Authors: Casey Elliot
"Why don't we stay for a bit?" I asked huskily.
His eyes nearly lit up in the darkness, and he closed the distance between us.
"I thought you'd never ask."
He stalked toward me and pulled me roughly against him, devouring my mouth with his. My whole body was on fire, sparking with every graze of his hand against my back, my side, wrapped in my hair. His lips spoke of hunger and need, and I responded in kind.
His arms were a steel cage that embraced me, trapping me, protecting me. The rest of the world slipped away and I felt only him. If there was nothing else ever again, it wouldn’t have bothered me even slightly.
We tumbled to the grass below, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks adding music to the dance of our entwined bodies.
Gage
The feeling of Hayley's head on my chest made me want to rumble with pride. We were both tired, spent. We listened to the waves below and the sound of each other's heartbeats. She was mine now, and I would keep her in my arms for as long as I could.
It was getting late though, and I had an idea that required getting back into town before sunrise.
"We need to get up," I informed her. "It's time to head back."
Hayley muttered something that sounded like "don't wanna", but ultimately, I was able to pull her up onto her feet. We both redressed, and then I grabbed her hand and led her back through the trees.
It was pitch black under the leafy canopy, and I had to seriously watch where I stepped. Nonetheless, we made it back to the road without so much as scratch.
I got on the bike and Hayley straddled the seat behind me. When I started it, she squeezed her arms around my middle, and I smirked under my visor.
We cruised back through the darkness a little bit faster than when we had been going to the place earlier. Then, I had thought I would enjoy the ride more than the destination — now I knew the ride was only part of the fun, and that the real fun would begin after we had taken care of a couple matters of business.
I stopped a couple blocks down from her parents' house.
"What are we doing here?" she asked, her voice muffled by the helmet. She pulled it off. "I live, like two blocks that way."
I pulled off my helmet too and craned my neck to catch her eye. "I know, but I didn't want to wake your parents up."
She laughed. "Why not?"
"Because I'm not sure that they'd approve of me taking you away for the next couple of days."
Hayley got off the bike and stood in front of me. "What do you mean?"
I smirked. "Exactly what I said, gorgeous," I replied. "You and I are going on a trip. We're going to go see some of those places you want to see. I figured you’d want to pack a bag."
She crossed her arms over her chest. Oh, I thought I was about to get it for something.
"I'm twenty-three, Gage," she said flatly. "I don't need my parents' approval to go away for a couple nights."
I shrugged. "I know," I said, "but all the same, I doubt they'd appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night by some guy's bike right before he dragged you off to god knows where."
She pursed her lips. They looked delicious. "Good point," she admitted.
She placed her helmet down on the ground beside the bike and began a hurried walk toward her house. She returned a few minutes later with a small bag of essentials. I handed her helmet back to her, and pulled mine on too.
Then, with a mighty roar, we careened off into the night.
Protected by a Navy SEAL
*****
The glow from the street lamp glistened through the rain drops. Detective Cooper was fidgeting in the driver’s seat of the blacked out Toyota Sequoia with his eyes fixed on the alleyway ahead. His partner, Brookess, sat beside him with a steaming coffee in his hands and a cigarette drooping from between his lips.
“You need to quit those,” Cooper said as he stared forward.
“Ugh… like you don’t have any bad habits?”
“I have plenty, but at least they aren’t proven to kill me,” he shrugged.
“Yeah well we’ve all gotta die of something,” Brookes took a long drag of the cigarette and rolled down the window to toss out the smoldering end. “Imagine how dumb you’d look if you were in a hospital bed dying of nothing.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve always got a smart-ass answer for everything,” Cooper averted his gaze to his partner and gave him a sly look. “But anyway…. We’ve been here for nearly four hours and still haven’t seen a thing,”
“Chill, they’ll come,” Brookes took a sip of his coffee and winced at the bitterness. “They always do.”
The two narcotics officers had been on their first night of the stake out and Cooper was getting bored already. They’d been tailing the Russian mafia for almost six months and were starting to get a feel for them. A strategically placed undercover agent had informed them of a deal that was supposed to be taking place tonight, but so far they’d not shown up.
Cooper hated waiting, he wanted to be in the middle of the action, wanted to be at the heart of all the danger. But here he was stuck in the car with his surly partner and an agonizing backache. He grimaced at the pain and shifted in his seat again.
“What’s up?” Brookes looked over.
“Just my back.”
“Sports injury?”
“Nah… Injured in combat,” Cooper explained with a hint of pride in his voice.
There was an awkward silence for a moment as Brookes contemplated what to say next. He was intimidated by his partner and often found himself grasping for the right words to say. Fiddling with the crinkly wrapper of his cigarette packet he tried to distract himself for a moment before saying, “How come you never talk about your old Navy SEAL days?”
It was an innocent enough question but one Brookes regretted. He knew Cooper had seen things, knew his past was a grizzly one.
“I just don’t,” came Cooper’s cold reply. “I just don’t….” and he chewed on his thumbnail as he watched a black Range Rover in the distance.
It was traveling at a slow and ominous pace towards the alley, but just when the two detectives began to get excited, it sped away.
“False alarm,” Brookes tried to change the subject. “That was looking like a likely one,”
“Yeah…. But”
The crackle of the radio interrupted Cooper.
“We’ve got a 187 on the corner of Bentley and Maybole Avenue….” the female voice was urgent though relaxed as it relayed the information.
“Sounds like another one,” Cooper twisted the key to fire up the ignition.
And he pulled the car out the shadows, his eyes still fixed on the alley.
“I guess we’ll get them another time, eh?”
“Yeah…. Maybe,” Brookes sounded cynical as they pulled out onto the highway towards the crime scene.
The rain fell heavier as they drove, with nothing but the sound of the windshield wipers screeching across the glass. Brookes, although he wouldn’t admit it, idolized his partner, and wanted to ask him so many questions and wanted to learn everything about him. But he knew he wasn’t the most amiable guy and so he kept his head down and stayed silent.
Every now and again he’d make furtive glances over to Cooper and gaze at the scar that ran down the length of his neck. He’s heard stories, of course, tales about how the man earned his stripes in the Middle East, but he wasn’t sure how many of them were true or just idle gossip.
As they approached their destination they could see the hubbub in the street already. Flashing lights were outside the house, breaking up the crowd of neighbors who were trying to peek behind the police tape. An angry officer was trying to placate the chaos with little effect and looked relieved to see the detectives pull up to save him.
“You got here quick,” he half smiled as he saw them approach.
“What have we got here? And more to the point, why were we called?” Cooper wasn’t interested in small talk.
“Well,” the officer shifted from one foot to another as his face blanched nervously. “As far as I can tell he’s one of yours. I mean, the victim, he’s on your watch list or something,” he stuttered in Cooper’s presence.
“On our watch list?”
“Yeah…. Anthony Richards,”
“Holy shit,” Brookes leaned in suddenly interested. “He’s been under surveillance for nearly a year now.”
“Yeah, well now he’s dead. Two bullets to the back of the head,” the officer said casually. “So I guess he’s not your problem anymore.”
“Are you kidding me?” Cooper frowned. “Know how much paperwork this is gonna create?” he smirked and stepped under the tape with Brookes in tow.
The officer resumed calming down the neighbors while the detectives ventured inside. They both gagged upon entering and flung their coat sleeves over their mouths.
“Jesus!” Cooper reeled back. “This place is a craphole.”
“That would be an understatement.”
With the forensics’ team still on their way, the detectives had the scene undisturbed. The place was a black light’s paradise with mysterious stains and substances covering every surface. The smell worsened as they made their way upstairs to the bedroom over piles of garbage.
“Hold your breath buddy, it gets worse,” Cooper was leading the way with his mouth still covered.
Meanwhile, Brookes was kicking dirty needles out of his path as he climbed, the look of disgust on his face unwavering. But soon enough they were standing outside the bedroom. Through the crack in the door, they could see an officer guarding the scene with his back turned to the body, his face illumined by the flashing lights through the window. He spun round when he heard the detectives enter.
“Shit, you scared the hell outta me,” the rookie stared wide-eyed at them. “I was gettin’ real freaked out up here on my own with this,” he gestured towards the body.
“Your first corpse?” Brookes asked.
“Yuh…. How did you know?”
The detectives both chuckled and looked down to the victim. Then they felt the nausea rise once again.
“How long has he been here?” Brookes couldn’t hide his disgust.
“Well,” the rookie looked out the window at the crowd of rowdy neighbors. “The guy next door only called the cops because the smell was getting too bad.”
“Oh,” the detectives exhaled in unison.
“Yeah, just awful.”
The loud banging of car doors interrupted the conversation. They all glanced outside to see the forensics’ team arrive. Cooper watched them for a moment as they climbed into their paper suits and then he sighed, “Right, let’s get to work.”
*****
After a fourteen-hour shift, Samantha was exhausted and she tumbled through her front door before collapsing on the sofa. She loved being a nurse, adored it even, but she had to admit that it really took the wind out of her. The long days and meager pay often left her deflated, but she wouldn’t do any other job, no matter what the money was.
There was something so thrilling about saving lives, yet so gentle and simplistic as caring for someone. It didn’t matter who her patients were, she tried her best to love each one of them equally and always gave them her undivided attention.
However, now that she’d returned home she was desperate for a break and a long snooze, but first she needed a glass of wine. With all her strength she dragged herself from the sofa and staggered into the kitchen with her sore feet padding on the thick carpet.
“Ugh….”
She leaned against the fridge door and yawned before reaching into the cupboard for a glass and a bottle of her favorite red. With some considerable effort, she ripped out the cork and let the aroma of the fruity wine drift around the kitchen. It instantly made her relax and she took in a deep breath, her nostrils twitching at the tangy scent.
Samantha didn’t have many vices. She ate healthily, partied rather moderately and didn’t smoke. She occasionally savored the occasional nibble of chocolate and loved the feeling of frosty air against her cheeks during a three-mile run. Nevertheless, if she had to have a vice it would be a toss-up between a full-bodied red wine and a hard-bodied man.
She couldn’t help it, she adored men and she especially had a penchant for the muscled bad boy who liked to always get their way. Walking through to the bedroom, she kicked off her shoes, pulled off her scrubs and relaxed into bed. Looking at the clock she saw it was almost midnight. She took a large gulp of her wine, set the glass down on the table and picked up her favorite book.
Of course, she’d read it almost fifty times already, but it was one of her favorites and she always returned to it when she needed to relax and escape. It was a short but sweet tale of a princess who ran away from her castle in order to sample the ordinary life of the peasants in the nearby town. The princess, however, never imagined she would fall in love with a young, brawny farm hand, but she couldn’t resist him. Soon there was a baby on the way and the young royal could never return home.
Samantha always felt giddy when she reached the part where the princess met her love for the first time. There was something so animalistic about attraction and she imagined herself right in the princess’ shoes with her heart skipping a beat when the two lovers kissed.
As she read, she felt a tingling sensation in her gut like she always did. There was something so romantic about running away with someone and escaping to a completely different life. No matter how much Samantha loved her job, she always dreamed that someone strong and loving could whisk her away to paradise.
Taking another sip of her wine she settled a little further under the covers wishing she had someone with her to share the warmth. She let out a long sigh then drained the glass before letting the book slide from her sleepy fingers.
She was on the brink of falling asleep when something startled her. Her phone was ringing from somewhere in the apartment but she didn’t’ care to get up to find it, not until it rang for the third time.
Ambling her way to the hall, she found her discarded bag and coat and rifled through her things until she found her phone still ringing with the jarring sound grating against her tired mind.
It was her best friend Julie and she answered it with her usual upbeat voice, “How’s it goin’?”
“Have I got some gossip for you?” Julie got straight to the point.
“Gossip? I thought there was something wrong. I mean nobody would phone over and over again for nothing now would they?” Samantha couldn’t hide her sarcasm.
“Hey…. Don’t be a grouch. Listen, you know Sandra who works in cardiology? The skinny brunette with the bushy eyebrows?”
Samantha yawned and nodded her head. “Yeah I know her. We used to use the same gym.”
“Well, I caught her and Adam together this weekend! You know Adam? The porter who usually works on the basement level?”
“Yeah….”
There was an awkward silence as Samantha waited to get off the phone. She was too exhausted to gossip and as much as she loved Julie, in the moment her rainbow colored personality and bubbly enthusiasm were too much.
“You ok?” Julie asked. “You don’t sound like your usual self. What’s up?”
“Ah nothing. Just tired,” it was almost the truth.
“Just tired? That’s all?”
“Yuh…. Just tired.”
Another long silence.
“Sammy, how long have we known each other?” Julie’s voice was now stern and Samantha imagined her on the other end of the line in one of her power stances.
“Forever Jules, since before time,” and she had to at least raise a smile to that. “Why?”
“Because I know everything about you and I can tell you’re lying.”
“I’m not really lying. I mean I am just tired,” she exhaled.
“Hmmmmm….”
“Well…. I guess there is something else,” Samantha confessed.
“I knew it!”
“Alright Jules, calm down.”
“I knew something was wrong.”
“You’re as intuitive as ever.”
Samantha expected her best friend to start rambling once again but she was surprised to hear her keep quiet. On the other end of the line she could hear the sound of a candy wrapper being twisted and pulled apart and she guessed Julie was in it for the long haul. So, knowing she was in for a lengthy conversation, she wandered back to bed while grabbing a pack of cookies on the way.
The two had known each other for so long that they often joked they were telepathic, but it was times like these when it didn’t seem like such an outlandish idea. Julie waited for the sound of the familiar squeaky bedsprings to signal Samantha was cozied into bed.
“When you’re ready gorgeous,” she soothed.
“Right…..ready,” Samantha wriggled to get a little comfier. “It’s just that I’ve been feeling really down lately. And I don’t mean just, you know, feeling blue I mean…. Just so lonely,” and as the words left her mouth the tears began to fall.
Julie could sense her sobbing and wished she could hug her through the phone.
“I know it must have been so difficult for you,”
“It was,” and she pulled the covers up over her head.
The split up was still raw in Samantha’s mind and no amount of working overtime or wine could distract her from the pain, but no matter how much she cried, she always felt at the back of her mind that she was partly to blame. She always picked the wrong guys, always went for the ones her friends warned her about. Gradually each and every one of them broke her heart and left her, but she thought Steve was different. Well, at least he pretended to be.
As she cried to Julie she thought back to the first time she met him. She’d been walking to work to catch some early morning rays of sunshine and he’d been speeding past on his motorcycle. She saw him pass twice before he eventually came round a third time and braked just ahead of her.
She didn’t have to see his face to know he was attractive. With his muscular back bulging out from his leathers and his tattooed hands on the handlebars, she knew he was just her type.
“Hey there Miss,” he pulled off his helmet and she looked into the most piercing, blue eyes.
“Hello,” she giggled coyly.
“Now what would a pretty girl like you be doing walking around at this ungodly hour?”
Then he’d looked her up and down and noticed the scrubs and the satchel she clutched under her arm.
“Going to work,” she wanted to move her eyes all over his body but she nervously looked to the ground instead.
It was love at first sight, for her anyways. He rode that way every morning and so Samantha made sure she was always walking to work at the same time, a habit she still kept to this day.
He was everything she’d dreamed of, a strong bad boy with a heart of gold. He treated her well and was always sensitive to her needs. But the most appealing side to him was his body. Well-built with a disciplined stamina he could pleasure her for hours…and then some.
Even now she often fell asleep dreaming of his tattooed skin pressing up against hers. She loved the feeling of his bulky arms as they cocooned her and the way his scars felt ragged against her soft fingertips. She would do just about anything to have him back, but she knew that wasn’t possible. Her friends and family would never allow it but more than anything her dignity wouldn’t either. It had been two months since he’d been incarcerated for attempted murder but that was after he cheated on her.
“You sure can pick ‘em,” Julie lamented while chewing on a piece of chocolate herself.
“Oh God I’m just awful aren’t I? I just love them rough, I really do.”
“Yeah, bad boys run in your family too,” Julie joked.
“It seems so,” she thought about her father and brother who both boasted lengthy criminal records.
“But I still don’t understand why you’re so heartbroken over Steve. He was a God damn brute Sammy,” Julie continued.
“But… his eyes…. and the way he spoke to me as if I was the only girl in the world. He had a real soft side to him, Jules you gotta believe me. He could be so sweet and lovely when it was just the two of us, and when we had those long afternoons stretched out ahead of us,” she bit her lip as she remembered, “we’d have just the best time of our lives!”
“That’s all very well but he wasn’t so soft and sweet when he beat that guy around the head with a pool cue.”
“I guess not,” Samantha admitted. “I know I’m better off without him, but I just have to keep reminding myself that.”
“I understand,” Julie sighed as she reached her hand into the empty candy box. “Men…. they’ll tear our hearts inside out and we’ll let them, just to hear them say they love us.”
“It’s crazy,” Samantha yawned, finally feeling better that she’d had a girly chat. “I better get some sleep. I have to be up in six hours and it’s going to be here way too soon.”
“Ooh brutal. I’ll swing by tomorrow and give you a big hug.”
“That would be awesome.”
“Kisses!” Julie signed off with her signature goodbye and hung up.
Samantha meanwhile was back in bed with only the silence to keep her company. She reached out for one last cookie and then she felt her eyes grow heavy as she snuggled under the covers. Images flashed in her mind, strange abstract visions of faraway places that showed she was reaching a deep dream state.
For a moment, she was certain she heard the phone ring again, but that couldn’t be because Julie had called already but as her eyes were forced open and her mind became adjusted to being awake once again, she realized her phone was ringing by her head. Assuming it was Julie again she rolled over and tried to let sleep take hold, but the ringing wouldn’t stop and so she had no choice but to answer it.
“Hello?” her voice was groggy and angry.
“Is this Samantha Richards?” a serious man’s voice wasted no time with polite introductions.
“It is,” she hesitated for a second. “Who is this?”
“This is Detective Cooper, NYPD. Are you Anthony Richards’ sister?”