“History has a way of thrusting its nose into the present. Next thing you know, you’ve got the whole camel in your tent.” He gave her a gimmee finger wiggle. “Confess, wench.”
“Pushy Dom.”
“Yeah, we do that. I’m listening.”
She hesitated, then gave in with a sigh. “Bruce and me, we’ve known each other since elementary school. He was always a cute kid, but when we were in high school, he was boy-band cute. I had it bad for him.”
“Did you?” Frank definitely did not approve, judging by the way he watched her with his fists on his hips.
Alex started hanging her clean uniforms on the section of rack he’d cleared for her. “Yeah. His mom, Amy, was best friends with mine, so we spent a lot of time together. Maybe a little too much. Amy and Bruce would come over, and there’d be these bruises on her arms and face she always had lame explanations for.”
“Walked into a lot of doors, did she?” Despite the arch words, his tone was sympathetic.
“Yeah. My mom was always after her to leave Steve, Bruce’s dad . . .”
“The abusive prick in question.”
“Right. And what a prick he was. Bruce told me he was even a member of the local Klan.”
Frank’s eyes widened.
“What?”
He shook it off. “Nothing. So why didn’t his mother pack up Bruce and go?”
Clothes put away, she walked over and dropped down next to him on the bed. “Amy had been raised strict Catholic, and she didn’t believe in divorce. But the beatings kept getting worse. When Bruce and I were dating, she went to the ER damn near as often as my mom went to church.”
“Did he ever beat the kid?”
“Early on, but by the time we were in high school, Bruce was playing football for the Coach and had thirty pounds on Steve.”
“And daddy’s self-control miraculously improved.” He moved a little closer, picked up her hand where it lay in her lap, began toying absently with her fingers. His hand felt big and warm as he cupped hers, rough with calluses. “But what about you and Bruce?”
Alex leaned one elbow on a knee, watching his strong fingers stroke hers. “It was one of those wild teenage things. We’d fight like ferrets in a sack one minute, then we were necking the next. Mostly we fought about sex. He wanted it, but I was afraid the Coach would find out and kill both of us. I finally gave in—I think it was his birthday, and he didn’t want to be Harrison High’s only seventeen-year-old male virgin.”
“I seriously doubt he would have been. Boys that age lie about sex every time they open their mouths.”
“Probably. Anyway, I gave in. I was expecting fireworks and little pink cherubs. What I got was a baseball bat covered in sandpaper shoved up my girl parts.”
Frank winced in sympathy. “He had no fucking idea what he was doing.”
“Nope. I didn’t much enjoy being on-the-job training either. I asked him to stop, he kept going, it hurt more, and I punched him in the teeth.”
“Yeah, you’re Coach Rogers’s kid.” Smiling slightly, he brushed a lock of hair back from her face.
“Yup.” She traced an absent pattern on his knee. “So we broke up. That probably would have been that, if it hadn’t been what happened to his parents.”
“What did happen to his parents?” Frank turned on the bed, pulled her between his spread thighs, and gathered her against his chest. “He got a look on his face when we backed you up on that domestic the other night. Kind of haunted.”
“Because he probably is.” She relaxed back into his arms. They felt comforting, particularly when she was dwelling on such dark memories. “About a month after we broke up, Bruce brought Amy to Casa Coach, begging Dad to hide ’em. She had finger marks around her throat.”
“Bad sign.”
“Very bad sign.” Any time an abuser started choking his partner, nine times out of ten he was going to kill her. “So Bruce, my folks, and I took her to the cops to swear out a warrant. But they had to find him before they could arrest him . . .”
“And he was nowhere to be found.”
“Exactly. Back then, Coach was buying houses to flip—the housing bubble was just starting to inflate—so we took them to his latest project, which he’d just completed. Unfortunately, they hadn’t even unpacked when Andy narrowly avoided a head-on with a drunk driver. Rolled his brand-new Jeep. My brothers were with him.”
Frank gathered her closer. “How badly were they hurt?”
“Andy broke three ribs and his leg.” She shivered, taking comfort from his hold. “Tim was concussed, and Harry had a bruised kidney. Mom tried to get Amy to go with them to the hospital, but she felt so rough from the beating, she just wanted to sleep. Coach figured she’d be okay with Bruce there, and the three of us headed to the hospital.”
“And Steve came after her while you were gone.”
She nodded, remembering the horror of that night. “Mom and I stayed at the hospital while Coach went to check on them. Found Bruce tied to a chair with a head injury, and Amy beaten to death. Steve had eaten his own gun.”
“How the hell did the bastard find out where they’d gone?”
“He called Bruce’s cell and bullshitted him that he just wanted to make up.” Alex slumped. “Bruce bought it.”
“Fucking moron.”
“Classic abused kid behavior.” She shrugged against Frank’s warm strength. “Bruce never got over the guilt.”
Tilting his head, he studied her face. “You made up with him out of pity.”
“Yeah. Our second wind didn’t last, though. He was so moody and tormented. Nothing I did made it any better.”
“PTSD is like that.” He dropped his chin on top of her head again.
“I know that now, but then—no clue what was happening. We struggled along until the night he told me his parents would still be alive if my folks hadn’t convinced his mother to leave. I was afraid he’d say that to them; they already thought it was their fault as it was. That was it for us.”
“They realize that’s bullshit now, right? If Steve choked Amy, he was working up to killing her. Only thing that could have saved her was leaving town.”
“As Coach tried to get her to do. But Amy didn’t want to pull Bruce out of school because he’d miss his last year playing football. Didn’t want to do that because Coach thought he could win a scholarship to Clemson. There’d be no way they could have afforded it otherwise. Amy thought if they could hide until the cops found Steve . . .”
“He’d have bonded out of jail and come after her then.” Which was pretty much the pattern in cases of domestic murder.
“Yeah. Steve was determined to kill her, and he didn’t stop until he did.” The memory chilled her, and she snuggled into Frank’s arms. “So Bruce ended up enlisting in the Army, and that was the last I saw of him until he came back a couple of years ago to become a cop.”
Frank tilted his head to look at her. “You went into law enforcement because of him and his mother, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I did. It was my first experience with violence, and when I saw the wreckage one bastard left behind . . .” She shrugged. “I wanted to save the victims I couldn’t save then. I guess Bruce must feel the same.”
Frank frowned. “Wait, you think Bruce had PTSD before he went to war? What the hell is it like now?”
Alex considered the question, frowning. “I haven’t noticed any problem, even when things have gotten hairy. And they have. Hell, Bruce’s control when people push him is better than mine. He never loses it, even when the situation is over and he can safely blow off steam.”
“So what you’re saying is maybe he’s a little too controlled.”
“No, what I’m saying is that Bruce is a good cop.” She eyed him, and the penny suddenly dropped. “You’re wondering if he’s the sniper. I thought you didn’t believe the killer was a cop.”
“I didn’t—until just now.” Frank started ticking off points on his fingers. “White s
upremacist father—do the words ‘you suck black cock’ ring a bell?—who murdered his mother while he watched, resulting in PTSD . . .”
Alex shook her head, impatient. Frank didn’t really know Bruce, not the way she did. “Bruce doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. And he thought as much of Ted as I did. He sure as hell wouldn’t have murdered him. Besides, PTSD doesn’t make you a psychotic killer. You probably have it, and you haven’t killed anybody. Hell, you holstered your weapon when you confronted Charlotte, when damn near any other cop would have shot her. Including me.”
“Alex, think about it.” Frank shifted around from behind her until he could more comfortably meet her gaze. “I know he’s gone through a lot, but—”
“He got shot at too, Frank.” She rose from between his thighs and turned to face him. “He recovered the sniper’s rifle. You think he’d have handed the murder weapon over if he was the killer?”
Frank considered the point, then grimaced, conceding. “Okay, okay. It was just a thought. God knows Tracy doesn’t have any other decent suspects.”
“Well, no.” Alex sighed. God knew she shared the desire to do something, anything, to catch Ted’s killer. She started to bend down for a makeup kiss. And stopped, realizing she wanted a lot more than a kiss.
After all the painful memories, the guilt and grief, she wanted to do something fun. And she couldn’t think of anything more fun than screwing Frank’s brains out in one of the delicious little games they so loved to play.
But this time, she didn’t want to lose. It was time Frank ended up in the handcuffs. Thing was, how was she going to get him there? If she started a fight, he’d win. He was too big, too strong, and too damned skilled.
Unless she cheated.
Wicked inspiration struck. Suddenly she knew the perfect game to both arouse Frank and teach him a badly needed lesson about underestimating women. “Let’s get this straight, you thought you’d play Sherlock Holmes?” Her grin was deliberately taunting. Which, knowing Frank’s hatred for brats, was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
Sure enough, those cool gray eyes narrowed and sparked, and the corners of his mouth kicked up in a grin that was downright evil. “Sounds like somebody needs a spanking . . .” He came off the bed and reached for her wrist.
Sailing right into her trap.
Moving with the smooth speed Ted had worked years to teach her, Alex grabbed his hand and jerked, throwing him off balance. As he instinctively reared back, trying to regain his footing, she slipped behind him. Expecting her to try to sweep his leg, he turned to counter. But the move had been a feint: she sidestepped into his pivot as he straightened his arm, trying to pull it from her grip. Wrapping her fingers around his hand, she braced her thumb against the end of his pinkie and cranked his wrist toward his biceps. As the fierce pain on the end of his pinkie distracted him, she grabbed her handcuffs and snapped them on his captured wrist.
Frank growled like an enraged grizzly.
She knew the tiny window surprise and pain had given her had just slammed closed: he wouldn’t yield now even if she broke the finger. Given his strength and size, he’d be free in a heartbeat. So she started talking. Fast. “Uh-uh, Murphy. I caught you fair and square.” Stepping behind him, she took the chance of illustrating the point with a little more pressure on his pinkie, while using her grip on the cuffs to twist the bracelet painfully on his wrist. A forward nudge got him headed for the straight-backed chair that stood to one side of the bed.
“Yeah? Know what I’m going to do when I catch you?” The menace in his voice made her sex clench and heat.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” she said dryly. “But since I like living dangerously, I’m going to sit you down right here.”
“You know, you may be a switch,” he said, his tone deceptively mild. “But I can assure you, I’m not.”
A switch was a BDSM term for someone who could play either submissive or dominant. “That’s the God’s honest truth. There’s not a submissive bone in your entire towering body.” She dropped her voice into a seductive croon. “But why don’t you sit in this chair and pretend there is?”
* * *
Pain lanced up Frank’s arm from the abused wrist, blending with the sharp protests from the finger Alex was torturing with such expert delicacy. He considered whether to buck anyway, just to teach his little sub he was the wrong person to try to Dom.
But if she broke that finger, even accidentally, it would be a giant pain in the ass.
“You do realize I’m going to take my revenge out on your pretty little butt.” His cock bucked a little at the thought.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she told him, with a teasing note in her voice that told him she wasn’t nearly as worried about the thought as she should have been.
But truth was, his dick was equally interested in just what she did have in mind. So when she cranked the handcuff on his wrist, he decided to sit down after all. He didn’t even refuse when she told him to put his free arm back. Listening to the click of the bracelets locking, he plotted his revenge.
This was the kind of thing that would normally freak him the hell out. Being bound and helpless was a nightmare he’d had more than once. His SEAL training had included having his hands tied behind his back while being thrown into the deep end of the pool. And that was nothing next to the training to re-create what it was like to be handcuffed and waterboarded by terrorists.
Yet now he wasn’t nearly as furious and panicked as he should have been, given all that ugly trauma. There was probably no stronger evidence of just how much he trusted Alex. It went right down to the bone, even after such a short time knowing her.
So, wrists chained behind the chair, he sprawled and gave her an insolent smile that matched the hard-on behind his fly. “You got me. Now what?”
“Just illustrating a point,” Alex purred, smiling at him as she rotated her hips in a slow figure eight. The baton holstered at her hip swayed on her belt, emphasizing the motion. Humming a bluesy melody—he thought it was something by Adele—she reached up and went to work on the French braids that crowned her head, freeing bobby pins and rubber bands, dropping them on the floor one by one. Finally her hair collapsed around her shoulders, bright copper gleaming. And all the while, her hips rotated to that throaty female croon.
By all rights, he shouldn’t have found the seductive grind so erotic, considering all the weapons she wore. His cock gave another ravenous buck anyway. He cleared his throat, tried to bludgeon his lust-drunk brain into remembering what they were talking about. “What point was that?”
She reached up to the top button of her uniform shirt. Began sliding it out of the button hole, taking her time, her lids partially veiling her vivid eyes. “Well, women have much less upper body strength than men.”
Frank gave her a toothy grin. “A point I’m looking forward to illustrating on that pale, lovely ass.”
“Mmm.” Another button popped free, and then another. There was something hypnotic about the movement of those long, tapered fingers on her buttons. “The point I’m trying to make is that women have to be creative when it comes to our weaknesses.”
All that showed in the gap of her open shirt was a wedge of familiar coarse fabric. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a striptease involving Kevlar.”
“Another weakness I’ve got to compensate for with creativity.” She spun on the toe of a booted foot, leaving him to contemplate the curves of her ass under black fabric and the ugly belt with all its clunky pouches and weaponry. A twitch of her slim, muscled shoulders, and the shirt slid down to hit the wooden floor. Something clinked—her badge and nameplate probably.
There was the tearing sound of Velcro releasing like the rip of silk. The bulletproof vest thumped to the ground on top of the shirt.
Frank’s eyes widened. She wore a white tee under the vest, just as he did himself—the thing would rub your skin raw otherwise. She’d sweated under the vest, just as he h
ad, so the tee was plastered to her skin, almost transparent in places.
“You’re not wearing a bra,” he said hoarsely.
“Under a vest? That damn thing’s like a sports bra. It mashes you flat.” She braced her feet apart and swayed as she hummed that low, slow melody.
God, he wanted her to turn around.
Hypnotized, he stared at the line of her spine rolling sinuously under the soaked white fabric down to that clunky black belt. She reached down, and he heard the hiss of a zipper. Breaking off that soft, yearning hum, she wiggled a little as she fought to pull the tee free of her pants.
His lips parted as she peeled the tight fabric upward, leaving pale, damp skin gleaming softly in the lamplight. Then she hitched up her duty belt onto the bare inward nip of her waist. The buckle of the pants belt she wore under it jangled, followed by tiny clicks as she unsnapped the small straps that held the belts together. His cock jerked against his fly.
Alex skimmed the thick, tough polyester fabric down over her hips and the curving length of her endless, beautiful thighs.
She was wearing a pair of red lace panties underneath.
His eyes locked helplessly on that scrap of candy-apple crimson curving up the sweet mounds of her ass cheeks. His mouth began to water. When she bent double to deal with the boots, her lovely body curled with the effortless ease of somebody who did a lot of yoga. He heard a groan, and realized it was his own.
The boots must have given her some trouble, because she remained deliciously bent, her lovely ass waving back and forth in its luscious red veil. The plump lips of her pussy parted as if waiting for the kiss Frank was dying to give her.
He really wished he had his hands free, because at the moment his rock-hard cock was mashed painfully by the fabric of his pants. He ached to free it—and then plunge the whole thing right into that luscious cunt.
Inhaling, Frank swore he could smell her arousal, a faint musk blending with the scent of clean female sweat and a hint of some perfume that smelled like cinnamon and tart apples. “You smell like pie.” His voice sounded deep, roughened by hunger even to his own ears.
Without Restraint Page 21
