BIG GONES - OUT OF UNIFORM

by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Liz Carlyle, Nicole Camden

  He laughed and released me, moving out of the way so I could get past. I held my hand out to him as I went through the door.

  He took it, smiling sleepily, and I felt a rush of affection for the big idiot. I led him into the bedroom and pushed him down. He kissed me. A long deep kiss that seemed to have no other purpose but to connect us for a time, to ground us both in the realm of the pleasant and familiar.

  I pulled away and went into the bathroom to peel off my wet suit and take a quick shower. When I came out, he was sound asleep.

  I ran my fingers through his hair again and bent down to kiss his forehead, then changed into my favorite pair of boxers and a T-shirt and wandered into the kitchen to find something to eat. I was starving, but nothing looked appetizing. I ate half a bowl of Cheerios and poured the rest into the sink, then unrolled my yoga mat and tried to meditate for a while. When that didn't work I gave up and went back to the bedroom.

  I crawled in front of him on the bed so that he was spooning me and pulled the covers over both of us. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep, but I wanted to be held for a while. He was a cop, and if the gods were kind, then I was going to be with him for a while. There would probably be many nights like the one that just passed, and I thought that would be okay, as long as there were moments like this afterward, moments where I could feel the warmth of his body against me and the strong grip of his arms holding me tight.

  A warm kiss was dropped on my lips and I smiled in my sleep, stretching my arms like a cat. They were caught and pulled deliciously upward while a deep voice whispered in my ear.

  The click of cold metal around my wrists woke me. I opened my eyes and saw him above me, covering me like a mountain lion does much smaller prey. I was handcuffed to the headboard. Excitement tightened my body in a rush that was its own kind of pleasure. I hadn't expected this when I'd crawled in beside him.

  "Surprise, honey," he drawled from somewhere in front of me.

  "What time is it?" I asked him, writhing a little impatiently against the cuffs, watching his eyes follow the motion.

  "Lunchtime," he said slowly, giving each consonant and vowel due consideration and meaning, "and I missed breakfast."

  "Oh," was all I could think to say. I was bombarded by a mental picture of him pulling down the stretchy waist of my boxers and feasting on me.

  "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

  "Nothing," I mumbled, blushing.

  "That's what I'm thinking about. What I did think about. All day yesterday. I damn near killed Stevens and me trying to get back to you. And then that call came in."

  He pushed away from me and I lifted my head, straining my neck, to follow him. "What're you doing?"

  "Using my new camera. I love it, by the way. I meant to tell you sooner."

  Oh, God.

  "Well, well," he said, standing on the edge of the bed and looking at the viewfinder on the back, "I think I'll use the portrait setting, or maybe the landscape," he teased, reaching out to pinch the soft skin where my ass met my thigh.

  "Come on. Quit teasing," I ordered.

  He laughed. "You're going to wait, beautiful. Wait until I'm ready to take you."

  "Please."

  "Begging already? This is going to be a long day."

  "Marshall, touch me."

  He didn't answer, but he climbed back on the bed, tossing the camera down next to me. I arched my body with a relieved sigh. I felt his hot hands on my waist under the shirt, and I let my head fall back, sinking into the pleasure. He slid down my boxers, drawing them over my feet and tossing them away. I held my legs closed, wanting him to open them, to take me.

  "Open your legs," he demanded, mimicking my words from the closet earlier.

  I closed my eyes and did as he asked, spreading my legs, making myself vulnerable to his touch. His fingers drew circles on the insides of my knees before tracing a path down the inside of my thigh. I arched up, wanting him to touch me where I already ached for him. He stopped, and I held my breath.

  I knew I was already wet. The air was perfumed with the scent of my desire. He smelled of soap and man. A hungry man. The need radiated off him in waves that I could feel even with my eyes closed.

  Then suddenly there was no more teasing. The hard length of his cock entered me, and I cried out in shocked pleasure. His hands lifted my hips with each thrust, and I whimpered at the hot glide of his staff in my body.

  I could feel it already, the sweet ache and tingling awareness that said I was almost there, almost ready, and then on the next thrust he pulled wetly out of my body, leaving me empty.

  "No!" I shouted, and received a gentle slap on my thigh in punishment.

  I gave a frustrated shriek and he chuckled. I felt the brush of his hair from his forehead before his tongue touched the quivering warmth of my belly. "Mmmm. Soft. Sweet."

  He licked up my stomach, riding up the bottom of my T-shirt, nuzzling my breasts through the soft white fabric, then smoothing his hands up my body and cuddling them around his face. His beard pricked against me, lightly abrading my nipples now. I lifted my hips against him, wanting him back.

  "I'm ready. Please, Marshall."

  "Call me Detective, like you used to do. I've heard that snotty voice of yours in my dreams."

  "Detective Scott," I said, with all the haughtiness I could muster while handcuffed to a bed.

  "Yes, just like that," he said meanly, and gently pinched my nipple, which was undoubtedly tenting the soft white fabric of my T-shirt.

  I felt him moving again and tried to lift my head. "Keep your head back and your eyes closed," he said. "This is better than a wet T-shirt contest."

  I couldn't laugh; I wanted him too much.

  He bent down and took one nipple in his mouth, sucking hard for several seconds, until it felt like a line of heat was running from my nipple to where I was wet and throbbing for him. "I've wanted you like this," he murmured, his breath blowing over the wet fabric and making my nipples even harder. "I've wanted you bound for me. I bet you knew that. I bet you know that I hate the thought that I care for you more than you do for me. It makes me feel weak."

  "Is that why you didn't call me?" I challenged, lifting my head to glare at him. "You didn't think I'd care?" It felt good to fight, like we were both part of a furious, lusting tangle that would come undone in an explosion that would rock us both.

  "Maybe I wanted to know if you cared. Were you worried about me?"

  "No," I lied, and held my breath, head falling-back again.

  Suddenly his hands were at the neck of my T-shirt. It ripped with a shredding sound that masked my gasps of anticipation and fear. The halves of the shirt fell to my sides.

  "Tell me you were worried," he ordered.

  I whimpered in response and felt the sharp sting of teeth in the bend of my arm.

  "Tell me," he said again, rubbing the swollen head of his penis against the knot at the top of my flesh.

  "No," I argued, and lifted up abruptly, wrapping my legs around him and holding on fiercely. He reared back on his arms surprised, and I took advantage of his motion, lifting my hips up and onto him, forcing him inside me with the strength of my legs.

  He speared me. Hot and hard, stretching me and making me shout out a triumphant, "Yes," and the painful tightness burst, releasing me in waves of shuddering pleasure.

  He plunged inside me, helpless, drawn in by the rhythmic clamping of my muscles, his head falling between his arms as he shuddered and let himself go.

  I lay there limply as he pulled himself out of me. I felt him reach for the keys to the cuffs, managing to rub his whole body against me in the process.

  He kissed me and I smiled, content now. "Do you have to go back to work?" I asked, drawing a finger over his lips, trying to memorize the feel and shape of them.

  "In a little while," he murmured into my neck. I breathed in the smell of his hair and held him against me.

  "Again," I queried softly, and he nodded, rolling over so tha
t I was straddling him.

  "Only now it's your turn to do all the work," he ordered, petting my thighs.

  I laughed and rose up to take his newly aroused body into mine. Work was, after all, one of my favorite things.

  Chapter Eleven

  He got a call that afternoon. Someone meeting the general description of the victim had been spotted at the fair. He wouldn't let me come, but he came over as soon as he got back, walking in the door and scowling before plopping down on my couch.

  I let him relax before I started pestering him, snuggling against him on the couch while he watched cartoons. The man really was a lunatic.

  "Was it him?" I asked, unsure why I was so interested. Maybe it was just because this case marked the turning point in my relationship with him.

  "Nope. And no one admitted to recognizing the tattoo."

  "Any of the carts look freshly painted?"

  "Quite a few, actually," he said, glancing away from the Road Runner long enough to give me a pleased look. It was nice to be appreciating for my brain as well as my other talents.

  "I don't suppose you'd like to go back tonight?"

  "Why?" he wanted to know.

  "Well, I have free tickets, and there's a chance, a small chance, that I might recognize the twin."

  He made a noncommittal noise in his throat.

  "We could go to dinner at the restaurant of the pretty Italian women beforehand. I'll let you ogle them and not say a word."

  That got his attention. "Promise?"

  "Uh-huh. But if their husbands beat you up, I'm not lifting a hand to help you."

  "Okay. But you're not leaving my side at the fair, and if you do see someone, you tell me quietly, don't shout and point."

  As if I would. "Anything else?" I asked with only a touch of sarcasm.

  "Yeah, make out with me in the Tunnel of Luv," he said, drawing out luv into a ridiculous exaggeration of a country hick's drawl.

  I shouted with laughter, bashing him with a throw pillow, until he tossed me down and tickled me mercilessly. What did I do for fun before this crazy man?

  Stevens called later that afternoon to say that the coroner had said that the mayor's daughter had apparently committed suicide, taking a large dose of sleeping pills and jumping off the pier. Marshall relaxed completely for the first time in days.

  I put on my makeup, coming out of the bathroom twenty minutes later with pouty red lips the same color as one of the swirls in my dress, acres of dark brown tresses, and (thanks to mascara) eyes that would make a doe cry with envy.

  "Damn," he breathed when he saw me, and I smiled. This was the reaction I'd been hoping for. "Are you sure you don't just want to stay here?" he asked hopefully.

  "Yes, I'm sure," but I smiled at him and patted his shoulder as if he were a particularly good puppy dog. He had such nice shoulders, all strong and corded with those yummy muscles.

  "We'd better head out then, the traffic probably sucks."

  "So, who was the guy who drove you to the crime scene?" he asked after we'd gotten on the freeway. We were in his truck. The sun was still pretty high and the air smelled like the ocean and flowering plants. The windows were down, messing up my hair, but I liked the fresh air too much to complain.

  I had to think. "Freckle Dick?" I asked, surprised.

  "You actually call him Freckle Dick?" he wanted to know, sending me a doubtful look across the front seat.

  "Not in public."

  "Why?"

  "Does it really matter?"

  "No." Then, "Do you have one for me?"

  "I haven't thought about it," I said honestly.

  "Liar."

  I laughed. "I'm not lying."

  "Then you have to tell me what the deal is with all the men."

  I fiddled with the strap on my purse. "Okay. I need to talk to you about it anyway."

  "So… tell."

  "Well, you know when you and Johnson ran into me?"

  "Yes," he said shortly, and I knew he was still horrified by the thought that they almost killed me. I caught his quick glance at the scar that ran in a curved line from the top of my forehead to behind my left ear.

  I sometimes wonder if I'd seen Marshall's face in the instant before the car struck me. I imagined I did. I wanted to believe that I had seen him at least once knowing that I would remember his face if I saw it again.

  The funny thing was, if not for the accident, I don't think I ever would have met him, much less fallen in love with him.

  I looked at his hands on the steering wheel, aware that he was waiting for me to elaborate. He still hadn't recognized his own hands in the photos I had taken. It was amazing to me, just as my little problem was amazing to everyone else.

  "Well, you know some of what I went through to get better. You were there for a lot of it."

  "Yes."

  "You wanna know what I was doing right before Johnson hit me?"

  "What?"

  "Breaking up with my boyfriend."

  He didn't say anything, so I just kept talking, thinking if I just got it all out in one go it wouldn't be so difficult. "I did that a lot. I would date a guy a couple times and somehow end up as his girlfriend without really thinking about it or intending to get in a relationship, and then after a few weeks or if they mentioned the word love, I would call it off."

  He looked at me, probably thinking about his declaration in the closet and the fact that I still hadn't replied in kind.

  "Anyway," I said, looking out the window, "when it became clear that I would never recognize anyone again, I got a little squirrely. There were lots of things going on in my mind. Things like, I can never go into a party again and see a familiar face. Watch my favorite actors and see a face I've watched a hundred times. If I have kids, I will never look into their faces and see myself or their father."

  "You mean like, 'he has my nose' kind of thing."

  "No, not exactly. That's what's weird. I can take a picture of myself and a picture of my father and see that we have the same nose. Sometimes, if I look for a specific feature on someone, I can always identify them by it."

  "Like a birthmark?"

  "Yes, the problem is that if someone has a similar-looking feature, I can't tell them apart. When my dad is around my uncle Ron, I am constantly confused. That's the best I can explain it really."

  "Okay, so you had all this stuff going on in your head, and your solution was to sleep with as many men as you could?"

  I frowned at him. "I was, am, pretty messed up. I can't even look in the mirror and see myself, the girl I feel like I am inside. It's like I woke up from that coma and she was gone. I was missing somehow, and I tried to get her back by grabbing and holding to whatever I could. I exercised like a maniac, so that I could have a perfect body. That, at least, I could recognize and call my own."

  "And you took photographs of bodies…"

  "Because that's what I'd felt like I'd become, a body without a soul… or a heart. I just took pictures of dicks because at least that was one way of telling you all apart, but I became fascinated by the process of it. The search for meaning in the physical. Eventually, in my later work, the stuff you saw in the museum, it became my way of looking for the soul in the body."

  "You've managed it."

  "Thanks," I said, and felt my eyes sting, and then I told him something that I'd never told anyone else, not even my therapist. "I thought that this was a punishment. The way I am now."

  He sent me a surprised glance, but was too much of a cop to glance away from the road. I was glad we had done this in the car. I wasn't sure I would've been able to get it out while he looked at me. "For what?" he asked, sounding faintly outraged, as if I could never do anything to deserve such a horrible fate.

  "For never loving any of those men, for never wanting their mind or their heart."

  "Honey, if that was a crime worthy of divine punishment, don't you think half the people in the world would be struck with it, too?"

  "At least the male
half."

  He gave me an impatient smile and took my hand. "You have a soul and a heart; you just got lost for a while."

  I lifted his hand and kissed it, wanting to tell him about my conversation with Sara, wanting to ask if he really thought this was going to work. I still wasn't sure what other ways we could find of loving each other, but to keep him, I was willing to try, and keep trying.

  I would tell him later. If I started crying now, I'd mess up my eye makeup. I couldn't bring a picture of my face to mind, but I was certain that I didn't want to have raccoon eyes the first time I ever told a man I loved him.

  Rosa greeted us at the door, her gnarled fingers taking mine as I bent down to kiss her cheek.

  "Welcome, cara. You look lovely."

  "So do you, ma'am."

  "Call me Nonna," she said imperiously, and winked at me. "Is this your man?" she asked with a great deal of appreciation.

  "Yes," I said, turning so that I could eye him as well, and I could've sworn that a blush tinged his cheeks.

  She laughed and ordered him to bend down so that she could kiss his cheeks, first one and then the other, and I found myself pulling out my camera and taking a shot before I'd completely realized what I was doing.

  Marshall looked up at me, and I thought that if I had seen a total stranger look at a woman that way, I would've said that he loved her like a crazy man. I stared back at him, wondering if he saw the same thing in my eyes.

  Nonna led us to our table, and all the women crowded around us, giggling and asking when the photos would be ready.

  "Soon," I told them, and nodded at Marshall. "I've been a little distracted," which sent them into gales of laughter again. Isabel's husband, a strapping older man with a barrel chest and a twinkle in his eye, winked at me from the kitchen door.

  They opened a bottle of the house red for us and left us to ourselves in our dark little corner of the restaurant.

  "How did you find this place?" he asked around a mouthful of garlic bread.

  "I thought you wanted to make out with me later," I said, staring pointedly as he pulled off another piece.

  "So you eat some, too, and you won't know the difference," he said, feeding me.