the room for far too long. I was extremely curious about her recent history.
“Irina, would you mind telling me, how is it that I found you in a homeless community?”
The smile that had been twinkling in her eyes dimmed immediately, “I left a man a year ago,” she said. “I ran away with nothing. He’s been looking for me ever since.”
I looked at her, somewhat incredulously, “You didn’t say you left a boyfriend, or a husband. You said, ‘a man.’”
She nodded, “It’s a long story. I hated him.”
I felt like shit, making her relive the pain she had been suffering, “I’m sorry.”
“After Social Services took me away when I was fifteen, I was put into another foster home across town, but that monster kept following me.”
“Mr. Cohen?”
She nodded, “Eventually they arrested him but his lawyer got him out. The state moved me to Memphis for my own protection, gave me a different name and put me back into their system. I was a troubled teenager after that, I’ll be the first to admit it. I was in four different foster homes in three years, each one worse than the last.”
“Oh my god, Irina, I’m so sorry. Whatever happened to Mr. Cohen?”
“He died more than ten years ago—heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I didn’t shed a single tear. I lived in fear around that man.”
“Did things get better?”
Tears were coming down her cheeks as she ran down the story.
“No,” she continued. “The state told me that I would be deported to Russia when I turned eighteen. I was not born in the US, nor had I become a citizen.”
Happily Ever Alpha: Until Falco (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 11