Flesh & Blood (3 page)

There were several police cars parked along the street, including Scott’s. All were unmarked and empty, the detectives making their way along the houses, carrying out interviews. She could see, just up the street, a suited man standing in the doorway of an old brick house, talking to a woman holding a baby in her arms.

Her fingers gently stroked her moist sex and she shuddered. She felt so sore, so tender, so battered, yet every touch made her moan softly with carnal longing. But her mind was returning to some state of awareness, accompanied by a sense of shock and fear.

She snatched her fingers away, recalling her whereabouts, dismayed with herself. She scrambled with her clothes, tugging her trousers on then pulling her blazer around her shoulders and thrusting her feet into her shoes. She did not see her underwear or blouse, and had no intention of going back to ask for them. Instead she staggered down the path to the sidewalk and then, swaying and weaving, made her way to her car. The chill in the air helped revive her a little, and she felt a rising sense of awe, shock, stunned amazement, and incredulity.

Fortunately in the trunk of the car she found an old white uniform shirt in a bag, probably thrown there some time before to be laundered. With trembling fingers she removed her blazer and pulled on the shirt, and despite it being too big for her she buttoned it up, tucked it in, and slipped her blazer back on over the top.

Scott would notice it missing, she supposed, but would have no idea what had happened to it.

‘Shit!’ she whispered angrily. If anyone knew, if anyone guessed, if anyone even suspected what she’d just done whilst on duty. Unprofessional did not even begin to describe the conduct she had just engaged in, and aside from being intensely angry with herself for such a serious lapse, she again couldn’t believe that on a personal level she had put herself in such a potentially dangerous position. For all she knew the man could have been a serial rapist and she should have known better, particularly bearing in mind the reason for the investigation she was working on.

What had happened? How could it have happened? If she’d had anything to drink she would have been certain he’d drugged her – but she hadn’t so she couldn’t use that as an excuse.

Her body still felt a kind of aftershock from those impossible climaxes. Not so long before she’d had to test new stun guns with her colleagues, just to know how it felt. After the shock there had been a kind of frazzled afterglow for long minutes, like a physical memory, and that was what she was feeling now, as if she had just been shocked with a kind of high voltage sexual electricity.

Her fingers patted and straightened her hair, trying to bring it into some semblance of order before someone remarked on it. She was Leah MacInnes, always poised, envied and admired by the other policewomen at Chelsea station, but currently she was a trembling mess trying to pull herself together.

The darkness helped a little, and she stood at the back of the group as the other detectives returned and compared notes before Lieutenant Bradfield. Then she got into the car and let Scott drive, speaking as little as possible, staring without seeing out the side window, wondering if there was still a stunned expression on her face.

Chapter Two

‘Morning, Leah. Sleep well?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ she replied, her soft voice containing the slight southern burr which testified to her Georgia roots.

She wore Louis St. Laurent in gray, small gold buttons down the front of the blazer, a green, high-collared silk shirt beneath, drawn closed around her neck, with a silk scarf wrapped around it.

She had been a little shocked, had cringed that morning at the sight of the bruises around the nape of her neck, with neat little bite marks in several places. The collar and scarf hid it all, and the long sleeves of her blouse, combined with a thick watchband and a bracelet, would hide the shackle marks ringing her wrists.

Her suit was businesslike, but still with a definite feminine touch. Her trousers were form fitting, and hugged the near perfection of her rounded bottom, but that would raise no eyebrows for her blazer hid the fact, and all which would be seen were the razor-sharp creases and the turned up hems brushing the surface of the most expensive black leather running shoes she could find. They were so expensive, in fact, they gleamed as if polished, and none of her superiors, not even the fussy Captain Gladwyck, would realize they were anything but the formal dress shoes required of all non-uniformed staff at Lakewood District.

Beneath her stylish suit she wore rather more feminine things than Captain Gladwyck would probably approve of, for he disapproved of women on general principles, at least those who did not know their place, disapproved of young people almost entirely, and had no time whatsoever for anything which smacked, to his deeply religious sensitivities, of indecency.

It was unlikely then, that he would approve of the delicate silk thong she wore. It consisted of little more than a tiny ‘V’ of purple fabric over her mons, and two thin strings moving diagonally up across her abdomen to curve across her trim hips. A third string slid up between her buttocks, broadened to an even smaller, inverted triangle of fabric at the cleft, and joined the two small waist strings.

Nor would he have been happy at the lacy purple bra made of silk and French lace, so flimsy the sheer half cups strained to contain the thrust of her full young breasts. Such items conveyed sensual femininity and youthful sexuality, but clothing discretely covered them and not even Gladwyck would have had the temerity to demand to examine the underthings of those ‘fortunate’ to be beneath his supervision.

Leah always liked to dress well, and she always wore sensuous lingerie, even when in uniform. But today she felt much more conscious of it.

She had not slept well at all, taking hours to fall asleep, her mind constantly replaying what had happened, her body reliving it through the helpless stroking of her fingers between her thighs. She had been incredibly horny, nothing like the intensity she felt in Morales’ house, but she was unable to keep her hands off her body, and was forced to masturbate three times in an effort to purge her body and mind of sexual hunger.

She tossed and turned in her sleep to dreams of Morales taking her in every conceivable way, to dreams of her prostrating herself before him, worshipping him, adoring him, giving herself to him, submitting herself, body and mind and soul. She awoke again and again; her body inflamed, her sex wet, and masturbated to powerful climaxes. She’d never known a night like it. What was the matter with her?

She turned into the briefing room and found a spot next to Sara Yi, nodding cordially as she slipped her Gucci bag onto the floor next to her chair, then sat down – gingerly. Her bottom still stung a little. She’d not thought he slapped her that hard, yet she had found a blotchy pink outline of a hand on her bottom when she examined herself in the mirror that morning.

‘Hey,’ Sara said, ‘what you think?’

‘What do I think of what?’

‘We got new captain of detectives. Black woman. Affirmative Action in action.’

Leah nodded noncommittally. She was not about to express an opinion to a chatterbox like Sara Yi about anything controversial, let alone ‘Affirmative Action’, the Force’s attempt to ‘encourage’ higher levels of minority participation and promotions within its ranks. It had occurred to her on more than one occasion, however, that Affirmative Action was the only reason the flighty young Chinese girl had managed to avoid official sanction on numerous occasions, and even get herself promoted to the detective ranks.

Not that she didn’t like Sara Yi. The girl was hard not to like, except for stuffed shirts like Gladwyck, but she acted far too much like an unreliable, fashion conscious, boy crazy teenager for Leah’s comfort. She leaned over to whisper, and noticed for the first time the graceful sweep of Sara’s throat, startled at how attractive she found it. ‘Uhm, you have blue in your hair,’ she murmured quietly.

Sara blanched and reached up, her fingers pulling hastily at her hair. She scrambled in her purse and combed her hair rapidly, muttering in irritation in Mandarin. Or was it Cantonese? ‘Cheap hair extensions,’ she said apologetically.

‘Blue?’

Sara beamed. ‘Look real cool. You should try it.’

Leah shook her head.

‘I wear last night at rave.’

‘You were at a rave on a Monday night?’ She imagined the pretty Asian girl dancing and swaying provocatively to pounding music, dressed in something slinky and revealing, and felt a little thrum of heat between her legs that made her blink in astonishment.

‘Yeah, very loud, very wild. Didn’t get to sleep until four.’

Leah nodded; still stunned to experience sexual interest in another female, let alone Sara. Sometimes she wondered if someone had altered the girl’s birth certificate and added three or four, or even five years. She was purported to be twenty-two, but sometimes acted more like seventeen. Not that she wasn’t bright and dedicated, but teenagers tended to grate on Leah’s need for dignity and circumspection. She might not be a stuffed shirt like Gladwyck, but she had quite high standards for behavior in public. So why on earth would she suddenly find Sara… desirable?

‘Nice scarf,’ Sara said brightly. ‘You buy at Wallmart?’

Leah snorted. ‘No, it was a present from a friend. He picked it up in India.’ She subconsciously lifted her hand and brushed the soft brown hair back from the side of her face. She was lucky in her hair; it tended to style well and mind its manners. Today it seemed to fairly glow with brightness and life, despite her rough night. It was a deep, sensuous chestnut, a lustrous curtain of rich brown that framed her lovely face immaculately.

Her cheekbones were high and aristocratic, her lips full and seductive, her white teeth giving evidence of a disciplined childhood with the best dentists. Her green eyes were slightly oval, indicating a trace of Mediterranean, or some whispered, Asian ancestry. She was beautiful by anyone’s judgment, having the beauty of the predatory cat, not the wispy model. Her eyes could pierce a man to his vitals and she could express more disapproval and contempt with an inclination of her chin than others could with a five-minute verbal diatribe.

She was most certainly not a girl who would allow herself to be spanked. Yet her body seemed to recall each sharp impact of his hand across her raised buttocks, and her ears recalled the sound of flesh spanking flesh as his hand struck, and her mind remembered the sense of outraged excitement as he punished her.

What was wrong with her? She was not a woman given to flights of fancy. Even as a young girl she had not been subject to the swooning romantics of other teenagers. She had always been strong willed, always been smoothly and proudly contained. Her parents had spoiled her with things, but for all intents and purposes she had been alone all her life. That required a certain measure of self-control, and she had come to rely on that self-control in dealings with the world around her, and especially with her cold, aloof parents.

Her father was that dentist who cared for her teeth, an oral surgeon to be specific, while her mother practiced law in Atlanta. As an only (and she thought likely accidental) child, she benefited from her parents’ money as well as their desire to have someone else mind her upbringing. She attended boarding schools, and had only to ask for whatever hobby caught her fancy to be enrolled in the appropriate course of instruction.

Thus she moved with the grace instilled by ballet, dance, fencing and martial arts lessons, had quite a talent for both piano and guitar, and was professionally trained in how to apply makeup and style her hair.

Her familiarity with her parents, on the other hand, was somewhat loose. They had seldom played much of a role in her life aside from administering the proper moneys on request and chastising her occasional failures. They had not, needless to say, been pleased with her joining the police. But she had held firm.

Lieutenant Colin Michaels came into the room and took his chair next to Lieutenant Malcolm Phillips.

‘I like to jump his bones,’ Sara whispered mischievously, her eyes on Michaels.

Leah nodded wordlessly. That was certainly no surprise. Sara had ‘jumped the bones’ of half the eligible men in the district command. A first generation refugee from Hong Kong who came to the US at nine, she seemed determined to cast off every preconception about Asian women anyone had ever imagined, starting with those relating to how quiet, meek and chaste they were.

Since she was really the only other young female detective in the district her actions did little to persuade the more hidebound males that they were to avoid viewing female police officers as sex objects. This infuriated many of the female officers, quite a few of whom wanted nothing to do with men in any case, and who were outraged at having a ‘Chinese boy toy’ in their midst.

Leah understood their irritation, but didn’t share it. In what she admitted to be a sense of arrogance, she was an island unto herself. She did not believe the actions of a girl like Sara would reflect badly on her, for she was quite obviously a different breed than the giggling girl. But she felt less distant now, given what had happened the other day, and even less given the images now rolling through her thoughts of Sara engaged in lewd carnal acts with Phillips and other men, and then, astonishingly, with her.

‘Hello sweets.’

Leah turned, startled out of her shameful reverie, and nodded at Scott Brookline. He’d been her partner when she was promoted to detective a year and a half earlier. There had always been sexual tension between them, for it was quite obvious from the start that he viewed her as an eminently bedable female. Still, he had been professional enough not to try anything beyond a lot of verbal teasing. He was not unattractive, given their ten year age difference, with curly blond hair, a barrel chest and good humored features. But Leah had always been extremely protective of her reputation, and never so much as dated anyone in the police service.

The conversations that filled the room with a hushed babble ceased as a tall, athletic woman entered. It was the new captain, Leah knew at once. She was black, her hair cropped short, nearly to the skull. There was no hint of European or Arabic features in her strong, African face, and something strange deep inside Leah simmered in excitement at a brief thought of herself kneeling at the woman’s feet, before she banished it indignantly.