I return back to Austin who instantly tries to act innocent. “Don’t even try to act like you weren’t doing everything possible to listen in. It wasn’t anyone you would care about. I promise you.”
“If it’s no one then tell me who it was,” she gently argues. Of course she wants to know. It is in her nature, apparently, to ask every question she can to find as many answers as she can.
I crawl into bed with her. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know if you tell me everything I want to know about you.” She instantly shies away. “I guess that’s a no?” I look over her defensive figure and realize I was right. There is still so much more about her I don’t know. I lean in next to her. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you who it was. It was my pimp, you know, checking on me and making sure I am not cheating him out of his share. So, if you don’t mind, can you leave my payment on the table before you go? Oh, and by the way, tips are appreciated.”
“It should be more like you paying me.”
“Oh! Suddenly you’re the badass?”
She pushes everything out of the way and then pushes me onto my back. “You want to see a badass? I’ll show you how badass I can be,” she says, straddling me and releasing her hair down over her shoulders and working her hips against my cock until it stands up straight and is able to disappear perfectly inside of her. She overpowers me, holding me down and forcing me to watch her sway her hips and fondle her own breasts as she moans and looks down at me through her fallen hair. Fuck me. I sit up and grab the back of her head and pull her to my lips, my actions cause her to stop moving.
“What are you doing? Don’t stop fucking me. I’m loving watching you move.” I help her sit back up into position, lift my hips up into her, and enjoy watching her beautiful body sway and rise along the shaft of my hardened cock. This beautiful woman is amazing, and she has me completely rapt.
Chapter 13
Austin
“You’re late,” Jamee says with my brother eyeballing me from across the room.
“I’m sorry. I overslept.”
“You? Miss-By-The-Book?” Jamee says in disbelief.
“Yes. Now can we move past it and get to work?”
“Maybe you can, but the way you have been smiling lately and now … oversleeping? Who is he?”
“Who is who?” My brother asks, looking at me like I am a wounded animal.
“No one. Now let’s go,” I say.
“Austin?”
“Aaron? I’m fine. Now stop worrying about me,” I say with a reassuring smile and a grasp of his hand before leaving with Jamee to go checkout a lead we got about our runaway, Nelson.
One of the kids he has been known to hang out with was found beaten to death in a back alley. We didn’t have much to go on from the victim until I noticed his hoodie zipper was a small key. I asked around, questioning some of the kids on the corner, and one noted it was similar to his locker key from the youth center. That was helpful, but not enough to tell us which locker might be his, so we spend most of the day trying every locker. The kid’s bag of clothes, personal items, and a sketch book were all in there, and within his sketchbook, we found an old business card.
The old, long ago closed up auto body shop is nothing special and doesn’t seem to be worth checking out. Maybe I was too hopeful, but I search the outside, trying to find access without actually breaking anything.
“Oh come on. Just break through the door already. No one is going to care. No one has cared about this place in decades it seems,” Jamee says exhaustively.
“Why are you so quick to forget the law that you chose to represent?”
“I only got into this career because I like telling people what to do. I am short and Asian. I don’t exactly look intimidating, but with my badge, I not only have the right, but the ability to scare the shit out of people, and I like that – a lot.” She smiles wide while I give her a disapproving glare—not that it does any good. She kicks open the door and walks right in. “Wow, that door just fell open. Did you see that? Someone must have been beating up on it before we got here.”
Rolling my eyes, I follow her in, ignoring the fallen door as I look around. There isn’t much here worth being concerned about, but there is a strange break within the dust on the ground. Something was dragged all the way … to a back wall, to what seems to be opposite a storage room.
“Find something?”
“I thought so, but it dies right into a wall, and then nothing.” Jamee searches around the corner to look into the storage room. “I don’t see anything in here, so it doesn’t seem to be a magic disappearing and reappearing wall. So unless whatever it was flew out of here, I don’t know.”
I look up, searching through the rafters until I find what I was missing—a pulley system. That’s what they did. They came in through the roof and dragged whatever it was with the pulley system. But what was it? I jump on some shelving units, climb up to the roof hatch, and pull myself through and up onto the roof.
“I hope you don’t expect me to follow you? I just had my nails done yesterday,” Jamee yells out. “I understand no one cares what you look like, but there are many watching me.”
I want to say something to her, but I have gotten so used to the bullshit that comes out of her mouth that it doesn’t faze me anymore. “Fine. Stay down there and check out the rest of the area for me.” The roof has definitely been well-accessed. I immediately catch sight of a tent and supplies, clearly what was dragged up from the floor. I don’t see anyone in the tent, but the loose vent cover on one of the rooftop units is interesting. It’s been removed and replaced with one corner of the cover broken off. I pull out a knife from my jacket side pocket and pull out the other three screws. The cover is rusted out and cracks at the edges as I place it off to the side. It makes me weary about sticking my hand down into the dark hole. I wrap my hand up with my jacket and feel around for anything odd. Feeling something, I reach in further and take hold of it. It doesn’t come out easily. Finding leverage, I pull hard, jerking the object from the safety of its protective tube. Once I have it, I realize it’s a notebook full of numbers and indications of names via initials and nicknames. The book looks like any other school notebook, but this one is clearly written by someone much older and about something other than high school homework. I bet this is what they were looking for. Nelson must have had it the whole time. Now, where is Nelson? A sudden noise on the other side of the roof startles me, and I take out my gun and walk slowly towards it.
“I’m detective Reed, and I need for you to come out slowly with your hands up.” I pace myself a little closer and a little closer until I am sure someone, if not two someones, are there. “Come out now or I will be calling an entire squad of cops up here to surround you and drag you out.” I prepare my stance and then kick the mechanical unit they are hiding behind. Two kids jump up with blackened, wild eyes, ready to strike me with the rebar in one of their hands and a bat in the other’s.
“Nelson? It is you, isn’t it? I’m here to help you. I know what happened, and I only want to protect you. Calm down and put the weapons down. Everything is going to be okay. Don’t run, you don’t want to make it worse on yourself.”
“It doesn’t matter. I am the last one left. They’re all after me, so you might as well be the one to kill me first,” Nelson says, shaking his bat in the air.
“Who’s after you? Tell me who it is and maybe I can help get you some protection.”
He laughs, shaking his head with a neurotic twitching while his smaller buddy has lost his ability to comprehend what’s in front of him, except for the invisible flies that keep chasing him. I slowly call for backup while talking to them gently and being as reassuring as possible. The more they begin to twitch, the more worried I get about their emotional stability.
“I have to go before they find me, and I need that. That’s mine!” he yells at me while pointing at the notebook I pulled out.
“It’s not yours though, is it? Where did you get it?”
He calms and steps back. “I thought it was mine. It looks just like mine, and I was going to give it back the next time I saw her but …”
“But people were there, weren’t they?” He nods. Did they see you?” He shakes his head. “Did you see what happened?” He nods. “Okay, why don’t we get you into a warm car and talk about it? Come on, let’s at least get off this roof and then we go get some coffee, some waffles?”
“I love waffles,” he says, stepping forward.
“Well then, let’s go. I know I’m hungry, too. Put down the weapons and let’s get the hell out of here.” It’s a slow process, but eventually, they seem to trust me and do as I ask them to. Nelson’s friend goes down and is subdued before being put in the back of our car. However, Nelson is hesitating for some reason. “Go ahead, it’s fine. Use the ladder and then cross over to the point there and then jump down. It’s easy.”
“Well, I don’t like heights, so you go first,” he says.
“No, I need you to go first.” He shakes his head, and my patience is wearing thin. “How about we go down together?” He seems to be okay with that, so we both move down through the hatch. When we get half way there, he pushes me off the ladder, sending me flying towards the ground until I can grab a rafter and hold on long enough to swing my feet up and hold on securely with them. The jackass takes off down the ladder and then runs out the door. Thankfully, I kept the notebook with me.
Jamee comes walking in under my dangling body. “My guy is secure. What happened to yours?”
“Oh he left. He had somewhere to be apparently.”
“And so you decided to do some acrobatics while we are here?” Jamee asks.
“Can you just get something to help me down please?” Cursing and shaking her head, she finds a box for me to jump down to and off, onto the ground. I instantly grab my arm and notice my shirt is ripped open, showing a deep gash in my arm.
“Alright, let’s drop this guy off for someone else to deal with and get you some stitches. It’s always interesting working with you, Reed,” she says.
We finish up at the hospital, and they find that I also pulled a muscle. They prescribe some pain meds that don’t seem necessary until I try to sit up and feel the pain in my shoulder. Due to my drugged state, Jamee drives me home and pulls up to my building as Dace pulls up on his bike. He looks concerned, but I am afraid for him to talk to Jamee and her big mouth, so I rush to him and nearly fall over once I get to him.
He grabs hold of me as he slides off his bike. “Are you okay, Trouble?”
“I hurt myself climbing up some filing … um thingys. They’re really tall, and I …fell off … of them.” He doesn’t say anything, which worries me.
“Hello, and you are?” Jamee asks with her hand out and eyes all over him.
“Dace, and you are?”
“She’s my co-worker, just a co-worker that brought me home because I don’t feel so well. And because I fell up … off … the files.”
“Austin did some acrobatics today that weren’t quite flawless, so I took her to get some stitches and some pain meds for her pulled muscle.”
“Filing is sure a rough business,” Dace says.
“Filing?” Jamee asks
“She’s my co-worker,” I say, falling into his chest. He smiles down on me, wrapping his arm around my waist. “She’s just my co-worker.”
“I got that, Trouble. Now, do you need some help getting upstairs?”
“Yeah, that would be great. Wait, do you mean your help? I am so dizzy.” Burying my face into his coat, I hold onto him and close my eyes.
“So you’re him?” Jamee asks with a knowing tone.
“I am going to take her upstairs and get her into bed,” Dace says.
“Oh, I am sure you are. If you need anyone that’s actually awake to tuck into bed, I am available,” she says as I lift my heavy face off his chest and stare at her harshly. She shrugs with a laugh, enjoying herself too much. If I could stand up straight, and if I could figure out which one of her is actually her, I would hit her.
“Okay, well it was nice to meet you,” Dace says as he lifts me up into his arms, holding me against his taut chest. “Do you have your key or do you want to sleep in my bed?”
“Oh, your bed is so comfortable, and you’re there. I really like when you’re there, especially when you’re naked. But don’t tell you that I said that okay?” I say, feeling good about my secret when he agrees with a smiling nod. He places me in his bed and begins helping me get my clothes off. I smile. “Are we having sex?” I ask.
He laughs, “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Oh come on. Don’t you find me sexy?” I ask as I fall into the pillow unable to lift my head up.
“Usually, but not so much right now.” My heavy head floats onto his pillow, and I grasp his hands as he caresses my body. Forcing my eyes open, I look up at him with what I think is a smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t take advantage of you. You can close your eyes and go to sleep, and no one will harm you here, not while I am watching over you.”
Holding his hand, I cradle it to my face with a rush of warmth coming over me. “Dace?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I could fall madly in love with you if you’re not careful.”
“And what if I want you to?” he says with a deep hum against my cheek. I smile, rolling into the pillow, crushing my face against it. Dace runs his fingers down my back, and with a kiss to my head, he whispers, “I wish you would let me know who you really are.” I drift off to his delicate touch and calming voice.
The darkness I wake up to is confusing. I jump up, trying to understand where I am, when he reaches out from his side of the bed and pulls me to him. “You alright?” he says with a raspy voice.
“I wasn’t sure where I was for a moment,” I reply, feeling his lips against my head and a slide of his warm hand down my back. I don’t know why, but when I am in his arms, I feel at home, and everything feels right. This is something new for me, something new and wonderful.
The moment I walk back into work, Jamee is there, waiting for me. She is never here on time, and suddenly, today, she is anxious to get going? I can only imagine the questions coming my way. I sit down at my desk, and she leans forward as if she has already asked me a question she is waiting to receive an answer for. “I don’t know what you are waiting for, but you can stop staring at me that way,” I say to her forcefully.
“You know damn well what I am waiting for. Who is he? What does he do? Are you in love? How long has it been going on? Although I could probably make a pretty good guess at the latter. He seems to have money too. Does he have any friends or a brother that I could meet?”
With a deep sigh, I decide to give her something, without giving her too much. “His name is Dace.”
“Oooh… Dace, I like that. And that fits his bad boy persona. He has all kinds of sexy badness about him—the height, eyes, that just out of place wavy hair of his with enough facial hair to say he doesn’t give a shit about what you think.” She moans into her chair as if she is picturing herself with him, which pisses me off. “Wait, didn’t we arrest him once?”
“No! And stop!” I yell, snapping her out of her dream state. “He’s taken, by the way.”
“Oh he is, is he? Does he know that?” she asks, pissing me off even more.
“Don’t you have work to do Jamee?” She moves into her desk seemingly to be working, but I know better.
Jamee jabs me with comments throughout the entire day about Dace, even asking about the size of his penis at one point. I can’t wait to get away from her. We have been friends for a long time, but I have never been so irritated or bothered by her before, of course I have never had anything she ever wanted before. She’s the one that’s always had the rich boyfriends, thanks in part to her rich mother making sure she is always taken care of. I am not even sure why she works; her mother gives her everything she wants. I think I enjoyed being the friend
she dismissed as anything important rather than the one she is suddenly curious about or rather the one with the man she is curious about. Thank goodness we get a call to help bring down a known drug house and we have to stop talking altogether.
I dress in my secure uniform and get into my assigned position, waiting for the go ahead. We sit for hours, waiting, and all I can do is think, of course, about him. I am in the midst of a wonderful daydream before I get the go ahead to move in. The distraction was nice, but it causes me to miss my mark, and I let three men sneak out the side and get away. I chase after them, and yell for them to stop, but one turns and shoots at me, forcing me to fire back and kill him instantly. The other two stop and surrender, but my fate has already been sealed. I have used my gun, and now there is going to have to be an investigation.
“Austin! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Aaron yells at me, angrier than I have ever seen him. “Where is your head?! This is not like you at all.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I am not sure what happened.”
“You’re not sure?” he asks, flailing his arms around like a wild man.
“Aaron, calm down, buddy. She’s having an off day. We have all had them,” Billy says, pulling Aaron back out of my face.
“No, this is my sister, and I want to know what’s wrong with her. If she’s not able to do her job then I want to know before she gets herself killed.”
“Aaron, please. It’s bad enough I killed someone. I know I let you down, but I don’t need this right now,” I plead with him. He settles down some but still has to walk away from me. Jamee raises her eyebrows and smirks at me before following after him. She has always had a crush on him and will take any opportunity she can to get close to him. She is too materialistic, though, and I wish she would get it through her thick skull that my brother is too good for her.
“Austin, you need to go to the station and file your report.” Billy grabs my hand and kisses my cheek. “Don’t worry, Sweetheart. It’s only one day—one, single, bad day out of many great ones. No one is flawless, and you did what you needed to. Okay?” I nod, trying to believe in his words. “Okay. Now, have a stiff drink tonight, and if you need someone to talk to, don’t hesitate to call me. You know I’ll be there for you in a heartbeat, especially if you want to talk shit about your brother. I need an outlet for that motherfucker,” Billy says with an encouraging smile before sending me on my way.