Officer in Pursuit

by Ranae Rose

  She didn’t mind, wasn’t afraid. She trusted him. And that was exhilarating.

  When he was done he pulled out, and she thought it was over. Already, she was buzzing with a sort of afterglow, happy and faintly awed as her mind put together the pieces of what they’d just done, making it real in her memory.

  But Grey didn’t turn away from her. Instead, after peeling off the condom and throwing it in a waste basket, he wrapped his arms around her from behind, catching her in a close embrace.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he slipped a hand between her thighs. His body was radiating heat, and his cock was pulsing, still hard and faintly sticky against the small of her back.

  “I know you can come twice – you did last night – and I know you were trying just now.” He rubbed her clit with his fingertips, setting off fresh sparks of pleasure.

  She didn’t protest – it felt too good, and she didn’t really want this to stop, to be over yet.

  He touched her without holding back, massaging, occasionally teasing her lips below, where she was still tingling from the friction of his shaft against them.

  He touched her breasts too, rubbing his fingertips over her nipples, toying with them until she arched against the him.

  It didn’t take long for her to come. When the first surge of pleasure hit her, it took her by surprise, tearing down the barrier of nerves and shock that’d held her back after they’d been interrupted by that loud sound. As her mind clouded with a fog of bliss, she thought that maybe the reason she was able to get off now was because Grey’s arms were wrapped so tightly around her – she was caught in his embrace, and she felt safely sheltered there.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Good thing I have some overtime coming up,” Kerry said as Grey unloaded four new tires out of his car. They’d bought them at a garage in town and he’d had to put two in his trunk and two in the back seat.

  “Yeah. These things don’t come cheap.” He stacked them in the gravel beside her car, then pulled a jack and a tool bag out of his trunk. “At least you’re getting top-quality labor.”

  “I appreciate it, believe me. Thank you so much. I usually take my car to the garage for everything, even oil changes, and end up waiting around forever. I’m not mechanically inclined.”

  “Well.” Grey was secretly glad to have a chance to help her out with the whole psycho ex-husband situation – or whatever was going on. Even if it was just by changing out her tires. “Watch and be amazed. I’ve been doing this ever since I was a kid. My grandfather was a mechanic, and he practically raised me. Him and my grandmother.”

  “Oh? My grandfather was a coal miner. So was my dad.”

  “We’re both practically aristocracy then,” he said, loosening the lug nuts on the front right wheel. The rubber had been viciously slashed, ruining the tire beyond any hope of repair. They were all like that – deliberately destroyed. The sight pissed him off, especially since he’d just watched her spend five hundred bucks on a new set.

  Her car – an ancient Toyota – would be hard to sell for five hundred dollars.

  “Yeah, eastern Kentucky is known for its bluebloods.” She smiled. “Can I help with anything?”

  “Not really. I could do this in my sleep. Do you get much overtime at Wisteria?”

  He knew she was head of the housekeeping staff there, and that she wasn’t rolling in cash. Her house was nice and neatly furnished, but small, and her car showed that she was careful with her money, that she got the most she could out of everything she owned.

  “No, not usually. Sometimes when we’re especially swamped with tourists I pull a few extra hours, but there wasn’t much of that this summer. We’re holding a special event on Halloween though, and my boss asked me to stay an hour or so past the end of my regular shifts to help her prepare.”

  “What kind of special event?” He’d fallen into the familiar rhythm of replacing a car’s tires – the vehicle was up on the jack, and he practically moved on autopilot.

  “We’re calling it a fall festival. Basically, it’s a classier alternative to the haunted house going on at the old farm next to the mansion grounds. Or maybe alternative isn’t the right word – we’re hoping people stop by before the haunted house, or after. There’ll be food and games.”

  “What about costumes?”

  “Yeah. There’ll be a contest, actually.”

  “You gonna participate?”

  “Of course not – how would it look if an employee won?”

  “Damn.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I was kind of hoping you were gonna wear a sexy costume.”

  “I might dress up, but I’ll have to keep it professional.”

  “Hey, I’m not suggesting anything crazy like those little scraps of polyester they sell at the mall. I’m picturing something that’s classy, yet still requires you to wear fishnet stockings or maybe a corset for maximal authenticity.”

  “So what would I be in that kind of get-up, a dominatrix?”

  “If you want. I’ll play along.”

  “How generous of you.”

  He grinned. He couldn’t really picture her in a costume like that – or rather, he could, but he knew she wouldn’t choose anything like it. But that didn’t make it any less enjoyable to fantasize about, or her any less fun to tease.

  “Actually,” she said, “I’ll make you a deal – I’ll wear a costume if you help me out at the event. Not a corset and stockings, but something. We need volunteers to help run the game booths. I’m running the cider stand and I bet I can get Faye to let you work a booth near mine.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s it – you’re just going to agree?”

  “Why not? I don’t have any plans for Halloween. I think I work that day, but my evening is free.”

  “Okay. Thanks. It’ll be more fun to work the event if you’re there.”

  “Damn right it will. Maybe afterward we can go through the haunted house next door.”

  “No way. I wouldn’t sleep for a month.”

  “All right then – we’ll sit around on the mansion lawn and sip cider like the classy people we are. And afterwards, when I get you back to my place, I’ll unlace your corset.”

  “Ha. Whatever you say. Just don’t be disappointed when I show up dressed as a cat or something like that.”

  He was halfway done with switching out the tires now. Halfway done and halfway hard, thinking about her in a corset and stockings. Maybe he could get her to wear something like that in the bedroom, sometime.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “No, a dare: I’ll let you choose my costume if I get to choose yours. Anything you want, I’ll wear it.”

  She laughed. “I don’t think so. Besides, I’d rather see you in your uniform than a costume any day.”

  “Really? If I’d known that, I would’ve made it a point to coincidentally let you see me in uniform as often as possible.”

  “You could show me now.”

  He almost dropped his wrench.

  * * * * *

  Monday morning was chilled by rain and fog that left the world awash in shades of grey, nothing like the sunny day before, which Kerry had spent with Grey. Somehow, that seemed appropriate.

  After changing out her tires, he’d stayed at her house, first for a movie and then for dinner, and ultimately for the night.

  It’d been amazing. They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other, and his staying over had felt natural – not like a favor he’d done to ease her fear. He had eased her fear, but that hadn’t been why he’d stayed.

  Remembering their night together had her buzzing with pleasure now as she pulled out of her driveway, headed for work. Grey had already gone, but before he’d left, she’d finished her morning coffee in a uniform-induced daze, fighting the urge to drool.

  God, he looked good in uniform. She’d rarely had the opportunity to see him in it up until now – whenever they’d hung out in a group, he had of cou
rse worn his regular clothing. The sight of him decked out in dark blue this morning had her longing for that evening, when she’d see him again.

  She’d made him promise to come visit then, to wear a uniform.

  She grinned at the thought, not caring that she probably looked like a crazy person driving down the road, smiling to herself. All she had to do was get through the day – work, plus meeting Jeremy at the courthouse during her lunch break to fill out the paperwork for that temporary protective order – and Grey would be all hers again.

  A brief scare wiped the smile right off her face when she tried to stop at a sign and hit a puddle, hydroplaning instead.

  It took her twice as long as usual to slow down. Thank God, no one had been coming on the other road, which lead directly into town. She slid through the intersection with a speeding heart and a curse, but wasn’t harmed.

  With the rain still pouring down, she was glad to make it onto the rural road that wound through the county and led to Wisteria.

  She was about a half mile from her house when she got to the familiar stretch where the road began to wind, skirting around the edge of a pine forest. The rain was pelting against her windshield in earnest, and she had the wipers on full blast. The radio was difficult to hear over the roar of water against glass, so she turned the knob, cranking the volume.

  No sooner had she filled the car with the sound of her favorite station’s morning nineties hour than she realized that something was absolutely, terribly wrong.

  She was going around the long curve, but she was going too fast. Tires spinning against slick asphalt, she was accelerating when she should’ve been slowing. Pumping her foot against the brake pedal had no effect.

  The car fishtailed, lost traction and went careening first to one side, then the other. When she hit the ditch at the edge of the road, she felt the impact in every bone, every tooth as she was pitched forward and brutally restrained by her seatbelt.

  It was as if someone had picked up the entire earth and thrown it down against concrete like an enormous bouncy ball. Everything blurred and shook around her and in her; even her thoughts were shaken loose from her mind, lost.

  Then the blur became nothing but darkness.

  * * * * *

  The rain poured down fit to drown the whole world, lashing Brad’s shoulders as he walked, plastering his shirt to his body. It was cold, too cold for the tropical paradise Kerry had probably thought she’d been running off to when she’d left Kentucky.

  He paid no mind to the water sloshing in his boots as he walked toward the little silver car with one pair of wheels in the ditch and the other a couple feet in the air. It was the same Toyota she’d left in, the same piece of shit he’d found in her driveway and slashed the tires on.

  He pried open the driver’s side door and looked down at his wife for the first time in three years.

  She’d gotten skinny and her hair was longer than he remembered. There was blood on her face. But it was definitely her.

  She wasn’t moving, but he could see her breathing. She’d had a little jolt, that was all. If she was lucky, it’d knocked some goddamned sense into her head.

  He unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her out of the car. She weighed nothing at all, and he laid her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried her to his truck.

  Even in the rain, he could tell what she smelled like. Shampoo and soap – soap that hadn’t scrubbed away the scent of that bastard he’d seen her with, the one she’d been fucking. Humiliating him with.

  He threw her into the backseat, rough. There’d be no more of her screwing around on him. No more three year beach vacations, no more of this shit at all.

  For a few seconds, he just stood on the pavement, still getting rained on, and looked at her. He’d been waiting for this moment for so long, but it didn’t feel as good as he’d imagined. It didn’t feel like the victory it was.

  Probably because she’d been fucking that bastard the night before. The son of a bitch had been parked at her house all night. Brad had wanted to cut his break lines too, but he’d done Kerry’s first and then one of her nosy goddamned neighbors just up the road had flipped on a porch light and come outside in her bathrobe, gawking around in the dark and clutching her phone.

  Getting his wife back had been all Brad had thought about for the past three years, and so he’d gone before the police could show up again. He’d worry about the guy she’d been fucking later – for now, he just needed to get her out of here.

  He had some bungee cords under the seat she was lying on. Pulling them out, he wrapped one tight around her wrists. Last thing he needed was for her to wake up and try to jump out of the truck or something.

  When he hit the lock and started driving, she was still out.

  * * * * *

  Kerry awoke to the noise of a football game. The sound quality was bad and the commentators’ remarks were mixed with static.

  Her head hurt. Her arms, too. Everything was cramping.

  She felt sleep preying on her, lurking in the fuzzy corners of her mind. A part of her wanted to give in, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong, and that kept her awake.

  “You’re up.” A voice shattered the static and noise, and a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

  Everything inside Kerry wrenched with fear. She knew that voice, even if she didn’t know what was happening. It was like something out of a nightmare, one recurrences had burnt into her memory, clear as crystal.

  “’Bout damn time.” The hand – Brad’s hand – tightened.

  Next thing she knew her head was spinning. She was screaming and—

  Something hit her face with stunning force, the sharp smack echoing like the crack of a whip.

  Brad’s hand.

  He towered over her, looking almost exactly like he had last time she’d seen him, years ago.

  She lay on her back in a shabby room. The light fixtures and bad paintings said that it was a motel room. There was also a ‘no smoking’ plaque beside the TV, although the smell of the room said that it had been ignored a hundred times over.

  “Look at me, goddamn it. Look at me.”

  She couldn’t help but look, even though she didn’t want to, didn’t want to believe this was real. If it hadn’t been for the ache in her jaw – the double sting of pain and humiliation – she wouldn’t have believed any of it was.

  His face was covered in a couple weeks’ worth of hair growth, almost enough to be called a full-fledged beard. The hair was tawny-colored and his eyes were hazel, but not warm. Tiny, broken capillaries showed that he hadn’t stopped drinking. His reeking breath confirmed it when he leaned in and over her, putting his face in front of hers.

  The mattress groaned beneath her as he braced himself with an arm against its surface. “I found you, Kerry. What do you have to say for yourself? What do you have to fucking say?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shut him out, but that was a mistake.

  He grabbed her by the jaw and forced her to face him. “Open your fucking eyes.”

  * * * * *

  Prison life was monotonous. Inmate fights broke that monotony up. That was why dozens of E Block inmates were roaring – they liked to watch, even if they didn’t have a stake in the outcome. It was entertainment.

  Grey and Liam were the first to reach the fight – the two men were already on the ground. Liam’s voice barely rose above the roar of dozens of prisoners as he told them to stop.

  Of course, they didn’t.

  Grey freed his pepper spray from his duty belt and sprayed it over the two tangled inmates.

  He hated using this shit, but at least the other inmates gave them a wide berth.

  Screams came from the floor, half angry and half agonized.

  Three other officers arrived as Liam and Grey pulled the two men apart.

  “Shit.” Liam grimaced as the cloud hit them too and the stuff they’d just sprayed on the prisoners got on th
eir hands.

  Pepper spray was usually the safest way to stop a fight, but you couldn’t use it in a situation like this without making yourself miserable too.

  The fight had gone out of both inmates. There was a lot of swearing, but it was mostly because of the pepper spray. Through watering eyes, Grey saw just how mismatched the fight had been.

  The guy he had ahold of was wiry, almost scrawny. The inmate Liam was handling had curled into what Grey estimated to be a 230 pound ball of muscle and involuntary tears. They were both white, except for where they were the color of prison tattoo ink, an indiscernible, faded shade of blue-grey. One was bald while the other held onto a failing mullet/buzz cut hybrid.

  Their physical descriptions could’ve applied to any of dozens of other inmates in the facility, but Grey recognized one of them in particular – the smaller one with the travesty of a haircut.

  Grey actually knew something about his criminal record, which was knowledge he generally tried to avoid. Some officers liked knowing what various inmates had done to land in prison and looked it up in the system, but Grey figured that since he had to do his job the same anyway, it didn’t matter. All knowing did was make him mad.

  Like right now. One of the other officers had mentioned this particular piece of shit’s history to him a few weeks ago, when he’d been processed into general population. He’d beaten his wife and his pregnant girlfriend both to death and thrown their bodies off a bridge together, or something like that. Apparently the story had been on the news.

  Now, he sagged in Grey’s grip, wailing like a big, ugly baby and not even putting up a fight, utterly defeated by pepper spray.

  Grey’s anger was as sudden as it was deep and bitter. Over the course of the past seven years he’d become pretty good at not letting the inmates get the best of his temper, but at that moment, he felt nothing but overwhelming disgust and barely-restrained rage. And he couldn’t help but think that if he had to touch such a vile piece of human garbage, he might as well be knocking the guy’s meth-ravaged teeth out.