by Belle, Jove
She felt Hollis behind her a split second before warm breath hit her ear. Jude’s muscles tightened and she sat up straighter, but she kept her eyes facing forward. There was a reason Hollis chose to approach her this way, and Jude wasn’t about to challenge her on it at this point.
Hollis stayed there, crouching behind Jude’s chair with her face pressed close for several moments. Jude felt the unmistakable trace of fingers against her skin, dancing along her neck between the loose tendrils of hair that escaped her ponytail.
“I want you in my office.” Hollis whispered into Jude’s ear, low enough that Jude could barely hear it, let alone her classmates. But she definitely felt it. “After class.”
Jude managed a stilted nod and then Hollis was gone. Jude sucked in a breath, and her heart started beating a punishing rhythm.
Holy fuck. She’d been summoned straight to hell, she was sure of it, and she couldn’t wait to get there.
*
“I am so glad that is over.” Reeva was a tad dramatic with her excitement. It was only a video, for Christ’s sake.
“Mmm.” Jude kept her answer noncommittal. She was still operating under the premise that she and Reeva needed to get along to some degree
“A bunch of us are going to grab a drink in the cafeteria. You want to join us?” Reeva asked with such open-faced interest Jude wanted to forgive her for being squeamish.
“Rain check? I have something I need to take care of.” Jude almost wished she could join them. Not because she particularly enjoyed the company of twenty-somethings. Comparatively, they were babies. But she did like the idea of forming some alliances. Police work had taught her many important lessons about life, not the least of which was to make allies carefully and quickly when isolated without her regular backup.
“Sure. Come by when you’re done. Maybe we’ll still be there?” Reeva smiled like she was flirting with a boy, and Jude wondered if it was intentional.
“Maybe.” Jude slipped on her sunglasses and headed off in the other direction.
The office was easy to find, listed on the directory along with countless other Special Agent so-and-so instructors. Her entire name was printed on the nameplate next to the door. Special Agent Beverly Hollis. Jude smiled. Now she knew the instructor’s first name, a name she planned to be moaning later, whether under her own efforts or with help from the challenging Agent Hollis.
She knocked, but there was no answer. She tried the doorknob and the door opened easily. Hollis said she wanted Jude in her office, so Jude took the liberty of showing herself inside. The office was small by any account, but certainly larger than the space her desk took up in the bullpen of the homicide department. Still, she would use the size against Hollis if it promised to be fruitful. She didn’t have a good-enough read on her to know what her tastes were. She guessed, based on Hollis’s tone, her forward way of looking and touching without permission, that Hollis was a dominant. But she’d been wrong about that too many times in the past. She’d learned to be patient, to let a woman show her what she wanted.
She had a choice between a plush leather couch along one wall or a straight-backed wooden chair. It was simple, utilitarian, and placed Jude center stage when Hollis entered the room. There was no contest. Jude selected the chair.
She sat, back to the door, spine rigid, palms flat against her thighs. With her feet squarely on the floor and her body weight evenly distributed, it was easily one of the most comfortable positions Jude had been made to wait in. She relaxed into the posture and took a deep breath. She’d learned the easiest way to survive the boredom was to not allow it to set in. First she found a focal point—the nameplate on Hollis’s desk—and then focused on her breathing, on keeping it deep, even, and well regulated. She let her thoughts roam, but not her eyes. She kept her attention facing forward as she let her mind wander.
The small window behind Hollis’s desk had horizontal blinds that had been raised to the top, letting the afternoon sunshine and light the room. As the sun began to set, the light in the room dimmed. Jude hadn’t turned on the light when she entered. It was fully dark when she heard the door handle engage.
A soft snick and the room filled with light. Jude blinked for a moment to let her eyes adjust.
“You waited.” Hollis’s voice adopted a warm, honeyed sweetness.
“Of course.”
The door clicked shut behind her, and then Hollis entered Jude’s line of vision. She closed the blinds before turning to face Jude. “I’m pleased.”
She still wore the same FBI-issued slacks and shirt. She carried the jacket in her hand and slipped it over the back of her ergonomic office chair. It looked decidedly more comfortable than the one Jude was seated on.
“Do you know why I asked you to come here?” Hollis circled the desk and perched against the corner, her ankles crossed, hands resting on the edge of the desk. She tapped her index finger against the polished wood surface as she regarded Jude.
Jude nodded. She was absolutely certain why she’d been summoned and then left to wait. And the prospect of it made her light-headed and giddy. She loved this stage of a new encounter, one where boundaries were tested and established.
Hollis raised her eyebrow. “Well?”
“You wanted to see if I would come.” Jude chose her words carefully. She wanted to say everything, but not too much. Similar to Hollis. I want you in my office.
Hollis nodded, the fingernail tap-tap-tapping. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
It was clear at this point that Hollis liked words. She wanted Jude responsive and vocal. She’d watch carefully to see when that leeway ended.
“And you left me here as a test, to see if I would wait.”
Hollis smirked then, her lips raised without fully committing. “And you did.”
“I did.” Jude relaxed into the chair, the first time in the hours she’d been there. Yes, she was pushing, but that was the fun of it. “I’m hoping it was worth it.”
Silence grew between them as Hollis stared at her without speaking, the smirk softening. Finally, she pulled away from her perch and circled back around. She took a seat, opened a file, and slipped on a pair of reading glasses. They made her look smart. And sexy.
“You’re forty-two?” She said it like a question even though she was no doubt looking at the answer on the piece of paper in front of her.
Jude decided to play along. “I am. How old are you?”
Hollis glanced at her while still studying the file. It was an impressive trick. “Forty-six.”
She was in damn good shape. Jude approved of her workout routine, whatever it was.
Hollis continued. “You do not report to me. Outside of this training session, I have no influence over your future or your career. Do you agree?”
“Sure.” Jude sat up and leaned closer to Hollis. Things were getting interesting.
“I want to be very clear about that before we go any further. Please say it.” Hollis engaged her “I’m in charge” voice and Jude snapped perfectly upright. No more relaxing back or pushing forward. It was a matter of reflex, and until she was told otherwise, she had no choice but to follow her training. At this point it was engrained in her at a cellular level.
“You do not have the power to ruin my career.” Her sodden underwear and her sanity in that moment? Absolutely. Her future as a detective with the Portland Police Department? Not in danger at all. Jude didn’t point out that Hollis was the only one at risk in this scenario.
Hollis nodded and closed the file. She removed her glasses but didn’t return them to her desk. She held them in her hand like an accessory, using them to gesture when appropriate, occasionally chewing on the stem that made her teeth flash white in a way that drew Jude even tighter in her seat. At forty-two fucking years old, Jude Lassiter was officially hot for the teacher. God.
“Tell me, Jude. Why do you think I asked you to my office?” Hollis chose her words too carefully and Jude smiled in spite of herself. She’d already given
this woman too many little acts of disobedience to use against her. She didn’t need to add fuel to the fire.
“You didn’t ask.” Despite her self-preservation instinct, Jude poked at Hollis once again.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You said I want you in my office. I took the order at face value. You want me. In your office.” She left a long, pregnant pause between the first and second half of that sentence. “And I very much like the idea. So here I am.”
“And here you are.” Hollis echoed Jude, her eyes growing darker with every passing moment. Still she didn’t move. Jude had made it very clear that she understood. And that she was willing. She would continue to wait until Hollis was ready for the next move.
Finally, after staring at Jude with those dark, probing eyes for so long Jude was certain she’d leave a wet spot on the chair when she stood, Hollis spoke again. “Do you have a safe word?”
“Of course.” Jude was a little insulted. Even experimenting college students had a safe word. And she’d made it pretty damn clear that she was well beyond amateur status. She might have let her irritation show in her tone of voice.
Hollis raised an eyebrow, perfectly manicured and arched without interrupting the flow of her face. Her skin was flawless and beautiful, and her eyes flashed hot and cruel. A lesser person would have squirmed in her seat, but Jude sat fast.
“Would you care to share it with me?”
Oh, yes, she very much would. “Strawberry jam.”
Hollis folded her glasses and returned them to the case in her desk drawer. She moved with controlled precision, every gesture economized and flowing into the desk, like office tai chi.
“Strawberry jam?” Hollis nodded as she said the word, her face tilted, contemplating the worthiness of a word chosen so long ago that Jude rarely thought of the circumstances anymore. It’d seemed poetic and ironic at the time. Now it just seemed functional. Like every other part of her training, it was ingrained. She would not forget, no matter how much Hollis might try to break her.
Hollis moved to Jude’s side and leaned over her, her stature comforting and intimidating and commanding. Jude’s breath hitched when she felt Hollis’s fingers caress the length of her cheek, then dip inside her collar to graze the smooth skin of her upper chest. She spoke directly into Jude’s ear, her voice low and dangerous. “Good. I’m going to make sure you need it.”
Chapter Two
Jude slept for shit. It was a strange bed, in a tiny, strange room with a roommate she didn’t know. Reeva, for all her awkward charm and beauty, had a respiratory problem that made her lungs work fine most of the time, but then they’d stop at random intervals while she slept. As a result, she had a machine to make sure she stayed alive through the night, and it made her sound like Darth Vader.
And really, she could have slept through all of that if Hollis hadn’t been such a fucking tease and left her with the biggest case of blue balls ever. Hollis had promised to push Jude to breaking, and then she’d left. That was it. Jude was flooded with arousal, her panties embarrassingly wet, and Hollis had simply walked away with a command that Jude wasn’t allowed to take the edge off herself.
It was a test. And Jude hated tests, especially this one. No matter what she did, Hollis won and Jude lost. Except she didn’t. If Jude jerked off, Hollis would know. Of that, Jude was absolutely certain. She probably had some heightened sense of smell and could detect self-induced come on a woman’s fingers. And she would definitely punish Jude for disobeying.
If Jude waited—which was what she chose to do—she got to sport an over-sensitized clit with no idea when Hollis would take mercy and bring her off. Either way, Hollis got off on the control and Jude’s discomfort. Fucking manipulative Dom.
She’d squirmed in bed, rubbing her thighs together miserably and cursing Hollis. Not that she could have done anything about it anyway, with Reeva and her mechanical lung four feet away, but being told she couldn’t made her want it that much more.
After a quick shower, she and Reeva made their way to the cafeteria together. Jude was barely awake and stumbling, and Reeva was far too awake and chipper. If the girl asked her one more question before she found the coffee machine, Jude would honest to God choke her to death with the plastic tubing that led from her breathing machine to the mask she wore on her face as she slept at night.
“What’s it like to be a detective?” Reeva asked with bright-eyed curiosity. “Have you ever shot anyone?”
Jude squeezed the bridge of her nose tight between her fingers. God help her.
“How is it possible that you actually work for the FBI?” How this absurdly naive girl from fucking Topeka managed to land a career with the FBI was a mystery to Jude.
“Oh.” Reeva paused for a moment. “They recruited me.”
“Of course they did.” She didn’t even want to know why.
They arrived at the dining hall and Jude could smell coffee, but she couldn’t actually see it. Except, of course, in the hands of other people. It seemed everyone but her had a paper cup filled to the brim with glorious black coffee. And Reeva chose that moment, the one time Jude needed her all morning, to disappear. Fuck. She was on her own to find the coffee.
Reeva returned before Jude could truly orient herself and pressed a cup into Jude’s hands. “You look like you need this.”
“Oh my God, I love you.”
Jude took her coffee hot and black. Beyond that, she didn’t care about the particulars, and the cup Reeva brought her was perfect.
Reeva smiled at Jude, all open and confident like Jude had no choice but to like her. As she gulped black coffee, Jude could almost agree.
“Want me to show you around?”
Jude nodded. She needed more than coffee to fill her stomach and help her make it through to lunch.
“Good morning.” Hollis’s smooth voice registered at a visceral level long before Jude realized that the woman walking past with a filled tray was their instructor. Her spine straightened reflexively. She was too tired, too unprepared to stop the reaction before it happened.
Reeva didn’t notice, but Hollis did. She smirked at Jude and continued to a table filled with other instructors. She sat too close to a cute blonde, who was almost as bubbly as Reeva, and Jude choked down the rising bile in her stomach. Hollis winked wickedly and took a loud, crunching bite of an apple, then casually draped her arm over the back of the other woman’s chair, brushing her shoulders with her fingers as she did. The woman smiled at Hollis, then went back to her bowl of oatmeal and her conversation.
Reeva grabbed Jude’s arm, and coffee sloshed over the rim and burned her skin.
“Come on, it’s this way.”
Jude shook the coffee from her fingers and dutifully followed Reeva with only a mumbled “Shit!” as admonishment. She glanced over her shoulder at Hollis one last time to discover that Hollis was no longer paying her any attention. She was fully engaged in the conversation at her table, leaning forward and speaking with great passion.
Reeva led Jude through the options with too much ease for a person who’d only arrived the day before. Jude selected a simple protein smoothie. It was easy to consume and even easier to digest. The less she had to think right now, the better.
They joined a group of their classmates at a table on the other side of the dining room, too far away for Jude to truly see Hollis, but close enough to track her outline. She felt like a stalker.
“Tell me why they recruited you?” Jude asked after she’d finished her first cup of coffee and started on her second. She felt a little more human after her initial intake of caffeine and therefore more willing to try at playing nice.
“Because I remember things.” Reeva added jam to her toast from a small square packet, the kind that was always too much for one piece, but never enough for two. “Well, everything, really. I remember everything.” She said it with the same uncertain cadence that she’d used for every communication so far, and Jude found it both endearing and an
noying.
“Don’t be late for class.” Once again Hollis snuck into their conversation before Jude realized she was coming. She smiled directly at Jude with too many teeth and I dare you in her eyes. It was terrifying and yet Jude was irresistibly tempted. She definitely would dare.
“What happened to you yesterday?” A man whose name Jude couldn’t remember asked the question.
Jude watched Hollis walk away until she rounded a corner and dropped out of sight. Then she turned to the group and shrugged. “I had a few things to take care of.” She wasn’t about to tell them what she’d really been up to.
“I was worried. Special Agent Hollis looked like she was ready to kill you when you argued with her.” Same guy again. He regarded her like he knew something she didn’t. Too bad he wasn’t interesting enough for her to care.
“I didn’t notice.” Jude sipped her coffee.
“Seriously?” Reeva gaped at her. “She was livid. And when she walked over to you during the movie, I about shit. I’m glad I’m not you.”
Jude snorted. “What do you think she’s going to do?” Jude was certain that with all of Reeva’s goofy, Bambi-like sweetness, the worst she could think of wouldn’t even come close to the truth.
“I don’t know. Fail you?”
Jude switched to her smoothie. She had too much caffeine in her stomach without a buffer, and she’d pay for it if she didn’t change that soon. “This isn’t high school, Reeva. I’m not being graded.”
Everyone stopped eating and stared at her.
“You’re not?”
“You are?” Jude looked closely at her classmates. They all wore identical FBI-issue T-shirts with the agency emblem on the front right. “Oh, shit. You are? Am I the only person here who doesn’t work for the FBI?”
“At this table, yes. In the class, no,” Reeva said.
“You’d know that if you’d arrived the first day with the rest of us.” Suddenly, Jude was very interested in knowing this man’s name.
