by Pinki Parks
Keisha slowly pulled her hand away and she furiously fought the clenching her gut. Etienne would do that whenever he saw a way to start flirting; she knew that look in his eyes she wasn’t in for it. Her mind rejected the motion but her gut rebelled and grabbed at it.
What the hell was it about him that still controlled a part of her?
“S-so.” Keisha internally cringed at how her voice cracked and the triumphant look in Etienne’s eyes. She twisted her head and cleared the throat, “So, how are you?”
His hand rose up and she went still as he tucked another dratted lock of her hair behind an ear, "Good…very good now that I have you back in my life."
Her eyes narrowed at his sultry tone, “Etienne-”
He pulled back, “Je sais, Je sais- I know, I don’t have you like that but at least you’re talking to me, that’s a point in my book.”
His words were casual but his eyes were heated and she felt so wary, “Etienne, I can’t-”
“Get into anything with me,” He once again interrupted, “I know and I respect that.”
Internally, Keisha grimaced, why the hell did she put herself back in this firing ground once more? What the hell was wrong with her? Was she a glutton for pain or what? How many times in her life had she uttered, ‘you’re no good for me Etienne’ but had still been drawn to him like a moth to a furnace?
And here she was again, doing the same thing.
"Thank you," Keisha replied reaching for her menu hoping her subconscious would get with the program and let him go.
*****
“What the hell do these people take me for, some kind of lackey?” Hunter mentally and vocally snarled as he stepped into the steakhouse to grab the lunch order that the officers back at the department had put in.
His search for this Etienne had so far proved fruitless and just as he was about to go to the DMV to chance another angle he was ordered to go and retrieve their dinner. He went straight to the pickup counter and gestured for an attendant.
“I’m here to pick up the Mecklenburg-Charlotte PD order.” Hunter said tightly, “Make it snappy, I don’t have much time.”
The server nodded, “We’ll be right with you, it’s almost done.”
Almost went on to be over thirteen minutes and by the time Hunter was handed the bag, he was fit to be tied. And then he turned to the door where Keisha and a man were walking out too.
The man’s eyes skimmed over to him and narrowed, instantly Hunter slipped into his professional mode.
“Ms. Al-Habar,” Hunter said evenly, “What a surprise.”
Keisha, whose back was to him, spun around with a look on her face that was between surprised and frightened, “…Oh… Detective Blake; you’ve startled me.”
The young woman had obviously to taken his hint and responded in kind; perfect. She shifted her handbag over her left shoulder, “How are you today?”
Hunter lifted his bag and smiled deprecatingly, “Doing grunt work.”
Annoyance flashed over the dark-skinned man's face and tightened around his eyes. In a move that was nothing else than a man proving some kind of claim around what he thought to be his, angled his body between Keisha’s and Hunter.
“Keisha, Cherie,” the man said smoothly, “Introductions, s’il te plait?”
Hunter didn’t miss the irritation that had flashed across Keisha’s face when the man had uttered the clearly Cajun word for ‘darling’.
The room seemed to get smaller and the air got tense and the tight smile on Keisha’s face and the polite but decidedly unpleased expression on the man’s face only made the situation worse.
“Um,” Keisha twisted her head between them, “Okay, Etienne Dubois, please meet Detective Hunter Blake of the Mecklenburg - Charlotte PD.”
Hunter didn’t show any noticeable reaction but internally he was feeling the irony. Here he was stressing about finding this Etienne and here was, playing bulldog over Keisha.
“Detective,” Etienne said sticking his hand out with a genial tone although his eyes were ice cold. “Good to meet you, how did you and ma cher get acquainted anyway?”
Again, a very irritated look flashed across her face and Hunter didn’t need to ask that his postulating was getting on Keisha’s nerves.
Deliberately, he slid his eyes over to Keisha and said, "I… helped her out with a… personal problem."
A deeply incensed look shot across Etienne’s face but in second it disappeared, “Oh…that’s good then; what was that problem, by the way?”
Hunter unashamedly grinned and bowed a little to Keisha, "I'm honor-bound to not tell the good lady's secret. You're from the south, you know what that is.”
Etienne’s face twitched even as he squared his shoulders, “I do, actually; it’s bred into all from the Old Quarter.”
“Louisiana,” Hunter nodded while widening his stance and bringing himself to his real height, “Been there once, I went to Mardi Gras at eighteen on a dare. Why so far from home?”
“I’m at the engineering conference at the Marriott,” Etienne said with clear smugness in his voice. “And I live in the state, actually.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, Hunter spotted Keisha rolling her eyes at the clear machismo going on between them.
He checked his watch and then with a smirk said, “That’s good and all, but I have to run. Good evening Mr. Dubois and Ms. Al-Habar, if the problem comes back you know where to reach me.”
Walking away Hunter grinned to himself while taking his keys out. He knew he was going to get an earful later but it was worth it. Etienne, even being her ex, clearly didn’t know anything about Keisha or he wouldn’t crowd her.
The anger in Etienne’s eyes spoke a lot. The man clearly viewed him as a threat and that was very titillating to Hunter. Besides his instant and obvious hatred, Hunter then realized that even if he had found anything on Etienne it would have taken a long time to get it; the man was from Louisiana and cross-state inquires took a while.
The second thing that sparked another gut feeling was, how on earth did Etienne, a major suspect in his book, just show up so goddamn coincidentally? Keisha had told him they had been done for over five years, so why now?
Again, if there was something Hunter trusted it was his gut and he felt this guy was up to something. Slipping into his car Hunter grinned to himself, “But now I have something stronger to work on.”
*****
The call came at nine just as he was stepping into his house. He cocked the phone to his ear and grinned.
“Hello?”
“I hate you,” Keisha said mildly.
Hunter grinned, “And I love to make you hate me.”
“How old are you?” Keisha asked, “Like seriously, I thought you were more mature but after all that testosterone blasting in the air, I was an inch away from asking, ‘should I get a measuring tape’.”
Hunter kicked his door closed behind him and walked to his kitchen to set his grocery bag on the counter, “A measuring tape, for what?”
"I figured if you two were going to get into the metaphorical equivalent of ‘whose bigger', I might just speed things along and go ahead and measured," Keisha answered dryly.
Hunter’s head threw back and he laughed so hard his chest hurt, “I’m probably bigger anyway.”
Keisha huffed, “Think so, huh.”
Leaning on his marble counter he grinned salaciously, “Do you want to recheck?”
“Oh, no thanks,” Keisha replied wryly, “I’m already way too much acquainted.”
“I’m sure,” Hunter said drolly while sitting on a chair and pulling the file from under his arm with the name ‘Etienne Dubois’ scrawled in bold. He put his feet up on the table while spinning a page. “But I wouldn’t mind another visit.”
"Bastard," Keisha replied with no heat, "Do you know the bull I had to spin to get him off my case. He was like a ten-year-old pulling my pigtails."
�
�He doesn’t know much about you again, does he?” Hunter hummed while skimming down her ex’s history.
“What makes you think that?” Keisha asked.
“Because he doesn’t know to give you your space,” Hunter replied while reading over a juvenile record for Mr. Dubois. “He was basically breathing down your neck.”
Keisha was silent for a moment, “…. Remind to never underestimate you,”
Hunter closed his eyes and tilted his head back. It never surprised him anymore how much Keisha’s voice seemed to sink into the lowest parts of his gut. Just hearing her speak lit a low thrum of desire in him. “The feeling’s mutual.”
“…Don’t do that,” Keisha replied this time her voice had gone all low and breathy, “Please.”
“Do what?” Hunter replied, a bit curious.
“Let your voice go all husky bedroom and wet sex on me,” Keisha replied, “It makes me want to want you again.”
A smirk crossed the detective’s face and he deliberately dropped his tone, “Are you complaining?”
“…I’m hanging up now,” Keisha replied, “Goodnight Hunter.”
And she cut off the call with Hunter grinning to himself. “The feelings more than mutual Keisha- in other ways, I want you too.”
Chapter 12
Five days; five days to crunch time and Hunter really was not in the best of moods.
Last night he had gone over the file that Jackson had given him about Etienne Dubois. The Louisiana native was smart; really smart, with an IQ of over 160 and that had to be one of the reasons Keisha had been drawn to him in the first place.
Etienne came from a family dealt with trade; his father Jean-Pierre had his own fleet of ships which couriered goods from one place to another.
From eleven to fifteen the boy had earned a rap of shoplifting and illegal gambling but he was acquitted of all charges. Clearly, his powerful father had something to do with it.
At eighteen Etienne had gone to study structural engineering at MIT and spent his summers back in New Orleans. And at nineteen, Etienne’s wife-Renee’s father Christophe had joined Jean-Pierre and broadened their manifesto into importing customary and rare goods for customers.
When he was twenty-five, Etienne had moved to South Carolina where he interned and gained a job with an architectural company. He had kept a clean slate from then on but Hunter felt that something was up.
There was no way someone who had started in the criminal life that early had given it up. All last night he had been irritated and the mood had only heightened when the new day had come.
Early this morning, just as he had stepped into the office, a notice from the DA’s office kindly notified him that their case against Keisha was growing and if they didn't get anything to deter them, Keisha would be on trial soon.
Hunter barely put the phone down when a call came from Cyber Crimes.
“What?” he snapped irritably.
“Detective,” Jackson said evenly, “I’ve traced the model and Prod-Id on the Dell and gotten the age of the PC, it’s just over five years old.”
Quick calculations made him realize that Keisha’s business was a little more than that age and that if they had been a couple at that time it was extremely easy to get a hand on one of her computers.
“Anything else?”
“I’ve dug into the deleted filed on the Hard Drive and unearthed files that contained some trading business, but they all had been deleted from months before the comp was used to track the account.”
A small smile flitted across his face; once again his gut feeling paid off, “That helps a lot. Have you gotten a lead on who leased the house the PC was found in?”
“Still working on that,” Jackson said, “I’ll keep you posted through.”
*****
It was another tense easy at Safie as the market was again on the rise and a lot of the traders were having a good day. It was a happy coincidence that Keisha had called a ‘casual Friday’ and she was lounging in her desk in a pair of tan slacks and a fitted gold and black blouse.
While shifting another file into a ‘completed’ pile her landline rang and she picked it up. “Hello?”
“Hi Keisha,” Lila smiled, “Good to hear that smile in your voice, I have Mr. Dubois again on the line, should I patch him through?”
It took a lot of manpower for the young woman to not roll her eyes but sighed, “Sure, go ahead.”
“Alright then,” Lila replied, “Hold on.”
Leaning back into her chair Keisha twirled the cord of the phone around a finger until Etienne came on the line.
“Bonjour Keisha,” Etienne’s voice slithered through the line like smooth silk, “I called to tell you that I really appreciate what happened between us yesterday.”
“Nothing really happened, Etienne,” Keisha replied slowly, “We only had lunch.”
“Hm,” Etienne replied, “But it was much more than that wasn’t it? I think we really connected.”
In truth, they actually had but she wasn’t going to make him any the wiser. “You think so huh?
“Yes,” Etienne replied, “You can’t deny it Keisha; I saw it all in your beautiful and spellbinding eyes. You felt the flame restart as much as I did whenever we touched. I know I got across to you with those pictures. I wasn't lying Keisha; they were some of the best moment of my life.”
Keisha’s eyes dimmed, it was true but damn it, she would die before she verbally admitted it.
“Once, you were my best friend, love, once were so close that we knew the other in and out and when we did touch it was like a living and roaring fire, don’t you remember that?” Etienne continued smoothly. “Do you remember that time I pushed your boundaries and we had sex in the Red Rouge’s restaurant’s bathroom?”
The memory of her pressed against the cool leather seat in the upscale French restaurant in the heart of the Old Quarter came back to her like a flash flood.
She remembered the click of the door as Etienne had closed it and then his warm hands sliding under her skirt. She remembered him whispering dirty Cajun nothings in her ear as he slid her thong down and she remembered burying her head in his shoulder as he slowly breached her.
Unconsciously her breathing had sped up to the delight of the man on the other end of the phone.
Etienne only continued, “And how we would play at home with creams and oils and toys, do you remember that, Cherie.”
A shudder ran through her just as her conscious mind surged, if she wasn't careful she would slip right back into his trap. Getting her senses in order Kiesha cleared her throat that had steadily grown blocked up by the residual memories.
“Etienne,” Keisha said slowly, “I am not your Cherie anymore and this, a recount of our past has nothing to do with us now…"
Her words were steady but the memories were playing behind her eyes like a real action film.
“That’s dead and gone; I know you realize that.”
“I do,” Etienne replied even though Keisha detected deep smugness in his tone, “And I’m sorry for bringing up the past.”
“Are you really?” Keisha replied blandly only to hear him laugh.
"You caught me," Etienne replied, "It's just…hearing your voice just makes me remember how good we were together."
‘And the pain I suffered too,’ Keisha thought.
Even though the pain was there the good memories were steadily overcoming them and that just wasn't right. Keisha knew she had to cut this off if she valued her sanity.
“That’s good and all Etienne, but do you have a point?” Keisha replied making sure to shuffle some papers, “I have work to do, remember?”
“Oh, je suis désolé," Etienne replied, "I didn't intend to keep you, but thank you for indulging me."
"Goodbye Etienne," Keisha said tightly as he uttered the same.
Putting the handle in the cradle, Keisha sat back and pressed her palms to her eyes, “God,
what the hell am I doing? Why am I allowing Etienne back into my life when I tried so hard to shut him out?”
A long moment of soul searching took her over and when she had gone through every emotion she still couldn’t come to a conclusion. Pushing herself away from the desk she took up another file. She knew that pushing her problems away with work was only a temporary respite; all of them would come back to her harder when she was alone; but it something she was willing to use.
*****
She was curled on her couch at six with some news program on when a knock was on her door.
Curious she put the TV on mute and stood up to open the door. Before grasping the doorknob, she pushed the long sleeves of her shirt up a bit and ran her hand over her French braid.
After a look through the peephole, she grinned and typed in the security system key and leaned on the doorjamb with her arms clad in an overlarge shirt and her tiny blue shorts she smiled at Hunter who was standing less than a foot away. Hanging from one of his hand was a plastic bag with a few containers.
“Returning a favor,” Hunter said lifting the bag up,
“My, my,” Keisha grinned, “I guess your mama’s teaching stuck somehow.”
“It never left,” Hunter replied, “So, may I come in or do I have to wait for Etienne to leave.”
Keisha rolled her eyes and stepped back, “He’s not here and he will never be here. And here I thought he was the one playing bulldog.”
“Oh, he was,” Hunter replied while moving to her kitchen, “But more of a peacock Chihuahua style bulldog.”
“And then he had the gall to call me and tell me to not ‘hang around you.” Keisha said while following him, “Said that you were stripping me with your eyes. He was all righteously angry about it too. Sounded like he was about to bust a blood vessel.”
A low laugh came from emerald eyes cop, “I suppose if I knew I’ve done more than that, he’d probably have a heart attack.”
