Quid Pro Quo

by Sherryl Hancock

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “At ease, Temple,” Kathy said, waving her hand airily.

  Kai assumed a more relaxed position but continued to stare straight ahead, even when the new colonel stood up and walked around to sit on her desk in front of her.

  “How’d you make lieutenant colonel inside of nine years, Temple?” Kathy asked derisively. “You fuck your way there?”

  Kai’s gaze flickered as her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “No, ma’am.”

  “But it pisses you off that I think you did,” Kathy said, seeing the slight change in Kai’s attitude.

  Kai inclined her head slightly.

  “I’ve put fifteen years in to make colonel,” Kathy said, “and I did fuck someone to get here. She was worth every second, but…” She let her voice trail off as Kai’s eyes widened at such confidence being shared so casually.

  Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was very firmly in place in the military, and the idea of her commanding officer flat out telling her that she had had sex with a woman to get her position was insane.

  “Is that shock or excitement, Temple?” Kathy asked, moving to stand very close to Kai, staring up at her.

  Kai dropped her dark eyes to look down at Kathy. “Shock, ma’am.”

  “Why? Because you heard I was married to a man? Or because I just told you I fucked a woman?”

  Kai didn’t respond. Instead she refocused her eyes on a point on the wall behind Kathy.

  Kathy started to grin. She knew a butch lesbian when she set eyes on one, and this one was incredibly hot. She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d fucked someone to get her position. She had—she’d even married the son of a bitch to cement the deal. She’d also fucked women, and she’d found she liked that much better. It was a new challenge, and Kathy loved a challenge.

  She’d read Kai Temple’s file, and it was indeed impressive. The picture of the woman had made her hot, so she’d known she needed to meet with her and see if she could get to her. She could see now that Kai was definitely a Marine through and through. So she decided that the very appropriate Kai Temple was her new mission; it would make this time in the desert worthwhile. One way or the other, she’d get the very “Marine’s Marine”—as Kai had been referred to by her previous commander—to bend her over this very desk and fuck her. Just the idea of it had Kathy dismissing Kai and going into her private bathroom to take care of that ache, thinking of her the entire time.

  “So are you interested in meeting some of my friends?” Kai asked when the silence had stretched too long.

  Cassiana smiled. “Um, sure.”

  “I need to go down to the gym I’m looking into buying into, and a lot of the people I hang out with these days are usually there.” She winked at Cassiana. “You can meet Remington LaRoché in person.”

  “That would be awesome!”

  “Okay, be ready to leave here in about an hour and a half,” Kai said, getting up and stretching.

  Cassiana stared up at her big sister and couldn’t help but admire the way she looked. There was something very powerful and exotic about Kai Marou Temple. She was someone people noticed wherever she went.

  Finley was busy trying to keep up with Natalia’s latest routine when movement to her right caught her eye. She was used to all the “bois” standing off to the side near the half-wall of the studio to watch their wives or girlfriends dance. Those were the ones that hadn’t joined Remington’s group doing the MMA fight-style training in the studio’s other room. Finley glanced over and saw the dark-haired, strongly built woman she’d seen at The Club the last time Memphis had DJed. It had been a month since then.

  She watched as the woman walked over to Dakota, extending her hand and introducing a young girl to her. The woman looked over to the dance floor then, her eyes searching; they found Jazmine, who was dancing just in front of Finley. A smile lit the woman’s face and Finley saw Jazmine wave to her. The woman had a killer smile, Finley noted. She jumped when Natalia walked past her, swatting her playfully on the ass to tell her to pay attention.

  Finley glanced back at the dark-haired woman and noted that she was now looking at her with a grin on her lips. Their stares connected for a second, and the woman rolled her eyes and shook her head. Finley laughed. Natalia was well known for her feisty little attitude, and apparently the dark-haired stranger had seen the swat she’d received and found it funny too.

  “Cass, this is Dakota,” Kai said, nodding at Dakota as they shook hands. “Dakota, this is my little sister, Cassiana. Dakota, her girl Jazmine, Natalia—the instructor over there—and her girl, Raine, own the building.”

  Dakota looked surprised even as she extended her hand to Cassiana, who took it, smiling.

  “I didn’t know you had a sister,” Dakota said to Kai.

  “Well, she’s usually in DC with our father and my mother,” Kai said, grinning as Remington and Quinn walked up.

  “Sa a se ki?” Remington asked, looking at Cassiana.

  “My sister,” Kai said, having understood Remington’s Creole. “She asked who you are,” she told Cassiana, seeing her sister’s blank look. “Remi forgets that not everyone speaks Creole.”

  “If she had her way, we all would,” Quinn said, extending her hand to Cassiana. “I’m Quinn.”

  Cassiana’s eyes widened. She’d seen the news stories on Quinn and Xandy a couple of years before, when Quinn had lifted part of a roof up off Xandy’s baby cousin. She was amazed she was meeting these people.

  “It’s really great to meet you,” she said. “Remington, I saw that fight with Akasha Salt—you were really amazing.”

  Remington inclined her head. “Mèsi.”

  “That means thank you,” Cassiana said, smiling. “Creole is a lot like French, isn’t it?”

  Remington looked impressed. “It has its basis in French, yes.”

  Cassiana bit her lip, smiling.

  Some of the others in the group walked over then, having seen Kai.

  “Cass, this is Jet,” Kai said, pointing to a woman with black hair and really beautiful light blue eyes; she was attractive in a very hot butch way.

  Cassiana could only nod, too dazzled by Jet’s looks to form an actual sentence.

  “And this is Cody,” Kai said, pointing to another butch girl who had white-blonde hair.

  Cody was cute too, Cassiana thought—they sure didn’t make ugly lesbians in Los Angeles! “Hi,” she said, smiling shyly.

  “And this is Jericho.” Kai pointed to a woman about an inch taller than Kai with long black hair and bright blue eyes. She had a very exotic look, different than Kai’s, but she was definitely a very hot-looking butch too.

  “Jericho is a very cool name,” Cassiana said. “Where are you from?”

  “Iran,” Jericho said, her pronunciation very clearly the proper one.

  “Iran,” Cassiana repeated, doing her best to get the intonation. “Is that the right way to say it?”

  Jericho smiled. “It is.”

  “So most people say it wrong?”

  “They do,” Jericho said, nodding.

  Cassiana smiled. “Rude.”

  Jericho chuckled; it was a deep, rumbling sound. Cassiana decided she liked her right away.

  “Jericho is the director for the Division of Law Enforcement at the Department of Justice. And someone I have a meeting with this week,” Kai said, grinning.

  “For what?” Cassiana asked.

  Kai waggled her eyebrows. “Oh, some crazy idea I have.”

  “Is this the idea about the dogs?” Cody asked, having heard about it from the law enforcement liaison Kai had been with a month before when the Rottweiler had gotten loose.

  “Yeah,” Kai said.

  Cody nodded, looking happy, and glanced at Jericho. “It’s a really good idea.”

  “Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” Jericho said, smiling.

  “Cass, this is Rayden,” Kai said then, gesturing to another tall woman with long black hair and features that
very definitely looked American Indian.

  “Are you Native American?” Cassiana asked.

  “I am,” Rayden said with a grin. “I’m Cherokee.”

  “Wow,” Cassiana said, widening her eyes. “That’s really cool. I’m so many things I don’t even know what all…” She let her voice trail off as she shook her head.

  “And this is Sebastian and Kashena Windwalker-Marshal—she’s American Indian too,” Kai said, smiling at a blonde woman with deep blue eyes.

  “I’m only half,” Kashena said. “But my wife—Sierra, out there at the end in the pink—is full blood.”

  “And I’m not Indian at all,” Sebastian said with a grin, his stormy green eyes twinkling with humor.

  Cassiana laughed.

  “And that’s Memphis over there,” Kai said, and glanced at Remington. “What’s she doing?”

  “Grabbing Nat’s playlist,” Remington said. “Nat wants her to do some mixes for her, to ‘spice things up.’” She said the last with air quotes.

  Kai’s eyes trailed out to the floor where the women were currently doing a routine that involved a lot of rather seductive hip movements. “Things need to be spicier?”

  “I think Nat’s trying to kill us bois,” Jet said, grinning.

  “Good possibility,” Cody said.

  “Of it killing us, or of that being what she’s trying to do?” Quinn asked.

  “Both,” Cody said with an engaging smile.

  “I think it’s her way of telling us to stop watching and get to work,” Tyler said from behind the group.

  “Hey, Tyler,” Kai said, nodding to the other woman. “You on this morning?” She’d noted that Tyler was wearing her Air Force BDUs.

  “Just getting off, actually,” Tyler said, rolling her eyes. “They’re makin’ me nuts with this election bullshit.”

  “It’s affecting you guys?” Rayden asked.

  “Yeah, the whole security issue for LAX, they’ve got us manning areas. It’s a nightmare, trust me.”

  “Sorry,” Kai said, shaking her head. “Tyler, this is my sister, Cassiana.”

  “Good to meet you,” Tyler said, smiling.

  “You’re in the Air Force?” Cassiana asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “And a major,” Kai said, recognizing the gold oak leaf on Tyler’s collar. “That’s new, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Tyler grinned. “They’re worried I’ll quit.”

  “Probably ’cause you threatened to last year,” Jet pointed out.

  “True,” Tyler said, her blue eyes sparkling.

  “You were going to quit?” Jericho asked, sounding surprised.

  “When I just about lost Shenin because I wasn’t able to be here in LA, yeah,” Tyler said, looking emotional.

  Jet clapped her hand on Tyler’s shoulder. It had been a rough time for all for them. Shenin, Tyler’s wife, had tried to kill herself, and Jet had almost been killed in a helicopter accident.

  Cassiana watched the two, glancing at Kai a couple of times. She noticed that Kai looked pained. She was ever empathetic with how the military could ruin relationships.

  When the class ended, Jazmine and Natalia came over while the bois said their quick goodbyes and went to claim their girls.

  “She hasn’t had any time to actually look at the space,” Dakota told Jazmine and Natalia.

  “I’m looking now,” Kai said, her eyes scanning the room.

  “And?” Dakota asked, her eyes sparkling.

  Kai nodded. “I like it. I’d want some changes…”

  “I can make any change you want,” Dakota said. “We can just amortize it with your lease.”

  “Yeah, about that…” Kai said. “What would you say to me paying for any changes and investing with you in this place?”

  Dakota and Jazmine glanced at each other, then over at Natalia.

  “How far in are you and Raine?” Kai asked.

  “Fifty thousand dollars,” Natalia said, her dark eyes narrowing as she tried to divine what Kai was doing.

  Kai nodded, then looked back to Dakota and Jazmine. “And you two?”

  “More—a lot more,” Dakota said, grinning.

  “So could two hundred K buy me in?”

  Dakota, Jazmine, Natalia, and Cassiana all looked stunned.

  Finally Dakota nodded. “If you want to go that deep, anywhere from fifty thousand to the two hundred would be fine too.”

  “I’ll go the two hundred. I’d like to start the adjustments sooner rather than later—I can give you fifty K in cash this week, and then the rest when we’ve finished and have agreed to a lease?”

  “There wouldn’t be a lease,” Dakota said. “You’d just share in the profit—what we’ll agree to is the percentage.”

  Kai grinned. “Okay.”

  ****

  Finley looked across at the brunette she was seeing currently. She had lovely blue eyes and an adorable shape, and she was twenty years old. Finley had met her at The Club, a place she’d been frequenting since seeing one extremely attractive dark-haired butch. The good-looking butch hadn’t been back in, but the brunette was a decent find.

  “Can we get the Osetra caviar?” Ginny asked, her eyes wide as she twirled a lock of her hair.

  “Why do you want caviar?” Finley asked.

  “Isn’t it supposed to be good?”

  “Do you even know what it is?”

  “Um…” Ginny stammered.

  “It’s fish eggs.”

  Ginny visibly paled.

  “Yeah, so you might want to stick with something you actually recognize,” Finley said, winking at the girl.

  Ginny simply giggled and opted for a fifty-dollar lobster salad.

  Finley was used to it. They figured she was a doctor so she had to be rich; that’s why someone like Ginny would want to order $160 caviar to “try” it. Her condominium only served to reinforce their thinking. They had no way of knowing that her mother had paid for two-thirds of the place. It wasn’t to say that she didn’t make decent money, but it was far less than the rich plastic surgeons people saw on TV. She knew private practice was probably the more lucrative way to go—she could train in plastic surgery or any of the other disciplines—but she liked working in the trauma unit. She felt like she was making a difference.

  During dinner Finley was regaled with Ginny’s shopping trip that afternoon. There were a lot of “OMG”s and “OMFG”s and even some “LOL”ing—at which Finley found herself wanting to explain to the child that she could actually just laugh out loud, but she didn’t really think it would help.

  “So what did you say to the clerk who’d leveled such a baseless accusation?” Finley asked.

  “I… huh?” Ginny said with the blankest look Finley had seen in a while.

  “Sorry,” Finley muttered, thinking, What was I thinking, using adults’ words on you? “I meant, what did you say to the guy who thought you stole the lipstick?”

  Ginny laughed. “Oh, I just told him to KMA and walked out of the store.”

  Finley looked back at the girl for a long moment. Ginny had already told her that the guy was old—“like, at least fifty”—so she was fairly sure Ginny’s put down had escaped him. Telling him to “kiss my ass” in an acronym that was mostly known to young people was only a way to prove his point, not hers. But why bother explaining that? She gave a fairly hollow laugh, which to Ginny meant she was hilarious.

  Later, still in The Club, Finley kept an eye open for the dark-haired butch, but she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t date butch women—never had, and never planned to start. It was like the woman was some kind of fascination for her, probably because she’d only ever seen her twice. She remembered well the nasty things the blond woman had said to her and how the dark-haired butch had responded—or failed to respond—in the blonde’s presence. It hadn’t jibed in her head. The dark-haired butch seemed much more the dominant type than the submissive, although the blonde had stated that she was her “superior.” Maybe it
was literally a domme/femme relationship.

  Regardless, Finley wanted to at least have the chance to admire the woman again. She’d almost asked Remington about her friend a few times, but knew that would just get around too quickly. Although she’d been accepted as part of the group after making the house call to check Memphis’ wounds and stitch her up, Finley didn’t trade on it or expect anything.

  There were thirty-two people in the group—thirty-one women and one man—not that they referred to themselves as “the group” in any kind of official way. And not that they were ever all at The Club at the same time, except for special occasions, like the night she’d seen the dark-haired butch for the first time at Memphis’ special spin for her friends who’d helped her and for Minnie, the owner. But they were definitely a force to be reckoned with.

  Finley found that out later that night. She’d gone down to the bathroom and was coming back up the stairs when a drunk but bigger femme came barreling down them. Finley did her best to flatten herself against the wall to avoid contact, but it didn’t work and down the two of them went. Fortunately it was only five steps, but it stunned Finley for a minute, and suddenly the other woman was hurtling insults at her for “tripping” her. Finley got to her feet, unwilling to literally lie down and take the woman’s screaming and cussing.

  Natalia, who’d been on her way to the bathroom and had seen what happened, ran to grab Remington and Quinn. They were closest, since they were keeping an eye on their girls as well as others in the group.

  “Remi, Quinn!” Natalia yelled at the top of her lungs.

  Within a minute Remington was hurrying down the stairs and moving between the femme and Finley, who had just stepped back as the other woman raised her fist to hit her.

  “I don’t think you’re going to be doing that,” Remington said, her hazel eyes narrowed at the woman.

  “Don’t fucking tell me what I’m gonna do and not gonna do, bitch,” the dark-haired woman snapped back.

  Quinn, who’d move in behind Remington and was putting Finley’s arm around her neck to help her up the stairs, looked over at the young femme.