Greer

It’s obvious I didn’t knock loose any of Silva’s hatred when I flipped her over on the mat today. Good. I certainly wasn’t hoping for anything different.

The way she’s looking at me now, one might think I imagined that husky moan and the flutter of her eyelashes this afternoon. The spasming of her thigh muscles. No. My mind sure as hell didn’t fabricate those things. And I’ve spent way too much time over the last few hours wondering what they meant. One answer is clear: They didn’t soften her toward me.

Refusing to acknowledge the stab of disappointment, I mentally repeat what I told myself on the drive over. My job is to train this scrappy, little brat into a decent police officer. After that, my association with her will be over. No more passing her in the hallway or watching a bunch of twenty-something assholes eagerly volunteer to be her training partner. Perhaps I’ve never been so anxious for a class of recruits to graduate, but can anyone blame me? They’ve challenged my patience and my sanity at every damn turn.

First, Charlie loses his shit over the blonde chef who’s currently fussing over a bowl of pink frosting, turns into a wounded beast and almost blemishes his fledgling police record. Next, Irish Annie Oakley shows up and makes me care a little too much about how I’ve classified Jack Garrett. I was only ironing out a few misgivings about him when Danika walked into my office uninvited last week. Now, I’ve got a pissed-off recruit plotting my death from behind the most . . . incredible brown eyes I’ve ever seen.

That slippery thought makes me grunt, and Silva narrows said eyes, clearly waiting for me to respond to her barb. Devil’s food cake. Not bad. Although I’ve been called worse things than Satan by perps and colleagues alike. No one likes the dick who keeps everyone accountable, and I’m good with that. I’m just fine being alone.

In my thirty years, I’ve never given a second thought to another person’s opinion of me. Or my teaching style—unless you count my father, who taught me about police work. Why I should consider . . . adjusting to make this short-tempered . . . beautiful, passionate girl happy—

Dammit.

For some reason, Silva’s pleasure seems to be infinitely more desirable than her disappointment. It’s why I’ve tried to make up for what I said about Jack in that meeting, by checking on his progress in treatment, as often as I can. And there’s no sense in pretending she didn’t bring me all the way out into Brooklyn tonight.

I tried to convince myself that by showing up, I’d be humoring Charlie into thinking our family has a hope in hell of being functional. Whatever my version of love is, I have that for Charlie. The kid is nothing like me. He’s optimistic, for one. He has the ability to make everyone around him feel included. He talked a bunch of hard-assed cops into a flash mob to win back Pink Frosting Girl, for chrissakes.

In my gut, though, I know I came tonight because I wanted to see Silva. Assure myself she was safe. Working in Manhattan, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of the neighborhood where this kitchen is located, so I came to check it out. Now that I’ve seen for myself there’s no machete-wielding maniacs in the vicinity, I should probably go.

But, my feet stay right where they are, inches from the tips of Silva’s boots. Those kind that stop at a woman’s ankle and make her legs look even better than they do in gym shorts. The fact that she has some kind of control over my usually ironclad will stirs impatience in my belly. Impatience and the need to gain back the upper hand. Without a sound, I let her scent slide into my senses and give her a nice, long once-over, like I usually do when she’s lined up for morning inspection. If I can’t inspire pleasure from Silva, I’ll settle for riling her up.

“Someone should have baked you an angel food cake,” I say, my voice cracking from disuse. Twin blooms of color appear in her cheeks on the heels of a little intake of breath. Across the scant distance between us, my body feels hers soften and does the opposite. A grudging invitation for . . . something. Just like today on the mat. I like her response so much that I have to go and ruin it. “Maybe it would make you lighter on your feet, since you were dragging ass during drills today.”

“Ohh,” she breathes. “If I was dragging ass, it’s because your lecture failed to motivate me, Lieutenant.” Her smile is deceptively sweet. “Might want to work on your oral skills.”

She slaps both hands over her face, groaning over her slipup, and I have the strangest urge to laugh. To peel her hands away and witness the damage underneath. Our stolen moments before inspection have become the highlight of my week, but we’ve never taken it further than those blistering seconds of eye contact. I’ve never made so much as a suggestive comment. Ever. I’m her instructor and I will not abuse my authority.

So temporary insanity or the way she melted beneath me today must be the culprit for what I say next, my voice at a low murmur. “Are you volunteering to help me practice?”

Silva shoots backward and knocks into the table, sending forks clattering in every direction. The other four people in the room, who either heard nothing or have better poker faces than I gave them credit for, reach out to steady her, but I beat them to it. My hand is wrapped around her elbow, keeping her from falling, and the physical contact sends heat slicking up my spine. My tongue grows heavy. All I want to do is haul her close. Take a fist full of her hair and rub it against my open mouth. Down my neck and chest. Jesus.

She jerks her arm away, and I command myself to regain control. Not for the first time, I ask myself what the hell is it about this girl? Ever since she walked into the academy, my eyes follow her everywhere, my head full of her when I give in to my needs at night. When I tuck an eager hand into my briefs, roll onto my stomach and fuck myself. If it was just sexual interest, I could wait out the next four weeks, no problem. She’ll be gone and the infatuation will fade.

But here I am in Brooklyn, worried for her safety.

Caring what she thinks.

Hating the fact that she heard me say something shitty and is now mad at me.

I need a run. A good run will make these stupid feelings manageable. Until tomorrow.

“Uh yeah . . .” Charlie’s voice trickles into my awareness. “So we’re testing out two Ever cakes here, and Danika was getting ready to woman-up and make the final judgment.”

I manage to tear my eyes off Danika, who’s clearly still shocked over what I said. Join the club, baby. Baby? “What is your choice, Silva?”

“The, um . . .”

She needs a nudge out of her apparent stupor, so I provide one. “Today, please.”

I sense her lift a boot, like she’s going to stomp on my foot, and I almost hope she does, because I’d be required to touch her again. But she gives a cool answer, instead. “Red velvet.”

Picking up a fork, I sample the two cakes and have to admit they’re good. I’ve been wondering if my brother’s bragging over his girlfriend’s culinary skills was a product of his pussy-whipped status, but he didn’t exaggerate. “I’ll go with carrot.”

Four sets of eyes ping-pong over to Silva, who looks like she’s concentrating on not stabbing me with her fork, but Ever speaks up before Silva gets a chance. “It’s settled then,” she says, too brightly. “We’ll go with both—”

“This calls for a tie breaker,” Silva interrupts, lifting her chin. “Wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”

The saucy way she pronounces my title makes me insane. What would she say if she only knew? She moans that title in my dreams, along with my name. Loud and nightly. “Did you have something in mind?”

“Yes. Always.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Since you’re so underwhelmed by my performance today . . .” She shrugs, but I glimpse her nerves peeking through. “Quiz me on radio codes. Five of them. If I get them all right, we go with red velvet. Anything else and you can have your fuddy-duddy carrot. No offense, Ever. I’m just not big on vegetables.”

“Fair enough,” murmurs the cook.

I don’t like Silva having the misconception that she underwhelmed me. She never does. She’s one of the more impressive recruits at the academy, male or female. She’s focused, doesn’t complain when she’s exhausted and improves every day. Of course, I can’t tell her that. If she softened too much—or hell, at all—toward me, I’d never be able to stay away. It’s imperative that I do. The only thing permanent in this life is my job. Friends, women . . . hell, even family, comes and goes.

People lose people every single day. Parents, children, spouses. I see it constantly in my profession. Betrayal, abandonment, death. It all ends in one thing: solitude, with the added gem of knowing what love and togetherness once felt like. I stay beholden to myself and the city of New York, because we’re substantial. We can’t quit on one another, the way people quit on their loved ones all the time. At least I got that lesson out of the way early in life, so I could avoid having to face it again and again, like some fucked-up Groundhog Day.

Speaking of groundhogs, I’ve gone down a dark hole while Silva’s gauntlet still lies between us. “You’re on,” I finally answer, codes filtering through my mind in neon green ribbons. “Ten-fifty-two F.”

“Dispute with a firearm.”

I’m doing my best to appear bored, but I’m suddenly having fun. It might have something to do with the fact that she’s smiling at me. It’s a cocky smile, too. According to the flickering of my pulse, it’s my favorite smile of hers. “Correct. Ten-eighty-four.”

“Arrived at scene.”

“Yes. Ten-eighteen.”

That one gets her stuck for a second, and I find myself willing the answer into her brain. “Warrant check . . . active warrant.”

My nod is brisk. “Ten-ten S.”

“Possible crime. Shots fired.”

Last one. Jesus, this is beginning to make my dick hard. She’s looking at me like she wants a challenge, so I give her one. “Ten-fifty-nine N.”

Her smile wobbles and drops. I look around the table to judge if anyone recognizes the code, but only Charlie stares back at me with knowledge in his eyes. And he’s telling me without words that throwing this code—active brush fire in progress—at Silva makes me an asshole. There hasn’t been a brush fire in Manhattan since the inception of the NYPD, and thus, it isn’t part of the assigned study material. I can’t take my question back, though. It’s out there, and she’s chewing it over like a piece of tough steak.

“Uh . . .” She rolls around on the balls of her feet. “Second call for ambulance.”

Fuck. I open my mouth to tell her she’s wrong. Instead, I say, “Guess we’ll be eating red velvet cake at graduation.”

The girls start cheering, Charlie’s eyebrows shoot sky high and Silva slumps with a release of breath. A little satisfied smile plays around the edges of her mouth, sending the dumb-ass organ in my chest traveling in a ricochet pattern. I like seeing her happy way too much. I like even more that I’m the one who made her that way, even at the cost of being wrong. About police work. My life.

Bad. Very bad.

I turn for the exit. “I’ll leave you all to it.”

“Oh, wait,” Ever calls, elbowing Charlie, who’s still watching me with obnoxious fascination. “You don’t want to weigh in on frosting?”

“Anything but pink.” I wrench open the door and barely resist one last look at Silva. “You have drills in the morning. It’s your choice whether you come in early and set an example or show up smelling like cake and bring everyone down to your level.”

“There’s the lieutenant I know,” Charlie drones.

Silva huffs a laugh. “Did he ever leave?”

Yeah, for a second there I had left. Became someone who cared about feelings . . . about someone . . . over being right. I can’t let it happen again.

The door slams behind me.