“It feels too real,” she admits finally, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Or too fast. Or too easy or something.”
“It’s supposed to be easy, and I’ll go slow next time, promise.” I start leaning forward on the bed again, and she holds up her hand.
“Too intimate,” she says. “That’s what I mean. It feels too intimate. You just waltzing in here and making me want you and sweeping me off to my room…”
But I thought that’s what girls wanted before fucking? The wanting and the sweeping off? Jesus, no wonder I’ve never had a successful relationship.
“I just needed to remind us—or myself—that it’s to get pregnant. Only for that.”
“So we’re back to syringe-dick now?”
She closes her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. But yes, I’d feel better if it was more...impersonal.”
I don’t know why this bothers me, just like I don’t know why her kicking me out last night bothers me. It just does.
But you know what? Fine. Officer Good Times doesn’t mind impersonal at all.
“Whatever you want, Livia,” I say, sliding my knee off the bed.
Her eyes are still closed. “Thank you.”
But then her eyes fly open as I grab her hips and haul her to the edge of the bed so that her ass is nearly off the mattress, and then I take her knees in my hands and spread her legs wide enough for me to stand between them.
“You want to make this clinical?” I ask, and I can’t help the coldness in my voice—or maybe I can—but I’m too angry to help it. And I’m angry at myself for being angry. Why do I care how she wants me to fuck her? I’m just here for the fucking, however it happens.
She turns her head away from me. “Clinical is good,” she says, and in her voice I hear resignation and regret and determination. Livia Ward, always so determined to have it her way.
“Then we’ll make it clinical,” I say, letting go of one of her knees so I can fist my erection and bring it to her opening. “Just pretend you’re doing this the right way, kitten. Just pretend you’re at the doctor’s, waiting for some anonymous hands to give you some anonymous man’s baby.” I tease her entrance with the dark and swollen head of my cock. She’s so fucking wet, it’ll take nothing to sink inside her.
“Chase,” she says but says nothing else. I can’t tell if she likes what I’m saying or she hates it. Or both.
“You’re just lying back and letting it go inside you,” I say, and then I mirror my words, pushing the wide crown of my dick into her folds, which part for me. “You’re just waiting for it to be over. Because all you want is the baby.”
I push in deeper, all the way to the root, and her back arches, her mouth parting in a silent cry. It’s so tight in there I could die. “You don’t care how you get pregnant. You don’t care what it feels like.”
I drop my thumb to her clit, rubbing in the tight circles I’ve learned she likes. “It’s just a transaction, right? Just an impersonal transaction?”
I tilt my hips up ever so slightly as I pull out, making sure to drag the flared edge of my tip against her sensitive front walls. She gasps, her back arching again. I pull out almost all the way, and then I push back in. Hard. She cries out, her hands flying out behind her to grasp at her comforter.
“It’s just a procedure, Liv. Just biology.” I rub those circles and stroke in and out of her, so fucking worked up. I’m fucking her through a hole in her tights and her tits are bouncing under her blouse and her fingers are twisting helplessly against her blankets. And she’s so wet and swollen, so supple and so goddamn tight, all of it squeezing my cock in a wet embrace. And her hips can’t help but move under my touch, with my thumb working the firm bundle of nerves at the top of her pussy, with my penis thick and rocking inside of her, both my touch and my dick hitting all the right notes.
And yet it’s not enough. Her perfect pussy, her perfect reaction to my fucking her, it’s all not enough, and I don’t fucking know why.
Until I do.
“Look at me,” I say. A command and a plea all at once. “Look at me.”
She does, turning those warm brown eyes onto mine.
“Good girl,” I mutter, staring down at her as I stroke in and out of her cunt. “That’s it. I want to watch your face as you come. Because it doesn’t matter how impersonal I make it, Liv, you’re still going to come for me. Aren’t you?”
Her hands are still grabbing at her comforter. “Yes,” she breathes. “I’m going to come.”
I go deeper, faster, rubbing and thrusting and breathing hard. “Even if it’s not intimate, even if it’s not easy or real, you just can’t help but come when I’m inside you, when I’m rubbing that sweet little cunt, can you?”
She moans, shaking her head.
“I can’t hear you,” I growl. I can feel the sweat on my face, I see the flushed heat in her cheeks.
“I can’t help it,” she confesses in another moan.
“Can’t help what, kitten?”
Her eyes are fluttering now, her body squirming in gorgeous, taut lines. “Can’t help...coming.” Her heels are digging in the small of my back, her throat arched in a display of pained pleasure. “You make me come.”
“Fuck yeah, I do,” I breathe, thrusting in to the root. I feel the moment she trembles at the edge, like a leaf caught by the wind, and then she blows over with a sweet cry, back bowing off the bed, toes curling, her thighs clenching hard. And her pussy quivering around my cock in the most delicious caress a man can feel.
And then I let go. I grab her hips and I rut into her, all sorts of depraved images running through my mind, sinful urges, lusts that go down to the very root of life itself. To mate. To breed. To fuck until I plant my seed inside her.
She’s still panting and clenching when I let loose and pour into her, filling her up as deep and full as biology demands, as my crude fantasy of her spread on a doctor’s table demands. I feel the cum pumping out of me fast and hard, and I hold her hips tight, keeping her pussy speared on my cock as I finish emptying into her.
Her eyes are on me the entire time.
I give one last pulse and then slowly pull out, loving the spill of white cum that follows. My cum. Inside her, outside her, messy and claiming.
Mine.
All mine.
The moment the words enter my thoughts, I try to banish them. Livia’s not mine. Her body isn’t mine, and this baby won’t be mine except in the loosest sense. I don’t get to claim her, in fantasy or otherwise.
To hide my discomfort, I move away and grab a pillow from the top of her bed.
“Chase,” she says.
I ignore her, handing her the pillow and then helping her orient herself on the bed so she can elevate her hips. I pull up my jeans, and I’m about to leave her on the bed when she grabs my hand.
“Chase,” she says again.
“I need to go figure out the food,” I mumble.
“Fuck the food,” she says seriously.
“Liv—”
“I want you to stay in here with me,” she interrupts. “Please.”
I pause and let myself look down at her. She looks beautiful and open and vulnerable right now, her hair coming loose from her bun and her clothes torn and rumpled. And God help me, I like the way her hand feels holding mine. I like the way her voice sounds making such a naked and honest request.
I sit down next to her, but she doesn’t let go of my hand. Instead, she tugs me so that I’m turned and she’s able to see my face.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said those things. Not while we were about to have sex.”
“Don’t say sorry,” I tell her. “I don’t mind. Promise.”
I’m lying. And I don’t know why.
She sighs and lets go of my hand so that she can move the pillow under her hips. “I mind, though. It wasn’t fair to you. And I shouldn’t make my neuroses your problem.”
“It’s really fine, kitten. You got off, I got off
inside you—which was the whole point—everything happened the way it should.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. When she does, her bun loosens even more. “No, it didn’t. I mean, it was amazing, but I treated you like a sperm donor instead of a person.”
“But I am a sperm donor to you.” And why does that make me feel so bitter all of a sudden?
“Well, yes, that, but you’re more too.” She shifts so she can look at my face more easily. “You’re a man I really like. A man I respect.”
This mollifies me a little.
“You’re also the best lover I’ve ever had. You make me feel so good.”
Okay, I’m a lot mollified now.
“But I’m not used to this, Chase. I know you are, I know that your M.O. is having fun with women you plan on never seeing again. But I’ve never done that, and in my mind, this kind of arrangement was only going to work if we treated it like a transaction. I didn’t expect it—or you—to be so easy to enjoy. It scared me a little.”
I brush a strand of hair off her forehead. “You don’t have to be scared of enjoying yourself.”
She smiles. “I’m not, as a rule. But I didn’t expect to enjoy this, and while I’m good at adapting to things I don’t expect, I need time to process it. Sometimes that means I resist or shut down while I’m processing, and I’m sorry I did that to you. But I think I’m okay now.”
I study her. “Okay with enjoying this?”
“Okay with enjoying this,” she confirms. “And still not getting attached.”
Attached. It’s one of those words that I associate with bad things—pleading texts and late night phone calls and possessiveness. A toxic word. And yet, I find I don’t mind the idea of Liv getting attached at all. In fact, the idea of her being possessive of me is rather pleasing. Especially because I’m starting to feel rather possessive of her.
Dial it back, Good Times.
“You’re a careful woman, kitten,” I tell her. I brush another strand of hair away from her face. “I know you won’t get attached. You’re too guarded for that.”
She blinks up at me, like she has a response but she’s already forgetting it. Which is good, because I don’t know if I believe my own words. She is guarded, she is careful—she’s fierce and strong and almost ferociously independent—and yet behind those walls, I see loneliness. I see sadness.
Before I can say something else about it though, she asks, “Was everything okay tonight?”
At first I think she means the sex, but then she adds, “When I opened the door, you seemed a little off. Like maybe you’d had a bad day at work or something.”
“Oh. That.” I consider how much to tell her. Most civilians don’t want to know about their neighbors who died alone or the blood that’s stained the pavement just outside their house. I don’t want to poison Liv’s feelings about her home just because I can’t unpoison my own memories.
“Work stuff,” I say, opting for a vague, harmless version of the truth.
“Like a bad case?” she asks. She looks so innocent right now, even with the ragged hole in her tights, and I know Megan would kill me for thinking it because of gender constructs and stuff, but she looks so pure. And I don’t mean sexually, I mean it in the way that I can’t bear to make her imagine dead bodies and senseless carnage and drunk assholes that get away with murder because they had the right lawyer. I mean that there’s something so appealing about her not knowing that stuff, living free of it, that I can’t bear to change it.
So I just say, “Yeah. Like a bad case.”
She nods. “I’m sorry. But I am a little relieved, I admit. I was worried it was because of me, because of last night.”
I search her face. “Did you kick me out because of the whole not wanting to enjoy our sex thing?”
She glances away, and when she looks back, I get the sense that it’s her turn to hold the entire truth back. “Something like that.”
I don’t push her—our new understanding feels too fragile for that—so instead I just tease. “That’s why I told you in advance that there would be food and more fucking. So you wouldn’t kick me out into the cold.”
She sniff-laughs. “It’s not cold tonight.”
My stomach rumbles loudly, as if to argue with the both of us. “Well, about that food,” I say.
“Yeah,” she responds. “Go. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
I squeeze her thigh and then leave her bedroom for the kitchen, not sure how to feel about anything that just happened. The only thing I’m sure of is that a part of me—a big part of me—doesn’t want to leave her alone on that bed. I want to go back in there and settle next to her, have her head nestled in the crook of my arm while I run my fingers along the lines of her belly and thighs.
I almost turn around and do it. Screw being hungry—I’m hungry for her. But then I think of her honesty, her admission that she needs time to process, and I think maybe I ought to give her space? This is confusing. Fuck.
But in the end, I default to food.
I am a cop, after all.
“I have to admit, this isn’t what I was expecting,” Livia says, perched on a bar stool and examining the plate I just set in front of her on the counter. She’s changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants, and fuck me if it isn’t somehow more adorable than her librarian get-up. I want to tackle her to the ground and tickle her until she’s squirming and red-cheeked underneath me. I want to turn on a movie and pull her into my lap and finger her so slowly that she forgets how to speak.
“You weren’t expecting me to cook?”
“You know, I am pretty sure I said delivery.”
“But you also said that you wanted to make sure I wasn’t a serial killer. I thought maybe making you Grandma Kelly’s Irish breakfast for dinner would prove to you that I have a good, non-murdery heart.”
Livia smiles down at her plate. Eggs and sausage and tomatoes and bacon. “I suppose a serial killer wouldn’t make these raspberry scones from scratch.”
“Or make sure you had real clotted cream to go with them,” I say, delivering said cream to her in a small bowl. “And the scones are stupidly easy, for the record. Made them this morning before work before I knew I’d see you tonight. Plus I made Pop help.” Grandma had him make those scones so many times back when she was alive, he could probably do it in his sleep.
“Pop?”
“My grandpa.” Then I add, because she will need to know if we ever use my house as a space for impregnation, “And also my roommate.”
She puts her hands together. “That’s adorable.”
“Sure,” I say, bringing over a French press full of fresh coffee. It’s a little late for caffeine, but I plan on keeping her up and sweating ‘til past midnight at least, so it’ll be fine. And I can tell by the way her eyes light up when she sees me pour her a mug that she’s a coffee fiend.
“You’re good in the kitchen,” she says, curling her hands around the mug as I hand it to her.
I shrug and start shuffling the dishes off the counter and into the sink. “After Mom died, I kind of had to be. And Pop insists that a man should know how to make at least three different meals: one for a woman, one for family meals, and one for a church funeral potluck.”
“Good philosophy. And stop with the dishes. I don’t like it when people clean my house in front of me. It makes me feel guilty.”
I ignore her, load the dishes from the food prep into the dishwasher and wipe off the counter. With the kitchen clean, I finally turn to my own plate of food, standing at the counter so I’m facing Livia as we eat. It’s as I’m eating that I catch a glimpse of a library programming sheet for all the county libraries; Liv has highlighted an event with local legislators. I stare at it for a moment, letting it sink in that the library is hosting something like this.
And I have an idea.
I put my fork down and look at her. “Do you think the library could host an event where we could get five hundred signatures on a petition?”
<
br /> “Oh, certainly,” Liv says, brightening up. “It’s tricky to do at Corinth because of how small it is, but you could host an all-day event at Central maybe, and you know, they’re just now putting together the winter calendar—”
I shake my head. “It needs to be soon and it has to be in Prairie Village.”
Her face falls a little. “Oh. What is it for?”
“It’s for the Chief to grow a pair.” At her blank look, I elaborate. “I need to demonstrate citizen support for body cameras for the police department. With signatures.”
“Body cameras,” she repeats, and now she’s looking at me like she’s never seen me before or like she’s seeing me in a new light. “I had no idea you were so political.”
Political. When did that word become such a kiss of death? I find I’m wincing at it, and I don’t even know why.
“Citizens are safer in departments that have upgraded to them, and statistically speaking, the cops in those departments are also safer,” I say. “And safety shouldn’t be political.”
She’s nodding along.
“And more than that: cameras can prove when a cop commits a crime, but they can also prove when a cop didn’t. Good cops should want body cameras.”
“Of course,” she says. “I don’t understand why this isn’t a given. Every department should have them!”
I can tell she’s getting fired up about this. Which is validating...but also premature, because it’s the kind of issue that has valid arguments on both sides. Just because I feel like the end goal is worthy doesn’t mean I can dismiss any and all other objections.
She pushes her plate away and straightens up. “It’s ridiculous that there needs to be signatures and petitions involved. The Chief should just do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Not because he’s worried about his image.”
I sigh. “Well, yeah. But it is more than just image. The budget is a problem. But there’s also some group now—I forget the whole name, something about citizens against the theft of privacy—”
Her eyes widen. “The C.A.T.N.I.P. people?”
I’m surprised. “You know them?”
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