Brothers in Blue: Marc

by Jeanne St. James

  Leah shook it, confused.

  “Is he being his bossy self?” She spun toward Max. “Honey, can’t you just turn it down a notch? You know what I told you about being bossy and overbearing.” She clicked her tongue at him.

  Max gritted his teeth and a frown wrinkled his forehead. “Amanda, we’re in the middle of an important meeting.” He waved a hand over the file laid open on his desk as proof.

  “Well, I have something important to tell you also. So…” Amanda gave him a sexy pout. She leaned over his desk and Leah could imagine Amanda gave him a nice view into the deep V of her blouse.

  The chief cleared his throat and rolled his desk chair back. “Leah, can you excuse us for a minute, please? Don’t go far. I need to talk to you and your FTO together.”

  Well, his wife sure had him wrapped around her little finger.

  “Of course.” Leah slipped out of the room. The door shut firmly behind her and she heard the lock click. A few seconds later she swore she heard a female giggle. And then a moment after that, she definitely heard a muffled groan. Leah rushed down the hall, and directly into Marc’s arms.

  “Whoa!” he exclaimed, grabbing her upper arms to keep her from plowing through him.

  “You are going to make me lose my job!”

  His eyes widened and then his brows pinned in a frown. “How is this my fault? You are the one who left me tied to the damn bed! If anyone should be pissed, it should be me. And, anyway, you’re not going to lose your job.” In a complete about-face, a sly smile crossed his face. “I’ve sent in backup.” He indicated the now quiet office. Marc moved closer to the door and pressed an ear to the door.

  Leah whispered fiercely, “What are you doing?”

  “Just making sure my plan is working.”

  “I busted my ass to be the best in the academy. Don’t screw it up for me by interfering and making it worse.” She struggled to keep her voice at a low level. “Being male you have no idea how hard it is for women in this career. It is always an uphill battle.”

  A thump came from inside the office. Marc’s amused gaze met hers and she blushed.

  “I’m not going to stand here invading their privacy. I’ll be in the break room.” She couldn’t escape fast enough. But before she entered the kitchenette, she turned to see if Marc followed her. Nope. He leaned against the wall next to the chief’s door with a naughty grin on his face.

  Leah slammed her hands on her hips and was about to yell down the hallway when the office door opened suddenly. Marc just about fell over in a rush to straighten up, trying to pretend he was just innocently walking by.

  Right.

  Amanda came out of the room with a big grin and mussed hair. She poked a finger into Marc’s chest and said, “You are in so much trouble. But I did what I could.”

  “I heard that!” the chief bellowed. “Corporal Bryson and Officer Grant, get in here now.”

  Leah’s spine snapped straight at his summons and as she closed in on Amanda and Marc, the other woman turned to her. “Don’t worry, he’s just a big teddy bear who growls a lot.”

  “Amanda, go!”

  With a giggle, Amanda waved and walked toward the front of the station, her hips swaying playfully in her skin-tight jeans.

  As they entered the office, Marc said, “Love that woman.”

  “As a brother,” Max added.

  Marc put his palms out in surrender. “Of course.”

  “Grant, close the door. Both of you take a seat.”

  They settled into the ugly green upholstered chairs that sat facing the chief’s desk. Both had to adjust their duty belts to fit in the tight seats.

  “Now…” He gave them both a stern look before digging in the top desk drawer. Her pair of cuffs appeared swinging from the tip of his index finger. The heat rushed into her cheeks. Max leaned towards Leah, giving her a direct, very uncomfortable stare. “You sure you don’t have any issues with your trainer?”

  Leah, transfixed by the metal handcuffs rocking back and forth on his index finger, chewed on her bottom lip, not sure what to say.

  Marc ended up speaking first. “Max—”

  “That’s Chief to you, especially after that little situation last night.”

  Marc continued, “I can explain.”

  His voice faded off and both the chief and Leah leaned back in their chairs waiting for that explanation.

  “I should put you both on leave without pay. It’s bad enough that you two are…” He sighed and shook his head. “Doing whatever you’re doing.” He raised his hand. “No details needed. But using department issued equipment?”

  Leah finally found her voice. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Yeah, you said that earlier also. I’m not sure why I’m sitting here having to counsel you on what could go wrong with… with…” He waved his hand toward the two of them. “I mean seriously Corporal, I expected better of you. Not even a week in and you two… This could become an EEO nightmare. I don’t need any problems with sexual harassment complaints down the road. I… Fuck.” He shook his head. “Please, please, please tell me this is consensual, right?”

  Leah peeked at Marc out of the corner of her eye to gauge his reaction. He was leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed, a look of amusement on his face as he watched his older brother—and, not to mention, superior—struggle with the situation before him.

  The chief slammed his palm onto the desktop making Leah jump slightly. She coughed to cover up her reaction.

  “You know, Corporal, you’re putting me in a tight spot. You’re my only qualified FTO right now. If I could, I’d put her with someone else.” He leaned forward again, this time pointing a finger at Marc. “Hear me well: If you guys are caught doing anything inappropriate while on duty, you’re both fired. If I even get a slight whiff that you may be doing something you shouldn’t be, you’re as good as gone. This is your one and only warning.” He wagged his finger at the two of them. “Both of you.”

  Now that they had both been scolded like naughty children, Leah was anxious to escape and get out on patrol. But she needed something first… “Can I have my cuffs back, Chief?”

  “If you can recite the serial number.”

  She hesitated. Then she closed her eyes, took a breath, and read the numbers off the image she had in her head. When she opened her eyes, both the chief and Marc had eyebrows raised, appearing impressed. She had been forced to learn the serial numbers of both her gun and cuffs she was issued in the academy and that knowledge was tested on a regular basis. She always passed.

  “Was she right?”

  The chief slid the cuffs across his desk towards Leah. As she reached for them, Marc snagged them away. He squinted at the small numbers.

  “Damn.” He handed them over to Leah, who stood to pop open her cuff case. She shoved them inside and snapped it shut.

  “You two are excused.”

  Leah stood at attention and saluted before turning sharply to leave.

  “Ass kisser,” Marc whispered.

  As both of them fought to get out of the door first, Leah scratched her chin with her middle finger. A move Marc didn’t miss.

  “No more department issued cuffs. Buy your own,” Max called out as they hurried out of the door.

  As they stepped out into the sunny back parking lot, they both automatically pulled out their sunglasses, which were tucked in the V of their uniform shirts.

  “I want to drive,” Leah told Marc. It was about time she got behind the wheel. Maybe he also believed that women shouldn’t drive either. And should dress conservatively. Cover their head. Ask their husbands before they made any decisions. Stay in the kitchen barefoot.

  And pregnant.

  Mark made a noise that didn’t sound promising. “Are you going to apologize?”

  And apparently take all the blame. Right. “For what?”

  “You set me up.”

  Leah made the noise this time. “I didn’t do it on purpose. It just happened.�
��

  Marc grabbed her wrist, stopping her by the cruiser. “Bullshit.”

  She regarded his hand for a second before tugging her arm out of his grasp. “Honest. I mean, my plan was to get back at you for getting the upper hand in the bakery. I just wanted to turn the tables. But I never intended—”

  “To leave me spread out on the bed like a buffet until my brother and chief had to free me.”

  She gave him a half shrug. “No. That idea came later.”

  “After I expressed my unpopular opinion?”

  Yes. “Are you going to apologize for being a male chauvinist pig when it comes to women in law enforcement?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then my answer is the same as yours. And anyway, you enjoyed everything I did to you.”

  “Not the point.”

  “Sure it is. I clearly remember you calling my name when I sucked and fucked you until you came.”

  Marc clamped a hand over her mouth, surveying the parking lot. “What the fuck, Rookie! Keep it down. Last thing I—we—need is for what we did to become public knowledge.”

  “Our chief knows.”

  “Yeah, thanks to you. But let’s keep it narrowed down to that small audience.”

  She held her palm out for the keys. “Okay, then let me drive.”

  He stared at her palm for a few moments before reluctantly dropping the keys onto it.

  “See? I’m not a male chauvinist pig.” He walked over to the other side of the car. “But you’ve already have lost ten points today for getting me dragged into the chief’s office. So make sure you drive perfectly,” he told her over the roof of the car.

  The word whatever was on the tip of her tongue but she swallowed it. She only had to get through seven more weeks of riding with him. Just seven.

  Fuck.

  Marc studied Leah’s profile as she drove. He made it seem like he evaluated her every move, just waiting for her to make a mistake. He kept his notebook in his lap, pen ready, just so she would think so.

  But honestly, he wasn’t paying attention to her driving. At. All. He was watching how the late morning sun highlighted her features. How a strand of her hair was about to escape the hot-for-teacher hairdo she wore. All she needed was a pair of sexy reading glasses and a pencil shoved into her bun. It was hard to look at her and not picture her naked with all that glorious dark mane down sweeping around her like a—

  “You’re freaking me out. Can you stop staring?”

  “I’m observing your driving skills.”

  “What’s the word you used earlier? Oh, right. Bullshit.” As Marc reached for the notebook, she continued. “You can dock me a trillion points for that. I don’t care. Let’s be real here.”

  He shut the notebook and threw in on the dash. “Oookay.”

  “We need to get everything out on the table.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Do we?”

  “Yeah, otherwise these next few weeks are really going to suck.” She steered the patrol car into a dirt pull-off along a rural road heading out of town, put it in park, undid her belt, and shifted to face him.

  Too bad her dark sunglasses covered her beautiful golden eyes. And those thick eyelashes that framed them.

  But her lips…

  One eyebrow rose over her dark glasses. “You can’t look at me like a piece of apple pie and expect us to get through the day like civilized adults.”

  “Cherry.”

  “What?”

  “Cherry pie. My favorite.” Not that he was even thinking about food. Or even the kind of pie that you have to bake. Or even the song by Warrant.

  But those two simple words brought about deviant thoughts that woke up his lower body, causing a damn chubby. Leah was right. This sexual attraction was going to be difficult to deal with for eight hours a day for the next—what seemed like—million weeks.

  Chitlins. Shit.

  Now that he’s tasted her, touched her, been deep inside her, his “think pig” distraction plan was going to be a big fat failure. Nothing could sidetrack him from his out of control desire for her. He could have her once or even twice a day and it still wouldn’t be enough.

  Scary thought. He had never been this head-over-heels in lust before. It was to the point that he wanted to wake up in the morning to find her head on his chest and all that luscious dark silk draped over him. And all he would have to do is roll over to satisfy his morning wood.

  Then she could get up and make him breakfast.

  Yeah, he’ll never be able to say that out loud. Otherwise, she might shove the radio mic down his throat. And then make him eat it.

  “So.”

  “So?”

  “We need to figure out a plan or something,” she suggested, looking at him seriously. “Or we can just forget everything that has happened and just keep this professional.”

  Forget? Easier said than done. And he wasn’t sure he was willing to take her up on her second suggestion anyway.

  She continued, “Us getting involved was stupid. Especially since we work together. And I’m going to do everything in my power to keep this job.”

  “We’re not involved.”

  She lifted an eyebrow at him.

  He rubbed his temple. “Are we?”

  “We’ve had sex multiple times.”

  So that meant they were involved? He panicked a little. Okay, no. A lot. Yes, he wanted to fuck her and she wanted to fuck him. But couldn’t they do it on a casual…

  Oh fuck. That’s what Max had wanted with Amanda: casual sex. And now they were each other’s ball and chain.

  His older brother hadn’t been interested in getting married, settling down… And now…Amanda ruled the roost. Took his manhood in her palm and squeezed it until it was no more.

  Pussy whipped.

  No.

  No. No. No.

  “Yeah, I know. I was there, remember? But you’re not looking for anything serious, right?” he asked her, his pitch a little higher than normal.

  “Holy shit. I’m just looking to keep my damn job.”

  “But as long as we don’t have sex while we’re working—” He shut his mouth quickly. Her glare was noticeable even through her sunglasses. It was hot enough to sear the hair off his balls.

  “Look, do you want to fuck me?” Marc asked her. “Because I sure enjoy fucking you. You seem to enjoy it. No one needs to know what we do in our off hours.”

  She peeled off her sunglasses and hit him with those golden green eyes of hers. They smacked him right in the chest and his heart picked up a quicker beat.

  “It’s not the off hours that matter, Corp. It’s how this”—she waved her hand between them—“affects our on-duty hours.”

  “We can separate work and sex,” he said, half-heartedly.

  Leah made a noise. She didn’t believe it either. Damn it.

  He was about to say something that would be bad enough to have his man card revoked. He braced himself. “How about we stop our extracurricular activities until your training is over, and then once we’re not riding together, we can figure out something?” And then winced.

  Yeah. A notice of revocation was already in the mail. How the hell was he going to leave her alone for seven whole weeks? Seven.

  There weren’t enough parts of a pig left to even get him through all those days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds.

  How could he go that long without sex? He shook himself mentally. Right. Like he hadn’t gone months without sex before. Probably even longer, but he didn’t want to think about it. Nor did his fist. But to look at her almost every day and not touch? Hell—not almost—every day since she only lived next door with his parents.

  If he could hold out, he would deserve a medal at the end. Hell, an Olympic gold medal. And a parade through town. On a firetruck.

  When you’re horny seven weeks could be an eternity. Seven minutes could be a lifetime.

  “Okay. Deal.”

  Deal? Oh, the I’m-going-to-be-fucking-my-own-hand-for-th
e-next-seven-weeks deal. “So the minute Max signs off on your training, then all bets are off?”

  She slid her sunglasses back on, hiding her eyes. “Yep.”

  Hot damn!

  Wait. Why was he celebrating seven weeks of a dry spell?

  “But we can see other people during that time.” She nodded her head and turned to gaze out of the front windshield.

  Whoa. Hold your horses. The thought of someone else easing between her sweet, succulent thighs was…completely unacceptable. Oh hell no.

  Dumbass. This was Manning Grove, he reminded himself. Who in the hell was she going to hook up with here? She would have about as much opportunity to find a decent date as he did up here. What wasn’t married with a litter of children, was up on the mountain cooking meth. Most people who grew up here tried to escape to somewhere more exciting. They couldn’t leave fast enough. And this wasn’t the Mecca of the dating world.

  The word stuck in his throat, but he finally coughed it out. “Fine.”

  “Fine,” she repeated like a petulant child.

  The radio squawked. “County Dispatch to Manning Grove six.”

  Leah snagged the mic before he could. “Manning Grove six. Go ahead.”

  “Manning Grove six. Call from fifteen Lovelace Lane. Mrs. Monaghan states that someone stole her purse.”

  Marc groaned and shook his head. “Oh brother.”

  Leah gave him a questioning look. “We copy, dispatch. Mark Manning Grove six en route.”

  “Dispatch copies.”

  The radio went silent and she clipped the mic back in its holder before turning to Marc. “What?”

  “Remember when I told you about the regular who has dementia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You finally get to meet her.” He grimaced. “Just be advised she thinks I’m her boyfriend so she’s not going to like you.”

  Leah rolled her eyes. “I can handle it.” She pulled her seatbelt across her body and latched it. “You’re nothing to fight over. She can have you,” she said dryly.

  “Very funny.”

  “I thought so.”

  Leah glanced around the house. It was neat and orderly but that was only because Mrs. Monaghan lived with her daughter and son-in-law, who had both spent five minutes apologizing profusely because of the 911 call.