Married to the Dragon

by Selina Coffey

  She dismissed it from her mind as she went through her routine. Dressed and looking ready to kill, she wolfed down a quick breakfast of oatmeal with fruit, and a few hard boiled eggs that she had made at the beginning of the week. It was so easy to have a high protein snack at the ready for her to munch on as she was heading out the door.

  Jess smiled at Tim and gave him an inadvertent wink as she hopped behind the wheel. She saw him smiling in her mirror as she sped away. He was right behind her, swerving and following closely until she pulled into work safe and sound. She gave him a slight wave as she walked into the building and headed towards her office.

  Tim drove off, most likely towards the police station. She knew that he would be sending his replacement anytime now, and Tim would be spending a big part of his day trying to find out who was threatening Jess. It was turning out to be a monumental task. The email address being used to send the threats was fake, but Jess figured that. The IP address that was used to send them was also fake, which meant the perp knew how to cover their tracks well. This did not make Jess feel any safer by a long shot. She would have preferred to have a stupid stalker. If the psycho was clever than they would have to find another way to get to them. She was going to be ready though.

  Jess made it to her office and switched on her computer. She had a lot of work to do this morning. She had actually finished up the Jones' case and had won a favorable verdict that kept the Dentist's good name out of the papers and did not imply any guilt on him. Basically they had come to an agreement where he would pay the victims off. In LA, there was nothing that money could not buy. Jess had learned that the first week she had started working at the firm. The disgusting things people in that town got away with because of money were insane. She almost had to laugh at it because if she had actually sat down to think about it and the work she did to get these people free, it would have overwhelmed her with sadness and she would not have liked herself very much. She wanted to scream sometimes, but when she saw the big, fat paycheck arriving into the hands of the firm and then a nice chunk of that going into her own pocket, she was suddenly OK with it. She realized this made her a despicable person in some ways, but a girl had to make a living.

  Jess was just getting into her routine while sipping her second cup of coffee, when she heard a knock at the door. She found a stopping point and looked up to find Alex standing there, wearing his trademark smirk. She had to smile; the man was so damn smooth. He could just give her that “Alex” look and she found herself blushing like a school girl. It pissed her off, but it was also very sweet and she loved it. She hated that she loved it. Anything that made her feel vulnerable had a way of making her angry, but she found that with Alex the anger paled in comparison to the joy she felt when she was with him. She was learning that as a woman it was OK to be vulnerable at times.

  “How’s it going?” Alex asked. He sauntered in and kissed her sweetly.

  “It’s going,” Jess said. She settled back in her chair and let out a sigh. She had been going over the notes for a new case and some of the details were a little fuzzy. She hated to be interrupted when she was making notes about important things she had to discuss with the client. It was very difficult to get her mind back in the zone after the interruptions that Alex was always throwing her way. She realized that he was her boss and he could just tell her to take a break whenever he wanted, but it was still annoying. And she had expressed her displeasure to Alex, but he continued to do it. In fact she was starting to think that he did it even more just to irritate her. She wanted to be mad at him but for some reason she found the surly behavior adorable. She hated that.

  “You lose your shadow?” Alex asked.

  “What? Oh, yeah. The detective has allowed me to enter the building unescorted. I feel so blessed for the freedom,” Jess joked.

  Alex smiled as he massaged her shoulders gently.

  “He is just doing his job to make sure you stay safe,” Alex said.

  “I know, but it is a bit much. I can take care of myself. I’m not sure I would have reported it if I’d known that I’d be followed around like a prisoner. It is starting to affect my concentration at work.”

  “We had to report it. Who knows what kind of a psycho this person might actually be. They might be serious about hurting you.”

  “I know, but I can’t live in fear. That is no way to live at all. I need to chill a bit, you know. The stress of everything is starting to box me in.”

  “Aww, poor baby,” Alex said. Jess shot him a confused look until she realized he was being sarcastic.

  “Jerk,” she joked hitting him playfully on the arm.

  “What?”

  “Way to be supportive,” Jess replied.

  Alex smiled. “I try.”

  “How about you try to leave me alone, so I can get some work done?”

  Alex moved his hand from her shoulder to cup her breast softly. She felt an immediate jolt of lust which she quickly dismissed as she elbowed him in the ribs.

  “This is not the place for that,” Jess said.

  “You just assaulted your boss, missy. I’m going to have to put this in your performance evaluation at the end of the year,” Alex said as he walked towards the door.

  “You have fun with that,” Jess called after him.

  He dropped back into the doorway.

  “What?” Jess snapped.

  “I almost forgot why I came in here. I got a few tickets to the Foo Fighters show tonight. Front row seating; we are there.”

  “Foo Fighters? Seriously? They are my favorite band,” Jess said.

  Alex smiled. “I know. I’ll pick you up at six.”

  “I have a lot of work to do,” Jess said.

  “You always have a lot of work to do. That isn’t going to change. That is the nature of the business.”

  “I know, which is why I need you to go away and let me do stuff,” Jess said.

  “Who’s stopping you,” Alex called as he wandered down the hall.

  Jess watched him go before turning her attention back to her work. She was really excited about the concert. She had not been to a rock show in a few years. It had probably been college the last time she really let her hair down and had some crazy fun. She shuddered thinking about it and scolded herself for not having more of a life. But it seemed that every time she tried to get a life together then something always came up and ruined it. She had been jaded too many times by too many of the wrong guys. She’d had to focus on her career to achieve her goals. It never occurred to her that one of those goals was keeping her heart safe by placing it in an iron vault and throwing it in the bottom of the ocean where it could never be touched or harmed again.

  She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Alex had carelessly left her door open and she didn’t feel like getting up to shut it. Through the open door she noticed Dean coming out of the copy room with a handful of pages. He glanced up at her before he walked into his office. There was a cold and dead look behind his eyes. She had rarely seen him look so cold and unfeeling. It sent a small shiver up her back as she tried to remove her gaze from his.

  He was obviously still pissed about the fact that he had lost her to Alex. It was times like this when Jess was sure she had made the right choice after all. Dean seemed to be acting very childish and insecure about the whole thing. There was a part of her mind that had suspected him of sending the threats to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it for a second.

  Dean was being a childish baby in some ways about the whole thing, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who would waste time trying to scare her. Jess liked to think she could read people pretty well. You had to if you were going to be a good lawyer. It came with the territory, and the vibe she got from Dean was nothing monstrous. In fact she was still very attracted to him and she found herself still wrestling over whether or not she had chosen correctly in all of this. It was a difficult decision to make and she cared deeply for Alex and was thrilled to be with him, but a pa
rt of her wanted Dean too. She wished that it had been possible to combine the two together into one perfect man, but that idea was ridiculous. She had made her decision and she was happy with it.

  As she was just getting back into things with her work, her phone rang on her desk. She stared at it and wished it would burst into flames, before she answered.

  “Jess? It’s Detective Tim Packard.”

  “Hey, Detective. What’s up?”

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “No, I was just taking a break,” Jess lied. The man’s voice sounded even smoother and sexier over the phone. Jess had always been a sucker for a deep, thick voice. It reminded her of her pension for other thick things…

  “Great. The reason I called is that I may have found a lead on the person threatening you.”

  “Really? That’s great.”

  “Yeah but right now it’s just a person of interest. We checked out an ex-girlfriend of Alex’s and our tech guys were able to trace her email activity at the time the messages were sent to a DNS server with an anti-trace mask on it.”

  “I thought you couldn’t trace it? You tried already, right?”

  “Yes, the IP address was being blocked, but I have some friends in the FBI Cyber Tech Division who were able to do some magic and uncover it anyway. It just took a bit longer and they weren’t sure they were able to do it. Turns out our perp isn’t as sophisticated as we originally thought.”

  “That’s fantastic. And you think it’s this person---“

  “Veronica Daniels is her name. It is possible that her phone could have been cloned or that someone placed some sort of malware on her PC so they could hack into her email and also so they could share her IP address. So we don’t know it’s her for sure yet.”

  “OK, I really appreciate you keeping me in the loop.”

  “No problem. I’ll get back to you as soon as we have any other developments,” Tim said.

  “Sounds great.”

  Jess hung up the phone and went back to work, but her thoughts were never far from Detective Tim Packard.

  Chapter Ten

  The music thumped loudly in Jess’s ears until it felt like her brains were melting and were going to come dribbling out of her facial cavities any second. Despite being so loud that she had lost all conscious thought, the music was still being played with perfect clarity. She just went with it. The whole atmosphere was more fun than she remembered from her college days. The lights and the smoke machines, the crowd jumping up and down and cheering, several people crowd surfing being passed directly over her head, the bass thumping in her chest causing vibrations to reverberate through her entire body: it was all amazing. She loved it and she wished she had never stopped doing it. She made a pact right then that she was going to start doing this at least once a month.

  Alex slapped her on the ass and then pulled her close to him. She laughed at his juvenile antics and grabbed his ass right back. He smiled at her with that sexy grin of his and licked his lips. He enjoyed having his ass slapped a little too much, she knew. She loved to squeeze his tight buns and she did so as often as she could.

  On stage the Foo Fighters singer, Dave Grohl, ran from one end to the other swinging his guitar wildly as the other drummer launched them into a breakdown. They were doing one of the new songs that no one had yet heard since Dave said they were getting ready to start working on a new album.

  Jess had been a Foo Fighters fan ever since the first album. There was something about their music that really spoke to her. It apparently spoke to a lot of people since they repeatedly broke attendance records everywhere they played. There was just something about the artistry and the energy they brought to every show that made you a true fan for life.

  “Having fun?” Alex yelled.

  “Yes! This is amazing!”

  Alex began grinding on her a bit and she grinded on him right back. It wasn’t the typical type of song you would grind to, but it had a pretty funky vibe to it. Besides she never needed an excuse to grind on Alex Mathers. He pulled up his shirt slightly revealing the tight abs he crunched an hour a day to sculpt and she ran her fingertips slowly over them, tracing every nuance and muscular ripple.

  She was getting very turned on and she could see Alex was too. The question was what were they going to do about it?

  The back of Alex’s SUV was plenty roomy and spacious and she found herself feeling a whole new level of appreciation for the tinted windows. Jess had not had sex in the back of a car since college. She was revisiting some old ground here tonight and she was enjoying every second of it. She hated to miss the last few songs of the concert, but she couldn’t stand it anymore. She was too turned on and she had to have Alex right now.

  They had no sooner than touched ass to the back seat and Alex had her panties down, her skirt raised, and his zipper open. He was inside of her in a flash and she was leaning back enjoying the ride of her life. This was one of those times that they forgo all of the sweetness of lovemaking and just had some quick, rough, and dirty sex. It was hard and it was fast. It was dirty. It was taboo. And it was public. She wondered if anyone could see them through the tint. She didn’t think so because it was dark out and the tint was pretty dark as well, but passersbys had to see the car moving up and down. That was what made it all the more exciting. Jess was finding out some things about herself tonight, that was for sure.

  After the sex they drove to Alex’s house where they continued the festivities. Something about loud rock music and alcohol mixing together that turned Jess into a sex demon and apparently Alex was feeling that vibe too.

  One thought stayed with her through the evening, lingering in the back of her head. When she and Alex had left the concert parking lot, Jess had glanced around to see if any people were paying attention to them and their rocking vehicle. She only saw one person—Detective Tim Packard. He was sitting on the hood of his car just about fifty feet from where they had parked. He was looking at her intently. When their eyes met he smiled at her.

  Had he been enjoying the show? It certainly looked that way.

  Jess’s feet pounded the pavement on the track finishing the last few strides of her run. The world spun around in its increasingly familiar kind of way and she felt the routine nausea that threatened to soil the track beneath her feet, but she held it together. She was rather proud of herself for having a perfect record of not puking even though she definitely could have.

  She grabbed for her water bottle and chugged half of it, letting the excess that would not fit in her mouth roll out of the corners and down her chin.

  “I think you missed a few drops.”

  Jess shot him an angry look, but Detective Tim Packard’s smile never faded. He kept at her with that steely gaze that she found intimidating and primal. It stirred a very special kind of beast in her and she wondered what it would look and feel like to unleash it. Would it be different than she had with Alex? Better? She tried to push the thought out of her mind.

  Jess picked up her bag and began walking towards the car. She wasn’t totally sure why she was angry with Tim. Was it because he had watched her and Alex while they had sex in the SUV? Was it just because he was always there and his welcome had started to wear a little thin? Or was it because she was developing feelings for him just as she was getting her love life in order? She guessed it was probably a combination of all three things.

  “Bad workout? You seemed to be giving it some pretty good intensity out there,” Tim said walking behind her.

  “Do you always have to follow me around? I’m a big girl; I can take care of myself,” Jess snapped at him.

  “Hey, I’m just doing my job. Do you know how many grownups that can take care of themselves but still get hurt every day in this world? That’s why the cops exist; because most capable people can’t handle everything themselves.”

  Jess opened the trunk of her car and threw her bag inside. She slammed the trunk closed and glared at Tim. He didn’t flinch. In fact if s
he didn’t know better she could swear he found it sexy.

  “I’m not ordinary,” Jess said as she opened her car door and slid behind the wheel.

  “I know that. You are anything but ordinary.”

  Jess stopped just then and looked up at Tim who was still burrowing into her with that steely gaze that sat atop the sexiest smirking smile she had ever seen. God, what was it with this guy? She was finding everything he did irresistibly sexy.

  Jess shut the door and drove home.

  Tim caught up with her within three blocks and she was tempted to break a bunch of traffic laws to lose the dork, but she decided against it. He would probably write her up a bunch of citations and she would find that sexy as well.

  Jess pulled into her house and went inside. Tim parked right across the street from her. She pretended not to notice. It was time that she finally just pretended the man was not there watching her every step. It was very creepy having someone there all the time, but she was not going to let him ruin her night.

  She stepped inside and began to peel off her sweaty clothes. She was hoping to be done and showered before eleven. Her muscles ached heavily as she struggled with the clingy, sweaty clothes. She had worked out that morning and decided that she was in the mood to do it again tonight. It was the first time she had ever worked out twice in one day and the first time she had gone running at night since she had started her new regimen. It was exhilarating and she found that she was really getting into it. The way her whole body felt alive afterwards and throughout the day was indescribable and she was getting way more work done in a much quicker amount of time. As long as morons didn’t interrupt her she was able to really focus and concentrate with a much higher precision than she had before.

  She was shocked to see Tim following her to the track since he had done the same that morning. She was really starting to wonder if the man had a home to go to. A homeless cop? That was a first.