* * *

Present:

“Very funny, Luka. Hah, hah. Now take off these cuffs.”

“Honey, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I can’t. The key is outside—in my pants pocket.”

“Well, then march outside and get it,” she sighs.

I help her sit up, the vinyl on the seat sticking to her body. She’s still heated from making love, and I find even in my mild panic that I can’t keep my hands off of her.

“I just told you, Lo’. I can’t. The door is locked.”

“Then unlock it,” she huffs, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.

“I can’t. It’s a police car.”

“So? Really, Luka, I’m getting cold here, and someone might come by. Joking time is over.”

“Lo’, the back doors don’t open from the inside or else prisoners would just get out of the car after we arrest them,” I try to explain patiently. Then I wait for the reality of our situation to hit her.

“Oh, shit…”

“Exactly,” I sigh, trying to think of a way out of the situation.

“Luka! We’re locked in!”

“Uh… I believe I said that.”

“The doors won’t open from the inside!” she cries.

“Lo’,” I start, sensing her panic might be bigger than I imagined.

“Why did you throw our clothes outside?” she cries.

“Well, I didn’t think about it. I just wanted you naked.”

“Why did you close the door?”

“I didn’t, honey. It must have closed during…”

“During?” she presses, her voice almost shrill.

“Well, the car was rocking…” I laugh, grinning, which is probably not the right thing to do because she slaps my chest hard.

“This is not funny! We’re naked!”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“And locked in the car!”

“Lo’, honey. Relax. There has to be a way out of this.”

“Oh really? What do you suggest, Einstein?”

“You’re kind of bitchy when you panic,” I mutter, thinking she probably wouldn’t appreciate me spanking her ass.

“Maybe I wouldn’t be if I wasn’t handcuffed and naked while being locked in a police car!”

“If it makes you feel better, you aren’t the first,” I tell her helpfully while inspecting the panel between the seats. If I could get it loose, I can slide through to the front…

“I’m not the… What do you mean I’m not the first? Luka Parish, if you tell me you’ve had another girl in your—”

I slap my hand over her mouth. She narrows her eyes at me. If looks could kill, there’s a very real possibility I wouldn’t be breathing right now. I never realized Petal had such a temper before. It’s kind of sexy. I doubt she’d appreciate that observation either.

“Before you say something that might make this situation worse—”

“Mm-mmm, mmm, mmm!”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Lo’. Ow!” I cry out as she sinks her teeth into my hand. “You bit me!”

“You wouldn’t move your hand! And I said that I don’t think this situation could get any worse.”

“Of course it can. But what I was trying to explain was that I didn’t have another girl back here. I arrested old man Simpkins for drunk and disorderly conduct one night.”

“Old man Simpkins? But, Luka… he’s, like, eighty years old.”

“He’s eighty-four, actually, and he got into his wife’s homemade wine one night and was feeling frisky.”

“Feeling frisky?” Petal asks, her panic at being locked in the cop car naked momentarily forgotten.

“He stripped down to nothing but his tube socks, and when he couldn’t get inside the house, he stood outside the window and started serenading his woman in song.”

Petal actually laughs at that. I enjoy the sound while I rummage around in the back floorboard for anything that might help me take the screws out of the panel. If I can get just two of the screws out…

“I take it Mrs. Simpkins wasn’t in the mood?”

“Oh, she might have been, but it turns out Mr. Simpkins had a crush on the widow Langley, two doors down.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yep. So he slipped into his Viagra prescription that his wife made him keep and left a trail of clothes down the sidewalk to the Langley home.”

“You’re lying!” Petal exclaims, laughing harder.

“I wish. Honey, you don’t want to know what the sight of an eighty-four-year-old man with a chemically induced woody and shriveled up balls can do to you.”

“I can imagine,” she says, visibly cringing.

“Trust me, you can’t.”

“Maybe not. What are you doing with that penny?” she asks.

I look over my shoulder at her. She’s got her arms wrapped in front of her, hiding her boobs, with her bra lying across her lap like she’s hiding her pussy.

Cute. Damn cute.

“Trying to use it to get these screws loose. If I can get this panel weakened, I may be able to get through to the front seat.”

“Yes! Do that!” she encourages me, and I hide my smile, turning back around to try.

“I’m trying,” I say through my laughter. We’re silent for a few minutes while I continue to try—and fail at—loosening the panel.

“What song did he try and serenade Ms. Langley with?” she asks, leaning in so close against me that I can feel her breath against the side of my neck.

“Honey, I love it when you’re pressed against me, but maybe you could give me a little room to work?”

“Oh! Sorry,” she says, biting on her nail nervously and pulling away from me. “So what song did he sing?”

“Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw,” I answer with a smirk.

“You’re making that up!”

“Nope.”

“Oh, gosh!” she says, laughing. “What did Mrs. Simpkins do?”

“Well… I made the mistake of letting her talk to him before I arrested him.”

“Why was that a mistake?”

“The first question she asked was why he never wanted to have sex with her anymore.”

“Yikes. What was his answer?”

“Well, I guess old man Simpkins likes singing, because he immediately started singing ‘It’s Hard to Kiss the Lips At Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long’. Needless to say, Mrs. Simpkins wasn’t happy.”

“Oh my God! Is that a real song?”

“Apparently.”

“Your job is interesting.”

“It’s about to get a lot more interesting.”

“Why is that?”

“Now, Lo’. Don’t get upset, but…”

“But?”

“This ain’t going to work, honey.”

“Oh shit. We’re stuck here?”

“Well, no…”

“We’re not? But I thought you said…”

I watch as realization sinks in her face, and it does… when the cold, bright lights of a truck pull in behind us.

“Luka!!!” she screams, and it’s not the kind of scream a man wants to ever hear from a woman when she calls his name. Unfortunately, there’s not a damned thing I can do about it but wrap her up in my arms and try to hide her body.

Fuck.