by G. G. Andrew
He paused. “We’re doing the best we can.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He looked at her, his blue eyes squinting as the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. “I almost popped that guy in the nose back there. When he asked me to put cuffs on you…”
A blossoming of warmth bloomed in her chest. “That’s good.”
“No, it’s not.” He straightened up. “I was an officer responding to a call. His call. It’s not my job to punch civilians that say things I don’t like about women I…” He cleared his throat and looked down with a curse.
She bit back a smile. “You…?”
He glanced back up at her with narrowed eyes. “You know.”
She took a step towards him and placed her hand on his forearm. Despite the brisk wind, his skin wasn’t cold to the touch. He was like fresh laundry: warm and clean-smelling. She was probably the dirtiest thing that’d ever walked into his life.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her words barely audible over a gust of wind.
He gave a short nod.
“Do you…” She met his eyes and swallowed. “…believe me?”
He stared at her for a long moment, never wavering from her gaze. She was pinned under his scrutiny, and exposed, and nowhere close to comfortable. Yet a large part of her was also growing more aware of how blue his eyes were, and of how near they stood. She released her hand from his arm, her fingertips trailing along his warm muscles. Just when she couldn’t take it anymore and was about to look away, he cupped her chin in his strong hand, forcing her to hold the gaze.
“I believe you,” he said.
He pulled her face close and kissed her.
It wasn’t the sweet kiss he’d given her in his doorway a few nights ago. This one was hard, and it took her breath away.
The wind whipped her hair around and he backed her up against the vehicle. She craned her neck as his tongue dove into her mouth. Her hands reached to grasp the collar of his uniform, holding him tighter—or just holding on. The press of his mouth nearly knocked her off her feet. As if sensing it, Scott used his free hand to crush her body against his as he sandwiched her between the patrol car and himself.
She let her hands roam. He was hard torso muscles and rounded shoulders, trim hips and strong hands, a scratchy jawline and an insatiable hunger. She broke the kiss to gasp, but didn’t give her lungs time to gather enough oxygen before she slammed her mouth back on his.
He moved a hand from her face down to her breast, squeezing her through the purple sweater—not with any finesse, but like he was too desperate to be gentle.
The hard length of him pressed against her stomach, and before she could help it, she let out something like a whimper. Her body ached for him, had been aching for him, and this wasn’t enough. Leaning her weight back against the car, she bent her left leg, raising and hooking it around his hip.
Her rain boot was slippery against the fabric of his uniform, but his shaft was flush against her now, long and rigid as the pistol he packed. Though it was neither the time nor the place, she pressed him right there, grinding her hips until he groaned low in his throat.
Kim fumbled behind her until she found the handle to the driver’s side door. She opened it at the same time she pushed Scott away from her.
At his startled look, she inclined her head towards the driver’s seat. “Get in.”
Understanding, he got in the driver’s seat, leaving the door open.
Her breath coming in gasps and starts like the wind billowing around her, Kim scanned the area. No one was around back there. She reached up under her jean skirt and tugged her panties down her legs. They caught on one rain boot, but she leaned over to yank them off, then toed them under the police car. She straightened.
Scott had pushed the seat back and reclined it, and he sat there watching her, a greedy look in his eye. His uniform was tented at the crotch from his erection, and Kim’s breath caught and her body clenched in anticipation.
She climbed into the car and crawled on top, straddling him.
He shut the door and pushed her skirt up around her hips as she yanked his belt out of its loop and unbuttoned his pants.
When she pulled the thick length of him out, they both groaned, and Scott’s hands tightened around her hips.
His voice was strained. “Kimberly,” he said, and it was half stern warning, half plea.
“Yes?” she teased, a smile playing on the corners of her mouth. But she wasn’t in any better place to bargain, her muscles tight and wanting, desperate for him.
Resting a hand on the headrest behind him, she lifted her body up, and he guided her down onto him.
She gasped, both from the pain and pleasure of it. It’d been a while since she’d been with anyone, and her body burned as it stretched around him. But the sensation sizzled into a liquid heat, and as she began to softly rock against him, it thickened into a delicious tension, sweet and syrupy.
“Kimberly,” Scott groaned, his head lolling back.
Her boots squeaked against the vinyl seat as she spread her knees to drive him deeper. They were both panting now, their movements growing more frantic.
She was more than willing to fuck him into oblivion, no sentimentality required, but both his hands left her hips to cup her face, and he kissed her—soft and sweet, almost tender if he didn’t then begin thrusting up into her, battering her senses and making her pant for more. She wanted to scream for it, but she hadn’t the oxygen. Instead she circled her hips against him, chasing her own release from the frenzy he’d stirred in her.
She pressed and he thrusted, and it could’ve felt discordant, like an argument they were still having. But it was all slick harmony, and she felt herself on the edge faster than she’d ever been before.
He gripped her hips again. His body grew rigid all over. She knew he was trying to fight off his own orgasm and let her go first, because he was always so fucking polite, and maybe that’s why a second before she came, Kim cried out his name.
Two seconds later, he groaned loudly into the interior of the car and surged inside of her, his eyes squeezed shut and head thrown back, exposing his Adam’s apple and the dark blond five o’clock shadow on his jaw.
She kept rubbing her body to his, riding his orgasm, hungry for this proof of the power that she had to bring him there so quick and so hard.
Slowly, their rhythm faltered as their bodies slackened and calmed. Collapsing against him, Kim rested her forehead on his shoulder. She became aware of her breath becoming even. A fine layer of sweat that coated them both. The car’s windows were fogged, the odor of musk tinging the spearmint-and-cigarettes scent of the vehicle. The wind howled around them.
She moved, but only to put her lips to his damp skin. She should’ve been climbing off Scott. Should’ve been wiping him off her, telling him to drive her home. Instead she found herself kissing his ear and the space underneath it, then his jaw, then his lips.
She was kissing him the way you kiss before you start screwing, not after when kissing isn’t such a big deal. They’d just had sex; they didn’t need to kiss anymore. But her lips against his felt like an end unto itself.
His breath was slowing too, and his heart thudded through the thin fabric of his uniform. He was still inside her.
She buried her face in his neck. He’d taken a chance and trusted her, told her he believed her. She owed it to him to open up and try to trust him. Trust him to understand. Or to not laugh, at least.
“I’m addicted to stealing,” she said.
He didn’t respond, but his arms wrapped around her waist and tugged her closer, if such a thing were possible.
“I’ve been a kleptomaniac since I was fifteen,” she continued. “My family knows, but not a lot of others. It’s not something I’m proud of.” She sighed. “That’s why the tampon box full of cosmetics.”
Scott stirred. “Is it…like alcoholism?”
“Maybe. In that it’s an addiction. But it lends itself
to more law-breaking.” She shifted, trying to find the words to describe it. “It’s like this…compulsion sometimes, like I need to take this thing I see. And the feeling grows, until I feel like I have to take the thing so I can stop feeling like that.”
He began stroking the back of her hair, and the tenderness of the gesture gave her the confidence to keep speaking.
“Other times I’ve been so depressed or ashamed of my problem, and then, even though it makes no sense, I’ll take something because it’ll make me feel good again for a while. Like eating a candy bar when you’re sad, except about ten times more.” She rubbed her face against the scratchiness of his neck. “It’s why I take medication, because my brain chemistry is wonky. Not enough of this, too little of that, or something. When I get sad or worried, it’s ten times worse.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Last year it was really bad, and even taking small things wasn’t doing it for me. I ended up taking some jewelry from our neighbor. That’s when I finally got help. I’ve been better since. Mostly. I’ve been seeing someone to work on controlling the urges—a psychologist, I mean, not—”
“I know.”
His hand slid from her hair down to her shoulder and he gently pushed her away to look her full in the face.
She let him. They stared at each other for a minute, his blue eyes bright and not unkind.
“Thank you for telling me,” he finally said.
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Some of the other cops may know, but a lot of them don’t believe it’s a thing.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
He tucked her hair behind each ear, and she sighed.
They still hadn’t moved, but Scott swiped a hand across his face. “I’ve got to…”
“…go back to work?” she said.
He exhaled.
She smiled coquettishly. “I guess you can’t do that while you’re inside of me.”
With a lopsided grin, he said, “Unfortunately not.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Scott
Scott woke up Sunday morning feeling more alive than he’d felt in years. He shouldn’t have. The forecast was predicting rain, and he’d had sex with a woman with a criminal record in his patrol car Friday in broad daylight. Anyone could have recorded it. It could be up on YouTube right now. He could lose his job and the respect of his friends. He should be sweating bullets, not singing along to the classic rock he blasted while he folded laundry and Lily played dolls with Sophie and Sierra in the living room.
“Daddy, your music’s too loud,” Lily said crossly, like she was his mother. The twins had slept over last night—Lily had begged, and he figured he needed to keep Taylor Stiles on his good side in case he needed any last-minute babysitting. Usually a sleepover would’ve doubled his blood pressure, but Scott was immune to even the terror that was three little girls under his roof.
“Sorry, honey!” He turned down the speaker—barely—but kept humming along to the tune, even grabbing a spatula and long spoon from the kitchen utensil jar and banging them on the counter in time to the music.
Sex hormones. He had them. Or something. He felt like a sixteen-year-old who’d lost his virginity—No, that wasn’t right. When he was sixteen, he’d been over the moon to just touch a girl for ten minutes before her parents got home from work or have any kind of penetration, anywhere, for any length of time. He’d been thrilled for scraps. Now he was older, and though he’d have been happy with any of the above with Kim, he knew what had happened Friday was no paltry appetizer but the full course, soup to nuts. The stuff in movies you never think gets to happen to you.
He thought back to Kim in that car, straddling him. Kim in her yellow boots and windblown hair, her dirty smirk and tender caresses and the way she’d shaken when she came and then after, when she’d told him why she stole.
He’d expected sleeping with her to feel bad in all the best ways, like it had with Alexa, but he hadn’t expected it to feel this good. Like it was seventy-five degrees in February and his team had just won the Superbowl. Like his life was a car ride with the windows rolled all the way down.
Scott probably would have felt this way no matter what, but it was what she’d told him too, about her addiction. He’d suspected of course, but it hadn’t penetrated his consciousness, at least in the way she’d explained it. She had a hard time helping it. It was an illness, like drinking or gambling. Scott had known an alcoholic or two on the force back in the mid-west, and he got that those problems were hard to shake. Her confession, while not erasing her record from his mind, made it more understandable. His sympathy and respect for her had also grown considerably.
Or maybe it was just lust-drunkenness. The sight of her sliding those panties down her legs…
Later on at work Friday, as he’d tried to complete paperwork, he kept catching whiffs of her scent, citrus and spice and all things not nice. He was going to have trouble not getting a raging hard-on whenever he ate oranges in the future. Maybe her smell had sunk into the fibers of his uniform, or it was his wistful imagination—if she hadn’t pulled him out of her when she did in the car, he would’ve been ready to go again a few seconds later. And then again.
She still drove him crazy, of course. He couldn’t believe she was tracking down those women. He understood why, but it was dangerous—and it seemed more dangerous the longer he thought about it. They didn’t really know what that list was. Some of those women could be complicit, or have dangerous connections.
Kim had accused the force of dragging its feet on this and being ineffective, but he’d approached Carter and they were going down the list too, working on it as much as they could. Not that Kim had been wrong about the ineffective part. He’d explained the situation to his sergeant, and though he agreed that the detective should check it out and that the department took harassment of women seriously, he also didn’t want them to devote all their time to it.
“We’ve got two homicides already this week, Culpepper,” the sergeant had said in response to his incredulous look. “We need to prioritize. Carter can check this list against the system, see if any of these women have filed reports. Contact those to follow up. Check in with the university police department and see what they know. Did you check this mailbox to see if the original flash drive had been taken?”
“Yes.” Scott nodded. “It’s gone.” He’d been trying to catch whoever claimed it, but he’d missed the perp when he’d been called away on a domestic nearby.
They also hadn’t been able to get prints off the knife left on Kim’s car.
The sergeant flipped through the pages of the document, then handed it to the detective as she stood in front of Scott. “Just don’t take this list and go on some wild goose chase.”
It wasn’t only the women on that list that concerned Scott. He worried about Kim’s connection to all of this, even if half his co-workers had branded her as a criminal who had it coming. If she had this addiction, she wasn’t just a criminal. She had a problem, and she was trying to get better. She was slipping occasionally, especially with everything she’d been through in the past week, but she was figuring out how to work through it. He could help her. Who better to help stay her hand than him, a good guy and a police officer? He’d grown up taking care of his parents, and being the designated driver throughout college. And of course his vow to protect and serve on the force. He could support her, aid her, and remind her of what was right. He wanted her, and she needed him.
He walked to the threshold between the kitchen and living room, put both hands against the frame, and leaned forward, practically bouncing on his toes. “Hey, girls, want to go to the park?”
The sky was swollen with rain, but they’d have maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes before the downpour started. He’d have them home before Taylor came to pick up her daughters.
Plus, he was so jittery with excitement, he didn’t think the house could contain him. He needed motion and fresh air.
“Okay,” Lily stood up, a
nd he passed her a bright green slicker and put on his own navy raincoat.
If he’d timed it right, by the time they were back home, Kim Xavier would be arriving at her parents’ for their weekly Sunday night dinner.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kim
Her mother was puttering with her daffodils when Kim pulled up.
“Hi, Mom,” she said as she walked up the path to the front door.
Diane kneeled by the flowers, her gloved hands spreading mulch. She wore a tan pair of capris that matched Kim’s own, but she had on an elegant aqua-colored top that contrasted with Kim’s black, tight v-neck shirt, which was probably hinting at more cleavage than a family dinner dictated.
Her mother didn’t look up. “Hello, Kimberly.” Her voice was terse.
Apparently she was still offended that Kim wasn’t staying with them anymore.
“Your flowers look nice,” Kim said.
“Yes, well, they would’ve looked nicer if that hard rain hadn’t just hit them.”
Clouds had burst on Kim’s drive over, spattering her windshield. It’d been a strong, but brief, rainstorm. Now ozone was in the air, and the sun was shining on the wet asphalt of her parents’ walkway and brightening the yellow daffodils that didn’t meet her mother’s definition of perfection.
“April showers bring April flowers?” Kim offered, but her mom scowled at the mulch.
Kim’s eyes drifted over to Scott Culpepper’s house. His car was gone from his driveway, and just as she wondered where he was, his hybrid SUV came down the street and pulled over in front of his house.
A herd of gazelles galloped in her stomach. She hadn’t seen him in a day and a half, and a large part of her didn’t want to, even as her heart raced when he opened the car door. They’d had some incredible dirty sex—nothing unusual about that; she’d had sex plenty of times, and she excelled at the dirty kind. But he’d made her feel raw in a way she wasn’t used to, and it wasn’t only her admission about being an addict. It was like she had the same skin she’d always had, but being with him had made her feel tender and exposed, like now she knew how easily she could bruise or break. She couldn’t determine why this was, and she was nervous to see him until she could figure it out.