Takedown: An Enemies to Lovers Dark Romance

by Lana Hartley

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  Leo

  “God, you’re huge!” Licking her lips, she strokes my shaft and looks up at me. “I’ll never get used to this giant cock of yours, Officer Sexy,” she purrs.

  I’m sure she hasn’t seen a cock as big as mine, so that’s not just a compliment. She’s telling the truth. My cock is huge and women always have these reactions, so I’ve heard every damn one of these puns. Yeah. I’m a hot cop. I’m actually a detective, but I’m not sure the big-breasted blonde is looking for clarification on the difference.

  She tears my pants down completely, stroking up and down my thighs.

  I’m rock fucking hard, my cock twitching in her mouth at the warm, wet sensation. She bobs up and down so fast I swear, the girl deserves a medal. Seriously, this is probably the best blowjob I’ve ever had in my life.

  Her lips wrap around my cock so tightly I think she might actually be trying to suck the fucking life out of me. My fingers grip the blonde strands of hair flying and pull a ponytail. I look at her hollowed out cheeks and feel the slide of her tongue up and down my shaft, and I feel...nothing.

  Not like she’s not doing a great job sucking my cock, but…

  “Officer Leo!” She pops my cock out of her mouth with a wet snap. “I’ve been so naughty. Are ya gonna use those handcuffs on me?” She puts her wrists out and runs her lips over my cock.

  I’m hard, but I’m totally tuned out.

  She...I look over at the waitress uniform on the floor...Tristie...keeps sucking my cock, her hands going to my abs, and she does a little giggle as she slides down every rippling muscle.

  I ignore the question, and Tristie opens wide and sucks my cock deep down her throat again.

  I get it. I get to fuck all the hot women I want because I’m a detective with eight-pack abs, a twelve-inch cock. I’ve got a chiseled jaw and a set of eyes that makes girls melt in their panties.

  I see the looks every woman gives me.

  You look at me right now and your heart will start racing. You’ll forget everything else you were doing. You’ll want to make all kinds of dirty cop jokes. You’ll giggle and blush.

  Your skin is heating up now just thinking about the weapon I carry below the belt and how well I know how to use it.

  I can fuck any woman I want, and I do.

  But the thing is...I’m not really into it right now.

  I grunt as my cock jerks, and I pull it out while she’s trying to suck. I blow it on the tits that caught my eye in the first place, and she pushes them together and moans. I mean sure, if you haven’t seen big tits covered in your cum getting licked up by a pink tongue with big eyes looking up at you, you’ll probably get all fucking excited and raring to fuck again. Me? I’m more in the mood for a bacon cheeseburger, and I’m ready to get out.

  I give her the little fake half smile. “Thanks, Tristie,” I say. See, I remembered her name.

  I’ve done this very thing every night for years. Tristie works at the Zeracruz Diner I eat at almost every night. I’ve fucked her before. She knows her way around a cock. This is just unfair to her, though, because I don’t want her at all.

  I realize that I don’t want any of this.

  Leaving her apartment, I’m so distracted that I almost leave her a tip. I’m not at the diner, though, I remind myself.

  I was attempting to drown out the latest case I’ve been working on.

  It’s no wonder I’ve never attempted a committed relationship. I deal with these awful domestic dispute cases on a regular basis, and generally I’m not filling out much paperwork…I dig and dig into these nutcases and the shit they do to their spouses, girlfriends, partners…and then no one ever presses charges. We are such a quiet area that the really in-depth cases you might see a detective do on TV are just less likely to be my problem. So I try and catch wife beaters before they finish their jobs and kill the people they are supposed to care about.

  Doesn’t exactly get me stoked for getting in my own relationship.

  I dial my partner, Bobbi, on my phone and put it through Bluetooth so that I can drive and talk to her without getting scraped off the road by my EMT buddy Lonnie.

  “It’s like you let the information you’d be filing into your brain waves play on repeat,” Bobbi says when she answers the phone. She doesn’t even bother to say hello, she already knows what she wants to say to me.

  Laughing, I already feel a little better. “You already know, Bob,” I say, shaking my head and smiling.

  I sigh. “I think I can’t keep fucking waitresses and random women.” I turn into my apartment complex and park, gripping the wheel for what I have to admit to myself. I’m admitting it aloud to my partner now. “I think I actually need to date. I just don’t know about trying for a relationship.”

  “Well, as a woman who regularly dates women, I can say that trying for relationships is crazy.” Bobbi pauses for a second. “But it is all totally worth it.”

  “Oh, shit, is Nina the one?” I tease her.

  “Umm, well, I do know that despite incredible sex, I tend to enjoy browsing funny memes and cute dogs on Imgur with her in the morning more than just about anything I do all day.” Bobbi sucks in a breath. “Look at us, Mr. Macho and Ms. Butch, trying to get all domestic and shit.” Bobbi and I laugh, but we know. Shit is changing. Our cases do wear on us. So maybe neither of us really wants to be alone.

  Fuck, where are my manners?

  I’m Detective Leo Winston, and I work for the Havenfield Police Department. We’re a nice city...not New York, but just about as big, and that means we’ve got every crime under the sun, though all the paperwork I’m generally filling out makes me forget other shit goes down. I’m one of the youngest, most successful detectives in my department, and I got there because of the way I am. Utterly focused on my career…and nothing else.

  One and done, fuck and never date women. I make them swoon. They sigh, then scream out my name…

  But fuck. Guess I need something more. So buckle up and drive safe through this ride, angels.

  Elena

  Ava Reggiano’s is one of the nicest restaurants I’ve been to in a long time. The glass of white wine my date orders for me is a nice touch, and I smile at him. “Darius,” I say, taking a tiny sip. “You just don’t know how crazy work has been for me lately! So glad we could have dinner tonight. How are you doing?”

  Darius leans forward. “I’ve been kicking ass. Some people just can’t keep up with high intensity, I guess.”

  He’s very attractive—strong jawline and golden hair that makes him look like he might actually be prettier than me. And that’s no knock on me, I just think he’s got way better hair than my straight brown hair. I mean, I’m working with a pretty damn good hourglass figure, don’t get me wrong.

  I just tend to forget that I have anything going on because my upcoming divorce—and sexless marriage—have left me feeling stale.

  And that little line, sure, it seemed like a jab, but I just let my eyes widen over another sip of wine. “Yeah, my boss, Gerri, she’s been a real life-saver. With this promotion I got, I’ve really been dealing with an even more demanding workload. I guess you enjoy a challenge at work? I do.” I’m trying to be polite and deflect what he said. Sorta cringing at how I seem to have nothing but work to talk about, but I’m focused on work and school so much that I don’t really have much in the way of hobbies or a social life.

  I’m sure plenty of well-adjusted people with full lives in all aspects use dating apps. Me? I’m trying to make up for the lost time. Like, part of me thinks I married Barry because I thought I had found a charming guy and figured it all out. Wrong.

  Mr. Charmer, number two, Darius, looks at me for several long seconds and replies back with this gem. “Well—” he rolls his eyes “—you don’t have to try to impress me, I have plenty of my own money. I mean, when
you picked this restaurant, that’s what you wanted to know, right?”

  “Darius, I picked this restaurant because you said you like Italian food, and this place has good reviews,” I say, attempting to hold back the instantly bitchy comments. “But why don’t we talk about something other than work. You like golfing, right?” I’m trying here, ladies, I really am.

  Darius chuckles. A loud guffaw that makes other people look at our table. “You golf?”

  “I haven’t tried it, but it seems like it could be relaxing,” I offer.

  “Garçon!” Darius snaps at someone else’s waiter going by, not waiting for the waitress assigned to our table that dropped off my wine and his water. “She’ll have a cobb salad, and I’ll have a chicken parmigiana. Extra wine!”

  “I don’t need any more wine, thanks,” I say to the waiter. “And I’d like your scallop fettucine alfredo, please,” I say. I didn’t come here to get pushed around, or to eat a thirty-dollar cobb salad with some pushy asshole.

  To his credit, Darius says nothing...though his mouth hangs open a little bit and his eyes turn to slits for a second when he looks at me.

  The rest of the dinner isn’t much better than this. I don’t drink more of my wine because I’m keeping my cool. Plus, I have an early day tomorrow. Kinda the perfect ending to an absolute garbage date.

  “Thank you for a delicious dinner,” I say when we’ve both finished our meals. I hand the waitress my card before he can reach for his wallet. “I have an early morning meeting and I want to put a few more things in the slide deck for my presentation, so I think I need to call it a night.”

  The waitress returns quickly with my card, as she knows just how poorly this date has been going. I tip, sign, and reach for my purse, but as I go to stand, I feel the grip of Darius’s fingers on my forearm.

  “I’m not done with you,” Darius says, his hand literally pushing my arm to keep me seated.

  Okay, hold the fuck up! I smack his arm away. His rudeness during the date—toward me, the waiter, and the waitress—already has me at my wit’s end. But this is beyond the pale, and I’m going to smack him if he doesn’t check himself. “I said that I have to go in early, so have some grace and let’s end this date on a better note than how the rest of it went.” I keep a terse smile on my face.

  When you’re on date, you get those clues that things might not go well. Do we expect a dating app to bring us prince charming? Like, duh, of course not.

  Still, we don’t expect a petty man child to make us bring out our inner bitch. But sometimes you gotta, because how else are we going to get the results we need when a man thinks it is his job to correct you and exert his will?

  “Wow, okay, so how many guys you think want sloppy seconds?” Darius puts his hands up in the air and acts like he doesn’t care.

  I stand, not wanting to say anything because what’s the point, right?

  “You’ll be sorry. No one walks away from me!” Darius spits that one loudly in my direction, even though this is the sort of restaurant where you need a reservation and where you expect actual grown, mature adults to dine.

  Not the petulant man-boy who decided to use my current separation status that I disclosed to him against me like he was flinging dirt at me. I swear, this jackass and Barry, the soon-to-be-ex-husband, are the last two people on earth that are up in arms about divorce.

  At least Barry’s got his religious convictions as his reason for objecting. I can respect that he doesn’t want to do something he sees as sin. We rushed into marriage...that wasn’t the only thing that blindsided me. I mean, I married a man who didn’t want to have sex with me and treated me like having a career as a personal affront to his work as a preacher.

  I don’t even look back when I head out of the restaurant, Ava Reggiano’s, and make a mental note to come here myself and order the lobster ravioli.

  The dating scene is frigging terrible.

  I finally landed on a pick on a dating app and guess what? Total dud.

  Seriously...I know how to pick them.

  Elena

  As I enter the lawyer’s office, I am determined to get everything finished with Barry expediently and be done with all of this. He's dragged me along this far, and all I want is closure. I tried to dress conservatively, not looking to incur any of his “holy” wrath because he sees an inch of my cleavage. I am so done with Barry. He never wanted anything to do with my lady parts the instant we got married. I can't believe this all might be over soon, because since I realized that I needed this divorce, everything started to move in slow motion.

  I walk into the large, marble-floored lobby of my lawyer's office. Jeremy Wakefield, my lawyer, has been so great through this ordeal, and at least I have good counsel to get through this process. The beautiful bronze statues flanking the lobby seem to stare me in the face as I walk to the elevator. Looking through the elevator doors until the statues disappear from my field of vision, I wish I could just stay here in this lobby. Let Jeremy do all the work.

  Unfortunately, I have to handle this with my lawyer… And with Barry.

  The elevator opens at the top floor and I emerge to find my lawyer standing there. He nods, smiling at me.

  "Barry's already here," Jeremy says. "Let’s get started."

  I take a deep breath to strengthen my resolve.

  This is going to turn out how I want it to. I repeat my little mantra to myself, hoping it will calm me. Fake it till you make it and all that.

  I don't want anything from Barry, just for us to go our separate ways. I'm so close to freedom I can taste it. I just feel foolish having rushed into this relationship with Barry. I thought I’d found a good man who would be part of the way I saw my life going. Barry seemed to think something very much the same, yet me having a career seemed to be at total odds with his idea of a preacher’s wife.

  I follow my lawyer down the all-too-familiar long, narrow hallway leading to the book-lined corner office, and he opens the door.

  Barry is sitting there, fists clenched in his lap and that same frustrated look plastered over his face like it has been, sadly, not too long after we got married. His lawyer, Paul Carson is there too, and he gives me a friendly smile. I offer one back to be courteous and sit down. My stomach clenches for a moment and my heart flutters, but I try to keep calm. I’m young, and I made a mistake, but I’m trying to rectify it. It should be simple, right? I’ve been back in these offices signing enough paperwork, so it shouldn’t be too bad. I mean...how much more work can there possibly be? I’m not asking for anything but to end this marriage.

  I take my seat on the opposite side of the wooden table so that I’m as far from Barry as possible.

  Jeremy takes his seat. "We are here to settle the divorce between Elena and Barry. Both parties are present with their assigned counsel. Proceedings will begin now."

  Barry’s lawyer, Paul, begins, "My client, Barry, is seeking damages because his profession as a pastor has been ruined by the ending of this marriage. My client maintains that Elena chose her career over him and that led to the dissolution of this marriage."

  What? I knew Barry was being difficult about the divorce, but I had no idea he was actually going to take his pettiness to a fiscal level. This is unbelievable!

  "Barry, we talked about this," I say directly to him. "I thought you understood. I didn’t know we were going to blame—"

  My lawyer and his lawyer both advise our silence, and Barry won’t even look at me.

  "This is the truth as I know it to be, " Barry says nonchalantly. There’s an iciness to the words that tell me he doesn’t care about my feelings here. It’s hard to imagine that I could’ve married a man that I thought loved me, yet he could have no regard for me and decide that I’m damaging him by trying to have a career and by trying to amicably dissolve our obviously failed marriage.

  "All right, let's return to these proceedings at hand," my lawyer says. "I'm sure we can come to an agreement."

  "Well only if your
party can agree to substantial damages," Paul says.

  "I will not be dragged through the dirt and rung out for what I have," I say, my voice getting a tad frantic. I can’t help it as I feel myself going into shock. My palms are sweating, and my stomach hurts. I was nervous before, but now I’m mad. "This isn’t how this is going to work at all. I have to be treated fairly, not accused and held up for whatever you decide you want, Barry."

  I know that Barry is opposed to the divorce and wanted to salvage a marriage he never fought to make good, but he isn’t going to get damages out of me and accuse me of ruining him with my career of all things. His unwillingness to sleep with me was one thing, but when he started to refuse to talk about anything, I knew Barry and I wouldn’t work out. Still, I’m shocked by his demands. He brought me here today to shame me and to get me to pay him for it. I can tell by the crooked smile on his lips that he thinks me paying damages is some kind of retribution he can seek for me to admit I’ve done something wrong.

  "You know what, Barry?” I say, trying not let my words come out in a huff. “You never deserved me. I never should've trusted you. And for a pastor, you're just a giant liar. I would love for people to see who you really are. You made promises to me when you married me, but when I saw you didn’t want to keep them, I tried to make a responsible decision with you. But you never acted as my partner before, and you don’t want to even end this without trying to humiliate me." My lips form a thin line and hold back any of the thousand things I’d love to shout in anger.

  Barry leans back in his chair and has a very smug smile on his face.

  He seems to think I’ve done something in his favor by calling out just how ridiculous his accusations are. He looks so proud of himself.

  I'm just disgusted.

  "Well, well," Barry says. "It seems your true colors are coming to light. It's so unladylike for you, Elena." He looks at me for a brief moment before turning to his lawyer Paul. "You see what I have to deal with? She never has composure."