by Ranae Rose
He tore his gaze from Belle for just a second and let it settle on the heap of dark clothing lying on the floor beside the bed – his uniform. She’d taken it off him and he’d reveled in every second of that and what had followed, but now the day came crashing back down on him.
“She was talking to me before that. Making up bullshit excuses, but she was talking. It was over as soon as I said that.”
“Maybe it struck a chord. Maybe she’ll think about it.”
He shrugged, trying to shed his discomfort, as if it were an itch.
“Whatever her husband tells her obviously holds more weight with her than anything I have to say.”
“Maybe that will change, eventually.” Belle frowned. “Meanwhile, you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. Until she’s willing to press charges, your hands are tied.”
“I know.” It was true, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He could at least shut up about it, though. Complaining to Belle wasn’t going to change anything, although it did feel good to get it off his chest.
“How was your work today?” he asked. “No more surprises, right?”
She started to shake her head, then paused. “Well, our student worker tripped and spilled hot coffee all over himself. Burnt his hands, and I had to play nurse. Apparently, he doesn’t have any insurance. I guess you could call all that a surprise.”
“Sounds like you deserve a raise.”
She shrugged. “Technically, patching up clumsy people isn’t part of my job description. I felt bad for him, though. He was on a coffee run for the office when it happened.”
“At least he got something out of it.”
She arched a brow. “What’s that?”
“Your undivided attention. I’m sure that was a silver lining.”
She snorted, her gaze shifting down to the sheets. “I seriously doubt my attempt at first aid made the burns worth it.”
“You obviously have no idea what men would go through to get the attention of a woman like you.”
She looked back up, smiling. “It’s funny that you should say that, when I’m not exactly known for making guys jump through hoops.”
He tried to look offended. “All these years, I’ve been telling myself I was special – that you just couldn’t resist me. Don’t tell me that wasn’t the case.”
Her smile widened into a grin. “Actually, that’s pretty accurate.”
He didn’t have to fake an expression of pride. “I knew it.”
“I only ever went on a few dates in college, and they were pretty lame. Dated a couple guys afterward, and they were even lamer.”
“So what you’re saying—” he reached out to stroke the delicate line of her jaw “—is that I’m the best you’ve ever had.”
“Well…” She tipped her head to the side, so that her cheekbone grazed his knuckles. “Yes, if I’m being honest.”
CHAPTER 14
Jackson couldn’t help the big, stupid grin that spread across his face.
“Of course, like I said, the other guys I dated were pretty lame, so—”
“Uh-uh,” he said. “You can’t take that back. Don’t even try.”
She laughed. “I wasn’t trying to take it back. I was just saying—”
“What’s it going to take to stop you from finishing that sentence?” He rolled over, putting his face close enough to hers that he could feel the heat of her breath.
“Come on, Jackson – let me scrape up a little of my dignity here. You’re not supposed to admit something like that to someone you just started dating.”
“Too bad. I’m not gonna forget it.” He stroked her jaw again. “Now, what’s it going to take?”
She arched a brow. “Well, I can think of a couple ways I might be silenced.”
“Oh yeah?” He slipped a hand into her hair and drew her in close for a kiss.
The heat of her lips against his slipped into his veins and rekindled the longing he’d just slaked. That combined with her saying he was the best she’d ever had had him hard again. She could joke about it all she wanted – he’d seen the way she’d blushed.
It was good to know he’d been doing something right. If he could pull off being good for her out of bed, too, he just might be able to hold onto her.
When they finally broke apart, her breath was coming in heavier drafts than it had been before.
“Okay,” she said, meeting his eyes, “that was nice while it lasted. But now would be a great time for you to admit something personal and embarrassing so I don’t feel so pathetic.”
“Okay.” He bit back a grin. Why she was still blushing was beyond him, but she seemed to be waiting for him to say something. “How’s this: a couple years ago, I went to work hungover. Got real sick about an hour into my shift and had to pull over at a convenience store and run into the bathroom. What I didn’t realize was that the button on my radio was pressing against something on my duty belt. I puked my guts out with an open mic, and everyone heard.”
Belle snorted.
“Then,” he said, “when I finally got out of the bathroom, I realized that I’d scared the hell out of everyone running into the store like that. People saw a cop running and figured something was going on. The store manager was hyperventilating and it took me a good ten minutes to calm him down. Everyone heard that, too.”
She laughed, pressing her face into a pillow. “Okay, that’s pretty embarrassing.”
“I hope you realize I wouldn’t have told just any woman that. You’re special.”
“Oh, I definitely feel special. Why were you so hungover that day – special occasion the night before?”
“My roommate and I are pretty tight, and it was his birthday. Some of the other guys from our platoon came over, and some of us went overboard.” Unfortunately, he’d been the only one to puke all his bad decisions back up over the radio the next morning.
He’d felt like the king of all idiots for a solid month after that.
“Your roommate is a cop too, right? You said something about going through the academy together.”
“Yeah, we did. We belong to the same platoon now, too.”
“I guess if you’re going to have a roommate, it’s nice to have one who understands you.”
“Yeah.” He wouldn’t have been able to live with just anybody. There was no way. In fact, he couldn’t think of anyone besides Elijah he trusted enough to share a home with. “It’s nice to have someone to bounce things off of. For example, he tells me I’m an idiot for writing you that ticket.”
“You told him?”
“It came up.”
She laughed.
“Sad thing is that he’s the one known for being a goody two shoes,” Jackson said. “His dad was a badass police detective and he has his heart set on living up to his standard. Thinks he can save the world.”
“And here you are, saving the island from my lead foot. It’s a start, I guess.”
“Belle.” He shifted on the mattress, sighing. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick. I’d just come from a bad accident when I wrote you that ticket. A driver was killed because she ran a red light, and when I pulled you over, I thought of you being hurt like that. Maybe I overreacted, but it was because I wanted you to be safe.”
She held his gaze, her dark eyes clear. “I never complained, did I? You can call me Princess all you want, but I’m not used to getting special treatment and I don’t expect it.”
He groaned, capturing her wrist and pulling her close. “What if I want to give you special treatment? I’ve got all kinds of ideas on how I could make that ticket up to you…”
Her breath streamed against his face, his collarbones. “Well, maybe I’ll accept, just this once. What are your ideas?”
* * * * *
Life was okay under Harding’s command, for about a week. Then he dropped a nuclear bomb on the platoon – specifically, on Jackson.
He did it quietly, without fanfare or explanation. One day everything was normal, and the nex
t Jackson reported for roll call and saw Sanders among the other officers.
What the fuck?
He looked to Elijah out of habit, half hoping the other man would tell him he was seeing things – that he’d gone bat shit crazy.
Insanity would’ve been better than working with Sanders. But Elijah looked just as confused – and pissed – to see Sanders here.
It was obvious that everyone else had noticed, too. While they all waited for the shift sergeant to start roll call, officers looked back and forth between Jackson and Sanders, their gazes questioning and curious. Almost as if they were waiting for one of them to say or do something.
As if they were a live audience watching the filming of a goddamn soap opera.
The only one who didn’t stare at Jackson was Sanders. Until roll call was over, anyway. On his way out of the room, Sanders shot Jackson a look that bored right through his vest, causing bile to rise up in his throat.
His pulse rang in his ears, and he bit down hard on nothing. He went straight to the lieutenant’s office. The interim lieutenant’s office. Aldred wouldn’t have let Sanders show his lousy face on their shift.
What the fuck was going on?
He asked Harding, albeit with more respectful phrasing, after knocking and being granted permission to enter.
“He’s part of the platoon now,” Harding said, not bothering to look up from his computer monitor. He might as well have been announcing that the sky was blue or the grass was green. There was something in his tone that suggested Jackson was a dumbass for even asking.
“Why?” The bitter taste of adrenaline began to creep into Jackson’s mouth.
Harding finally looked up. “He requested a transfer. Has a newborn and said this schedule would be easier for him. We lost Fisker a month ago when she moved, and we’ve been short a patrol officer since – until now.”
That made zero fucking sense. All the beat cops worked swing shifts. You couldn’t escape the shitty hours by transferring to another platoon.
“I responded to a domestic at his residence a couple weeks ago. His wife called in – he’d been beating her. I had to arrest him.”
“I know all about it.” Harding’s expression darkened, the lines around his mouth deepening as he stared across his desk at Jackson.
The look he gave him suggested that Jackson had done something wrong – that he was somehow the guilty one.
“Then surely you can see that transferring him to this platoon is bound to cause problems.” He pushed the envelope. If getting on the interim lieutenant’s bad side was what it took to avoid working with Sanders, then so be it.
“His wife dropped the charges. Or hasn’t anyone told you?”
Jackson swallowed, trying unsuccessfully to clear the bitter taste from his mouth. “I know she dropped them, but that doesn’t change what he did.”
“It changes everything, and you know it. Whatever problems you and Sanders have are personal – between the two of you. I don’t want them spilling over into your work. Do you understand that?”
Something inside Jackson snapped, undermining whatever amount of respect he’d had for Harding.
“Absolutely,” he said, his voice cold.
Harding grunted. A dismissal.
Jackson left the office without telling Harding to go fuck himself. It felt like a momentous accomplishment.
Jesus. When were they going to get Aldred back?
“What’s up, man?” Jackson almost walked into Elijah. He hadn’t even realized he’d been waiting for him.
Jackson told him once they got outside.
“Damn.” Elijah shook his head. “Never knew Harding was like that.”
In that moment, Jackson felt grateful. Grateful to have Elijah to vent to and grateful for Elijah’s binarily-skewed moral compass that let him see so many things in terms of right and wrong, good and bad. Not everyone would be as bothered by Sanders – some would see the matter as strictly personal. Something to be ignored, as victims like Kate Sanders so often were.
“Me neither,” Jackson said. “Don’t think I’ve ever spoken a word to the man, and I could tell he didn’t want me in his office as soon as I walked in.”
“Asshat.”
Jackson nodded.
“Aldred wouldn’t have let that piece of shit transfer over to our platoon,” Elijah said. “Hopefully she’ll send his ass back where he came from.”
Maybe, but even if she did, that’d be weeks or months away.
“I don’t get why he transferred anyway,” Elijah said, “unless it was just to be a dick.”
“Neither do I.” Jackson’s gut knotted a little tighter. “But I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I’ve got a feeling he’s gonna pull some stupid shit.”
“Either that, or he wants to make sure you’re both working the same shifts so you can’t respond if his wife makes any more 911 calls.”
CHAPTER 15
“Just put it in your purse,” Mariah said. “You never know when you might need it.”
Belle gazed down at the object in her hand. It looked like a tube of lipstick, except it was a little too big to be believable. “What if I forget what it is and give myself a face full of pepper spray while trying to touch up my make-up?”
Mariah rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t roll on. You have to uncap it and press down on it a certain way. Let me show you.”
Mariah gave Belle a tutorial on how to use the pepper spray disguised as lip stick. “It was either this or a stun gun. I figured this’d be better because the spray is dyed and leaves a stain. So if you ever have to spray someone, they’ll be marked. That’ll make it easier for the police to identify your attacker. Speaking of cops…”
Mariah gave the pepper spray back to Belle and leaned back on the couch, the picture of leisurely curiosity. When Belle didn’t respond right away, she arched a brow.
Belle had already told her that she and Jackson were seeing each other. She just hadn’t gone into any detail yet.
“How’s it going so far with you and Jackson?” Mariah prodded. “You’re so tight-lipped about it, I feel like a hostage interrogator every time I bring it up.”
Belle bit down on her inner lip. “It’s going well. It’s just that talking about it kind of feels like jinxing myself.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “After the way things blew up with me and You Know Who, I feel self-conscious talking about relationships. I guess I’m afraid whatever I say will come back to bite me in the ass later if things don’t work out. I gushed to everyone about the engagement… Then when it was off, I wanted to go into the Witness Protection Program. It was so freaking embarrassing.”
Mariah frowned. “I get it. But you know, talking to me isn’t like talking to anyone else. Anything you say stays between us, and if anyone ever betrays you like that loser did, you know I’ll be the first to tell you you’re better off without them.”
Belle nodded. “We’ve been on a few dates. They were … great, if I’m being honest. Better than anything I ever had with You Know Who. Just simple stuff – the beach, and dinner.”
“He hasn’t pressured you for sex, has he?”
Heat crept into Belle’s cheeks. “Not at all.”
“Just making sure he didn’t make any presumptions. You know, with your history… Some guys think a one-time green light gives them a lifetime free pass.”
“Jackson’s not like that. It was like you said – he wanted to pursue something more serious than what we had years ago.”
“Good.”
“And although he didn’t pressure me…” The heat in Belle’s cheeks increased, sparking a feeling of satisfaction. “We have slept together.”
Mariah’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline. “I thought you said you weren’t ready for sex?”
“I said I wasn’t ready for anything casual. We’ve both agreed to pursue a relationship, so…” She shrugged.
“Ha! I knew you couldn’t resist h
im.”
Belle tried to keep a straight face, but couldn’t. “He is pretty irresistible. And I don’t mean just his looks or his uniform. He seems to be just as nice of a guy as I remember, if not more so.”
“You always had a soft spot for him. I’m glad he didn’t turn out to be a disappointment.”
“Well, it’s still early days…” She couldn’t stop herself from tacking the disclaimer on. It was a defensive mechanism, a souvenir of her relationship with Kyle.
Deep down, though, she didn’t think Jackson would disappoint her. At least not with the flair and thoroughness that Kyle had. At his core, Jackson was a good guy. That was more than she could say for her ex-fiancé.
“Hey. You don’t have to worry about saving face with me, remember?”
Belle let herself smile. “Sorry, it’s a reflex. I’m not sure what I’m more embarrassed about: how it all ended or that I dated him at all.”
“He was a real douche. But hey, live and learn, right?”
“I could’ve done without a hands-on lesson on what a douche he turned out to be, but yeah, sure.”
Belle deliberately changed the topic, asking Mariah about work.
As an ER nurse, she usually had a string of colorful stories up her sleeve when she and Belle got together. Belle would rather hear those stories – no matter what kind of bodily fluids they might involve – than harp about her ex.
“Oh, you mean I haven’t told you about the patient who tried to pass off a Pomeranian bite as a shark bite?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Of course not.” Mariah grinned.
“Why would anyone do that, let alone think they could fool anyone?”
“The dog belongs to the patient, and she loves it to death. Apparently. Her husband, on the other hand, says the dog is the bane of his existence. It bit her on the arm while she was trying to give it a bath, and she hid the wound from her husband for three days. Then it got infected…”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah. She’d gone to the beach a few days before, and she told him she’d been bitten by a baby shark.” Mariah shrugged. “He was the one who brought her into the ER, so she had to stick with the story. Of course, it didn’t take much effort for the doctor to get the truth out of her. When he told her it looked like a canine bite, she started crying.”