Enticing the Enemy

by Jules Court

  She turned the corner of the stairwell quickly, only to run smack into a male chest. She didn’t have to look up to know who it was because God had a sense of humor. “Fuck me.”

  “Is that an invitation?” Cruz asked. His lips turned slightly upward at the corner.

  Was that a smile? Was the bastard amused by her? But Cruz didn’t smile. This was fact because cyborgs couldn’t smile—not in their program. Although cyborgs probably didn’t shove women up against buildings and kiss them senseless. Don’t remember that.

  “I’m not here for you.” How had she not noticed how sensual his lips were when he wasn’t flattening them into a thin disapproving line?

  Warning bells went off in her head. Her thoughts were moving into dangerous territory. Maybe retreat was the better part of valor. She gathered herself with the intention of simply walking away with a frosty smile that said she hadn’t spared him a second thought.

  But then he opened his mouth, and her good intentions evaporated.

  When the soft female body collided into him, giving a little sound of surprise, and carrying with it the faint smell of jasmine, it was a full body jolt, like being hit with a Taser. The last time he’d felt anything like that had been when he’d kissed Erin Rafferty out on the street.

  He was twisted. She disliked him and he wasn’t too fond of her either. She was rude and aggressive and she put scumbags back on the street. And he didn’t want her to walk past him.

  “So who are you here to free today? Rapist, murderer?” he asked in an immature attempt to set her off.

  Sure enough, her neck got splotchy. With that transparent skin, she couldn’t hide her reactions. “Whose rights did you violate today?” she asked. “Because if you were anything other than a tool of the status quo, more concerned with throwing bodies in jail to make themselves feel safe even as they’re creating a more unsafe world, then you wouldn’t think of me as the enemy. I’m just here to make sure you’ve done your job right. Not expediently.”

  Her nose tipped up slightly at the end. It was cute. She wrinkled it at him. “How come the only time you talk is when you’re being an ass to me? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. What we need is to set some ground rules for the next time we run into each other.”

  “Brian and Priya,” he said, stating the obvious. It looked like those two were going to last, which meant he might be running into Erin outside of the courtroom or station house more often.

  “Priya’s been an important part of my life. I never would have made it through college and into law school without her. I wasn’t exactly a good student before she taught me how to study. And, for reasons that completely escape me, she considers you a friend.”

  She painted a different picture of her past than he’d have imagined. He’d assumed that she’d been one of those high achievers who’d been picking out colleges on her first day of kindergarten.

  “We don’t need rules because nothing happened or will happen between us,” he said.

  “You conceited ass! I’m not coming on to you. What makes you think I want you?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  She flushed. “I was drunk.”

  “In vino veritas.” He grabbed her hand.

  “What?” she asked, but didn’t pull away.

  No one was in the corridor. The janitor’s closet was less than a foot away. He pulled her in after him and kicked the door shut, trapping them together in the dark. She was pressed up against his chest, and this time they had no thick winter coats between them.

  They found each other’s lips in the dark. He wasn’t sure who moved first. It might have been in unison, because this seemed to be the one thing they agreed on.

  When she pulled back for air she said, “I don’t even like you.”

  “I don’t care,” he said, unbuttoning her suit jacket.

  “I don’t do this.”

  He slid her jacket off her shoulders, letting it drop on the floor. “Yes, you do.”

  She pulled away from him and he didn’t have to see her face to register her outrage. “Are you calling me a slut?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. All I did was correct your statement. You obviously do this because we’re doing it.”

  “Not anymore.”

  The sudden light momentarily blinded him when she wrenched the door open. She marched out, head high.

  “Erin, wait.”

  “Too late. I don’t want your apology.”

  “You forgot your jacket.” He held it out, dangling it from his fingers.

  She marched back and wordlessly snatched it from him. He waited for some parting shot, but it didn’t come. She just turned on her heel and left him in the broom closet sporting a massive hard-on.

  “Dumbass,” he muttered to himself. This was not part of the routine. There was nothing safe about Erin Rafferty.

  * * *

  Back in the squad room, Brian was tapping a pencil on his desk. When Danny sat down, Brian said, apropos of nothing, “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

  He stiffened. Was this a pity invite to Brian’s family where they could pat themselves on the back for taking in poor friendless Danny?

  “You’re not going back to New York, right?”

  There was no one to go back for.

  “Priya’s kind of dreading Thanksgiving. Her family is still being dicks to her about that thing with Sara—it’s complicated. Anyway, she’s kind of upset, so I thought it would be cool to give her something to look forward to, a second Thanksgiving with friends. We can have it the Saturday after. I want you to be there. We’re kind of new friends, but you’re my partner, man, so that means you’re my family—don’t make a face, I’ll get sappy if I want to.”

  Last night he’d dreamt of making pasteles with his abuela. She showed him how to trim the plantain leaves, while she grated the vegetables and made the sofrito, the spicy cooking sauce. She’d have liked Brian even if he was a bit of a clueless white boy sometimes. What she wouldn’t approve of is the way he’d treated Erin, pawing at her in a janitor’s closet. She’d have smacked him with a wooden spoon if she’d heard he’d been so disrespectful.

  “Have you ever had a pastele?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A lot of work but completely delicious. My grandmother used to make them for the holidays.” And before that night when everything changed, his mother used to make them with her. He had the hazy memory of sitting at the table with his big brother doing homework while their mamá and abuelita spread the masa and spicy meat on banana leaves, tying them off in little bundles. Stacking them up like cords of wood. When his father came through the door, inevitably he’d wind up getting his hand smacked and ordered from the kitchen by both women for the crime of stealing pork.

  “Some sort of pastry?” Brian asked.

  Danny pulled himself back to the present. “No, they’re savory.”

  “Savory?”

  “As opposed to sweet. It describes flavors. Never mind. If you want to hold it at my place, I’ll make some. I’ll do a vegetarian batch for Priya even though my abuela wouldn’t approve.”

  “Dude, you are so weird about food.”

  “I watched a lot of Food Network while I was undercover. In between the drug deals and murders,” he said.

  It was the first time he’d joked about his time with the Latin Kings. Even though it wasn’t really a joke.

  And if he really wanted to be different now than he’d had to be when he was with the Latin Kings, then he needed to do what his abuela would want him to do. He needed to find Erin and give her a true apology. She might drive him crazy, but that was no excuse for his actions.

  “Where are you going?” Brian asked.

  To find Erin. “Bathroom. Why, you need to come with me?”

&
nbsp; Chapter Seven

  The 21st Amendment was just one step above a dive bar. But it was located next to the State House, so the clientele was anything but dive bar. Too many suits talking politics. And the State House was next to the courthouse, so the remaining customers were lawyers.

  “Dude, we’re behind enemy lines. Last time I let you pick the bar,” Brian said.

  What Danny hadn’t told Brian was that he knew Erin was going to be here tonight. He’d heard her talking to Mike Kelly, the prosecutor, when he’d gone looking for her after their aborted grope session. He’d hovered, not wanting to disturb their conversation, while she’d told Mike about some other lawyer’s promotion and how her office was going to celebrate at the 21st Amendment, which meant she didn’t have time for a conference with him that afternoon about some other case blah de da lawyer speak. He may have tuned out a bit after that because he was trying to plan what he was going to say to her. The memory of her tongue in his mouth hadn’t been helping either.

  “They have Bellhaven on tap. You’ll like it. It’s a Scottish ale.”

  “Racist. That’s like me saying you should order Dos Equis because you’re Mexican.”

  “I’m Puerto Rican, pendajo.”

  They spied prime real estate at the same time, a booth in the back of the small, dark bar with an unobstructed view of the door. There was only a tiny awkward moment when both he and Brian automatically headed for the seat with its back to the wall. After a brief hesitation, Brian waved him forward.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not as paranoid as you.”

  “I’m not paranoid, just cautious,” he said as he sat down.

  Brian sat down across from him and asked, “You ever going to tell me if those rumors are true?”

  Danny took a sip of his beer to avoid telling him to ask Erin. She’d talked to a New York prosecutor about him and, based on what she’d implied on cross, had obviously drawn the worst conclusion, that convictions hadn’t rained down from the heavens because Danny had been on the take and he’d tipped off the Latin Kings leadership. But he’d really believed Brian thought better of him. That he’d never asked because he didn’t have to—he knew Danny wasn’t dirty.

  He swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. The Feds came in and took over. It sounded weak even to himself. That after all he’d witnessed, the major players were still walking the streets. The type of cabrones responsible for taking his family from him.

  Brian charged forward. “Were you really long term undercover? You never talk about it. Although that’s not surprising, seeing as how you never talk.”

  “You talk enough for both of us.”

  “True, but that doesn’t answer the question.”

  Brian wasn’t going to let it drop this time. “Deep cover,” he finally said. “Latin Kings.”

  “How long?”

  One thousand nine hundred and twenty-three days, six hours and forty-three minutes.

  “Long enough,” he said.

  Long enough to forget himself. Long enough to lie to the people he loved. Long enough to lose himself in the violence, the rush of adrenaline, the high of a bump, drowning himself between the thighs of women he didn’t want to know, women who would never know him.

  He looked down at his hands clenched around his bottle. Beer number one of two. Never more than two. This new life had rules that the old one hadn’t. Getting to bed at reasonable hour—alone, always alone—so he could get up when his alarm clock went off at five a.m., lace up his sneakers, and go for a run along the Charles River. Eat a well-balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables, remember to floss, pick up his dry-cleaning and scrub the bathroom on Sundays. Rules and routines to hedge him back in. One slip and he knew who he would be—who he’d been.

  “They gave me a promotion,” he said. “There wasn’t an internal affairs investigation, I wasn’t fired, I was never accused of taking bribes—”

  “I know.”

  Danny took another swallow of his beer to avoid meeting Brian’s eyes. He didn’t want Brian to see the impact of his words. It was embarrassing how badly he’d needed that kind of support.

  Brian grinned. “You’re way too boring to be a bad guy.”

  * * *

  He didn’t have to lift his head to know that she’d just walked in. He could sense it in the air like a coming storm.

  She didn’t notice him in the back of the shadowy bar, giving him the freedom to simply watch her for a moment. She’d entered with two men and an older woman. Even if they hadn’t looked familiar—he’d probably seen them haunting the courthouse or run across them in the station house—he would have known right away that they were lawyers. It lay in the glossy patina of smug that coated them. Erin held herself differently. She held herself like she was going into battle, looking for threats everywhere, coiled and ready to strike back.

  She pushed her way through the crowd to the bar and smiled at the man who jumped up from his barstool, offering it to her. Poor bastard. Danny knew what was coming next. She politely waved off an offer of a drink and tilted her body toward her friends, effectively cutting the white knight out. He slinked off, drink in hand, while Erin looked like she’d already forgotten he even existed,

  Danny tamped down on the chuckle that threated to bubble out of his throat. She really was a piece of work. That guy was lucky, though. She’d have chewed him up and spit him out. A warrior like her needed a man who respected her strength, but could also match it.

  He stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Brian asked, before craning his neck to look around. “What an absolute coincidence. Erin is here,” he said sarcastically. “Off to consort with the enemy?”

  It was only a joke, but Brian wasn’t wrong. Erin was the enemy. The enemy of his self-control. She stirred up currents he was desperately trying to keep dormant. No, he only needed to give her the apology he owed her for pawing at her in the broom closet like an animal. The sooner he got this behind him, the sooner he could forget about her and transform her back into just some defense attorney with whom he occasionally crossed paths.

  Danny moved across the bar, on his way to Erin. The bun at the nape of her neck looked in danger of toppling at any moment.

  He was only a few feet away when he was pulled up short at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. A guy who screamed douche from the tips of his gelled hair to the bottoms of his wingtips said, “Trust me, buddy. You’re wasting your time.”

  Danny merely lifted an eyebrow.

  The guy pulled his hand back. “Just doing you a favor. That chick, she might look cute, but she’s crazy town.”

  Danny folded his arms across his chest.

  “I used to go out with her. We went out forever—at least a month. But when I try to seal the deal, she freaks out. We’re right in the middle of making out. I mean, pants are coming off and everything and then all of a sudden her thighs slam shut like some sort of vault. Like her pussy is some sort of national treasure.” He snorted.

  “Maybe she didn’t like you.” Danny’s voice came out level, but he had to keep his arms folded to keep from punching the guy.

  The guy shrugged. “Hey, just trying to do you a favor.”

  More like trying to cock block. Erin may have shut this asshole down, but he was obviously still trying to scare off any perceived competition.

  Danny stepped around the guy without a word. He reached out to tap Erin on the shoulder to get her attention, but hesitated. Touching her would be like deliberately setting his hand on fire. He cleared his throat instead.

  She peeled the label from her beer bottle.

  He cleared his throat again.

  Someone kept clearing his throat right in Erin’s ear. She tried to ignore it, but it was wicked annoying. She spun around with the intention of t
elling the guy to go get a cough drop, but the words died in her throat.

  Instead, what came out was an incoherent, “You.”

  Cruz smiled.

  Please don’t smile. It’s like the sun breaking through clouds. “What are you doing here?” Her question came out overly aggressive in her attempt to counterbalance the ridiculous fluttery feelings that smile stirred up.

  “I wanted to apologize for—”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Paula, her firm’s newest junior partner, watching avidly. She grabbed his sleeve. “Not here.”

  The last thing she needed was him airing her dirty, dirty laundry somewhere her coworkers could smell it. By tomorrow the entirety of the Massachusetts Bar would know she’d been messing around with a cop. In a bar full of lawyers, he stood out. The purposeful way he moved, the way he seemed to be aware of everything surrounding him, that aura of control—this guy was definitely not one of them.

  She jumped off her barstool and dragged him after her, halting when she found a shadowed corner of the bar. She dropped her hand from his arm. Touching him was dangerous. Like telling yourself you were only going to have one bite of that chocolate cake, or one puff off that cigarette. It didn’t satisfy. It only left you wanting more.

  “This isn’t going to happen again,” she said.

  He gave one of those annoying lifts of his eyebrow.

  She soldiered on. “You’re a hot piece of ass, Detective, but you’re really not my type.” Because her type was men she wouldn’t lose her head over.

  He leaned into her. “What makes you think you’re mine?”

  She was going to wipe that smug expression right off his beautiful face. She tilted her head up. They locked eyes.

  “You ever had authentic Puerto Rican pasteles?”

  She jumped back, startled by a new voice. She hadn’t even noticed Brian’s approach and from Cruz’s surprised expression, he hadn’t either.

  “What?” she asked, confused.

  “You should,” Brian said. “Got plans for the Saturday after Thanksgiving? Danny’s going to be making them. We’re having a post-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. We’re giving thanks we survived dinner with our families. Priya really wants you to come.”