Greer

Hot water scalds my neck and I let it. I don’t usually shower in the academy locker room, but I don’t have time to run home before I’m due at the precinct. This is the final few minutes of relative silence I’ll have before my twelve-hour shift begins. Once I walk through the front doors of the precinct, every officer in the vicinity will magically forget how to make decisions by themselves. My cell phone won’t stop buzzing—hell, it buzzes incessantly when I’m not on shift, doesn’t it? The life of a lieutenant. Tonight I’ll beg the fates for a shift without violence, but it won’t happen. There’s already a robbery in progress or a pedestrian struck by a vehicle. Domestic disputes. A weird smell coming from someone’s apartment.

Back before I was assigned a partner, I attacked these issues with cool focus. There was a process for everything. A protocol. My job was to follow that protocol, then file the corresponding paperwork. No gray areas for me in police work. Just black and white. Right and wrong. My partner, Griffin, forced me to let go of those scruples, just a little. But for me, that loosening of my iron fist on the rule book was huge.

Once I went back to working alone, the easiest way to cope was by throwing myself back into those original habits. Forgetting the person I’d started to become and vowing never to let my guard down again. When the rules are flouted, bad things happen. Following the law to the letter is the only way to be a successful cop. One that stays alive.

But recently, that level of concentration is getting hard to maintain. I’m not able to stay cold and stick to the script. I’m more affected than I used to be when I’m called to a crime scene. The faces, the sounds . . . they stay with me longer. My words, the spiel I’ve given seven thousand times seems to ring hollow. The tap of a gong. Words spoken into the wind.

Is it Danika? Am I losing the ability to shut myself off, because I spend so much time . . . on? Whenever she’s around, it’s impossible to keep myself closed off from the chaos she kicks up inside me. It’s making me feel more in all areas of my life. Specifically, my job. And that’s no good. Not in my line of work where taking home the shit with you spells disaster. Shaking off a bad day is becoming more and more impossible.

There’s a term for this. Burnout. No one would suspect me of falling prey to such cliché bullshit—and no one ever will. If I admit I’m fallible, just like every other burnout that came before me, I might as well hand in my badge, because I’ll lose the respect I’ve earned. In this profession, respect is lifeblood. Without it, I’m dead.

Because it’s all I have. I built this solitude for myself to keep others away, so I don’t have what other cops covet like gold. Family. Someone to warm them up when the cold of this city gets into their bones. Even Charlie has someone now, despite my father’s warnings every day of our youth about the distraction relationships cause.

When our mother took off without warning another lifetime ago, she left a silent void behind. One that was never filled or even spoken about. Charlie managed to overcome the memory of that feeling. Of being left.

But he doesn’t know what I know about my mother’s life after New York. Or the pain of losing a partner you’ve sworn to protect. I hope he never experiences such a thing, either, but I can’t keep him from it. I can only hope I’m the only brother who shoulders that burden.

That almost contact I had with Danika yesterday at Central Booking is the closest I’ve come to touching another person in a non-teaching capacity, apart from obligatory handshakes or wrestling with a perp, since she walked through the gymnasium doors at Academy orientation. Before that, there was the occasional meaningless hookup, and I was fine with that.

Fine.

Last night, I went to the grocery store and bought candy bars. Explain that. I dropped them into my cutlery drawer like they were on fire and slammed it shut. This ridiculous notion keeps occurring to me. What if Charlie stops by with his friends? There’s little chance of that, considering my brother has been to my place a grand total of twice, but . . . what if? What would I give them? Give her. Everything circles back to my smart-mouth recruit. She’s the reason I threw those Snickers bars on the conveyer belt, then added Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as an afterthought.

Idiot. I can still hear her flirting in the gym, accepting that date for Saturday night. The candy is going in the trash as soon as I get home in the morning, along with whatever ideas I’ve been having lately. Is my apartment boring? Who the fuck cares?

Resolve locked and loaded, I punch the silver shower button, cutting off the spray. My towel is hanging over the tile wall, so I turn to retrieve it—and stop dead as the locker room door opens. I have fast hands, faster than anyone, but I make no move to snatch the towel. To wrap it around my waist. Instead, I watch with fascination as Danika takes two steps into the room and skids to a halt, her startled brown eyes dropping to my naked cock.

“Shit,” Danika squeaks, whirling back around. “I—I didn’t think anyone was in here.”

No help for my blood running south. None at all. I never took myself for a flasher, but hell if my dick doesn’t lift and swell, wanting more of her attention. God knows I’m a rule follower, but conflict wages in my chest. She’s a recruit—and a woman—so I should cover my junk and pretend this never happened. But I meant what I said yesterday about cause and effect. She’s in an area where she shouldn’t be, once again flouting the rules like they don’t apply to her. So I leave the towel right where it is.

“Do you need something?”

She peeks back over her shoulder, probably assuming I’m decent by now, her eyes shooting wide when I’m not. “I stayed a little late to run, since tomorrow is a classroom day and I wanted to feel good about sitting on my butt or whatever. But I left my towel at home, so I was just going to use paper towels to dry off after my shower, but there weren’t any in the girls’ locker room, so . . .”

I’ve never heard her ramble before, but knowing she’s nervous does nothing to ease the sting of my jealousy. In fact, having her near makes it more fresh. Makes everything fresh. The self-disgust over creating a candy stash for my apartment. The amount of time I’ve spent imagining how her body heat felt yesterday. How it made me feel connected to someone, just for a few seconds. Ever since she showed up with her cocky attitude, challenging looks and big brown eyes, I’ve been less and less content. How dare she?

“You came in here for paper towels?”

Her back stiffens, hands curling at her sides. “Yeah.”

I settle my hands on my hips. “Go get them, then.”

Without seeing her face, I know she’s analyzing her route to the bathroom. She’ll have to bypass the shower where I’m standing naked, refusing to put on a towel. Honestly, I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me. This is such a fantastic fucking breach of protocol. But I’m so exhausted and angry with myself—angry with her—because down to my very deepest layer, all I really want is her body heat again.

“Do you mind putting on a towel?”

If I didn’t loathe the idea of her being fearful of me, I would continue to refuse out of principle—this is the men’s locker room and she’s the intruder. But I won’t sacrifice her trust to teach her a lesson.

Except now I’m thinking about that lesson. The one that ended with her flattened beneath me, her sex a few inches from mine. Close enough that I could have rocked into that notch and felt the shape of her pussy. I’m suddenly aching to prove I didn’t imagine what happened that morning. That I didn’t misread her body’s appreciation of me being rough. Can I do that without scaring her? I’d die before doing that. But I think I’d die if another minute passes without being near her, too.

When the towel is secure, I grunt to let her know the coast is clear. She peeks back and wets her lips, then moves like lightning toward the bathroom. Before she can reach it, though, I’m in front of her, caging her in against the lockers.

She makes that damn sound. The one I’ve been replaying in my dreams. It’s halfway between a moan and a cry. It’s so throaty and honest, I feel every note of it in my belly. “What are you doing?”

Absorbing as much of your heat as I can before I’m put back out into the cold.

“Technically, going into the men’s locker room is a violation of your probation.” My hands are flat on the lockers, our bodies separated by an inch and a prayer. “You’re not authorized to be in here.”

I expect her to argue or shove me. If she pushes me away, I’ll go. But she passes me a wobbly smirk, instead. “And yet you seemed so happy to see me.”

Lust tears through me like a mobbing crowd, pouring into every corner, sharpening my senses and turning up the volume of my frustration. Just having her acknowledge me in a sexual way is making me hurt. With that blessed body heat of hers, I want nothing more right now than some hint that I’m not alone. That I’m not just some crazy man who buys candy bars, travels to Brooklyn and breaks speed limits to Central Booking for a girl who sees me as nothing more than her instructor.

That acknowledgment is dangerous, but goddammit, I want it.

“Are you happy to see me, too, Danika? Like this?” I ease back just a little, giving her a better view of my torso, naked from the waist up. I bite back a groan while watching her run curious eyes down my pecs, lower to my stomach . . . down to the erection tenting my towel. “Maybe we should examine the facts, since you don’t seem inclined to answer.”

Her pulse tic-tic-tics at the base of her neck. “H-how?”

Is that an encouragement? She’s still studying my body from beneath hooded eyelids, and Jesus . . . maybe I’m not alone in this fixation. “Let’s see.” For the first time, I let my attention descend from her face, raking it over her tits, which seem to rise under my scrutiny. As if she couldn’t help arching her back. The little peaks in the center betray her excitement, and the rod between my thighs grows in response. “Hard nipples are a key piece of evidence.”

“It’s cold in here,” she rasps.

It’s sweltering—at least in our heated bubble—and the flicker in her gaze tells me she’s aware of her lie. “Would you like to be warmed up?”

There’s that sound again. It shoots past her lips, half sob, half moan. We’re still not touching, but I can sense her trembling. Still, her chin is lifted in that brave way that keeps me awake at night. Keeps my focus glued to her whenever we’re in the same room. “What do you mean by . . . warmed up?” she whispers, her tone suggesting she can’t believe she’s asking.

That makes two of us. But her encouragement to keep going, to keep talking like this to her, has my hunger surging to an eleven. There’s something keeping me from touching her, like some mental fail-safe put in place for self-preservation, but I’m so not cold right now. My skin is buzzing, head to toe. I want to wrap myself up in her and lie down, but the talking, the knowing I’m not alone . . . it’ll have to be enough. I’m forcing it to be.

What the hell would I do with more?

I allow my mouth to brush those curls at her ears, the sensation dropping my voice to a scrape of sound. “I’m talking about fucking you, baby. You know I am.” My tongue must have a mind of its own, because it licks along the rim of her ear, my memory collecting the whimper she makes and locking it away in a safe. “Tucked back in the showers, your legs open for my thrusts, blood running down my back from where your nails are digging in. Bet that would warm you right the hell up.”

With a rough intake of air, she dips, legs losing power, and I surge forward on autopilot, my body and mind conditioned to save her from falling. The no-touching rule is no longer a possibility. We’re flush from the neck down, my hips pinning her belly, our thighs bumping, my hands gripping her hips to keep her balanced. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Her mouth up close might as well be a billboard for forbidden fruit. It’s puffy, parted and glossy from her tongue. I can’t, I can’t. Kissing her will be like jumping off a cliff, no idea what the ground below looks like.

“Greer . . .”

The shaky way she murmurs my name turns my hands to fists, punishing the material of the thin, gray pants she’s been taunting me with all day. “We could take these off. Gather that final piece of evidence that you’re just as happy to see me as I am you.” Just a touch, just a little, I tug down the cotton, stopping just beneath her hipbones. Her answering moan, the tipping back of her head, entices me into pulling them down one more inch. Just one more. “I’ve got a hard dick and you’ve got a ready pussy. It’s been getting wetter and wetter since you walked in here. Isn’t that the truth?”

“Yes,” she gasps, writhing in my grip. “Okay? Yes.”

The way she answers zaps me out of my trance. Because it’s exactly the tone, the manner, almost the exact words she used when making a date with that recruit this morning. Like she’s appeasing me. Impatient to get what’s happening over with. There’s a chance she wants me to shut up and touch her more, but now I can only focus on one thing. She’s going on a date with someone else. She made that date right in front of me.

The intimacy of the locker room, our pressing bodies, vanishes. My jealousy spills over, bleeding my lust through with green. My stupidity for thinking we made a connection this morning, only to have my mistake stare me in the face for the rest of the day. I’m the only one who thinks what’s happening is special. “Better go get those paper towels, then.”

I regret the words the second they’re out of my mouth. But it’s too late to snatch them back. Danika flinches hard, the desire I stoked clearing from her eyes, giving way to . . . embarrassment. Fuck. Not that. Robbing this girl of her pride is unforgiveable.

“Danika—”

She shoves me back and I go, putting my hands up, forcing myself not to stare like a lecher at her still-aroused body. “You’re an asshole,” she breathes. She doesn’t wait for a response before turning and jogging out of the locker room. Without the paper towels.

Regret weighs me down as I dress and prepare to go back out into the cold.