by Maria Luis
Better, that was better.
“For beignets?” He settled a hand on the small of my back, directing me toward a door at the end of the hall with a red-neon EXIT sign posted above it. “I’ll be sure to get us two orders.”
One shove of his free hand against the steel and we were back out in the Quarter again, music blasting from nearby nightclubs, a hot and humid breeze tangling my hair and whipping it across my face.
I reached up to tug the strands back behind my ears, only Asher beat me to it.
Big, masculine hands framed my face and if I’d been concerned about breathing regularly beforehand, it was nothing compared to now. My lips parted as though on someone else’s command and my hair seemed to glue itself to the cushion of my bottom lip.
Asher’s hands didn’t move, but his blue gaze roved over my face.
Lust.
I wasn’t so much of a novice that I didn’t recognize the emotion swirling in his eyes, nor the way his body stiffened even as he hunched his shoulders . . . to get closer to my height? It was tough to tell.
“What are you doing?”
Such a stupid question but it formed anyway and found life in the space between us.
“I’m starved,” he said, the pads of his thumbs brushing over my jawline with an achingly soft touch. I barely had time to register the fact that it might be the softest caress I’d ever known—at least from my cognitive, adult years—before Asher added, “And not for beignets.”
My back collided with the police precinct behind me, my backpack squishing audibly at the abrupt contact, as Asher slid his hands from my face down the length of my arms to where he captured my wrists. He lifted them, and I swore my breathing grew more uneven the higher they were drawn.
Up.
Up.
Up.
Above my head they went, until my wrists were crisscrossed, and he had one hand holding them in place.
Sharply, I inhaled through my nose. I was back in that place again, torn between lifting my knee and nailing him in the balls for manhandling me like I was some throwaway toy and—my eyes squeezed shut at the truth—wanting to see where this led.
My hands jerked at the realization, and Asher only readjusted his grip and dropped his other hand to my collarbone, his fingers teasing at the collar of my shirt.
“What are you doing?” This time when I repeated the question, there was no denying that I sounded like I’d run for miles.
Naturally, Asher sounded completely composed when his firm lips parted to confess, “Kissing you.”
This is where you knee him right in the dick. Go on. Do it. Heel up, leg lifted, knee primed in position.
I didn’t do any of that.
As if my body had decided to operate on instinct alone, my hips angled to better cradle his weight against my body. It was a total betrayal—I didn’t hook up with men and I definitely never gave them the time of day, but Lincoln Asher wasn’t like most men.
He was a police sergeant, which meant I had to obey him in some capacity . . . right? Since he was an enforcer of the law, it only made sense that if he set a new rule, it was my duty as an upstanding citizen of New Orleans to see it through to the end.
Sometimes, it felt criminally good to lie to myself.
I tossed my hair back, careful not to smash my head on the stucco behind me. “If you’re so hungry,” I drawled, trying to gauge the thoughts glittering in his inscrutable blue eyes, “then why haven’t you broken your fast yet?”
His grin was lightning-quick.
It was there and then it was gone, and yet I felt warm from its second-long presence anyway.
His grip retightened on my wrists, his gaze never veering from mine. “Oh, I will,” he said, his low baritone brimming with silent conviction, “but I think I’ll start here first . . .” His fingers tugged at my shirt collar, exposing my neck.
Asher took full advantage.
He lowered his head, kept me pinned to the wall with one hand, and dragged his mouth along my skin.
I trembled under his touch—my limbs, my lips, my damn toes all shaking.
My eyes fell shut and for the first time in my life, I allowed myself to feel.
His broad chest moving against mine as he inhaled deeply.
The soft puffs of air against my skin, with every exhalation, as he gently bit down on my earlobe.
The rough callouses on his palm as they rubbed against my restrained wrists.
Nothing about Lincoln Asher was soft—except, perhaps, for his tongue.
And nothing about my locked position should have been a turn-on, but it was. Oh, it was, and when a moan broke free from between my clamped teeth, it was only to hear Asher chuckle softly, like he’d just been given entry to the one place which had always been off-limits.
His lips landed on the underside of my jaw, and I gasped at the contradiction of his roughly-stubbled cheeks as they grated and marked the soft skin of my face.
Another kiss, this one to my cheek.
And then yet another, this one to the corner of my mouth.
It was going to happen.
My fingers curled in expectation and my heart kicked into overdrive and I had a split-moment decision to make: angle my head to receive the kiss or meet him halfway?
I cursed my inexperience.
I cursed my childhood obsession with TV shows that focused more on wildlife in the Rockies than kissing.
I cursed myself for spending hours in the club, waiting while Katie tended the bar, and only imagining what it might be like to be in any pair of feminine shoes while a man worked me into a kissing frenzy.
In the end, I opted for the classic face tilt seen in every rom-com movie ever. Romantic. Unassuming. Patient.
“Open your eyes,” came his low order, “I want you to know who’s kissing you.”
My blinking didn’t coincide with a kiss.
Not even a peck.
Instead, a phone’s ringtone sliced through the air, angry and loud. Asher’s hand fell from my wrists as he stepped back, already reaching into the pocket of his uniform slacks. “Fuck,” he ground out, his face a mask I couldn’t decipher as he glanced at the name blinking across his screen. “I’ve got to take this.”
“Okay.” It was better this way, I told myself. Kissing Sergeant Lincoln Asher was wrong on so many different levels, starting with the fact that he was well-appointed within the NOPD, in a way that made me uncomfortable—and ending with the fact that I didn’t particularly like him.
Liar.
I shoved the little voice out a window and slammed the proverbial glass shut.
In a voice that I prayed sounded one-hundred percent unaffected, I murmured, “Don’t worry, I got it.”
The phone kept on with its incessant ringing.
“Avery, just wait a damn second. Don’t—”
I ducked past him, head down. “I’m going to head out.” With a wave of my hand, I gestured at his phone. “Have fun with that.”
Vibrant cursing was all I heard as I hustled away, getting lost in the crowds of the French Quarter.
This was for the best. Kissing Asher—kissing a cop—would be a disaster of epic proportions. Like the city’s politicians, half of the police force in New Orleans were as crooked as they came.
New Orleans has been corrupt since 1718, Jay used to joke while we sat at the dinner table. It’s all this city knows.
My mother would laugh, a gentle sound that always soothed me.
My stepfather would smirk.
And now, as I wound my way through throngs of people on Bourbon, my blood ran cold.
I could want Asher until the end of my days, but unless I could determine that his connections with Tabitha and the two dead men were nothing more than a coincidence, it was best that I kept far, far away from the brooding sergeant.
Something told me that that would be easier said than done.
And when I snicked my lock closed after entering the Sultan’s Palace ten minutes later, I pee
red out the peephole, just in case I wasn’t truly alone.
9
Lincoln
“Take a seat, Sergeant.”
What remained of my erection died at the sight of my lieutenant’s I-eat-small-children-for-breakfast expression when I knocked on his office door. Stefan Delery had always been a ruthless motherfucker—I’d halfway convinced myself over the years that he’d been born with a stick shoved up his ass, and everyone in the district knew better than to piss the man off.
Everyone except for me.
I lowered myself in the chair opposite his, keeping my feet evenly planted on the tiled floor as I settled in for what was indubitably going to be an ass-chewing. “I’m surprised to see you here this late at night, L-T.” I kept my tone passive when I added, “It’s got to be way past your bedtime.”
Nothing in the man’s face twitched, not even his mustache.
“How long have we known each other, Asher?”
His question came like an unexpected left hook to the face when you’re prepared for a right fist. Refusing to show my surprise, I murmured, “Are we counting the first time we met, when we were so obliterated that we rode the streetcar Uptown and back to the Quarter four times before we realized we were on a fast track to nowhere?”
Delery stared at me, his green eyes unblinking.
Christ, this wasn’t going to go well.
Scrubbing a palm over my mouth, I let out a pent-up breath. “You were my sergeant when I was first assigned out in the East. Ten years ago.”
“First night you were there a car blew up.”
Despite the years since, the memories of licking flames and torched steel teasing at my combat boots, as I rounded the explosion, still hadn’t been erased.
Feeling as though I’d just swallowed the fumes from the roasting engine, I said, “You told me to find the perp.”
“And you did.” Lines fanned out from Delery’s eyes, as much of a smile as he’d ever given since his wife had passed two years earlier. “You were that crazy fucker running into the flames with no gear on but your damn duty belt, not a worry about your safety.”
The silver lining about having nothing to live for was that taking a risk wasn’t terrifying. I had no one at home to return to, no kids to tuck into bed or a wife to press into my side as we fell asleep after a long day.
I’d been alone since birth, an unwanted child who’d been dropped in foster care at an early age.
I dropped my elbows to my knees. “Where are you going with this, Stefan?” We’d known each other for years, had worked side-by-side through some of the roughest cases of the last decade in this city. “I know you didn’t ask me to come in here past midnight so we could shoot the shit about the good old days.”
“You’ve always been a good cop because you’re fearless, Ash. You’re levelheaded. That’s the exact reason I put in a request to have you transferred here when you passed the sergeant’s test three years ago.” Delery leaned in, forearm on the desk, his closed-off expression unraveling into twitching mustaches, grinding teeth, and narrowed eyes. “I wanted that calm motherfucker who ran into the flames and then didn’t lose his goddamn shit when he caught the perp.”
Pressure built in my chest.
I needed to stay calm. Hell, I needed fresh air. The office suddenly felt stifling, even though I’d been in here dozens of times over the last three years since my transfer from New Orleans East to the French Quarter.
Hands balling into fists on my thighs, I kept the top half of my body, waist-up, completely nonchalant. I wouldn’t react. I wouldn’t lose my cool. I wouldn’t—
Delery did none of the above.
“You chose the wrong asshole to throw a fist at tonight,” he snapped, voice rising with furor. “The wrong fucking asshole.” With one hand, he shoved at a stack of manila folders off the desk, sending them soaring to the floor.
The papers scattered like confetti.
“Did you read my report? Those kids publicly assaulted two females tonight. I got physical. It happens, and I wrote it up as a use-of-force.” It was damn hard not to yell or demand understanding, but that wouldn’t help me. Not when Delery was out for blood. My blood, that much was clear. “Maybe I should have stepped aside. Let two innocent girls become victims just because I hadn’t stayed in my place.”
“You chose the son of Pershing University’s president for your little showdown.”
Just like that, every argument died on my tongue.
Every. Last. One.
“Marcus Hampton called his daddy as soon as the guys on the platoon brought him and his buddies to lockup, and no one—and I do mean no one—stood a chance once Joshua Hampton got involved.”
I knew “Big” Hampton from assignments I’d worked at Pershing’s football stadium as a rookie. Tall guy, a real bastard. He had his toes dipped in all of New Orleans’ muddy waters, particularly those that made his coffers heavier and the women on his arm more attractive. In the years since he’d taken office, no one dared challenge the president of Pershing University.
And he’d never liked me much, not after his second wife had flirted with the “hot cop” right in front of him.
Sometimes New Orleans was really just too small.
I met Delery’s gaze. “Big Hampton know it was me?”
All I was given in response was a slow nod that might as well have said you’re screwed.
Raking my fingers through my hair, I slouched down in the chair and brought my fingers up to undo the top button of my Class B’s. “What a fuckin’ night.” Which was, of course, the understatement of the century.
Delery matched my posture and did me one even better: he unpinned his badge from his chest and dropped it on the desk. My gaze latched onto the gold as it spun in a half-circle before falling flat on its back.
Symbolism if I’d ever seen one.
“He’s already had words with Harlonne.” At Delery’s mention of our police chief, I barely held back a cringe. “Big Hampton wants you out of the force, Asher. No one touches his son, least of all a dirty cop. His words, not mine.”
I was a dirtier cop than most, but no one knew that.
No one but Joshua Hampton, who now wanted my head on a platter.
It was assuredly not a great day to be me.
“So that’s that, then?” I laughed, and even to my own ears, it sounded bitter. Angry. I had every right to be. I’d invested years into the NOPD, into the politics of New Orleans, into—
I cut those thoughts short, clenching my fists on my knees and tipping my head back to stare at the popcorn-raised ceiling. If it weren’t Hampton holding the reins, there wouldn’t be an issue. But there were three men you didn’t cross in this city:
Joshua “Big” Hampton.
Jay Foley.
Jason Ambideaux.
I had the luxury of being on the shit list of two of the three “J’s” that ran ship here.
“I talked with Harlonne an hour ago,” Delery said, his voice low as though he worried someone might overhear him, “and we’re not going to get rid of your sorry ass.”
Relief sank into my limbs. “Thanks, L-T. Christ, it’s been a hell of a—”
The lieutenant’s mustache twitched as he averted his gaze. “Unfortunately, we’ve got to keep up appearances. Which means that we’re cutting you a D-1. You’re suspended, effective now.”
Suspended? Back snapping straight, I dropped a fist to the desk and leaned in. “For how long? A week? Two weeks?”
Green eyes swiveled to meet mine. “For as long as it takes for Big Hampton to calm the hell down, Sergeant. We don’t want to lose you—you’re too damn good—and the men here respect you. But there’s some shit we just can’t get around and there’s some people we don’t need breathing down our necks, you hear me?” Like a mirror image, Delery brought a balled hand down on the desk. “Hampton is one of those people, as we both know. So, you’re going to sit your ass out until shit gets quiet again, and when it looks like you aren
’t about to be ripped a new asshole because you touched the man’s kid, we’ll welcome you back with open arms and a bouquet of flowers.”
“Can we skip the flowers and go straight for the beer, at least?”
Delery’s eyes crinkled again. “That’ll have to be approved by Harlonne.” Once again, his face turned somber when he rapped his knuckles on the desk. “Give me your badge and your gun, Ash. Let’s get this over with.”
Fifteen minutes later, my feet hit the concrete steps outside of the district station, and I might as well have been stripped naked.
No badge.
No police ID.
No department-issued .40 on my hip.
For the next however long, I wasn’t Sergeant Lincoln Asher.
Just Lincoln Asher, and nothing about my suspension was a good thing.
No, I was just fucked.
10
Avery
“You need a life.”
My fingers froze on the computer keyboard at the sound of Katie’s voice. Minimizing the internet tab so that Katie couldn’t scope out anything over my shoulder, I twisted on the couch to face her. “I have a life.”
“Let me amend that,” she said, coming around the edge of the couch to take the opposite side. She sprawled out, legs tangled on the middle cushions, and nabbed a pillow to hold to her chest. “Ahem. You need to get laid.”
Like she’d pulled him out of thin air, my mind immediately brought forth a visual of Lincoln Asher. Warming at just the thought of him, I closed the laptop and set it on the coffee table. When Katie wanted to have a discussion, there was no stopping her. It seemed futile to pretend otherwise.
And, honestly, maybe I did need to talk to her—to someone—about what I felt for Asher. Which was lust, nothing more, nothing less. Just plain and simple lust.
As though sensing my indecision, Katie grinned. “My boys are willing to take care of you.”
If I’d been drinking something, I would have come up spluttering. As it was, I choked on thin air and gave myself a little shake. “I’m not—” More coughing. Wonderful. Nothing said “virgin” more than being unable to even have a conversation about sex. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “That’s great, but I’m, uh, not having sex with George and Tyler.”
