Point of No Return (2 page)

Authors: N.R. Walker

But then he called time and picked up hand pads.

He stood ready, his covered hands up between us, waiting for me to aim practice jabs into the pads. And in front of our audience, we went through the motions. I jabbed, he deflected.

But he smiled as though he was daring me.

It was as though his full lips, his almond-shaped eyes, that shiny black hair, and the dimple in his left cheek were goading me.

Luring me.

And my dick twitched again.

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Fuck.

"Okay, Frankie," Chris called out. "Show him what you got."

Slipping his hands out of the padded mitts and throwing them to the side wall, Frankie turned to face me. I faced him front on, raising my hands to protect my chin as he did the same.

We danced around each other for a while, offering a few jabs each, and I noticed him lifting his right foot, just slightly so his heel left the mat, but not his toes.

He wasn't just a boxer.

He was a kickboxer.

"Keep your foot down," I told him.

His eyebrows lifted and he smirked, making my

dick twitch again.

And then he jabbed me twice in the mouth.

The other guys cheered as I pulled back, resizing my opponent.

"Keep your elbows in," he instructed. "And keep your hands up."

I stepped in quickly, throwing a sharp left. He dodged it easily and grinned again, but this time he chuckled. And I could feel myself getting hard.

We exchanged a few taps, skirting around each

other. I landed a few good shots, as did he. But I was

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distracted, and he landed some rib shots and a few face shots.

One thing I learned real quick: getting tapped in the face and jabbed in the ribs does little for hard-ons. The more he hit me, the less turned-on I got.

And just so I didn't get a full-fledged hard-on, I let him win.

I lowered my hands, just a little, and I didn't move my feet.

"Oh, come on," Mitch yelled at me. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Elliott? You can fight better than that!"

I knew I could, and I think this Frankie guy knew it too, because not long after that, he called us done.

Kurt and Tony crowed their victory, and Chris

proudly clapped his new trainer on the shoulder. Mitch scoffed at me, "Yeah, thanks, partner. You cost me twenty bucks! Next round's on you. So get your ass to the bar and get buyin'."

I nodded, unwrapping my hands. "Yeah, yeah," I mumbled with a laugh. "Meet you there in five." I didn't even watch them leave.

Because then it was just me and him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, pulling tape off his hand.

"You were holding back on me."

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I thought he picked up on that. I ignored his

question. "You do martial arts?"

He nodded and smiled. "Yeah."

"I could tell," I said. "The way you lift your foot.

It's a defensive move for kickboxers."

I looked at him then, and he was staring at me, smiling.

Fuck.

"Good detective work, Detective," he said with a grin. "Now why did you hold back? You don't seem the type to be intimidated by a little martial arts."

I snorted out a laugh at the likelihood of that. "I'm not intimidated."

He smirked and stepped closer to me. His eyes were so goddamn piercing, so brown they were almost black. His jet black hair was damp and messy, and his perfect lips were smiling, just a little, in a smug kinda smirk.

Right then, I wasn't the kind of cop who could hold his own. I was a deer caught in headlights, mesmerized by this man, how beautiful he was. How close he was…

His voice was quiet. "So if you're not intimidated, are you interested?"

Jesus.

I took an automatic step back from him, breaking my dazed trance, and pulled roughly at the tape on my

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hands, I cleared my throat. "I um… I ca… I can't," I was fucking stammering. And breathing too hard. "I have to go.

They're expecting me."

Like some shit-scared little boy, I all but bolted out the door and into the showers.

Fifteen minutes later, cold-showered and somewhat clear-headed, I walked half a block into the bar, certain of two things.

If I was going to stay in my very comfortable closet, I needed to avoid my new boxing trainer.

And I needed a fucking drink.

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Chapter 2

I never drank. Well, correction… I
rarely
drank.

Four, no, make that five… five drinks and I was feeling it.

The guys were looking at me funny.

I knew they were looking at me funny, but I was pretending I didn't notice. I was keeping mum about my run in with Frankie… Frankie… That really fucking sexy Frankie. I groaned and shook my head.

A smug Tony asked, "Could the ever-elusive Matthew Elliott be having girl trouble?"

"Know what?" I pointed my beer at him. "Fuck you." I swigged at my beer proudly.

Tony laughed. "Oh, I think it might be."

"Yeah, come on," Kurt said too-cheerfully. "First you take a beating from the new trainer guy, then you hit the beer? Spill the details, Elliott."

I downed the last of my drink, and when I pushed off my stool, the room tilted. I tried to reach for the table, but it was somehow not as close as I thought. Then the room tilted again, and Mitch had hold of me.

Mitch.

The best partner a cop could have.

I told him this, of course, and he laughed.

"Get him home," someone said. Kurt. Kurt said that.

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I told him, very seriously, "I can get myself home, thank you, Detective Webber."

Kurt and Tony laughed. They were laughing at me, and it should've bothered me. Actually, it did bother me, but Mitch was pushing me out the door.

Ah, Mitch. My partner. "Haven't you got a dinner date tonight with Anna?" I asked.

He looked at his watch. "Plenty of time," he said.

"It's not even eight."

Fuck. It wasn't even eight, and I was smashed. The air outside the bar seemed to make me drunker.

I looked at Mitch. "Whose idea was it to have beer?"

"Mine," he said with a laugh. "But it was your idea to have bourbon."

Ugh. Bourbon. I hated bourbon.

"Oh, here's Frankie."

No. No, no more Frankie.

Mitch was mumbling about his jacket, and I turned around and was looking at dark, almond-shaped eyes and perfect lips. Then the sidewalk tilted.

Fuck.

"Here, hold him up," Mitch said. "I left my jacket inside."

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Then big hands were on me. Strange hands,

unfamiliar hands…

Warm, strong hands.

I watched Mitch walk away and looked at this

Frankie guy. "It's your fault," I told him. Because it
was
his fault.

"What's my fault?" he asked with a smile.

"That smile," I groaned. "It's too beautiful."

So he smiled again. Of course he did.

Didn't he know what he was doing to me when he smiled? Didn't he understand at all? "You'll give me away."

I leaned in so I could whisper. "No one knows about me, okay? No one knows."

"No one knows what?" Mitch's voice came from behind me.

Spinning around to face him, I joked, "How fucking good I am."

"Yeah, right," Mitch laughed at me. "We all know how good you are." He looked over my shoulder to this Frankie. "Hey thanks, man."

"No worries," Frankie said, then his hands weren't on me anymore. "I just finished up at the gym and was heading to the parking lot," he explained. "You gonna be all right with him?"

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"Yeah," Mitch laughed, close to my ear. "This is what three beers and two bourbons will do to someone who doesn't drink."

"Doesn't drink, huh?" Frankie asked, looking at me.

His dark eyes were all glimmery, and he smiled that fucking beautiful smile. "Looks like he managed okay."

Mitch laughed again. "It's been a big week, but something got under his skin today."

"Is that so?" Frankie laughed. "And he's gonna be sick tomorrow."

They were talking about me like I wasn't even there.

Well, fuck them. I just wanted go home. I patted down my pockets. "Where's my keys?"

Mitch laughed again. "You're not driving

anywhere."

"I can drive just fine," I told him. Then I looked at the road. It looked wobbly. "If the road would just stay still."

Laughing, Mitch put his arm around me, and we

started to walk. "What about my car?"

He shook his head at me. "Your car can have a sleepover," he told me. "I'll pick you up in the morning."

Ugh. The morning. I was gonna be sick in the

morning.

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Mitch laughed. "I know you're gonna be sick in the morning."

Mmm. I must have said that out loud. I tried not to say anything, in case I said the wrong thing and drunkenly stumbled out of the closet. I'd never been so rattled by anyone before.

I looked around. "Where's that Frankie guy?"

"He left while we were still on the sidewalk." Mitch laughed at me again. "Jeez, how drunk are you?"

I had to think about that. "I'm pretty fucking drunk."

Then I told him, "I let him beat me."

Mitch propped me up against a car,
his
car, and he looked at me. "I know you did. It cost me twenty bucks."

I laughed, but then I remembered that I was trying not to talk, in case I said too much. "Ssh, it's a secret," I told him, locking my lips and throwing away the key.

"You gonna tell me why you let him beat you?"

I shook my head and pressed my lips together.

"Mm-mm."

He laughed, shook his head at me and stuffed me into his car. When we got to my place, he hauled me up the front steps, bitching the whole way, and when he finally got me inside, he threw me on the couch.

"My bed," I said, hearing myself slur. Fuck, I was drunk.

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Mitch slapped my face. Twice. Then he laughed. "I don't love you that much."

"Fuck you," I said, though it sounded a bit mumbled.

He laughed again. "I'll be here at seven-thirty in the morning to get you. You'd better be ready."

The last thing I remembered was hearing the click of my front door, and the only way I could stop the room from spinning was to close my eyes.

* * * *

When Mitch arrived at seven-thirty in the morning, I was dressed and ready for work.

And very hung over.

"You in the land of the living?" he asked too damn loudly, as he handed me a coffee.

"Barely."

He laughed at me, shaking his head. "Come on.

We've got a mountain of paperwork to get through."

Ugh.

So with a thumping head and queasy stomach, I

spent the next too-many hours buried in paperwork.

"Oh, hell," Mitch said, distracting me from my thoughts. "You've got that look."

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"What look?"

"That 'something's not right' look you get when you think we've missed something."

"What is it this time?" Kurt intervened, looking up from his desk.

I threw the file I was holding onto my desk and sighed. "He didn't work alone."

Mitch, Kurt, and Tony all groaned. They knew who I was talking about.

I sighed again. "I'm telling you, he couldn't have done this on his own."

"We've been through this," Tony said. "There wasn't anyone else. Tomic acted alone."

Kurt's brow creased. "Matt, we checked this out.

There was nothing."

I sighed. I knew. I knew we'd been through this.

We'd checked it out, but something just didn't add up.

Something was missing. I was rarely wrong on things like this, but I had no proof.

"Well, you've got about four months to prove it,"

Mitch said with a patient sigh. "Hard, damning, physical evidence kind of proof."

Mitch got up from his desk and threw two case files on my desk and clapped his hands on my shoulders. "So while you're working on that, have some new cases with

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new bad guys to go over in your spare time," he said with a smirk.

"Mmm," I huffed, knowing any hope of constructive argument was over. Resigned, I closed the Tomic file for now and picked up a new case file.

New case. New bad guy.

Report after report. It never fucking ended.

I found myself absorbed with intel on a new

possible drug ring, and after a while, Mitch threw his pen onto his desk. Closing the folder in front of him, he looked at me. "It's five o'clock, Matt. Gym and bar?"

I shook my head and rubbed my stomach. "Not me.

Not tonight."

"Oh, come on," he whined. "It's Friday. Not very often we get Friday nights off."

"I'm not up for it tonight," I told him.

Tony scoffed. "Not up for bourbon? Or not up for another ass-kicking from what's-his-name?"

Frankie.

Fuck.

I hadn't thought of him all day.

I laughed them off, but they weren't letting me out of it. Mitch grinned. "The workout will do you good."

"No beer, no bourbon," Kurt added with a laugh.