Hilary Bonner

by Braven

  Karen hesitated for just a second. Something told her she should say no. On the other hand to do so would be almost to admit that she had certain thoughts about Cooper that she knew she shouldn’t have. And a lift would be very convenient.

  “Oh, fine, all right, Phil, thanks,” she muttered, gesturing to Steve Jacks that she wouldn’t need a taxi after all. The landlord who, both during his days in the force and now that he was running the local nick’s favourite boozer, had always had a disconcertingly supercilious way of looking as if he knew something others didn’t, raised one eyebrow but passed no comment.

  “Right then, boss, I’ve just got to go to the gents. Car’s across the road. See you outside, shall I?”

  “Right.” Karen realized that Phil was actually executing a deliberate manoeuvre here, so that the two of them would not be seen leaving the pub together. He was, of course, completely sober and therefore well able to contrive such a plan. She suspected she might not have been able to think it through.

  Somewhat gratefully she followed his obliquely issued instructions, but as she waited outside the thought occurred to her that by deliberately avoiding being seen to leave together Phil was actually indicating that there really might be some significance in their doing so.

  Could he possibly have been fantasizing about her in just the way that she had about him, she wondered? Could that good-night kiss which had consolidated her fantasies really have meant something, after all? She didn’t know the answer. She did know that she should put all such considerations firmly out of her mind.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the car Cooper was his usual relaxed and funny self. If he shared any of Karen’s somewhat inappropriate and turbulent feelings, he gave absolutely no sign of it.

  Karen did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She was aware that she was a little drunk, and that Cooper was completely sober—which could, of course, explain everything. During the five minutes or so it took to drive from the pub to her apartment block, Cooper talked animatedly about the Richard Marshall case. He said nothing of a remotely personal nature, and even seemed to avoid any more of the mildly humorous banter which had become pretty much the norm between them.

  Gratefully, Karen followed his lead. She didn’t want or need this thing to develop. It could only lead to trouble for both of them. And when the car pulled to a halt outside West Beach Heights she opened the passenger door straight away and started to climb out.

  “Many thanks—” she began.

  But she was not allowed to finish her sentence.

  Moving very fast Cooper switched off the engine, threw his arms around her, pulled her firmly towards him, and kissed her full on the lips. It was what she had wanted for some time now. It was also the forbidden fruit. And in addition she had been taken totally by surprise. Instinctively she tried to pull away from him. He continued to hold her tightly, to press his lips on hers. He was a big strong man. For a few seconds she thought he was not going to let go of her. She was both excited and disconcerted.

  Then, as abruptly as he had grabbed her, he did let go of her, and backed right off.

  “Christ, I’m really sorry, boss,” he said. There was a catch in his voice and she noticed that he was trembling.

  She rubbed a hand over her mouth as if wiping him away, and sat back in the passenger seat.

  “I’d say you were drunk if I didn’t know you hadn’t been drinking,” she remarked evenly.

  “I am just so sorry, boss,” he repeated. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “No.”

  “Look, I’d better go. I do realize that was really out of order.”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t use her normal defence mechanism, make a joke of it, she just couldn’t. She opened the door and stepped out of the car. This time he did nothing to stop her.

  “Goodnight then, see you in the morning,” she muttered. She suspected her face had turned bright red. God, it was so embarrassing. She was absolutely certain she was the only detective superintendent in the country, if not the world, who blushed so readily.

  “Yeah, goodnight, boss.”

  She shut the door and turned away. But she had only walked two or three steps when she heard the whirr of a car window opening and Cooper’s voice call out.

  “Boss.”

  Expectant in spite of herself, a kind of hope burgeoning up in her regardless of her fine intentions, she turned round smiling.

  “I’ll understand if you report me, boss, I really will.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Phil…” she began.

  Then suddenly it was all too much for her.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she repeated. But this time she was talking to herself.

  She strode back to the car, flung open the passenger door, and reinstated herself next to a bewildered-looking Cooper.

  “If you must know, I’ve wanted you to do that ever since we had that Indian meal the day we arrested Marshall,” she blurted out.

  “Have you, boss?” Cooper was sitting very still, as if afraid to move.

  “Yes, I fucking well have. But I don’t think I can continue to have this conversation with you if you insist on calling me boss.”

  Cooper grinned. He really did look like a little boy. He leaned towards her again, reached out to put his arms around her.

  “No,” she said.

  This time, although looking a little bewildered, he pulled away at once.

  “No,” she repeated. “Not here. I’m too old for necking in a car park. Let’s go inside, shall we?”

  She had always considered Cooper’s wide grin to be one of his most attractive features. As she spoke it cracked his face wide open. She felt herself melt. She knew she was entering highly dangerous territory. She could not stop herself. And neither, it seemed, could Phil Cooper.

  “Whatever you say, boss—I mean, Karen,” he replied.

  He jumped on her as soon as she closed her front door behind them.

  He caught hold of her by the shoulders, spun her round and pressed her against the wall, pushing himself into her. She could feel his hardness against her. Then he pulled away, sank down on to his knees and began scrabbling at the zip fastening of her trousers.

  “Fuck, I want you,” he breathed, as he buried his head in her.

  She let out a small cry, part pleasure, part surprise. This was not what she had expected at all. Cooper was mild-mannered and funny, a gentle family man—although she tried not to think about that. This was not how she had thought he would be.

  He had come at her like an animal. And she found that she rather liked it. She was immensely excited by him. His hands were tight around her bum, his fingers digging into her. As he used his tongue on her he made small grunting noses. He was eager. The word that came to mind was rather an old-fashioned one. He was rampant.

  She started to move with him. She was a woman who liked the niceties of lovemaking, she did not fantasies about sex in dark alleyways or forbidden places where lovers might be discovered in embarrassingly compromising situations. That was not Karen’s way at all. She liked warm comfortable beds and, to be honest, warm comfortable men. Her liaison with Cooper seemed to be turning out to involve neither.

  He was handling her quite roughly. Something inside was beginning to turn over. Then he bit her. Not hard, but enough to drive her wild. She started to scream then. She couldn’t believe it, but she was screaming. She could feel the climax building up inside her.

  He pulled away from her again then, quite abruptly. She groaned in disbelief, slumped against the door. Then he reached up, caught hold of her hands and pulled her to the floor beside him. She half-fell down there, her legs hobbled by the mess of her trousers and knickers which were now wrapped around her ankles. There was a ripping sound as he tore them off her with one hand, then with the other he pushed her legs open. Somehow or other he had already managed to remove the clothing from the lower part of his body. Wi
th a low animal moan he threw himself forward onto her and entered her straight away.

  The sensation was extraordinary from the start. Every nerve end felt raw. He clamped his mouth on hers as he began to move in her. She could smell and taste her own juices spread all over his face. She found it unbelievably sexy. He was an aggressive eager lover. She was aroused to the point of bursting. The climax when it came was more than great pleasure, it was an overwhelming relief. She knew she was screaming again as she moved beneath him, her legs wrapped around his neck. She couldn’t help it. And she couldn’t stop. Not for anything. If the chief constable had walked in, she wouldn’t have been able to stop. If a fire had broken out, escape would have had to be delayed until she had finished. It had been a long time. Such a long time. Her body was crying out for release.

  Great waves of pleasure swept over her, died away, then returned. It was the ultimate orgasm. She couldn’t remember experiencing one like it.

  Then just as her waves finally started to fade away to nothing she felt it begin to happen for him, too. His movements became more and more urgent. She was totally aware of his body exploding inside her.

  Afterwards, they lay in a sweat-drenched heap, their clothes and limbs in a tangle, their breath coming in short sharp gasps for several minutes before either of them spoke.

  It was Cooper who uttered the first memorable words.

  “I’m really sorry, boss,” he said.

  Karen burst out laughing. Straight away and without preamble, much the same way as the sex had been between them, really.

  “Phil, I just do not believe you,” she spluttered. “You’ve just fucked me rigid, gone at me like some wild animal, and at the end of it you’ve said sorry and called me boss.”

  He started to laugh, too. Then he touched her face lightly with one hand.

  “Do you have a bed here?” he asked, his voice still light with the laughter.

  “Oh, yes,” she replied.

  “And do you think you might like to take me to it?”

  “Yes, I rather think I would.”

  “Good.” He kissed her very gently on the lips and drew away at once.

  “I want to hold you close to me, Karen,” he said, and there was an urgency about him just as great as the sexual urgency had been earlier, but of a very different sort.

  “I want to hold you so much.”

  Before they could climb into bed they had to turf off a disgruntled Sophie who was already lying spreadeagled on top of the duvet, waiting patiently for her mistress to finish whatever it was she had been doing in the hall.

  “Love me, love my cat,” muttered Karen.

  “My pleasure,” Cooper responded. He stayed until almost three in the morning. And as she watched him prepare to leave, a great sadness overwhelmed her. She was suddenly starkly aware that she was embarking on the age-old routine again. An affair with a married man who sneaked away from wife and work to be with her, and then in the early hours sneaked away from her, dressing in the dark, averting his eyes, trying to avoid the reality of his behaviour.

  They had made love once more, and that time it had been exactly that, real lovemaking, slow, gentle and intense, quite unlike that first desperate animal fuck. But mostly he had held her, very close and very gently, just as he had said he wanted to. And she had held him back. She had clung to him.

  She tried not to show what she was thinking as she watched him tuck his shirt into his trousers, fasten his tie and pull on his jacket, but she knew that she was afraid. She was somehow quite sure that this would not turn out to be a one-off fuck, another one-night stand. It had been too special. For her, anyway. She studied him as carefully as she could in the dimly illuminated room, which was lit only by the moon shining in through the windows. She couldn’t see his face properly. Maybe for him it was just a bit on the side, a bit of fun. How could she tell? She knew him as a copper, as a workmate, as a drinking companion. She didn’t know him in this way at all, not as a lover, as a man who could be a bull one minute and the gentlest, most cuddly of creatures the next.

  He walked towards her then, sat on the bed, leaned over her and touched her hair. It was a full moon out over the bay and the light from it was shining directly onto the bed. She could see his eyes quite clearly as he came close to her, but she wasn’t sure at all what she could see in them. It couldn’t be love, not yet, and half of her hoped that it wasn’t. She could imagine all too vividly the trouble that lay ahead of them.

  She realized that it wasn’t going to stop her, though. Nothing could. If Cooper wanted to see her again, to continue with whatever it was that they had started, there was absolutely no chance of her finding the strength to turn him away.

  “You have no idea how much I want to stay with you,” he said softly.

  Well, she had heard that before. But this time she believed the man who was telling her. Believed him absolutely. She did not reply. His next words surprised her, though.

  “Will you sleep?”

  She nodded, touched that he gave a damn. “I expect so. I should.”

  She stretched her limbs, pushed her neck and shoulders deep into the pillows. Her body felt wonderfully relaxed, sated, fulfilled. It was her mind which was racing, which might keep her awake, remembering the pleasure, fretting about what it could lead to.

  “Yes, but it’s not just that, is it? It’s what’s going on in your head.”

  She was amazed. Could he read her thoughts? He smiled down at her, and his eyes were full of caring and concern. Her heart flipped. She hadn’t known anything like this, not in all her life. She really hadn’t, and she might as well admit it, to herself even if to nobody else.

  “Shall I put you to sleep?”

  “What?” She laughed again. He could make her do that so easily. It was uncanny. “What do you think I am?” she asked. “A sick dog that needs putting out of its misery?”

  He kept smiling. He had such kind eyes.

  “No, I think you’re a wonderful, sexy, loving woman whom I don’t want to leave, and I want to make sure you don’t lie awake worrying about things when I’ve gone.”

  “Ah,” she murmured. “I’m not sure I can guarantee that.”

  “I know,” he said. “But maybe I can help.”

  She glanced at him, puzzled.

  “Are you comfy?”

  “Umm.” She was, too, gloriously so.

  “OK, snuggle down then, pull the bedclothes up around your chin, and I’m going to put you to sleep.”

  He was talking to her as if she was a child, she realized. It was all rather peculiar. And the most peculiar thing was that she loved it. It seemed very natural, too.

  “Now, I’m going to kiss you on your fringe,” he said, and he did so. “Then I’m going to kiss your eyelids, then the tip of your nose. And then your lips. Just very lightly. Then your eyelids again.”

  She reached up and smoothed his hair from his eyes.

  “I’m not a baby, you know,” she protested hopelessly. “I’m a detective superintendent.”

  “Maybe tomorrow you will be again,” he said. “But not right now. Right now you’re my big baby.”

  And when he left the warm glow that had earlier enveloped her body had engulfed her entire being.

  Cooper smoked five cigarettes in between waking up the following morning and leaving for work. He had almost given up smoking, too. But, by God, he had never needed cigarettes more. His head was spinning. He couldn’t believe what he had done. He couldn’t believe what he was feeling.

  He sat at the breakfast table ignoring the toast his wife had made for him. His mug of tea remained untouched. He knew that Sarah was watching him uneasily. After a few seconds she reached for his mug, stood up from the table where she had been sitting opposite him, emptied the cold tea down the sink, returned to the table and poured him another hot fresh mugful.

  He made no comment, even though he was aware that he should at the very least manage a thank-you. But somehow he could not muster the ene
rgy to deal with life’s mundanities. And he certainly had no interest in food or drink.

  He lit yet another cigarette from the stub of the previous one.

  Sarah reached across the table again and this time put her hand on top of his.

  “Is something wrong, love?” she asked quietly.

  Cooper shook his head and struggled to produce something which remotely passed for a smile of reassurance. He was aware, however, as his face stretched into a bizarre kind of grimace, that he had failed dismally.

  Sarah gave his hand a little squeeze.

  “Is it the Marshall case, love?” she asked. “I know how it’s upset you, with our girls and all. But I thought you’d got the result you all wanted, at last.”

  Cooper made a real effort. “We have,” he said. “An absolute blinder. Against the odds, too. No, it’s not that. Just office politics. You know how it is.”

  “No, I don’t. Not unless you tell me.”

  Cooper pulled his hand away from her touch. He just couldn’t proceed with this kind of conversation, not this morning, not after what he’d done the previous night.

  “I wouldn’t want to bore you with it,” he said.

  “Since when have I been bored with anything that concerned you, Phil?” his wife asked. With just a note of reproach in her voice.

  It was quite justified reproach, too, he reflected. They’d been married for eight years and Sarah had always been there for him. She’d always been more than his wife and the mother of his children. She’d always been there for him in every way. She was his best friend, his absolute confidante. He had always told her everything. Until last night, that is.

  He couldn’t bear the way she was looking at him, with that slightly puzzled, bewildered expression in her eyes. He thought it was possibly the first time she’d ever looked at him like that. After all, he’d never given her cause before. They had always been so close. He was aware that she believed that she knew him through and through. That he had no secrets from her. And she would have been right, too. Until just a few hours earlier.