Eye contact would be made now because he decided it would be so.
Whoa, she hadn’t seen these eyes before. He looked angry and a little . . . crazy and she could swear she caught an actual flash of light in his right eye. She started to speak, but his mouth was on hers trapping the gasp in her throat.
Her first instinct was to pull away. Perhaps because he surprised her or maybe it was just a pure primal self-defense reaction but it was pointless, she had no prayer of stopping him. He tasted salty and sweet and wet and his mouth devoured hers. She used her hands to hold him at a distance she could manage but he grabbed her wrists and locked them behind her back and used his body to lay her back on the couch crushing her underneath him. She shook and whimpered while he bore down on her. Slowly she surrendered to it, giving up the fight, she relaxed her arms and he turned loose of her wrists and he held either side of her head guiding her mouth into his, their tongues jousting. When she forced her head to one side to gasp for air he grabbed her again by the hair and pulled down causing her to arch her back. He glared into her eyes, inflamed, exhilarated, and breathless and asked, “Regular or decaf?”
When she didn’t answer he got up and headed for the door and added, “Lock this dead bolt.” She stared at him, woozy and disoriented. He slammed his giant hands together . . . CLAP! And she jumped. “Charlie! Deadbolt! Now!” And he walked out of the door.
“What the fuck was that?” she yelled out loud after he had closed the door. As he listened at the other side of the door, he grinned then his brow furrowed and his face turned grave. Fuck! He thought as he bolted down the stairs.
Chapter 21
Charlie Has Left the Building
Charlie sat on the couch rocking herself for twenty minutes before she could bring herself to stand on shaky legs following Jake’s kiss. “It’s okay,” she said out loud to herself. “It’s okay. He’s a cop and that’s not okay and we are working a case together and that’s not okay, but this is what you have waited for. A man who knows how to make you feel like this. Taken. He’s here. Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out,” she mumbled as she made her way to the bathroom.
After a long hot shower she was on solid ground. She felt bad that she had locked the bedroom door, worried that she might hurt his feelings when he returned with the coffee but it was a chance she would have to take. This man was completely unpredictable, and she did not want to reenact the Psycho shower scene with him if he decided to pop his head into the shower to offer her a cup of joe. The thought of Jake sneaking into her bathroom made her wetter than the water that rained down on her. She jumped out soaking wet and ran to the bedroom door, unlocked the lock and ran back to the shower, and waited. She stayed so long her fingers were raisins and the hot water was running lukewarm. No Jake.
She dried off, tiptoed naked across the room and listened at the bedroom door, but heard nothing. She imagined him on the other side of the door listening too and giggled. She dried her hair and applied her make-up, mortified by the pre-shower mess she had seen in the mirror after he left. The thought of his kiss made the hair on her arms stand up and her pelvis ache. She put on her comfy jeans with the holes in the knees—her holy jeans because she knew how great her butt looked in them, pulled on an oversize white sweater with no bra so her attentive nipples would teasingly poke through the light fabric, and casually strolled into the kitchen in her bare feet. On the counter she found her coffee and a note;
Gone to the hotel to shower and change. Do not leave the apartment until I return. I’ll be back later with dinner. Lock the damn deadbolt I said!
No mention of the kiss, its heat, or their connection. No attempt to view her in the shower or finish what he started. Charlie’s face flushed with confusion and embarrassment. There is no way he was not affected by that kiss.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but it felt like morning. She paced for about an hour and then called his cell. No answer. Goddammit. What the heck was with the hot and cold treatment? She paced some more. Unsure of what to do next she ran for her laptop. She had been unable to reach AJ yesterday and she prayed he would be online now.
VABlueAngel: AJ?
AJ101-789: Hey Beautiful! I was just getting ready to log off. I miss you Angel.
VABlueAngel: I know AJ, I’m so sorry. This serial case has really gotten out of hand. I just haven’t had much time.
Or privacy, she thought.
AJ101-789: Not another homicide?
VABlueAngel: Yes. Except this time, I was there when it happened.
AJ101-789: What the fuck Charlie?
VABlueAngel: Hey! Hey! Hey! Language lol
AJ101-789: Fuck my language. Are you okay? What happened?
Charlie went into detail about the murder. She would normally never release this information about a case but this was an unsaved live conversation, not an email, and AJ was thousands of miles and another continent away. The delicate nature of his assignment in the Middle East and his police background made her confident that he would respect the necessity for complete discretion. She had been sharing details of her most horrifying molestation cases with him for the last year and she trusted him implicitly.
AJ101-789: I don’t like the sound of this at all. If they haven’t pulled you from this case already, they need to.
She frowned but then realized that she liked that AJ was a former cop and knew that she was too close to this. She assembled a flimsy defense.
VABlueAngel: It’s not my case AJ. It’s Clint’s case. I was just on the stakeout. It could have been anyone of the other four targets we were sitting on. It just happened to be mine.
She decided not to share the bloody message on the fence with him but felt bad about it.
AJ101-789: Who were you partnered with?
VABlueAngel: Why are you asking me a question that doesn’t matter?
No response.
VABlueAngel: AJ?
No response.
VABlueAngel: Yo!
This was very unlike her friend. Was he jealous?
AJ101-789: I’m here. I’m glad that you are partnered up with the Fed. Someone needs to have your back. Is this guy any good?
Now there was a loaded question. Is he any good? Yea, he’s any good. He’s any good at melting me with his eyes; he’s any good at making me feel more protected than I have ever felt in my life; he’s any good at taking control of my body and soul and reducing me to a quivering mass of sexual frenzy and he’s any good at completely dismissing me!
VABlueAngel: Yea, he’s good.
AJ101-789: Okay, are you back at it tonight?
VABlueAngel: No. I’m off today.
AJ101-789: Okay good, then MAYBE I’ll be able to sleep. Please be careful Angel.
VABlueAngel: I will AJ, I promise. Sleep.
She felt better after her talk with AJ. He made her feel loved and safe without the sexual tension and loss of control. Safe wasn’t good though—that was a crock. That was exactly the relationship she had with her ex and it had buried her. She had spent three years crawling out of the hole he left her in and she still wasn’t completely clear of it. Maybe she never would be. It’s never safe when you hand someone your heart. Besides, she hated safe. She hated the lack of an edge in their sex life and she hated that she couldn’t lose control and be her real self with him.
It worked at first. At first it was thrilling. She was in love, truly and completely in love. He was so attentive, so loving and so caring. Even the sex was good, and she had never really liked sex. She still cringed at the thought of her first sexual encounter with her brother’s burn-out friend. Sex just never really did anything for her, but with her new husband sex was definitely different. It was so loving and gentle. Not really her cup of tea but sweet. He never did call her what she wanted . . . Baby. He called her Honey, Sweetie, Babe. But never Baby. She tried to get him to call her tha
t but he always forgot and she didn’t want it to be her idea, she wanted it to be his. She wanted him to be what she wanted, but he wasn’t. A few times she tried to introduce her deeper desires into their lovemaking but found that he too was more turned on by submission.
Well hells bells, they couldn’t both be submissive. Somebody had to be in charge.
She remembered enjoying being dominant over him once or twice because of how hot it made him, but it left her feeling empty and unfulfilled—envious even. When she tried to explain to him what she needed he had made her feel like a freak.
“Hey, the only reason I did this freaky shit at all is because you wanted to.” He judged her. “Jesus, what the hell kind of men were you hooked up with before me?”
Oh no, not this conversation again.
He was so insecure and so fragile that no matter how much she loved him, his insecurity was a complete turn off to her. She wanted a MAN. Could love and mutual interests really sustain her for a lifetime? After three years she had her answer; it could not. And when her husband took up with the Sasquatch, the dispatcher he left her for, Charlie had her way out and she took it. Since then she had mostly given up on dating and focused on her career. Men were always a disappointment in bed. Always, she sighed. If they had enough size and girth they could bring her to orgasm but it was like plain old vanilla frozen yogurt—no exciting flavors, no surprises, no sprinkles. It wasn’t real ice cream. She knew there was more. There had to be. The only orgasm she ever had that came close to satisfying her was at the skilled hand of Mr. Daley and, oddly, that was an unconsummated relationship.
But at this moment, after Jake’s kiss, she was so hopeful she thought she might explode. It was like a book about her had been written, and Jake Adams had read every page. How in the world was she going to be able to maintain a professional relationship with him after that kiss?
The phone rang, snapping her out of thoughts. Finally! To her dismay it wasn’t Jake, but Clint checking on her to make sure she was okay after last night. “What’s not to be okay about Clint?” she asked in a tone she borrowed from her mother. It didn’t work on Clint and she chuckled at his lack of intimidation.
“I’m fine Night Rider,” she said. He suggested they meet at Amy’s later for a beer but she declined saying she hadn’t slept well. The lie seemed to pacify him.
She didn’t like lying to Clint. They were friends. She actually owed him a great deal, and he owed her. Clint was probably the person she was closest to in the whole world besides her brother Tom, but that was more about blood than contact. AJ, on the other hand, was in a completely different category. Charlie hung up and set the phone on the table and watched it, like a pot, willing it to boil. She waited and waited and waited. She called Jake twice but he didn’t answer and he returned only one of her three texts; it read:
I’ll get there, when I get there. Stay put.
“Is that right? Well fuck you, Mr. Arrogant.” God, she hated feeling desperate. Looking desperate. Jesus she was acting like . . . a chick! Unforgivable.
By early evening Charlie had enough waiting. She slid on her white Keds and a light jacket, bid farewell to Moses who answered with “AMF.” She walked across the street to Amy’s Café choosing a seat where she could watch her apartment complex parking lot. Amy’s Café was actually a bar. It was an old, red brick, two-story building from days of old. The red brick was exposed inside. The building had texture, history, and familiarity. It was a safe place where people looked different but they all belonged, and it was a favorite haunt of bikers and cops. Bikers meaning men in their forties with Harleys and leather club jackets. Charlie and Clint had spent many a night closing the bar down and Amy, whom Clint lusted after, never rushed them out. Tonight, she ended up being there much longer than she had intended and having three beers too many, which is to say . . . she had three beers. She couldn’t hold her liquor. Thompson had always poked fun at her about her limited tolerance for “libations,” as he called them. “PBR! Nectar of the gods,” he would proclaim.
Finally, she saw the ostentatious SUV pull in and park. Jake stayed in the car for a few minutes and the inside cabin lit up from his phone as he was tapping on the keys. “Probably texting some waitress or nurse or stripper,” Charlie growled. The police officers’ three major food groups. When was she ever going to learn? They were all alike. ALL of them. They would offer the slightest glimmer of hope only to be shown for the fragile, needy train wrecks that they all were—at least the ones Charlie was attracted to. It was all such a bait and switch. Fuckers.
“Ding” her phone text chimed. It was from him.
I’m here, unlock the door.
“Joke’s on you pal,” she sneered. “There is nobody home. Charlie has left the building.” She held up her beer in a mock toast to him. See how you like waiting and waiting and not hearing from someone, you jerk.
She watched as he climbed out of the black tank. He was carrying the tell-tale aqua colored plastic bag from the Gay Dolphin; hmmm, well that was thoughtful that he remembered; and a duffle bag; hmmm he wants to stay over? And . . . flowers? Fuck! Charlie, you idiot.
He had told her to stay in the apartment and she didn’t and now she was half trashed. He was going to be furious, or worse—completely repulsed. She had ruined it. She decided that the best thing to do was just stay at the bar and by the time she sobered up and went back to apartment he’d be so glad she was okay that maybe he wouldn’t be mad.
“That’s a terrible idea. He’ll leave.” She smacked herself in the head and Amy scowled at her. “Hey, Sarge. You okay?”
“Just peachy, Amy.”
Her phone rang and it made her jump. She knew it was him. He was standing at her locked apartment door and no one was answering the door, so it had to be him. She picked the phone up and glanced at the screen as she brought it to her face. It was not Jake but her captain.
“Hey Cap, if you’re trying to call me in you can forget it. I’m on my third PBR.”
“Ahhh,” he said without judgment. “After last night, you’re entitled, kid, just checking on you.” Then he waited for the tongue lashing he knew would come for having the audacity to suggest that she wasn’t okay.
“Thanks, Cap. I’m okay,” she said resigned.
Damn, the captain thought as he hung up, the tongue lashing would have made him feel better. He hoped she was with Jake. He could see what was happening and he was glad that he didn’t have to worry about her being alone, at least until the killer was caught. He wished it could be him, but he knew she didn’t look at him in that way. He further knew that if she ever did look at him in that light, his wife wouldn’t appreciate it. She was always asking about Charlie. Somehow she knew her captain husband was carrying a bit of a torch for his favorite detective. He knew his wife’s inquiries were actually veiled warnings and he heeded them. Smart man, the captain.
Charlie watched as Jake descended the stairs from her third-floor apartment door and walked back to the parking lot. God he was hot. Tall and square and built like a mountain. He walked with something just short of a swagger. Not like he was looking for a fight, but like he was ready for one. He marched to Charlie’s parked unmarked cruiser and felt the hood and then did a visual scan of the immediate area. She hated to admit it, but the man was good. When his eyes reached the window at Amy’s where she sat staring back, he stopped cold and everything about his posture changed.
Shit. Busted.
Charlie threw a five spot at Amy for the three beers, gotta love that cop discount, and hurried outside. Jake stood in the parking lot, not taking his eyes off her as she crossed the street and walked up to him trying to look casual.
“What?” she said indignantly as he glared at her.
“Upstairs,” he growled. “Now.” The hair on the back of her neck stood up and traveled . . . south.
Chapter 22
Are You Drunk?
<
br /> Charlie fumbled with the keys and tripped over the threshold as Jake closed the door behind them, just short of a slam. He put everything down on the kitchen counter and returned to deadbolt the door.
“Are you drunk?” he asked, incredulously.
“Drunk scumbag,” Moses squawked.
“Shut up Moses!” they both yelled in unison, but neither of them found it funny. The air was charged.
“Are you?” Jake again demanded. Charlie decided a best defense was a drunken offense and she tossed her jacket on the chair and put her hands on her hips.
“Are you my father?” she shot back. He closed the distance between them quickly and grabbed her arm.
“Is this some kind of a game to you, Charlie? There’s a killer out there. A killer that left a message to you in blood. Have you forgotten that?”
“Why yes I have,” she smarted off. “It’s my night off so back the fuck up,” she warned.
Jake’s eyes darkened and his lips tightened. So did the grip on Charlie’s arm.
Okay, perhaps this was not a good plan, she thought.
She tried to pull away and there it was again, the flash of light in his right eye. “I told you not to leave this apartment, Charlie,” he said low in his throat and squared off with her.
Damn it. She might not have had a poker face but she had a PBR face and the alcohol was making her fearless and arrogant. “So what? You told me to stay and I didn’t. What are you going to do? Lock me up? Spank me?” she mouthed off, with no thought or plan for what was spewing from her pie hole.
He pulled her up by the arm, so her face would be level with his.
“Both,” he said through gritted teeth.
Jake saw the fire light in her eyes. It was instantaneous. He knew what she needed. He felt it and he wanted to make her whole. He glared down at her, nose to nose, while she stood frozen. Her mouth hung open, the faint smell of beer coming from her breath. She was driving him over the edge and it was time to do something about it. Every nerve ending in her body screamed as he locked his mouth on hers releasing her arm and pulling on his waistband.
The Hooker, the Handyman and What the Parrot Saw Page 14