Safeguard

by Jane Henry

  I feel my hair being tugged, pulled back hard. I shake with arousal, so fucking turned on I squeeze my legs together as I go to him on my knees and he draws me closer, fist in my hair. “Such a dirty girl. If I touch you, will I find you wet?”

  I nod eagerly though my voice wavers. “Yes, sir.”

  “I should punish you again for getting turned on from your punishment.” He’s teasing me and turning me on even more. “Haven’t used the whipping post yet, and I could find some other ways to punish you, too. You gonna show me how sorry you are?”

  I nod my head eagerly, my fisted hair tugging in his hand. He pats my cheek with his fingers, not hard enough to slap but firm enough it’s sobering. His voice drops to a harsh command. “Open.”

  I obey, opening my mouth eagerly, ready to show him I’ll obey.

  I lay on the bed next to him. We can’t hear anything outside the door of our private room, and it almost feels like we’ve got the place to ourselves, but somehow the knowledge that other couples mingle right beyond our door makes what just happened so much hotter. I feel half-drugged, having climaxed four times and been spanked soundly, my eyes are beginning to close.

  Zack gives the best fucking aftercare ever. He held me on his lap and stroked my hair, let me nuzzle my head against the hollow of his neck while he whispered sweet, soothing words, telling me how proud he was of me, and how he’ll help me be a good girl.

  He wants me to go to his place. But somehow, it’s safer here. What we do here is a scene.

  We can sleep here tonight if we want to. As a gold status member, Zack had the privilege of using the private room at will, and we keep some things here for overnight stays. I roll over and flop my arm across the expanse of his body, the little hairs scattered across his chest tickling my arm. He loops an arm around me and pulls me closer.

  “Before you fall asleep,” he says, his voice stern. “What are you gonna do tomorrow?”

  “You mean today?” I tease, my lips quirking. It’s well after midnight.

  He slaps my ass playfully, and it hurts like hell after being spanked earlier. “Ouch! Ok, ok, yes, I’ll pay my credit card before I pack for us to go.” I don’t want to talk about it. I close my eyes and hold him tighter. The wedding’s this weekend, and I have mixed feelings. A weekend away with Zack? Hell yeah. Time spent with my family? Not so much.

  “I’ve already packed, and my bag’s in your closet at your place,” he says. “Thought it would be easier since we’re leaving from there in the morning.”

  “How’d I end up in bed with a Boy Scout?” I mumble. “I barely remember to pay my bills.” But I’m not really complaining. I’ve dated losers, and I’ve dated good guys, and the good guys win, hands down. But I like teasing him.

  “Pretty sure I carried you to bed tonight,” he says, huffing out a laugh. He did. I was boneless after he’d had his way with me, and we’d never even made it to the bed. Tonight, when he was done, he lifted me up and tucked me under the covers on the bed. I swallow up his sweetness like a cat laps milk.

  “Thassrite,” I slur. “Something like that. Can we talk about the responsible adult things tomorrow?”

  A jingling sound makes him freeze. Shit. It’s his call line, the important one he can’t ignore when they come in. He has to take it. Shit shit shit. A Boy Scout with a job to do. Sigh.

  He releases me, pushes out of the bed, and trots to the phone, swipes it on and puts it up to his ear.

  “Williams.” He pauses and listens. “No shit. The fucker. Yeah, of course. Keep me posted.” He shuts it off, his jaw clenched.

  “What’s up, honey?”

  “Closing in on a suspect,” he says, coming back to bed. “Flint’s got it tonight and will let me know if anything comes up.”

  Technically, he’s off duty, and it’s the only reason why we’re at Verge. He wouldn’t make plans for us here if he wasn’t. But I know the truth after dating him for half a year. He’s never really off duty, just like he never really sleeps. It’s who he is. He can’t settle when there’s someone out there threatening to harm someone else.

  “Zack, go honey. I’m fine. Tobias and Diana are here, and I can hitch a ride home with them.”

  “Nah, it’s good,” he says, but when he joins me in bed again, he’s tense, alert. I can feel his heart pounding under my palm when I place my arm around him. Something big’s about to go down, and he can’t tell me details, but he isn’t here anymore. His mind is somewhere else. I take a deep breath in.

  “Let’s go back to my place,” I say. “I really would feel better because then I can get up early and pack, and if you need to go, you can take off.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “C’mon. I’m fine.” I shake off the exhaustion from a moment before and sit up in bed. I stifle a yawn. I don’t want him to know how badly I want to stay.

  We quickly pack our things and go to his cruiser parked in the back lot of Verge. There are only three spaces in the congested city lot, one for the Club owners and the other they give to Zack.

  I love driving in his car, a small black coupe that easily blends into the crowded city streets. He’s got all sorts of buttons and flashy lights and things inside the car, but I’m not allowed to touch anything. Still, I like to tease.

  “If I push this one here, will it eject me?” I ask, my finger hovering over a small, oval-shaped button on his dash, lit up with fluorescent green.

  “Beatrice,” he warns.

  “Or this one?” I asked, hovering now over the speaker where he communicates with dispatch when he needs to. I know he’s also tricked out with sirens and lights, and there’s something exhilarating about riding in his car.

  “Beatrice Ann,” he warns. My heart kicks up in my chest, my ass still burning from the punishment I got earlier in the club. “So soon you forget how it feels to have my palm across your ass?”

  Jesus, I’m getting turned on again.

  “Just teasing you,” I say with a mock pout, when we slow at a light. Suddenly, his eyes brighten, and his body stiffens. The light turns green, and he curses vehemently. “Son of a bitch.” Before I know what’s happening, he flicks a button and flashing lights surround us. It takes a second before I realize the lights are from the car he’s driving, and the deafening screech of a siren is coming from us.

  Oh my God! We’re going after a bad guy! Or girl. Whatever.

  I grip the dash and look to him, my mouth parted in expectation. He’s never driven with me on a chase before like this.

  “What is it? What happened?”

  “Shh,” he says, flicking something on his phone and growling into the mouthpiece. “Found the asshole. He’s three cars up, but I caught a good glimpse at him. He’s our suspect. Back up to Lafell!” He switches off the speaker and accelerates, cursing under his breath. “Wish I’d left you at Verge. Sonofabitch. This wasn’t supposed to happen now. Jesus. Flint had ‘em.” He swerves in and out of traffic easily. “I have to get you to safety.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, which just elicits another growl. “For God’s sake, Zack, chill.”

  “Chill?” he snaps. “I’m tailing the most infamous drug lord since 1997 with my girlfriend in my cruiser, and you’re telling me to chill?”

  I get a clue and close my mouth. The man doesn’t like when I forget to floss, for crying out loud. Putting me in danger while on the job is akin to drowning puppies or something. Better to just keep my mouth shut and let him do his thing and enjoy the ride. I can’t wait to tell Diana about this when I get home. I have to bite my lip to keep from hollering out loud at him to go get the bad guys.

  In my head, I’m cheering him on.

  It’s cool how cars part for us, moving out of our way at the sight of flashing lights and deafening sirens. In NYC it’s not uncommon for people to push in front of you no matter who you are, so it’s super cool to see how they get out of our way. My heart smacks against my rib cage as he takes a left on what feels like two wheels, the sire
n blaring as we pursue the silver car that’s easily going as fast as we are. I feel like I’m on the set of a TV show while our tires whir beneath us, adrenaline pumping. Hell, I can almost hear the thundering beat of a theme song.

  The car we’re chasing is fast, but Zack’s is made for speed, and the other guy can’t match Zack’s city driving prowess. Zack easily navigates in and out of lanes, swerving to avoid parked cars, and the silver car he’s tailing plows ahead like a linebacker, razing everything in its path, but that’s a shitty way to drive in the city. A rearview mirror snaps off on the driver’s side and whips past my window and suddenly I hear a pop and see smoke, can smell rubber burning as one tire rips open, and the silver car comes stuttering to a halt. Before the car stops, the doors open, and Zack’s already slamming his breaks.

  “Fucking get down,” he says to me, pulling out his handgun out of his holster, and shoving the door open. “You do not move!”

  And he’s gone. My heart thunders in my chest now. I loved the pursuit, but my man just left the car to take on a wanted criminal by himself. I actually toy with the idea of getting out, not doing what he said, and helping him in… some way. But what the fuck am I going to do? Smack someone with my heel? And even if I did rescue him or… something… he’d whip my ass for getting out of the car to begin with. Yeah, not smart.

  I pout a little, tucking myself down below the dash as he said. This isn’t exactly what a human is supposed to do in this part of the car, and it’s uncomfortable as hell and smells like feet.

  Fun times, dating a cop.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, praying Zack is safe, that someone hasn’t hurt him. A blast of shots ring out and I cringe. Fuck, I need to see what’s going on. I whisper vehement prayers and hold my breath, when the sound of a door wrenching open startles me. A short, stocky bald man with a scar that runs the length of his face from temple to chin, grins wickedly at me.

  “Thought so,” he says in a sinister whisper. “Got your man down, and I swear I thought I saw somethin’ pretty behind the dash. Come here, baby.” He reaches for me and instinctively, I react. I grab his wrist and bite his hand, hard, my teeth sinking into his chubby fingers. I want to vomit at the taste but take grim satisfaction in the howl of pain and vicious string of curse words he utters. He barely recovers when he’s leaning in, and he yanks me by the hair so viciously I screech from the pain. He hauls me out of the car and shoves me against the door, and lifts his hand to slap me, but something dark slams into him from behind. I blink, startled.

  Zack’s come for me. He smacks the handle of his gun into the guy’s temple, and the man crumples to the ground.

  Zack steps over the man’s body and grabs me, yanking me close to him. “You alright? Fuck, what a shitshow.”

  Though my heart is still hammering in my chest, I grin at him. “I’m fine. Are you ok?” I look to the side and see three cruisers and two men being cuffed.

  “Yeah,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Glad I got here in time, though. Shit.”

  I huff out a laugh. “I so totally could’ve defended myself!”

  “He had you by the hair,” he says, and the humor flees from his face. He scowls at the man at his feet, bends down, and snaps a pair of cuffs on his wrists, and I can tell he wants to do a helluva lot more than cuff the man.

  “You pulled my hair earlier,” I say coyly, hoping to lighten the situation.

  He raises a brow and shakes his head, but one corner of his lips arches up.

  After his friends have taken away the men Zack hunted down, we go back to my place. I’m exhausted, and we leave first thing in the morning for my cousin’s wedding. I collapse into bed after stripping out of my clothes and doing the bare minimum nighttime routine.

  “Sorry you had to see all that,” Zack says, standing in the doorway to the bathroom holding his toothbrush. “I hate that you were with me tonight.” He starts brushing his teeth, and his next sentence is garbled. “Would’ve fuckin’ killed the bashtards.”

  “I know you would have, honey,” I say, sighing, still feeling the burn of my spanked ass, my heart still pumping at the memory of the night we’ve had. “But I didn’t hook up with, like, an accountant or something. Cop stuff is messy.”

  He snorts, goes back into the bathroom, and rinses his mouth. “True.”

  I groan inwardly when I remember what we have to do tomorrow. “And honey? You pursuing drug lords or whatever the fuck might look tame compared to what you’ll be facing tomorrow.”

  “That bad?”

  I groan. “You have no idea.”

  Chapter 4

  The sky is still dark, the sun not yet risen, when I gently wake Beatrice. To say she’s not a morning person is the understatement of the year.

  “Two more minutes,” she mumbles, not even moving. I give her ass a teasing smack.

  “No time for two more minutes, babe. You move now, and we have time for you to pack and grab coffee before we hit the road. We wait much longer we’ll hit rush hour and that’ll make me grumpy.”

  “Waking up early makes me grumpy,” she says, her eyes still shut tight.

  “Beatrice,” I warn.

  She mumbles something incoherent.

  I shake my head, push out of bed, and take a quick shower. “When I get out of this bathroom, you’d better be up.” I come back a few minutes later, and she’s still dead asleep. She hears the noise, though, and bolts upright, her eyes flying open.

  “I’m awake, I’m awake.”

  I stifle a chuckle. Damn, this girl pushes my buttons.

  She shoves things in bags at a crazy speed when I go back to finish up in the bathroom, and I swear she’s taking her whole fucking closet. After trimming my beard, I come out and stare at the pile of bags she’s got lined up.

  “Really? Blue and pink, eh? Is this, like, some kinda statement?” I hold her bag up and frown. It’s like a tropical plant on steroids. She’s got three more just like it.

  She yawns widely, stretched her arms up over her head, and mutters. “Excuse me, male person, it is fuchsia and teal, and the latest rage. That bag you’re mocking cost more than my rent this month and lucky for me, one of my clients works at Breedell and got me a deal.” She bends down to pick up a stray pair of heels and throws them back in her closet.

  I take off my towel, roll it up, and snap it at her naked ass. She squeals and runs to the bathroom.

  I yell through the bathroom door. “Bea. Seriously, babe. We’re going for four days. You need three bags, a purse that looks like I could legit fit your refrigerator in it if I needed to, some kind of a… something with like this latch that jingles.”

  “Makeup bag!” she yells through the door, her voice muffled from the stream of water.

  I open the door to the bathroom. “You wear makeup?”

  “Is that a real question, or rhetorical?” she asks. I can see her soaping her legs through the clouded glass, and my dick grows hard. But fuck, we don’t have time.

  “Real. I mean I know I’ve seen you put on like lip gloss or something…”

  “Zack. I’m a girl. Girls wear makeup when it comes to weddings. I don’t wear it every day, but for weddings, I have to pull out all the stops. Honey. All. The Stops.”

  Yeah, now I’m definitely hard.

  “Yeah?” I ask, sliding the shower door open. Her blonde hair is piled on top of her head and slathered in some sorta cream, a trail of bubbles adorably skittering down her shoulder, razor poised over her leg.

  “Uh uh,” she says, waving her razor at me. “Out you go. We do not have time for hanky panky!”

  I snort. “You’re such a dork. And if I want to fuck you before we go, that’s a dom’s prerogative.”

  She purses her lips, inhales, then exhales, her eyes shining. “Yes, sir.”

  “Mmm,” I say, closing the shower door. “I like when you say that.” She knows I do, and it’s exactly why she’s saying it now.

  “God almighty, it’s like a fucking sauna in
here,” I say, hardly able to breathe. “And seriously. You need all those bags. For four days? Like, how many pairs of shoes are you bringing?”

  “Six!” she says, as I shut the door to the bathroom. I have one sister… well, one now. And Tia is a total tomboy. She wears practical jeans, no jewelry, and hates makeup. We used to camp when we were kids, and we wore the same hoodies and sweats for a week. I do not get this high-maintenance thing.

  After packing the car, a considerable feat, we take off, only five minutes behind schedule. I’ve never been on a road trip with Beatrice before. She belts out music, her feet on the dash, uninhibited once the coffee kicks in. We talk about anything and everything. She chatters and asks questions, makes me laugh and cringe and wanna smack her ass.

  “So,” I say, when we finally reach the last stretch of road that will take me to her parents’ house. “Why are you dreading this so much?”

  She sobers and looks away. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t have much of a choice. We’re heading to your parents’ house and I want some kinda heads up, babe. You’re kinda out of evasion time.”

  She sighs. “So. My parents are… filthy rich.”

  I chuckle. “Well, that’s not a bad thing.”

  “Um, yes, it is,” she says. “You have no idea, Zack. They’re gonna be so fucking hoity toity at this wedding I might disown them.”

  “Is that all? So they’re rich and snobby?” She looks out the window and shrugs.

  “Beatrice.”

  She sighs. “They want me to marry this guy I grew up with. Judson Tolstoy Hayes.”

  “Judson Tolstoy?”

  “Yep. His parents were, like, literature professors at some Ivy League school.”

  “Just… wow. I feel so pleb all of a sudden.”

  She giggles. “Tell me about it. Though you know my name is also literary?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mhm. Beatrice is a snarky main character in a Shakespeare play?”

  “Right.” Damn. I already feel out of my element and I haven’t even met her parents yet.