The last week, I’d pretty much scoured the internet for everything that Pris had ever written or recorded, and I was legit blown away. “I haven’t ever heard anyone mix social justice with sex and pop culture like that. Her shit is lit. She could probably write a book, she’s got so much to say.”
I stopped talking and noticed Yariel was rubbing his chin like he was scheming something. “What’s her website’s name?”
“Come As You Are.”
He laughed at that. “Dope. I’ll take a look, if I’m into it I’ll tell my agent about it. This is the kind of shit she loves.”
I grinned at that and went in to give him dap. Yariel was working on a tell-all memoir about his experience as an openly gay Major League player and Dominican man, so he probably did know people who would be into Pris’s stuff.
“Bet,” I said clapping Yari’s hand hard. “Maybe if Pris can finally see that she has a real career option on her hands she might feel differently about taking bolder steps to make it happen.”
Yariel stood up and grabbed his phone from his pocket and the goofy smile that showed up on his face told me that his boyfriend had sent him a message.
“He’s waiting for me at home.” The way Yariel said that made me ache. That’s how I felt whenever I knew that I’d get home to find Priscilla there or that she was on her way. It was how it had always been with her, and I was so close to getting that back. I could feel it. I just needed to grow a pair.
I clapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the massage table. “Let me work on your deltoids for a moment and then you can shower and go see your man. And thanks for the advice, brother. You gave me some homework.”
* * *
After I’d cleaned up the machines and was heading back to the center where I had some afternoon clients, I took my phone out as I walked to my truck. I typed out a message without giving myself too much time to back out of it.
You coming by tonight?
I was thirsty and at this point it made no sense denying it. I had to tell Pris the truth. All of it. How I felt about her and all the ways I knew I’d let her down. I hadn’t been the boyfriend she deserved, even at our best. I’d relied on her to do all the emotional heavy lifting. It wasn’t enough that now I knew better, I needed to tell her too. I had to stop assuming she would just “see” how I’d changed. Part of changing was being able to say shit.
When the message bubble came up, I could feel a cheesy grin just like Yariel’s from earlier blooming on my own face.
Maybe. But FYI the offer of some wine and popcorn would sweeten the deal.
I tried to count to sixty before replying, but gave up after thirty.
Done.
Priscilla
“There’s been a lot of phone action and smiling in your life lately.” Bri’s amused tone told me he meant that I’d been mostly grinning like an idiot.
I shook my head as I typed a message to Juan Pablo. Because we were on a multiple texts a day basis now.
I looked around to see if anyone was watching before I answered Bri. “It’s not that deep. We’re just hanging out.”
Bri wasn’t buying it and stretched his neck, hoping to get a look at my very NSFW text conversation. The messages between J and me had always been a bit on the filthy side, but he’d been keeping it PG, not wanting to cross boundaries. In the past few days though, things had gotten decidedly more heated.
I glanced at the message bubble, trying hard to keep from turning the phone away so Bri couldn’t see what Juan Pablo would send. But I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it either. So I kept my hand off the screen when the bubble popped up. As soon as I saw what he’d written I yelped and pressed the phone to my chest while Bri lost his shit next to me.
I put my finger over my lips, trying very hard to keep a straight face. “Shhh stop, Bri.” He just cackled harder. “Oh my God, why are you so loud right now?”
“Let me read it again.” He was literally choking from laughing so hard, but I kind of wanted to re-read it too, and it wasn’t like he didn’t know what J and I were getting up to.
I looked both ways to make sure no one else was coming by then turned the phone so he could see it, and as soon as he read it, we were both howling again.
Imma make that kitty purrrrrr for me tonight.
“This is amazing, Priscilla. He and Reyes need to meet ASAP.” Okay, double date suggestions were definitely dangerous territory. So I focused on responding to J’s dirtbag text.
How could that bastard have me busting up and so turned on I had to literally fan myself all at the same time?
Are you using pet names for my body parts, Juan Pablo Campos?
Those three dots popped up almost immediately and when I read the message I actually giggled.
Don’t matter what I call her... She always comes for me.
This light-skinned cornball was going to be my undoing. That didn’t stop me from encouraging his ass.
We’ll just see who’s purring first.
I pocketed my phone as we were about to walk into our weekly team meeting, needing to focus on my job regardless of how entertaining I found Juan Pablo’s constant bullshit. As always we were the first two to arrive. Bri had his tote bag with the usual array of goodies the Child Advocacy Center provided for the meeting. Soon we were arranging everything on the table and getting the coffeemaker started as Bri did his best to interrogate me before the rest of the people started arriving.
“So are you still doing the whole ‘we’re fucking and sharing our deepest darkest secrets, but not dating’ thing?”
I didn’t have to look at him to know he was probably barely keeping a straight face.
“When you say it like that, you make it sound really stupid.” I wasn’t even faking sounding hurt. I was all fucked up about it. So far, every time we hit a snag that in the past would have ended in a breakup J somehow managed to navigate it with a cool head. And that’s what had me thinking about a future. About getting back together, again, which was so not where my head needed to be.
I lifted a shoulder as I fiddled with a cherry I’d grabbed from the bowl Bri had set on the table. “I just don’t want to fuck with this. J’s exactly like he used to be except now the sharp edges, the cluelessness, those are gone. Did I tell you about the ginger tea?”
Bri dipped his head, a lopsided smile on his lips. “Yes. He does seem like he’s moved into a new phase. A man that doesn’t shy away from being a nurturer, that’s sexy as fuck. And not in the creepy ‘let me feed you from my hands’ way.” Bri shuddered and I laughed. We’d had one too many conversations about shifter romances. “It sounds like he’s actually paying attention to what you need.”
“I know.” I felt all warm inside just thinking about it. “It’s been good, and honestly I just don’t want to muddy the waters with anything that’s going to start a disagreement or an argument.”
That elicited a disapproving groan from Bri. I knew he would not be happy about me avoiding hard conversations to keep the peace, but it wasn’t like that. Not really.
I raised a hand to suffuse whatever he was thinking. “Nothing’s even come up. I mean stuff...about here,” I said in a lower tone of voice, as I circled a finger in the air in front of me. “I’ve told him I’m not as happy as I used to be on the job, but that’s it.”
Bri gave me an assessing look and was about to say something when Joseph Sanchez, one of the child protective workers on our team, walked up, talking closely with Chase, another one of the other detectives in my precinct. I looked at Bri and raised an eyebrow in question. Chase worked in Vice, so he never came to these meetings.
As soon as Sanchez looked up, I knew something bad had happened. His eyes were bloodshot and he had huge circles under his eyes, like he’d had a very rough night. And long nights in child welfare work were usually the stuff of nightmares. Chase acknowledge
d me with a nod but pulled out his phone as Sanchez came over to the other side of the room to talk to Bri and me. My heart pounded as he got closer, all the warmth of the conversation from a few seconds ago replaced with dread.
“The stepdad ended up in the hospital last night. Admitted with a leg injury. Maybe a knife. We have a feeling it was her.” He didn’t need to explain. I knew he was talking about April.
“It was him; he was probably trying to come after her.” Bri’s face blanched as my voice boomed in the room. “She probably was sleeping with something to defend herself.”
Sanchez looked back at Chase, whose face was unreadable, then turned to me again. “She didn’t say, Priscilla. We asked her multiple times.” He looked to Bri for some backup, but my friend was not going to help him out, not with this.
Usually I was more diplomatic about stuff like this. It was a team, after all, and I tried hard to not talk over people, but before Bri could even speak I was talking again. “Of course she didn’t say anything. We never interviewed her alone. We never pressed the mother—or him for that matter.”
Sanchez put both hands up, like he had no idea what I was so worked up about. When he responded it was in that “she’s getting hysterical again” tone men used with me all the fucking time in the workplace. “I get you’re angry, but we can’t go on hunches. Not when it comes to taking kids from their homes. There was no imminent danger, and protocol is protocol.”
I was about to get even louder when my lieutenant walked in. His face was grim and when I noticed Chase was trying to look everywhere but at us, my stomach sank.
As soon as the lieutenant was close enough I opened my mouth. “He needs to be arrested, lieutenant, right now. He’s the one. He’s been the one.”
The lieutenant also looked like he’d been in the same clothes all night. That’s when I knew they’d responded to this without notifying me at all. They’d shut me out, on purpose.
“Gutierrez, the only facts that we have right now are that the stepfather was admitted to the hospital with what seems to be a knife wound, and she’s missing. The mother said she ran out of the house, and we still can’t find her. He’s in the hospital and not going anywhere for a couple of days.” He’d shoved both his hands into his pant pockets, but he pulled them out to extend his hands in a “What are you gonna do?” gesture which had me seeing red. “He’s also not talking. At this point we’re not sure what happened.”
I thought I’d black out from holding in everything I wanted to say, but I knew it wouldn’t go well for me if I did. “Can I go talk to him?”
His expression told me what he’d say before he opened his mouth. “I put Chase on the case. He was on last night and I think he can handle it from here.”
Bri spoke up as I was still trying to figure out how to protest without getting myself even deeper in the hole.
“There’s the question of finding April too. It’s best if Priscilla is involved. She knows her well. April likes her. Whatever is happening in that family we need to think about mitigating the trauma this child has already experienced. Adding new people is never a good approach.” I loved Bri in that moment, but I knew ultimately law enforcement decided who went out and who didn’t. Bri was an advocate, a social worker—he advised, but the lieutenant and the DA called the shots.
The lieutenant didn’t seem too convinced, but to my surprise he conceded with a shake of his head. “Fine. But you are not to interfere with the case once the child’s found.”
I gritted my teeth, wanting to scream that the case was mine. That I’d been working it since day one. That I’d been saying this guy was suspect from day one. When I turned to look at Bri, his expression told me he was worried I’d do something to get me in trouble and fuck, I almost did. I wanted to unload on the lieutenant about how shitty it was to be passed over all the time. How tired I was about all of it. But then I remembered Bri’s words and that this wasn’t about me, it was about April.
“I always do my job,” I bit out, as Sanchez came over to talk to Bri and me. Lieutenant Dennis didn’t even respond, he just turned around and walked to where Chase was standing.
I took a couple of deep breaths and once again asked myself how much longer I could do this.
When my phone buzzed, my stomach turned. I’d been messing around with J while April was hiding somewhere, probably scared for her life.
I ignored it, and turned to Bri and Sanchez. I had work to do.
Chapter Sixteen
Juan Pablo
As soon as Priscilla walked into my bedroom, I knew things were going to be intense. It was almost 1:00 a.m. and it was the first I’d heard from her since she’d cancelled on our plans to hang out a couple of nights before. She’d texted out of the blue asking if I was up, and now ten minutes later she was here.
I’d given her a key to the apartment on her last visit, so she let herself in, and found me reading in bed...waiting for her.
“Hey.” She looked and sounded exhausted, and it was all I could do to keep the questions of what had been going on the last couple of days to myself.
“Hey, yourself. I’m glad you texted.” I put my reader on the table on top of the stacks of books I always had there and moved to get up, but she lifted a hand, shaking her head.
“No, stay there. I’m going to shower first. Is that okay?”
I kept the eye roll to myself and gestured to the door of the en suite bathroom. “Of course. Towels are on the shelf.”
I looked down and saw that she’d taken off her boots, but she was still wearing work clothes. She’d never done that before. She usually went home and changed into something more comfortable before coming over. Which meant that she’d been working until now, one in the morning on a Saturday.
Without saying anything she lifted her arms and pulled a hair tie from her wrist to put her hair in a messy bun on top of her head. Her mouth turned up as she walked into the room. “I don’t suppose you have a shower cap.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Nope, but I do have this,” I said, smoothing a hand over the pillow she’d been using which was covered in the white satin pillowcase I’d bought after she started staying over.
She nodded again as she started taking off clothes. I sat back on the bed, with the covers off, my dick hardening with every move she made. She slid out of her navy blue slacks, revealing a triangle of black lace barely covering her. The silence in the room was charged and I wanted to get up and touch her so bad I was shaking.
I sucked in a breath as she went to pull off her turtleneck instead of her panties. Once that was off, I had a full view of all that brown skin. Her bra matched her panties, and my mouth went dry when she walked up to the bed, her hands by her side, so I could get a good look at her.
“Take them off,” I demanded, practically sitting on my hands now.
She put both of hers on the edge of the bed and leaned in, without even acknowledging my request. “No. I’m giving orders tonight. I’m going to shower and when I come out, I’m going to fuck you.”
My cock got so hard I was sure it would make a hole in my briefs. I licked my dry lips, looking over at the bottom drawer of my dresser where I kept my toys and her eyes veered in the same direction. Again I made an attempt to get up from the bed, but she shook her head.
“I’ll get it.” She walked over to the dresser, went down on her knees so that I had a full view of her ass in that lacy thong, and pulled the drawer. She sucked in her breath at whatever she found. I did have a lot of stuff. Hell, she’d given me most of it.
She pulled out a long black velvet pouch and looked inside. “This one?” she asked as she pulled out the neon green vibrator I loved.
I couldn’t talk, so I gave a sharp nod.
After a moment, she gently lifted out the harness we’d bought together years ago, and that she’d used on me dozens of times. My heart thumped in my chest
with anticipation. Breaths coming in short pants. I saw her grab a cock ring and thick butt plug too before walking over.
She put the harness and the vibrator on the edge of the bed and walked on her knees to kiss me hard, tongue stealing into my mouth hot and sharp. There was an intensity to her tonight that was igniting a fire in my veins.
When she pulled back she held up the cock ring I assumed was about to go around my cock and balls.
“If I put this on you will you leave your dick alone until I’m done in the shower?”
I swallowed hard, loving and hating this game.
“Yes,” I croaked, already tugging on the elastic band of my briefs.
Once my cock was out she made short work of getting the cock ring on, as I sat there with my chest heaving like I’d run for miles. She was close enough that her breasts were just inches from my mouth. But the game tonight was that she asked for what she wanted. So I waited.
“You want these?” she asked, voice full of mischief with smile to match, as she worked on taking off her bra.
“Always.” She pressed in just enough that I could lap on her with my tongue, still I didn’t move until she told me how she wanted me.
“Suck on my nipples, and use your teeth.” Her words were sharp—an order, not a request, and fuck, I was so turned on I could barely think.
I leaned in and closed my lips around her and sucked hard. “Mm.” She moaned and took my hand, placing it right over her pussy. “Do me with your fingers.” Her hips were rocking back and forth, fucking my hand. And my dick was so hard I swore it would just snap off if I touched it.
“J.” She hummed as I bit one nipple while pinching the other. My other hand was pressed to her heat, thumb right over her clit. Working it just like I knew she liked.
She sucked her teeth after a particularly sharp pinch and pulled back. “Enough.” She was flushed, sweat beading her forehead and her eyes glassy. But I could see there was something slightly off. Something about the way she was looking at me. Like she wanted to get lost in what we were doing.
American Sweethearts Page 14
