by Anthology
“And got all shitfaced here.” The bartender smirked. “Your friends left at about three. I thought they’d come back for you.”
“Asses. Every single one of them. I should know better by this point.” I ran a hand down my face and reached for my purse—only to remember I had left it in Celi’s trunk. All I had was a headache and a sweaty ten-dollar bill in my bra. That wasn’t enough to get home in a taxi. “Shit. I have to take the train.”
“I gotcha covered. We can hike it to the station, and I’ll take you home.”
Mike fucking Gianvittorio was going to drive me home? I didn’t know if I was ready for him to reenter my life. Ever. But I was stuck in Brooklyn, with no money, no friends, and no guarantee I could make it home before sundown on mass trans. “Fine. I can give you gas money when we get there.”
He waved me off. Yeah, no. I didn’t need to be in debt to this guy.
No matter how I wanted him.
The station house was a quick walk, and I waited outside. The cold, brisk air felt good, but my head was still killing me. Mike was in and out in five minutes, and we headed over to his car. He put my address in his navigation app without asking where I lived and handed me a bottle of water and packet of Tylenol.
I stared at the navigation. “You’ve known all this time?”
He sighed and put the car in gear. “I remember where I used to send flowers.”
He’d been my only ex who knew I loved hydrangea more than roses. I stared straight ahead as we wound through the dense streets of Brooklyn, up to Bushwick, and finally heading toward 95 North. It wouldn’t be a long ride today.
“Where are you living now?”
He shrugged. “Larchmont. Probably about ten minutes from you.”
“And you drive to the six-nine every day?”
He nodded.
“You’re still a sergeant?”
This time, he snorted. “Got a little derailed back there for a while. Just took my test. Could have passed that five years ago.”
I sank in the seat a bit. “Sorry.”
Looking very much like he was trying to be upset, he shook his head. A moment later he gave up the pretense. “We both fucked our lives up. I can’t blame you. And I hope you don’t blame me.”
“Shit, no, Mike. Not even remotely. I blame Dickerson and Fayne. I blame the whole fucking board of directors. If any of them had been tagging ass, they would have been high-fiving. The woman gets caught and—”
“Tagging ass?”
“Fayne wouldn’t know how to treat a woman as anything but tagged ass.” I leaned my painful, tired, throbbing head back between the headrest and door. Mike Gianvittorio. My Mike. Michael. The man who called me Esmy and held my hand. Sent me flowers. Took me to Shakespeare in the Park, and the Hamptons. The man who had dreams of running up the police ladder and making an impact on the community.
The man I should have never been seeing. The man who still—eight years after our academic probations and suspensions, after our last glance at each other in the halls of NYU—haunted me.
She was still fucking beautiful.
My Esmy. Esmerelda Santos. History of Change, NYU. Just two years older than me, and a doctoral candidate teaching in her field. My junior year, spring semester. I walked into her class, and those deep brown eyes stole my soul.
“Do you ever regret what we…” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to broach this. She was everything I wanted then. It never ever occurred to me that we were risking her job and my degree. Right up to the end, I thought we would be exonerated for just being in love.
“Eight years, Michael. We have different lives now.”
My name on her lips. Shit. Instant hard-on. Eight years or not.
We were quiet for a few miles. The silence sucked. I didn’t want it to be quiet in the car since this was probably the only time I’d ever have a chance to talk to her. “What happened?”
“We were kicked out of NYU for fraternizing.”
“Jesus. No, that’s not what I meant.” I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s too damn early in the morning. What have you been up to?”
Heaving a breath, she peeked at me from where she had tucked her head against the glass. “After a few months of drifting, I finally went back. I got into the SUNY system, and I’ve been there ever since. Stony Brook for my degree, and I bounce around to different campuses. Though I usually teach a communications class at Downstate Medical. Doctors aren’t always the best at conveying things delicately.”
That was her. That was Esmerelda. She had a wonderful way of telling people the worst news. Like how she told me that Fayne and Dickerson had seen us together. I really hadn’t realized...I shook my head. “Boyfriend? Husband? Kids?”
“None of the above. Hell, after tonight, I’m not even sure I have friends anymore.”
“You’re...you’re not seeing anyone?”
“I haven’t dated more than a few times since we were kicked out.” She put a hand over her eyes, closing out the sun again. “You were a hard act to follow.” Sighing, Esmerelda settled back into her seat. “And you, Sarge? Wife, kids?”
“Nothing. Me and the dog. Oh, and the betta fish on my desk.”
She raised her head. “What? The hot commodity that was Mike Gianvittorio isn’t married? No one good enough for you?” There was a snicker and acknowledgment of the jackass I was before I met her.
“No one but you.” True story. I’d never gotten over her. Everyone I dated I compared to her. It wasn’t even like I was subtle about it, either, and most of the women got sick of me pining for someone I was never going to be able to have. “Did you get your doctorate?”
“Oh? Um. Yes. I did. I do some post doc research. I sit on some committees, too. Are you going for detective?”
I nodded. “I made the incredibly stupid mistake of taking the exam before the holidays. I won’t see the results for another two weeks. Killing me.”
We fell into silence again. Nine miles down.
Twenty-six to go.
He rolled the car to a stop in front of my house.
What the hell did I do? Did I climb out, say good night, and never see him again? Did I ask for his number? His address? We’d been so broken by what was done to us, we’d walked away from each other that day and hadn’t spoken in eight very long, very lonely years. We’d been two stupid kids. That was all. And the board had rained hell down on us for falling in love at a time they deemed inappropriate.
“Come in for coffee?” I asked, finally rousing from where I’d stuck my head between the cool class and the headrest. “If you’re not due anywhere. It’s the least I can do. I need some anyway before I call Celina and ring her neck.”
“Got a key? I was assuming you were locked out.”
“I bought a fake rock and buried one by the back door. Being locked out once was enough.”
Laughing lightly, Mike put the car in park. That laugh was still enough to send shivers down my spine and make me want to just rip his clothes off. “Yeah. Coffee is good.”
I climbed out and headed for the backdoor. Why was I doing this to myself? It was probably better to just never see him again. But no. I was opening the door and inviting him in my tiny little kitchen for coffee.
He’d known where I was all this time. And never tried to see me.
“Nice.” He nodded his approval as his massive, toned body filled the space. Cop uniforms. Shit, what they did to a woman.
“I’m going to go wash up quickly.” I pointed down the hall. “Give me five? Feel free to look around.”
I trotted down the hall, relieving myself of his presence. He overwhelmed me. He always had, and not just his physical presence. Mike was smart, sweet, sexy, curious, open, generous, ambitious…and once upon a time, completely in love with me.
I pushed all the memories crowding in out of my head and washed the bar crap off my face. Pulling my hair back, I also opted to change my nasty clothes that smelled like Times Square, cigarettes, and putrid boo
ze. Yoga pants and sweatshirt it was.
Halfway back to the kitchen, I smelled coffee. It was a magnificent aroma, and Mike was standing by the counter where the drip maker was percolating. “Hope you don’t mind. You looked like you’d use it sooner rather than later.”
“Good guess.” Nodding back the way I had come, I offered the bathroom. “Feel free. It was a long ride and a longer night.”
He wandered down the hall, a ‘thanks’ drifting over his shoulder. I futzed and putzed around the kitchen, pulling out sugar and milk and putting them on the table.
Just knowing the man to whom no other had ever measured up was down the hall made my body hum. Traitorous body.
God, how we’d fucked this up. I didn’t mean to fall in love with him. I certainly didn’t think that Fayne would take such offense to our relationship. Mike was in my class for one semester. That was all. Just one. He’d earned the grade he’d gotten, a B. I wasn’t going to pass him just because he had the most amazing tongue and stunning pecs. I was the most honest teacher there—Fayne himself was the bribery target.
But because I was in love with a student, he called me on giving the guy a kiss. In the street, outside the building. He destroyed us. He and Dickerson destroyed our relationship, my career, Mike’s future. It had taken me forever to find a school that would touch me again, and Dickerson had fought my transfer of credits to Stony Brook. I had to walk back into the board of directors and face the misogynistic dickholes who had kicked me out in the first place.
Mike was right. Fayne wouldn’t know a woman from a hole in the wall.
I pulled out two mugs with coffee, hoping it was what I needed to relax and just get through this morning. Turning to head to the table, I squealed and almost dropped the mugs.
Michael’s chest was right there, broad and defined, no longer clad in the light blue of his uniform but a white T-shirt.
He caught the mugs before they went flying and placed them back on the counter. His voice rumbled in my ear. “I regret everything since the day we walked out of that disciplinary hearing. Not about my professional life—about you. I should have called. I should have done something. We’d already paid the price, why did we go separate ways?” He tucked my hair behind my ear, and good God, my body lit up. “No one has ever measured up to what we had.”
I squeaked, staring at his ice blue eyes, and my hand had a life of its own as it reached for his smooth-shaven cheek. “We were young…”
“That never invalidated what we felt.”
Shit. I wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down as I stood on my toes, and gave him a brutal kiss.
His massive-but-tender arms flew around me, lifting me off the ground and dropping me on the counter. Michael’s tongue sought mine, and I opened for him, welcoming him. His taste—one I’d never forgotten—flooded my senses, and I moaned as I melted closer to him.
His hand found my breast, up and under my sweatshirt. I was glad I had foregone the bra. His big hands plucked at my nipples, plumping the suddenly heated, pliant flesh of each breast.
His body was also flush, and he radiated desire, lust. His cock, thick and long, filled his uniform pants and tented them. He still wanted me, he still found me sexy. I ran a hand over the erection. There was no way of missing.
Wet and lush, his kisses trailed down my jaw, to the shell of my ear, to the column of my neck.
“Fuck me, Michael.” The words were a whisper from me, and while I wasn’t even sure that was my voice that breathed them, it was what I wanted. I wanted Michael Gianvittorio to fuck me.
He didn’t move away but managed to slip his shirt over his head with nothing but a pause in his movements. He slid his hands to the back of my pants and pulled them off like a magician with a tablecloth under expensive china, panties and all.
Wordlessly, he slid me to the edge of the counter and…his kisses were gone. I was confused for a heartbeat.
Next thing I knew, his lips were on my pussy, and I screamed his name in shock and delight. “Holy shit. Oh my God!”
He looked up at me, the evidence of my lust on his lips and chin. “I missed your taste. Open for me, Esmy. Spread wide, so I can taste you some more.”
Without question, I pulled my leg up and away, resting it on the counter. He watched me as I watched him dance his tongue around my sex—lips, clit, dipping back to tease my opening. He placed a hand on my thigh, and I watched as he used a finger from his free hand to slowly circle my soaking wet entrance, gathering the moisture there and spinning my desire tighter and tighter. He dragged the finger up, under the lips that hid my clit from him, with deliberate, delicious purpose, finally circling and stroking the bundled nerves.
I could hardly breathe. He was so tender, reverent, and remembered my body. I ached everywhere for him, most of all my pussy. I yanked my shirt up and grabbed my breasts, squeezing them, hoping for some relief from the tension. Michael lowered his lips to my clit as I watched still, and pulled it into his mouth, sucking and teasing with his eager tongue.
“…please.” It was a whimper. My body sang from his touch. I was sure I was going to explode in flames if he didn’t finish me.
Two fingers rested at my entrance, my whole sex throbbing and begging and weeping for him. He nipped at my clit and stroked inside me in the next moment. They were gentle at first then demanding. Commanding my body to come at his behest.
“Fuck, Michael, yes…yes! Don’t…don’t stop. Please!”
He sucked hard, pulling the nerves taut and plucking my climax out of me in one strum of my clit.
I screamed.
She shattered into her climax on my tongue.
Shit, how I’d missed her taste. The feel of her winding tight, the feel of her coming. I scooped her off the counter and held her tight against me, heading for the bedroom I had spied.
I’d stood in the bathroom, rinsing my face and hands, staring at myself in her house.
Was I ever going to get this chance again? She was the woman I couldn’t get over. The woman whose very memory made me hungover from her presence. I compared every woman in my life to her—and they all paled. And here I was, standing in her house. Mere yards away. This was our one and only chance to see if this was meant to be.
I took that chance. I swept her along.
She offered no resistance.
Even now as I laid her down on her bed, her body still quaking from the climax, she welcomed me. She discarded the sweatshirt and watched me make quick work of my pants.
Esmy pulled me down to the bed with her, settling me between her legs and against that glistening pussy.
“I want you inside me.” Her words worked magic on me; my cock twitched and grew even more impossibly hard.
“I have dreamed of you every night,” I whispered, running my hand down her body, over each plump breast, down to her mons, over her thigh. Her skin pebbled, and she shivered under my touch. “And every day without you was a nightmare.”
“I miss what we were, Michael.”
I could have worshipped her body all night without once caring that my dick was neglected. But that would have meant denying her what she was asking. And I never wanted to deny her again.
“You want me.” There was no question in my tone.
“Yes, sweet Christ, yes. Please.”
I cradled her legs in the crook of each elbow and pushed my cock deep inside her waiting, willing, wanting pussy. It was unlike anything else—to be deep inside the very woman who had made my life a hangover and know this was the only cure.
And after all this time, we needed no words, no direction, no question. As if it had only been yesterday, our bodies fell together, my cock finding a perfect rhythm against her thrusting hips. I let one leg slip away so I could lean down, capturing her mouth, opening her sex wide. I trailed my erection over her clit, pressing down, pulling up, gliding, taking, giving.
Our kiss was languid, slow, her pants and gasps and moans escaping only for me to catch the
m on my lips and taste each delicious emotion.
“Oh, I’m coming,” she whispered. “Yes, oh, Michael, yes…” Her eyes shut tight as I studied her, and suddenly her breath hitched, her back arched, offering her pearled, begging nipples, and she lost all ability to speak or make a sound, twisting up into a consuming orgasm. Her warmth clenched around my shaft, and after just a moment more I followed her up, the climax crashing through me, a hot release bathing her inner most walls. I came, and again, filling her, claiming her, making her mine.
Once more. Mine.
Our mouths fused again, gentling each other down as I fell next to her on the bed, spent, sated, and smiling like a jackass. I pulled her close, tucking her into the crook of my arm, trailing fingers on her skin.
“Michael. I missed this.”
I nodded, then kissed the crown of her head. “Me too. No one ever measured up to you.”
“Or you,” she agreed. “Stay this time? Please? I’ve spent eight years looking for what we had.”
“We’ve changed.” But I wasn’t going anywhere.
“We can learn all over again. Learning is half the fun.” She looked up at me with a grin.
“Only if I can eat out on the counter at least once a week.”
“Shit yes. That was hot.” She chewed on her lip. “Michael?”
“Yeah, Esmy?”
“We forgot the condom.”
I paused and didn’t know how to answer her. Esmy’s face was blank. “No birth control?” She shook her head. I shrugged. “Eh, whatever. We’re not kids. If you’re knocked up, we’ll figure it out.”
She laughed. “We’re on the same page.”
My pants started ringing, and I wanted to ignore the phone deep in the pocket. But I couldn’t. With a sigh, I picked up the discarded clothes and fished it out. “Gianvittorio.”
“Sergeant. Wasn’t expecting you to pick up.”
“I’m sorry, who is this?”
“Captain Miranda, homicide.”
“Good morning, Captain.”
“Well, not that good. Where the hell are you?”
I hesitated, and the captain grunted. This was not my station captain.
