“What’s the history here?” Damien asked, gesturing to the windows.
“I’m not real sure, man. This school’s old. Over a hundred years. The librarian chick would know.” Carney pushed the doors open and steadied the boxes as Damien pushed them through. “She’s hot.”
“Oh, Carney’s got a sweetheart?” Though Damien grinned at the younger officer, his mind went to images of long, blond hair, panting lips, and eyes that dared him to push her further. Rapunzel was a mystery he might never solve.
“Nah, I don’t think I’m her type, or else I’d try.”
“Try what?” Gio rose from a bench in front of the school. The large German shepherd at her feet lifted his head, waiting for her command.
“Try to get you to take it easy,” Damien shot back. “Let me load this stuff real quick, then we’ll do a walk-through. Is the principal going with us?”
“Vice principal.” Carney slid a box into Damien’s SUV.
When they finished loading, Carney led them to the new addition to the school, where the offices were located. They met up with the vice principal, a black woman who was obviously very proud of the school.
Damien hung back, letting Carney drive the show, and Gio set the pace for Huxley.
The German shepherd eased back into the role of scent dog without a hitch. They walked up and down the halls, Huxley never once doing more than wag his tail when he found some crumbs on the floor.
When Damien thought they might actually get through the morning without a single suspected instance of drugs, Huxley whined and sank to his haunches.
“Shit,” Carney muttered.
Huxley stared at the top locker intently, his tail wagging back and forth.
“Oh, no,” the vice principal said, face creasing in pain.
“Good boy.” Gio petted the dog and fed him a treat.
“Whose locker is this?” Damien asked.
Carney glanced at him, a grimace on his face. “Remember that kid?”
“Sidon? Damn.” Damien shook his head.
“I’ll pull him out of class.” The vice principal sighed, sounding defeated, and headed back to the offices.
They waited about five minutes before the sound of voices reached them. Damien hated the cases where kids were involved, either as willing participants or victims. Sidon fell somewhere between the two. Old enough to know better, but young enough to stir Damien’s protective urges.
The vice principal rounded the corner, followed by a teenage boy who could have been typecast for this role in a movie. African American, young, full of swagger. Damien sighed heavily.
These cases are the worst.
“Hey, Sidon,” Carney said, keeping his tone light.
The kid’s eyes darted between the officers.
“He’s going to run,” Damien muttered.
Huxley chewed on a ball Gio’d given him, completely oblivious to the human drama.
Sidon spun, his shoes squeaking on the tile, and ran.
“Fuck,” Carney said.
Damien sprinted after the kid, Carney hot on his heels.
Fucking. Worst.
Poppy gathered the stubby pencils from the long study tables in the middle of her library, and placed them back in the wicker basket where they belonged. Dark lines formed yet another gang tag on the surface.
She glared at the marks and pursed her lips.
Sidon.
Poppy glanced at the retreating backs of the English class. They’d only been in the library for twenty minutes. It would take her just as long to remove the marks.
The kid was a thorn in her side, yet every time the boy wandered into her library, she wanted to hug him. His sister haunted the library, and had occasionally come to hide between the shelves when her parents were at the school, begging teachers to help them keep their boy off the streets. Some kids never appreciated what they had at home.
Poppy dropped into what had been Sidon’s chair and began to attack the marks with an eraser. The edges and lighter lines faded, but the tag was still there. She sighed, her head sagging forward into her hands. Some days it seemed as if nothing she did made a difference in these kids’ lives.
The squeal of sneakers on tile echoed through the hall. She picked her head up and listened as the footsteps thundered closer.
Poppy stood and almost tripped on a backpack left lying under the chair. At the same moment, Sidon dove through the open library doors.
“What are you doing? Slow down,” Poppy snapped, with more ire than she should have.
The school-assigned police officer and a man dressed mostly in black thundered through the door after Sidon. The man in black grabbed Sidon by the back of his shirt. Seams snapped and Sidon skidded to a halt. She watched in stunned silence as Sidon was shoved face-first against the circulation desk, where Poppy usually sat.
“Stop fighting,” Officer Carney barked as he took Sidon’s arm.
“Help me, Miss,” Sidon pleaded.
“What did you do now, Sidon?” She wanted to smack him and hug him all at the same time. She settled for crossing her arms and glancing from Officer Carney to the other man. DEA was emblazoned on his jacket in bright yellow.
Drug Enforcement Agency?
“What did he do?” she asked. Her heart leapt into her throat. His poor family.
Carney spoke in a hushed voice to Sidon. The DEA officer stepped back, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from Sidon. Carney had the boy’s hands behind his back, holding them there, but the visual was not lost on Poppy. If Sidon didn’t change his path, this wouldn’t be the last time an officer would restrain him.
“His bag, where is it?” Carney asked, glancing from the DEA officer to her.
“Oh. Here.” Poppy grabbed the worn, black backpack and set it on the table.
The DEA officer was by her side so fast she almost jumped. Poppy glared up at him, and then she recognized his face.
Her whole world tilted on its axis.
“You might need to sit down,” the DEA officer—the dom—purred at her. He pulled out a chair and nudged her toward it.
Poppy gathered her wits and pulled herself together. She shoved the chair back under the desk and stepped away.
“Sit,” Carney barked at Sidon.
Sidon sat across from where he’d tagged her table, and the dom—no, the officer—unzipped his bag.
“Is there anything in here I can cut myself on?” he asked.
“No,” Sidon said, sulking like a toddler with a fat lip and exaggerated frown.
“Shouldn’t his parents be here for this?” Poppy asked. She wasn’t going to defend Sidon, but she also didn’t want to see him taken advantage of. He was one of her kids, her students.
“We aren’t questioning him, and he did run from police,” the dom said matter-of-factly.
Officer. He was an officer. This was her vanilla life. Kink had no place here.
Poppy shook her head and put more distance between herself and the subject of her dreams. She didn’t want to see what they found in Sidon’s bag. It would only confirm the entire staff’s suspicion that Sidon was the source for the new cocktail of heroin and prescription drugs that was making its way through the school.
She stalked back to her desk, then tidied up the papers and dropped pens and pencils into her drawer. Mindless work to busy her hands while he was there.
Two weeks should have been plenty of time to excise him from her mind, but his voice, the momentary nearness, had her knees turning to rubber and her insides swirling with unsated lust. That kinkalicious part of her yearned for him to order her to do something.
Damn that man.
He did not deserve her submission.
And she didn’t even know his name.
No, she did. Or she’d read it once, just before she’d burned his note. Daniel. David. Something with a D.
Poppy’s eyes misted up, pinpricks of pain heralding tears she did not want to explain. She blinked rapidly and cast about for something
to busy herself with.
The cart of books for her student aide to reshelve sat at the ready. Poppy rarely had to put the books back herself, but right now she needed to keep busy. Taking the cart, she headed off toward the history section. There were several classes doing research papers at the same time, so there were plenty of books to put back on the shelves. It also had the bonus of being in the far corner, with plenty of cover.
“Really, Sidon?” Carney said, as she wheeled the cart around a row of shelves and breathed a sigh of relief.
Sidon needed a wake-up call. Maybe this experience was it. She hated to see him like this, but maybe it could be for the best. If he learned.
Her mind couldn’t focus on Sidon. Everything kept leading back to the dom.
What the hell was he doing here?
She’d run through what she would say to him if she ever ran into him again, a hundred times. She’d imagined running into him at a club, at the park, or even out shopping at the grocery store—but she’d never staged the dream at work. All the words she’d rehearsed fled her. Not that she’d say anything in front of Carney.
Poppy leaned against the shelves and slid one foot out of her heels, flexing it and sighing in relief.
The dom, that cop, had hurt her. As much as she liked to pretend she could have the weekend fantasy, complete with mind-blowing sex with a man who hit all her buttons and had the audacity to be good looking on top of that, Poppy wasn’t that girl. She felt too deeply to be casual about sex. But one wild night with him and she was hooked.
The kink crowd that had become her social circle gave her the intimacy without the intercourse. Was it so wrong that she’d wanted it all?
She didn’t have any illusions about a man like that staying with her. Hell, she didn’t even want him now, but the sting was still there.
I do not want him.
Was she telling herself the truth?
Poppy hefted a large book off the cart and glanced at the numbers on the spine. She’d shelved many books, and knew this library so well she could do this with her eyes closed and one arm behind her back. She turned to put the book back and froze.
“What the—what are you doing?” Poppy glared at more than six feet of tempting man leaning against the shelves, studying her with an expression she couldn’t read.
“Waiting for you.”
The deep, luxuriant quality of his voice rolled over her. She resisted the urge to shiver at the memory of what that voice had made her do. Instead, she placed her free hand on her hip and tucked the book under her arm.
“I don’t want you here, Officer. Please leave. Now.”
“No,” he replied, without hesitation. The DEA jacket lent him even more of an air of authority, which grated on her nerves. Not only was he a natural dominant, he worked in a position that gave him more power.
“Don’t you have other kids to arrest? Criminals to apprehend? Something better to do with your time?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. She almost missed it, but the fluorescent light shined directly on him. So he could get pissed off.
He uncrossed his arms and took three long strides to reach her, stopping just before he barreled her over. This close, his gaze was enough to still her voice, stop her lungs, and ratchet up her heart rate.
“Right now, figuring out why you refused to follow up with me is a priority.”
A lie was on the tip of her tongue, but she wasn’t that person. “I was upset and irrational when I was given your note, so I burned it. It was not my most thought-out decision, but I don’t regret it. Now, good-bye.” She turned and dropped the tome on the cart. Getting away from him now was her priority.
He grabbed the cart and held it.
“Will you leave me alone, please?” She didn’t want to do this here; she’d have no excuse she could share for why he upset her.
His breath blew across her cheek as he spoke quietly next to her ear. “Just so we’re clear, I did not leave you willingly. I am a DEA agent and I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apprehend a criminal and two major players in the drug trade. One of those men is personally responsible for the death of several of my fellow agents. They were my friends.”
The hard, steely quality of his voice had her heart stuttering, the beat faltering. She couldn’t doubt what he said. Hell, she’d watched the news a week and a half ago, cheering on the police talking about taking down some big drug kingpin. Had he been in on that?
His involvement didn’t excuse the way he’d handled the situation, though. Maybe it was selfish of her, but if it happened once, it would happen again.
Poppy knew in her heart that she’d forgive him, but she didn’t want to see him ever again.
She tilted her head to the side. “If that were the case, and I do believe you, you could have explained it. You know, use your adult words?”
Again the muscle in his jaw jumped. “If I’d gone back in there, I would have fucked you for hours, lost all self-control, and allowed an operation I’ve been personally invested in for months go to hell. Maybe I could have handled the situation better, but I had moments to make a decision, and I made it. It was the wrong one, and I’m sorry that I let you down, but I did what I thought was best at that moment.”
Shame and embarrassment warred with Poppy’s bruised feelings. But how dare he use his job to emotionally manipulate her into forgiving him?
“I understand your duty. I even respect it. But you’re right, you screwed up. Good-bye, Officer.” Poppy turned and walked away, pushing the cart ahead of her. Amazingly, he let her go.
“You can say that all you want, but I see the way you look at me. We aren’t done, Poppy. Not by a long shot.”
Poppy’s spine straightened hearing her name on his lips. She turned, but he was gone. A moment later, the library door banged shut, leaving her alone in her domain. She hobbled to the nearest study desk and sank into a chair, her knees rubbery, her head hurting, and her heart not sure which way to beat.
Chapter Nine
Poppy peeked through the peephole. A large, brown eye stared back at her. She snorted and flipped the deadbolt, whisking the door open.
“I’d know that eye anywhere.” Poppy leaned her head against the frame and smiled at her two friends.
“You called, we came.” Nikki batted her lashes at Poppy. The five foot ten transgender Asian was a better girl than Poppy half the time, now included.
“There’s coming involved? Damn, and I left my Hitachi at home. How you doing, girl? I’m still not used to those bangs.” Kyle flipped her hair over her shoulder, pushed past Nikki, and gave Poppy a quick hug.
“Come in, dinner’s almost ready.” Poppy stood back and her guests filed past.
“Where are your shoes?” Nikki scolded, stopping in the middle of the short hallway pointing at Poppy’s naked feet.
“I had a rough day,” she snapped back.
“A good pair of heels makes any day better. Come here, honey.” Nikki wrapped her arms around Poppy and squeezed her tight. “What happened?”
Kyle leaned against the wall. “Yeah, you weren’t very forthcoming in your texts.”
“All this coming, I might need a rag,” Nikki said, and snickered.
Poppy rolled her eyes and hugged Nikki harder.
She needed her friends tonight.
“Thank you, guys, for coming over.” Only when the words were out of her mouth did Poppy realize what she’d said.
The three of them were seized by a fit of laughter.
“What are you making? Anything I can do to help?” Kyle asked, following her across the open kitchen.
“Just some pasta.” Poppy swirled the noodles in the pot as something soft and furry brushed against her calf. She glanced down and smiled at the brown-and-black-striped cat. “Hi, Yoshi.”
The Maine coon stared up at her with limpid green eyes. Yoshi was the more sensitive of her two felines, and had been sticking close to her since she’d arrived home from work and huddled on the co
uch.
“That cat is so fucking big. I will never get used to her.” Nikki settled in on one of the two barstools at the portable island in the middle of the kitchen.
“Yoshi is a him,” Poppy corrected.
“I think he wants to be a her,” Nikki replied in a singsong voice.
“You know, not all men want to be women, just because you do.” Kyle wandered across the kitchen toward Nikki.
“They don’t know what they’re missing,” Nikki replied with a shake of her long, black wig. She was understated today, with natural makeup, if applied a little heavily, and wearing wedge heels, jeans, and a glittering, white tank top. A bra, presumably filled with gel breasts, completed the transformation. Considering that she often showed up for burgers in a ball gown, she was noticeably toned down.
“Okay, seriously. What the fuck is going on?” Kyle asked over her shoulder. Her rolled-up jeans and plaid button-down shirt over a tank top gave no indication of her creative, usually sadistic, mind.
Poppy bought time before she answered by draining the pasta in the sink.
How did she explain what was going on in her heart and in her mind? The two organs were in conflict.
“Hello, Mario,” Nikki purred.
Poppy glanced over her shoulder. Nikki was leaning down, rubbing the head of Poppy’s other Maine coon cat, the attention whore. He had his head held high, back arched, and tail flicking from side to side. His eyes were closed in feline bliss.
“I can never keep your cats straight,” Kyle said.
“Why they got to be straight?” Nikki retorted.
Poppy smiled, comforted by the banter and presence of her friends. They were the most unlikely people for her to bond with, but they got her. She placed the food into serving dishes, then pulled the garlic bread out of the oven.
“Are you ignoring my question or are you still thinking?” Kyle opened the cabinet and pulled down plates.
Poppy sighed and shrugged.
“What is it, honey?” Nikki leaned forward, elbows on the island.
“I ran into the dom I played with two weeks ago, today.” Poppy tucked her hair behind her ear as Yoshi curled around her legs again.
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