by Lulu Pratt
Moving his attention to the front of my thong, he slipped his hand under the waistband. His hand lowered over my mound and he pushed his hand between my legs. My walls were slick with want and I moaned lowly to let him know that I wanted this. That I wanted him.
“Am I wet?” I asked teasingly, knowing full well that I was sopping.
“You’re about to be wetter.”
Pulling me to the bed, Dylan pushed on my shoulders until I was sitting on the edge of the mattress. He pulled at my skirt and it slid down along my legs.
“This thong needs to go,” he said.
“Please,” I said, my voice breathy with anticipation.
I started to rise up from the bed, but he placed his hand on my stomach, pushing me backwards and pinning me on the mattress. He hooked his fingers under the material and pulled it down. My ass lifted off the mattress and my panties slid along my thighs. He pulled it over my knees and it fell to the floor.
He knelt between my legs and our faces were across from one another. Dylan reached for my corset and slipped it off my shoulders. He leaned in and kissed along my breasts. His fingers began to rub my hard nipples and I found myself pushing into his caresses.
Dylan caught my smile and leaned in to kiss me again. His hands grabbed me behind my knees and he pulled me closer to the edge of the bed. His hands moved up my thighs, lightly along my waist, until one hand cupped my breast. He broke our kiss and leaned down to kiss my nipple. He took it in his mouth and ran his tongue over it. His other hand cupped my other breast and he ran his thumb over the stiff peak.
I sank back slowly onto the bed and Dylan continued licking and nipping at my breasts.
Dylan glided his fingers to my aching center. He pushed apart my legs before he touched my mound. With one finger he rubbed along my lips.
“You were right, I am wetter,” I whispered.
He leaned in and kissed my stomach, causing tingles to erupt wherever his lips connected with my skin. His other hand glided up my body to my lips.
“Suck on my finger,” he commanded.
Eagerly, I took his finger into my mouth, my tongue dancing around it. Dylan pulled it away. I closed my eyes and waited.
Dylan’s body shifted between my legs. His fingers brushed against my entrance. His lips trailed down, leaving a trail of tingles in their wake.
His tongue licked along my mound and his finger pushed into me. My wet walls clung to him and my hips began to move.
Without warning, his tongue darted out and probed my clit. His free hand spread my lips as he swirled his tongue along, up and down, side to side, rubbing me, teasing me, pleasing me. My body had never been so aroused and I moaned in delight.
I ran my hands through his hair and ground my pelvis into his face. His fingers continued to move in and out of me as his tongue and lips brought me close. I slowed my breathing and enjoyed this moment.
Dylan stopped moving and I looked down at him. He grinned.
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Please, don’t stop.”
“That’s exactly what I want to hear.”
The last word was slightly muffled as his lips returned to my clit. He moved his tongue, fingers and lips against my center and my body coiled, readying itself to spring open.
Dylan sucked my clit and rubbed his finger against my walls. I moaned and he stopped for a second to nibble my thigh. My hands meshed into his hair and I pushed him back to my aching pussy.
The pressure was mounting and I knew I was about to come.
I felt every touch from him, the lightest of caresses.
The warmth in my stomach erupted and wave after wave rushed through my body. My walls squeezed his fingers.
Dylan groaned in approval, but did not stop moving. My walls pulsed and Dylan moved his fingers quicker. He continued to suck and tease my clit. I squealed as the waves continued to rush over me.
As the waves lessened, Dylan eased his movements. My lips were swollen from his treatment, and I was breathless. I lay there for a few moments and Dylan stopped.
“That was wonderful.” I said, my breathing uneven.
“I know. There are plenty more where that came from.”
He held me as I fell asleep.
CHAPTER 27
Dylan
When I got home after dropping off the Damascus gun at the station and deciding to leave the paperwork for the morning, my mom was there, waiting. I’d warned her that it would be a late night, but I guess a mother’s instinct kept her up.
She took one look at my eye and inhaled deeply. “What,” she began, “is that?”
I touched my eye and flinched. “Painful.”
She ignored my flippant reply. “How did you get it?” she demanded.
“I’m a cop, Mom.”
She didn’t press the issue. Perhaps she figured it was best if she just didn’t know.
I walked to where she sat on the couch and gave her a kiss on the head. “Goodnight, Ma.”
“Dylan?”
“Yeah, Ma?”
She was silent, and then replied, “Please be careful.”
I nodded. “I’ll try.”
She always worried about me being in the force and all, but I suspected that over the past year I’d put her through more than she was built to handle. I resolved to treat her better, to cause her less hurt and anxiety. A son was supposed to bring his mother joy and comfort in her retirement years, not more gray hairs and insomniac sleeping patterns.
I slipped into Danny’s room and kissed his sleeping brow. He dozed peacefully, the sleep of someone who didn’t have a care in the world. At the very least, I could be proud of the fact that I’d kept his young life that simple. I went to my own room, where I promptly fell asleep, fully clothed.
The morning came faster than usual. I awoke groggy and dazed. My adrenaline immediately ratcheted up, as though my body thought I was still in the midst of the fight with the Black Dog boys.
Like the day before, Tom’s horn came faster than usual. I barely had time to pull on my clothes, swipe my toothbrush across my teeth, and grab a banana before hurrying out to the vehicle.
I was tired and preoccupied as I climbed in, mentally checking my pockets to make sure I had everything necessary to go about the day.
“What’s that?” Tom asked bluntly.
“What’s what?” I continued to check for my wallet, phone, keys, racing my hands across my body as though performing a cavity check on myself.
“The black eye.”
I stopped in my tracks. Fuck. Somehow, in the race from bed to car, I’d forgotten that I had a walloping black eye. Tom wasn’t gonna like this even a little bit. I readied myself for verbal battle and began.
“I went to the Black Dog.”
He gripped the steering wheel. “You did what?”
“Went to the Black Dog,” I repeated, knowing that he’d heard me perfectly.
Obviously struggling to control his rage, he replied, “And?”
“Found the gun from the Damascus case.”
Tom raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You did? How’s that?”
“Yup. It was in one of their junk piles, don’t ask me why.”
“Good, good,” he said absentmindedly, returned to quizzing me. “So, what were you really there for?”
“Er…” I trailed off.
“Don’t tell me. You were looking for a lead on the bakery case.”
“I was all out of other ideas.”
The old man harrumphed. “You know how I feel about using those half-assed criminals as a source.”
“Yeah, and I agree, but as we didn’t have any evidence on the case, I had to start somewhere.”
“You mean,” he argued, “we didn’t have any evidence that cleared your girl.”
I looked askance. Tom took that as a ‘yes.’
He continued, “It was stupid of you to go to the Black Dog alone, you get that? That’s the sort of op that requires backup. I’m guessing you didn�
��t call in what happened as you weren’t on official business. If you’d only asked me, I would’ve gone.”
There was palpable hurt in his voice. Not from being left out, so to speak, but from me putting my life on the line without confiding in him. A breach in our relationship had been opened by this damned case.
“You took an idiotic risk,” Tom went on. “And for some chick.”
“It was for the case.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he snapped.
I barreled onward. “And, for what it’s worth, she’s not some chick.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and immediately regretted how petulant I appeared.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I like her, Tom, I really like her.”
“Well that’s just great. Could you try liking someone that we aren’t taking to court?”
I skidded to a halt. “Huh?”
With an almost tired edge to his voice, Tom replied, “I doubt Miss Zoe will be too interested in being your partner after she gets a court summons with your name on it.”
“I don’t understand.”
He sighed. “Of course you don’t. Do the math, Dylan. She looks like the most probable culprit at the moment. There are just too many motives to ignore.”
“That’s not possible.” Even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were wrong.
“You’re not thinking clearly,” Tom said. “You know the first rule of the force, kid, I trained you better than that. Don’t let your heart get ahead of your brain. Zoe, from where I stand, seems pretty fucking guilty. Between the cash register, and the alarm, and the rest… well, I’d rather not be serving your lady, but push has come to shove.”
I reeled back with shock. No. I couldn’t fathom this turn, even if it was a turn I well should have seen coming. I mean, I’d known Tom was theoretically building a case against her, but I’d assumed that was just a mental exercise, or perhaps even just something to write down for paperwork, to prove that we were making progress. It hadn’t dawned on me that he might actually think she was guilty.
“But Zoe would never forgive me.”
We would be over before we’d even really begun. The first woman I’d like since… well, since her death. I’d already been thinking about dating Zoe for real, not just midnight escapades, and maybe about introducing her to Danny. I knew the kid would see how good she was, how kind and funny. And after that… well, after that, maybe even starting a life together. My life had changed the day I met her, and less than a week later, it was about to change all over again.
But that wasn’t the worst part. It was bad that I might lose Zoe forever. The worst part, by far, was that I wasn’t entirely sure I believed she was innocent.
CHAPTER 28
Zoe
Working at the bakery the next day seemed like a page from someone else’s life. Rolling the dough, mixing batter, sprinkling cinnamon sugar — none of it felt like it was happening to me. It was as though I were a character in a comic book who’d stepped into the wrong panel. The colors were too dull, the lines too thin, the dialogue didn’t fit.
Because while yesterday I may have been Zoe, of Zoe’s Cakes and Bakes, today, I couldn’t figure out who to be. I was no longer the owner of a quaint bakery on Main Street in the heart of Fallow Springs, Wisconsin. But I also wasn’t the big city girl from NYC who’d moved here after getting her heart broken by some tool. Did that make me the girl who wore all black and followed her lover into an illegal speakeasy? Only to escape the bad guys with him, and get the best oral sex of her life?
Could I be that girl?
I shook my head. Nothing seemed right, nothing was as it ought to be. Then again, neither was I.
But I felt right, and as I ought to be, when I was with Dylan. In between his burly arms, the world was safe and secure. I had only to look into those blue eyes to know that I was good enough, not a girl alone in a foreign city with piles of debt and only one friend, but a strong, independent woman who’d moved here to make her way, and was doing just that. Even if the road was rather bumpy.
And when we kissed, I knew I could spend the rest of my life pressed against those lips. It was a daunting realization. I thought it would take me years to get over my cheating ex. Instead, all it had required was a drastic move across the country and one fated arrest.
I was lost in thought throughout the day, musing over Dylan and last night, wondering at how I’d kind of enjoyed the rush of adrenaline the Black Dog had given me. That wasn’t usually my idea of a good time, but I found that my previously held ideas on a variety of topics were shifting rapidly.
By closing time, I’d managed to make solid progress on the cakes. The cakes, too, felt like they were from somebody else’s life. But looking at the looming calendar of orders that hung in my office, I knew full well that the damn cakes were from my life. And while I did enjoy baking them, it was hard going at it alone, never mind being pretty monotonous.
“You go girl,” I’d taken to saying to myself at some point during the day, like a bad nineties ‘girl power’ cartoon. “You’re gonna make these cakes your bitch.” Okay, you might not see that part on the average animated kids’ show.
And sure enough, once I’d put my head down, it did indeed look as though I would finish the fucking cakes. It was a mid-winter miracle.
I’d just finished cleaning my station when I heard a knock at the door. I assumed it was Mina, and called out, “One minute, I’m coming.” She probably just wanted to chat about the day, maybe give me some fresh gossip.
A voice returned, “Could you please make your way to the front door?”
I froze. Was it the Black Dog boys, back to finish what they’d started? I grabbed a pan that was hanging from a nearby tool rack and hefted it in my hands. This will do nicely, I thought to myself as I side-stepped to the door.
“What’s your business?” I shouted. I had been aiming for more of a polite query, but it emerged as a full-blown shout.
“Here to see a Zoe.”
“That’s me, what’d ya want?”
“Please open the door, Miss.”
I couldn’t look out the window, as it was still boarded up, and if this was one of the goons from last night, it’d be better to whack him over the head so as to send a message to the rest of the group — a message that read something like, ‘Don’t fuck with me.’
“Fine,” I returned, an uneasy warble in my voice. I locked it down, and continued, “I’m opening it.”
Good to my word, I put a hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, as though I expected Freddy Krueger, glove and all, to greet me on the other side.
What I found was not Freddy Krueger, but what appeared to be some guy who got lost walking from his IT job to his nightly Dungeons and Dragons meetup. He had a pencil mustache, thinning hair and wire-rim glasses, which he pushed up his nose as he sniffed.
“Zoe Reynolds?” he asked in a nasally pitch.
I lowered my pan slowly, confident I could take this dude with my bare hands, maybe even just my pinky finger. “Yes, why?”
He removed one arm from behind his back, to reveal a stack of documents he was holding. “You’ve been served.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and took the papers. “Great, thanks,” I replied.
He furrowed his eyebrow and scratched at his mustache, as though surprised by my gratitude. I shut the door on his quizzical face before he could initiate further conversation.
And here I was, thinking he was a Black Dog come to get me. As it turned out, he was just some nebbish little office schlub, with unimportant office papers. Dylan had already warned me, on the day of my arrest, that I’d have to go to court over the broken brake light and expired license debacle. Getting a summons for that seemed weird, but having never been in it, I didn’t know much about the justice system.
The court date was really more of an inconvenience than anything else. I sighed, and opened the file to find out when, exactly, I was expected to appear to argue
this absurd case.
My stomach flew up to my throat, and I choked.
This couldn’t be right.
No.
There was no way.
Because the paper read that I was to appear, as a defendant, in the robbery.
A defendant.
I shook my head, and muttered, “No, no that’s gotta be wrong, it couldn’t be—”
My hands trembled as I read further through the pages, where they detailed the exact nature of the accusations. My eyes slipped over the letters, as the sentences ran together.
“Evidentiary suggestion of complicit actions…”
“Defendant had told friends and casual acquaintances that she was struggling to pay off her loans, issued to her by…”
“Missing items in the amount of…”
Tears, uncalled for, sprung to my eyes, and I began to sob. I fell onto the chair, letting the documents fly all over the room and sift to the floor in a light shower of paper. Once more, I found myself crying in my bakery. Could this place ever be happy for me again?
I grabbed a floating document and tried to read it. I quickly crumpled it up and threw it across the room.
I guess they did things differently here in Fallow Springs. This is not how other places handled cases. This was just too much for me.
What more was there to read? I understood the argument, almost as soon as I’d pieced together they were labeling me the defendant. The elements came together too easily, so easily I worried that I might really be locked up for something I didn’t do.
The open cash register. The disabled alarm. The systemic selection of goods to steal.
The evidence all pointed to me. How else could it be explained?
And my mind stopped altogether.
Had Dylan known about this?
I fumbled inside my jacket pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I needed answers, and I needed them now. There was no time to act demure and polite — my bakery, and by extension, my life, was on the line.
So, I did the only thing that seemed reasonable. I called Dylan.
I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted him to answer. If he answered, I’d have to face the cold, hard truth that my lover was building a case against me.