Hot Cop

by Laurelin Paige

  About the way she asked me to leave.

  Which I feel great about, by the way. That’s how I normally roll, that’s what I normally like. Nailing it and bailing it. Officer Good Times.

  I feel so great about it that I’ve almost worn the vinyl off the dash from scrubbing. I feel so great about it that I’ve been checking my phone non-stop all morning, itchy to text her, even itchier to get a text from her.

  I set my rag down and force myself to pay attention to my supervisor. “Hey, Sarge. What’s up?”

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you for a couple minutes now. You okay?”

  I’m glad I have my own sunglasses on and she can’t see my face. “Totally okay. Just a long night is all.”

  The eyebrow above her glasses goes higher. “I know what kind of long nights you have.”

  I push the itchy feeling down and give Gutierrez a big grin. “Yeah, you do.”

  She punches me in the arm—hard.

  “Ouch!”

  “You wish, Kelly. And for the record, my nights with my wife are always longer.” She gives me a grin even bigger than my own. “And better.”

  “I have no comment on that.”

  “Good boy. And the chief wants to see you. Now.”

  I stare up at her for a moment, confused. “He wants to see me?”

  “Yep. Apparently he hasn’t forgotten our conversation about body cameras at the meeting last week, and he just called me to tell me to send you his way.”

  “Ah, fuck.”

  “Yep,” Gutierrez agrees.

  I grab my things and climb out of the car, steeling myself for whatever will happen. I’ve made the body cameras my mountain to die on, and honestly, I think it should be me who raises hell about it. As Megan has pointed out, as a man in a department where most of the administration is made up of men, I have the least to lose professionally by being a squeaky wheel.

  “Good luck,” Gutierrez says as I lock up the car. I give her a fake salute, and then I stride across the parking lot and into the station, stopping in the bathroom to make sure my brass is straight and my teeth are clean. Then I go to meet my doom.

  “Kelly,” the chief says as I walk into his office, not looking up from his computer screen. “Sit. Please.”

  I sit.

  The chief is not an old man, but he’s not a young man either. He’s got the kind of muted brown hair that comes out of a Just For Men box, designer eyeglasses from the middle rack at a middle-rate optician’s, and the kind of mostly symmetrical face that manages not to be remarkable in any way. He’s the human equivalent of toothpaste—

  serviceable, not unpleasant, but entirely forgettable once the experience is over.

  Except this is one experience I probably won’t forget. Especially if I get fired at the end of it.

  “Chief Dinger,” I start, not sure what he wants me to say, but he holds up a finger to quiet me and finishes whatever he was doing on the computer. Then he swivels his chair so he’s facing me head on.

  “Contrary to what you might think of me,” he says after a moment, “I didn’t come to this city to stonewall progress.”

  This doesn’t feel like the kind of thing I should respond to, so I don’t. Even though I have a thousand responses ready and waiting.

  Chief Dinger sighs and looks out the window at the rows of parked patrol cars. “I don’t want that reputation. Not with the officers. Not with the public.”

  “Sir—”

  He stands up and I bite my tongue, which is so hard because I have so many things ready to say to him. Cajoling things, arguing things, angry things. Things I’ve practiced every day in my mind since I turned in the body camera committee’s recommendation and got no official response.

  Dinger comes around and leans against the front of his desk. “You’ve got two things to battle here, Kelly. There’s the budget of course, but there’s also this.” He taps a finger on a small stack of papers next to him. “This is a petition from a local chapter of a group called Citizens Against the Theft and Negation of Individual Privacy.”

  He gives me a meaningful look, as if I’m supposed to know what that means.

  “That’s a pretty long name for a group,” I offer.

  He gives me a long look. I try for more.

  “And their abbreviation is C.A.T.N.I.P.?”

  “Son, this isn’t a joke. I’ve got almost five hundred signatures here, along with personal essays from most of these folks, telling me they don’t want videos of themselves winding up in the hands of strangers. I just got to this city last year, and I don’t have any way to explain myself to the city council if this department gets taken to task for not properly vetting policies and our approach to new equipment.”

  I’m shifting in my chair. “Sir, with all due respect, we have studies and data from all over the country saying that both citizens and officers are safer with this upgrade—”

  Dinger interrupts. “Are you saying privacy isn’t important? First Amendment rights? In Kansas, anyone can file a Freedom of Information Act for any record—is it so boggling that people don’t want footage of themselves being requested and then splashed all over the internet?”

  I’m a pretty laid-back kind of guy, so this doesn’t rile me much on a personal level. But on a logical level, on an I Passed College Logic with a 118% level, I’m riled. “Sir, putting aside how extraordinarily rare such a thing might be, I think that these concerns are purely policy issues. I understand that they are important, but they shouldn’t stop us from moving forward. It just means that we have to develop policies and procedures to deal with these concerns, not that we should avoid doing it all together.”

  “There’s too much scrutiny on police departments right now for us to charge into this without addressing citizen concerns.”

  “Some citizen concerns,” I supplement quickly. “Because there are just as many citizens, if not more, who would support us moving to the body cameras.”

  Dinger nods after a minute. “Well said, Kelly. And though it may surprise you, I agree. There’s a way we might be able to get around this, and I want you to be the one to help me.”

  I sit forward in my chair; this is the closest I’ve come in a year and a half to actually getting somewhere with this change. “Whatever you need, sir.”

  The chief hands me the C.A.T.N.I.P. petition. “Get me more than five hundred signatures. Get me a petition bigger than this, demonstrable proof that this city wants body cameras, and then I have a leg to stand on when it comes to the city council and the media. The headline can not be ‘Local Police Rob Citizens of Privacy.’ Got it?”

  “Got it, sir.”

  “Good. Don’t let me down, Kelly. Help me do this the right way.”

  I have no idea how I’m going to pull this off, but I’m grinning as I stand.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I’m feeling so good after my meeting with the chief—I’m not fired! I might be able to make this thing happen!—that I pull out my phone as I walk out of the chief’s office. I can’t wait another moment to talk to Liv, and I have a good excuse, and after the way things ended last night, I need...something. To fuck her or talk to her or just to be around her. I don’t understand it, but I need it.

  Hey kitten. We talked about meeting up more than once during your fertile window—would tonight work?

  There. Businesslike, friendly, all about the baby.

  But I can’t help but add, I still haven’t forgotten that you owe me ;) and I press send before I can think too much about whether it’s a dick thing to say or not. But hey, she seemed into it last night, and I am still very into the idea of sliding into her sweet, wet mouth.

  My phone buzzes a second later. Yes. We should meet again tonight...and maybe it will be more efficient if we meet at my place? I’ve decided you probably aren’t a serial killer.

  I smile to myself as I walk out of the station, typing to her as I walk. Maybe we can move past the wall she threw up between us last night after all
. Definitely not a serial killer. Promise.

  Sounds like something a serial killer would say.

  How can I convince you? Other than being a police officer, related to one of your closest friends, and the potential father to your child, I mean.

  Bring delivery food with you. I’ll be just getting off work, and the food you choose will tell me whether you’re a killer or not.

  10-4, kitten.

  I’m full-on grinning as I walk out to my car now. Tonight might actually be the perfect night for the Kelly Trio. Dinner, drinks, handcuffs. And she’s trusting me enough to let me see her in her house. That sends a warmth blooming through my chest that I don’t examine too closely.

  Once I get to my patrol car, I stop. No, it’s too nice a day for the car. The sun is out, the breeze is ruffling faint and cool through the new spring leaves, the pavement is dry.

  I head for my police motorcycle instead. As I do, my phone vibrates with Liv’s address, and then with a second message.

  I haven’t forgotten about owing you either...can’t wait to pay you back. And then there’s a lipstick kiss emoji next to an eggplant emoji.

  I might have some trouble straddling my bike at this rate.

  After my shift is over, I park my motorcycle in the station garage, change out of my uniform, and drive my Audi from the station to Livia’s place. She’s got a condo squeezed into a cluster of pale brick buildings and edged by a little park. The whole affair is ringed with tired sidewalks and those trees that drop too many spiky brown balls.

  It’s on a busy street, and when I park my car and glance at the street and then at the buildings in front of me, my mental rolodex of police history spins and flutters on its own. It’s one of the best and worst things about knowing a city so well; I know exactly how safe a place is, I know the character of the people who live around there, I know how quiet or noisy it is. Which I like, because I like knowing things.

  But the worst part is staring at the street and remembering the messy fatality I worked there last year. Or the teen who was struck and killed by a drunk driver as she crossed the street on the way home from band practice five years back. Or the old woman across the street who would insist on shoveling her own driveway every time it snowed...the third time I saw her out doing it, I made a point to stop by anytime the white stuff fell and do it for her. She gave me hot cocoa and store-bought cookies for my trouble.

  She died two years ago. She was dead for a week before a neighbor thought to check on her.

  With a sigh, I turn back to Livia’s place. I was in a good mood on the way over here, and as a cop, you get pretty good at compartmentalizing the things you deal with on a daily basis, but every now and again, it sneaks up on me. Going to autopsies for toddlers, calling in the Child Sex crimes detective for hollow-eyed children, walking into a heroin addict’s house...I can’t carry the full weight of that shit on my shoulders all the time. I try to keep it in another part of my brain, like there’s a locker in my mind that I can shove all these things into at the same time I’m shoving my uniform into my locker at the station.

  But it doesn’t always work that way.

  Sometimes I think all the ugliness and death I’ve seen has ruined me for having a real life of my own. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never changed my stance about marrying and having a family. A family deserves a man who doesn’t know what burning flesh smells like, who doesn’t have to worry about transmissible diseases when he’s breaking up fights or rendering first aid or walking into a drug den. How am I supposed to have a normal life when that’s what a regular day looks like for me?

  I knock, and Liv answers the door still in her work clothes—a pleated skirt paired with thick black tights and round-toe heels, a thin blouse and another fucking bun. She looks like a librarian wet dream. My mood picks up immediately.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” I say, flipping up my sunglasses. It’s getting too dark for them anyway, and I want to drink in this view. Her, in her doorway, inviting me inside her house. Her smile as her fingers play with the side of the open door. “Hi, Chase,” she says softly. “Come in.”

  She lets me in and slides past me to lead the way.

  “What kind of food did you bring?” she asks, looking back. She catches me staring at her ass moving under her skirt and rolls her eyes. “Seriously?”

  I grin at her.

  We walk past the entryway and into the combined kitchen and living space. Even though these are probably the cheapest condos in the city, it’s a fairly nice city, and so this is still a pretty nice place. Wood floors, updated kitchen, big windows. Liv’s got IKEA furniture and a good eye for color and space, and so the whole condo feels clean and fresh.

  Except.

  Except.

  I drop my bag of food on the kitchen counter and turn to face Livia. “Got enough books in here, princess?”

  She blushes and mumbles something as I go to inspect the bookshelves that are double and triple stacked with books, the shelves so heavy that they sag in the middle. There are books on her mantel, stacked next to her coffee table, stacked on her kitchen chairs in dangerously leaning piles.

  “There’s a system,” she says a bit defensively. “And I keep the library books in my bedroom so they won’t get mixed in.”

  “You have library books too?” I ask. “Have you even read all of the ones you own?”

  She crosses her arms and juts her chin up in a gesture that’s becoming very familiar to me. It makes me smile. “Well, not all of them, but I will someday and it’s my job to keep up on what’s popular with the patrons.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She sticks out her tongue at me, pink and wet, and she’s the opposite of everything that weighed on my memories in the parking lot. She’s playful and healthy and vibrant and alive. And I can’t help it, I grab her and pull her into me, moving my mouth down at the last moment so that I’m kissing her neck instead of her lips. Her knees slump, and she sags in my arms.

  “Chase,” she murmurs. “The food.”

  “Fuck the food,” I growl, swinging her up into my arms. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “The door is by the couch,” she says, lacing her arms around my neck. All of my depressing thoughts from earlier melt away, all my everything melts away with the feeling of her in my arms, with her giant brown eyes gazing at me as I walk us to her bed.

  “I’m going to fuck you at least twice tonight,” I say, tossing her onto the mattress and unbuckling my belt. “Fucking, then food, then more fucking.”

  “Okay,” she agrees breathlessly.

  “Once isn’t going to be enough,” I say, freeing my cock and giving it a few quick pumps as my knees hit the edge of the bed.

  “No, it won’t,” she whispers, staring at my dick, which is now thick and hard in my hand. Her hand is under her blouse, pulling and rolling her own nipple.

  I groan. She’s too fucking much sometimes. The pleated skirt and that bun, and then with that dirty hand tugging on her own nipple like she can’t wait for me to get to it myself. She’s what every teenage boy beat off imagining; she’s what every teenage boy wished their librarian would be.

  She reaches up then, taking my erection in her hands and squeezing, stroking up and down. I take one of her hands and move it down to cup my balls. She holds them with the perfect amount of pressure, her palm the perfect kind of warmth, her fingertips grazing the sensitive spot just behind them. I have a moment when I wonder just how dirty Livia might get, but I push the thought aside for now. The only thing that matters is getting my dick inside her and releasing the pressure building at the base of my spine. We can play games later.

  “Enough,” I grunt, pushing her hands away from me before I go off all over her fingers. “I need your cunt.”

  “Yes,” she agrees, nodding fast. “God, yes.” She reaches for the buttons at the side of her skirt, but I’m too fucking impatient for that either.

  “How much did these tights cost?” I demand.

  “I,
uh, I can’t remember,” she says. Her eyes are on my cock again, her expression hungry. “Maybe a few dollars?”

  “You can invoice me for expenses,” I tell her and then flip up her skirt and spread her legs. With my finger, I tear a small hole in the crotch of her tights and rip them wide open, thigh to thigh, just like I wanted to do with her leggings on the day I met her. Soon, her cunt is wide open to me, covered by nothing but a flimsy scrap of lace. I tear that off too, and she squirms.

  “Oh God,” she murmurs. Her hand is back to playing under her shirt. “Oh God, oh God.”

  “You can call me Chase,” I say as I put a knee on the bed.

  She giggles at the old joke, and she’s so fucking hot, so fucking fun, and a small window opens up in my hard, aching urgency. A window to something else, another version of us. I lean down and brush my lips across her cheeks, her nose, her hair, kissing all the places I’m allowed to kiss.

  “I want to earn your mouth, Liv,” I murmur, my lips on her face. “It’s all I think about, kissing you.”

  She sighs under my words, and I want to kiss her sigh. I readjust my knee to move over her and slide into her cunt, but I keep my mouth hovering over her skin, keep my eyes burning my need into hers.

  “Chase, wait,” she suddenly says, sitting up, her eyes slowly kindling with something that can only be described as panic. “Wait!”

  I freeze, half on the bed, cock throbbing. “What?”

  “This is too—it’s too—” Her expression is pleading, as if she expects me to understand what she means even when she can’t find the words for it. “You’re making it feel too—”

  “Too what, kitten?” I try to keep my voice open and receptive. When a woman says wait, you wait, but oh God. I can see the welcoming split between her legs, see that it’s already wet for me. I can smell her.