by Joey W. Hill
She pivoted and stalked back to the curb, taking a seat once again on the chair. Though he talked to Johnson and Carter a couple more minutes before going into the store to see the demolished aisles of food, the smears of blood left by the severely beaten store owner, she didn't make eye contact with him again.
SS
To any onlookers, it looked like he'd set a reporter back on her heels. In reality, she'd set him back on his. He hadn't expected her at the scene. He sure as hell hadn't expected to see her talking to the type of people responsible for most of Baton Rouge's violent crime and homicide rate. The type of people who valued life as much as they did bird shit.
There were a handful of female officers in District 1, and he was fine with that. Yeah, maybe he worried a little more about his female officers than his male ones because he was wired that way, but he put extra effort into shoving down that bias. What he'd told Mike about being an example for Billy applied just as much to him. He made sure any differences in the way he treated members of his squad had to do with their experience, not their gender. He didn't want any of his guys second-guessing or being overprotective toward an officer just because she had girl parts. The calls they faced required total concentration and trust in one another.
Logically, he knew women were competent, tough. Yet he still had a strong desire to protect them from harm. That alone didn't make him a prick. However, when he let that desire get twisted into an angry retort because he wasn't sure of his footing in a situation, then that changed things.
Expecting the unexpected was part of the job, which was why his knee-jerk reaction to her appearance irritated him. The downside of being off the dating circuit for so long was he was rusty at dealing with those edges where personal and professional overlapped. Since he was interested in a woman who was standing right on that boundary, he'd stepped right into it. She'd shown intelligence and grit, and he'd acted like what she'd called him. An asshole. In short, he needed to man up and apologize.
He'd had the two boys picked up for truancy, because that had been a good idea, no question. He'd let the detective on scene know, and Detective Allen had him send out a couple squad members to see what they could get out of the onlookers with the kids gone. After he took care of that, Leland called in an hour of personal time and went looking for her.
Celeste's car hadn't been parked on the street and she'd taken her leave on foot, so he followed a hunch. The logo on the coffee had been for a shop about two blocks away, a cheap breakfast place that cooked everything in so much grease a cardiologist could set up a chop shop right outside its doors.
Sure enough, he found the beat up little blue Honda there. Through the window, he saw her sitting at a table, tapping her tablet and scribbling in a notebook. A bagel and dish of cream cheese sat next to her.
He stepped into the shop, giving the tired-looking waitress a nod. "Just a coffee, black," he said. Then he moved toward Celeste's table.
She didn't lift her head when he stopped in front of it. "Seat's taken," she said shortly. "I'm expecting someone who isn't a jerk."
"He couldn't make it." Leland slid into the booth across from her, turned his radio down as it started to chatter. "I'm sorry."
She stopped tapping but kept her eyes on the screen. "Sorry he couldn't make it?"
"Sorry I said that. I wasn't expecting to see you there. And you talking to those guys threw me. If they aren't already, they're only a step or two away from becoming what turned that store owner into a pile of bloody meat. I had my hands on you last night, my mouth, and everything I touched was delicate, beautiful. Something I want to keep safe. That's the way I'm built, and I won't apologize for that, but I will apologize for it making me say something that stupid."
She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes thoughtful. "Wow. For a guy who just put his size fifty shoe in his mouth, that's a pretty good apology. Way more honest than I would have expected."
It was good to see those pretty multi-colored irises, the blink of her lashes, and know she was less mad at him. "I'm straight with women. What I want from them, the things I demand...clear communication is essential. You understand me?"
She swallowed, her eyes flickering. "Yes. I don't think I can go there with you. With anyone. Ever again."
"Did you have a bad experience?"
She shook her head. "No. Not exactly. Maybe one that was too good."
"You thought it couldn't happen again. It was a one-time thing. Or it opened up things you weren't prepared to face."
"A little of all of it." Her lips curved wryly. "It was at Club Surreal. Do you go there?"
A tricky area. He lifted a noncommittal shoulder, and her face shuttered, responding to his lack of trust. She was a smart girl, she should understand his position, but then he thought of what he'd seen in her eyes last night, what she'd given him. She'd trusted him a lot more than she'd expected, and he'd left her vulnerable. Enough that his shot this morning had been more painful than it would have been if she'd been ready for the usual shit a defensive cop could dish out to a reporter.
"Yeah, I've been a couple times. Would you like to go there with me?"
She curved her fingers around her mug. She still had the paper cup containing the hot chocolate, but the mug held tea, because he smelled the light herbal scent. Soothing. "What's that?" He tapped her knuckle.
"It's chamomile. I chase the hot chocolate with it to even me out. You know, like crack after booze, only in reverse."
He smiled at her and her expression eased. He wanted to reach out again, grip her hand, but he knew that was just way too fast, far too much intimacy. Fortunately, the waitress brought his coffee and he could take hold of that instead. "Mike has a good opinion of you. Earning a cop's respect isn't an easy thing. I'll have to check out your blog."
She fished a card from her wallet, pushed it over to him. "You're welcome to post comments if you think I've got anything wrong, Sergeant. Or send me a private email. The truth is very important to me."
Her card was unexpectedly whimsical, a cartoon sketch of a harried-looking female reporter hunched over an old-fashioned typewriter, the only touch of color a pair of red sneakers tumbled next to her bare feet underneath the rickety desk. A cat was asleep on a mess of papers on the desk.
"Cute."
"It disarms people, makes them feel less threatened. Did you have Darryl and Sean picked up?"
He took a sip of his coffee in answer. "Thank you," she said. "Darryl may be too far gone, but there's still hope for Sean. He basically idolizes Darryl."
"How is it you're so involved in their lives?"
"You mean, how is it a skinny white middle-class chick knows how to handle herself in this part of town?" She shrugged. "I was born in Baton Rouge, to a poor-as-dirt family. I've lived in a trailer park where the skinheads two trailers over were burying assault weapons under their place and plotting the overthrow of the world. Not sure if they ever followed through with that, but I'm thinking it's still in the planning stages, since they liked to drink and talk about it more than anything else. Before that, I lived around here, in some really crappy apartments. Had a bullet or two go through the walls at odd hours of the night, listened to the guy next door try to beat his wife to death while his daughter screamed. Same guy would always give me hard candy when he met me on the stairs."
She lifted a shoulder. "I know this world, and since I've been back here I've reestablished a lot of contacts."
She flipped through a couple screens on her tablet. He watched the long strands of her hair slide forward to tease her lashes, the corner of her pursed mouth. "One of the people who lives near the store saw three of the MoneyBoyz leave around one o'clock, right after the attack. They had their hoods up, so you're not likely to get anything off the cameras, but when they went by her place, she heard one of them. 'Gonna tell LeRoy you punked out and hit that bitch like a girl, Dogboy.' Dogboy could have been an insult, but sounds like a nickname. LeRoy Green fancies himself the leader of the MoneyBoyz, b
ut that part I expect you already know."
She glanced up at him. "None of that's official, and if you go ask her the same question she'll deny talking to me. Rosario has a little girl who has to walk to the bus stop alone because she works the early shift. The neighbors watch after her, but if it got back to the MoneyBoyz she told me that..."
"They won't hear it from us." Leland studied her. "I'm not trading information, Celeste."
Her eyes cooled. "Did I ask you for anything, Sergeant?" She shut down her tablet, began to pack her stuff back into her oversized handbag. "Thanks for the apology. Guess we're done here."
The hell with it. He put his hand over hers before she could jerk back. "Celeste, you didn't answer my question." He'd go to Surreal if she was interested, if a more public venue would help her trust him enough to get back to a private one.
From the way she stilled, he knew she didn't need to be reminded of what the question had been. "You don't even trust me, Leland. Rationally, I get it, but maybe I'm too sensitive about that. Maybe I want you to trust me anyway, and that says last night was too unsettling, making me irrational. Maybe I need some time to think about the why of that."
"Okay. So maybe I want to buy you Thai takeout on Friday." He stroked her wrist with his thumb, a discreet caress of her pulse, and was pleased to feel it trip under his touch.
"Thai instead of a BDSM club?"
"Less pressure."
She gave him a half-amused, half-desperate look. "You know this is a really bad idea, right? I'm not a good bet."
"You just told me I could trust you."
"That's not what I meant. I'm broken, Leland." She waved at the tablet. "I'm damn good at this, but it's the only thing I'm good at. I suck at relationships. They fall apart when I touch them."
"All right. So I've been warned." His grip tightened on her wrist, drawing her gaze back up to him. "Celeste, let me bring you Thai food on Friday. Tell me about what happened. Why it was too good. You choose where. Totally neutral location. Let's talk about where we're going with this." He stroked her wrist again, earning more of that little flutter. "Don't hand me bullshit about it not going anywhere. You want me touching you. And I want to be touching you. So tell me where."
She set her jaw. Anticipating that she was going to dig in her heels and refuse, he moved his foot beneath the table, nudged it against her insole. When she shifted her foot slightly, he closed the gap again, nudged it once more.
Her eyes lifted to his. What could have been a tease, an innocent flirtation, wasn't that. He was giving her a direction, and he waited to see if she was aware enough to recognize it.
"You know what I want," he said.
Her fingers flexed on the table. She moistened her lips, looked out the window. He took another sip of his coffee, tried not to count the ticking seconds. Four...five...six.
She shifted her hips, adjusted. Those spots of becoming color returned to her cheeks. He slid his other foot forward. The placement of his feet inside hers, pressed against her insoles, told him where hers were. She'd adjusted her feet shoulder width, opening her legs for him. Her pulse was tripping under his touch. When he put his coffee down, it took a concerted effort to keep his grip on the mug, rather than taking a double handed one on her.
"Friday, Celeste. After I get off shift. Where do I meet you?"
"Okay. The Mall. At the carousel."
He blinked at the choice. "Pretty public. Don't trust yourself?"
Though she was unnerved by her reaction to him, she tossed him a disdainful look. "I expect you'll bring my stolen property back to me, Sergeant."
"You can expect that all you want, Miss Lewis. But District 1 has higher priorities than a woman who can't remember where she left her clothes."
She snorted and rose, dropping a tip on the table. "Asshole. Enjoy your coffee."
SS
Celeste, what are you doing?
When she got into her car, she took herself away from the diner without a look back, out of range of Sergeant Leland Keller. She'd thought of Dom/sub stuff as elaborate equipment, a club setting. Safe words, paddles. Whips and chains. Leland Keller excelled at subtle gestures that took her over in a heartbeat, made all the more arousing by how he did them while they were surrounded by an oblivious world. He created a bubble for just the two of them with his direct gaze, his murmured commands, the stroke of his strong fingers.
But the maneuver at the diner was the least of it. When he'd gotten out of his car at the crime scene, her whole body went on alert. All this time, fate had kept the two of them from crossing paths, but right after she'd spent the night with him, here he was. She'd had an oh shit moment, because she'd snuck out of his place that morning like a thief. But right after oh shit, she was flooded with giddy pleasure at the sight of him, like a schoolgirl with a crush.
She remembered how she'd wanted to open his closet and look at his uniforms. Seeing one on him made every cliche about a man in uniform God's honest truth. There were plenty of cops who, due to brutal shift schedules and bad eating habits, had a gut hanging over their belts and popped blood pressure and cholesterol medicines like candy. Some of the rookies were skinny, growing into their bodies, or still nursing baby fat. Billy Johnson was one of the exceptions, with the physique of a young Marine. But Leland in a police uniform was total female fantasy material.
Baton Rouge PD uniforms had gold and blue trim, so bright it clashed with the muted tones of the dark-blue trousers and gray uniform shirts. Leland wore the uniform like dress blues. Everything ironed, spotless and fitted to his powerful torso. His belt was loaded with his Glock sidearm and nonlethal weapons such as Taser, Mace and ASP. She also glimpsed cuffs and his portable radio. On one of those skinny rookies, all that load would have looked bulky, oversized. Whereas the way Leland's hips and upper torso moved with their weight had everything inside her humming.
A vision of him cuffing her and taking her over the hood of his unit had popped into her head before she could blink. Christ. Such typical cop fantasies should have amused her, and they did, though she'd cut out her tongue before she ever said such a thing to him. He'd probably heard it from any one of the many women who'd give it up to a police officer in a heartbeat. But how many of them wanted such a fantasy, not because he was a police officer, but because of what Celeste sensed from him? The uniform and badge enhanced what was already there. Authority and protection weren't just part of the oath he'd made. They were a confirmation of what he was. She knew that because of what she herself was.
When he'd put his foot against hers under the table, her thighs had trembled, loosened. The flare of satisfaction in his eyes as he'd shifted the other foot, confirming she'd spread her legs for him, had been enough to send her into a tactical retreat. But she'd agreed to meet with him, talk about what had happened to make her so leery of getting into a Dom/sub relationship. That could lead to a lot of other things, far less subtle.
As her week continued on its normal schedule, she didn't run into him again, at least not face-to-face, but her mind kept returning to every second she'd spent with him so far. As well as mulling over what she could tell him about the pivotal event that seemed to have brought her here, personally and professionally.
The Dom at Club Surreal had cracked her hard shell. What had oozed out was banal textbook psychology. Little girl abandoned by daddy grows up into a woman who lashes out at men who are everything the male role models in her life never had been. By all rights, that Master could have rubbed her face in that, because she'd been all set to bust his balls, hoping to write a story about him and his business partners that would raise the hair of every person who read it. Instead, he'd treated her emotional state with tender care. Which was remarkable, given he was a sexual sadist who could use pain and ecstasy to take a woman far beyond her imaginings of what pleasure was. He'd done that for her too. A full-service emotional and physical ass kicking that had left her craving more.
She hadn't fallen in love with that Master, but he'd co
mpelled a total surrender from her. The things he'd made her face weren't revelations, not by a long shot. But it was as if all her strengths and weaknesses, her memories and experiences, her dysfunctions, were presented in a different light, suggesting possibilities, not shortcomings.
At first, she'd convinced herself he was such a good Dom, he'd been able to coax a submissive reaction from her, but she wasn't really a submissive. That wasn't who she was. She'd researched BDSM with a whole new zeal afterward, though, visiting chat rooms, blogs and becoming fascinated enough with the New Orleans D/s scene to accept she was probably lying to herself. But she couldn't bring herself to go that route again. Every time she dipped a toe into it, it didn't feel right. No matter what he'd called up from the depths of her subconscious, it was a one-time thing. Since then, her persistent fantasies about it had been a secret between her and her overused vibrator.
How in the hell did she say all that in any intelligent way to Leland? And were they really at the point she could be that open with him? No way. She couldn't. Maybe they'd talk about sports instead.
She hadn't been misrepresenting herself to Leland. She was ruthlessly good at self-examination and knew she was a complete failure at all relationships, even most friendships. Thank God she was a workaholic. But that Dom had opened her eyes to the type of person she did--and didn't--want to be. She didn't want to be someone whose dubious accomplishments were built on the shaky foundation of bitterness and old angers. She'd realized it was time to grow up. While Celly the child might never be able to trust someone enough to fully love and be loved, Celeste the woman wasn't going to let that affect her decisions as a journalist.
Now when she pursued a story and hit a rich vein, she followed it to the deepest core of truth. She wrote pieces that made her feel as real and balanced as the articles themselves. She might not function well at personal relationships, but she excelled at her job and had enough challenges in it to fill a lifetime, such that most times she could ignore the personal shit she couldn't figure out.
She'd thought she was pretty comfortable and resolved with that, which made Leland more of a shock to her system. It was impossible to ignore the undercurrents between them, much stronger than anything she'd felt with a man since that night at Surreal, but too clearly similar to the vibes she'd felt with that other Dom to ignore.