36
NAT
The treehouse is a rectangle of wood and silence that creaks when I breathe.
Today, calm doesn’t show up. Clear table, low lamp, window open to the woods, black except for two streetlights.
It smells like resin, fine dust, and this morning’s coffee.
I’ve been dragging myself through long weeks: shored-up protocols, doubled shifts, drills with Alaska on the mat, reports to Irina with red marks, discreet bruises, sleep sliced thin.
A tiredness I won’t admit to the mirror.
I tidy the house and, in the process, my head: everything in its place, fears folded, guilt stuffed in a drawer.
Phone on airplane mode, watch on the shelf, notifications quarantined.
I loosen my shoulders. Doesn’t take. Even so, a corner stays messy, right here, under my sternum.
Anxiety throbs and waits for her to arrive and flip it upside down.
I like it. This tension turns me on and keeps me awake. Look how basic I am.
She rings the bell once. On time. Fuck. No room for doubt. I don’t check the peephole. I hear her shift her weight on the landing, that hurry-up rhythm she has without speaking. She lets out a short sigh. My back prickles and heat drops down between my legs. I open.
She comes in wearing the trench coat she bought for her birthday and a dangerous smile.
Hair scooped up in a hurry, loose strands giving her that perfect-mess look.
Mischief in her eyes. Burgundy nails, gloss on her lips.
She scans me top to bottom and the heat climbs.
My hands want out of my pockets; I lock them in.
"Officer Vázquez," she says in a low voice that kicks up my pulse. "I’m here about a complaint."
"Which one?" I ask without moving from the door. My voice comes out rougher than I planned.
"Excessive caution at this address. Maximum sentence: two kisses before I come in."
She looks at me like I just won an award for existing.
I brush a strand from her forehead with my thumb.
Warm skin. I serve the sentence: one soft at the corner of her mouth, another closer to her lips.
I tremble. I add a third at the angle of her jaw.
That one doesn’t count, but it leaves me hungry.
She shuts the door with her back without breaking eye contact and drops the trench on a chair.
Fuck. A cop costume straight out of a sex-shop catalog: tiny blue shirt, belly button out, that strip of skin that drives me crazy.
Silver buttons, a plastic badge stamped OFFICER on her chest. Short skirt.
Black stockings with a thin garter. A belt with a ridiculous holster.
Legs that spike my temperature. She tips her chin up, clears her throat, hand on her hip.
I’m done for, and she hasn’t even pulled out the paperwork.
"License and registration, please."
I’ve been trained to keep a stone face. With her, I fail. I laugh inside and tense a millimeter on the outside. The game flips my switch. I can’t tell anymore if I want to give orders or take them.
"And if I don’t cooperate?" I ask, neutral.
"Protocol kicks in," she says, solemn, eyes locked. "Full search. And a penalty."
"Penalty?" My mouth goes dry with sheer hopeful panic.
"An entire night without touching me."
"You’ve got way too much imagination."
"And you not nearly enough lately," she says with a wink, taking a step. "Relax, I brought teaching aids."
She opens her bag with exaggerated leisure. I spot handcuffs, a novelty ticket book, a short rubber baton, a whistle, a red lipstick begging for a debut. I nod, dead serious.
She rummages and pulls out a black case, sober, elegant. I don’t have to open it; I know what it is.
"Shall we process the crime scene?" she asks, offering me the case carefully, both hands, thumbs aligned, respect in the gesture, a smile that promises trouble.
I don’t take it.
"Do you know what you’re asking for?" I ask, voice lower, more intimate.
"I know what I’m claiming," she corrects, with that look that cuts right through me. "And I know you miss it. Even while you play nice."
Nice. The word lands on my tongue. Since I found out she’s Popova, since I accepted I love her, I put the game on a high shelf.
It wouldn’t come. My control went soft. She noticed and didn’t push…
at first. Then she started with jokes, touches, looks.
Today she showed up in uniform. Today she’s here to reclaim her territory.
"Let me remind you, in your house you make the rules," she throws at me, with that innocent face that wouldn’t fool a toddler.
"Me?"
"Yeah. You. I just… test the security measures, you know?" She snaps the cuffs with a click so pathetic it makes me want to laugh. "Like these, for example."
"Those wouldn’t restrain Svet, and she’s a kid," I snort, because her little act is cracking me up.
"Then you’ll have to hold me down yourself."
Under the cheesy cop costume, the Alaska who drives me crazy shows up—the one who comes straight for me.
She steps closer, then closer. The case grazes my stomach.
Her pupils flare, or maybe it’s the hall light, and I’m already running inventory: deadbolts thrown, blinds down, phone on silent, water bottle on the table.
I’m ridiculous and I know it; I’m prepping logistics to fuck in my own living room.
I steer her straight to the kitchen table.
I sit her on the edge, legs dangling, that here-I-am, what-are-you-waiting-for pose.
I play tough and straighten her plastic police badge with ridiculous solemnity.
She looks up at me, chin tipped high, not a trace of shame.
She bites her lip, slow. No trick: it’s hers, it’s Alaska—clean, deliberate—and it knocks the air out of me. Me—surrendered, and loving it.
"You want to provoke me today, don’t you?"
"No. Today I want to remind you who you are, Nat," she says, locking her gaze to mine without blinking.
The line leaves my back tight and my chest squeezed.
I know who I am on a fire escape, adrenaline spiking, in a room full of cameras, or in a hallway that smells like danger.
Here, in my place, I’ve let myself go soft from fucking love and the fear of losing her.
She’s not asking for pain or a circus. She wants us to play bold again, with that deliciously bad idea from before, when the city didn’t even clock us and I went around acting invincible out of sheer stubbornness. Invincible, my ass.
"Leave the case there, Alaska," I order, flat.
She sets the little case on the chair without a word. She smiles a little and commands way more than she realizes. It pisses me off how completely she has me.
"And now, take off your clothes."
"Resisting an officer?" she needles, thin smile, teeth showing. Heat up my neck. I’m easy—what can I say.
"Ironic submission to authority," I correct. "And no theatrics, officer."
She unbuttons her skirt with a slowness that wants to kill me. She pulls the zipper; the metal rings in the quiet house. She kicks off her shoes with a tap against the table leg. She waits for the laugh. I laugh.
"Keep going," I order.
She yanks off her shirt in one go, hair mussed, eyes locked on me. She doesn’t look down, not even by accident. I plant myself in front of her, hands on my hips, fully in character.
"Last warning, officer," I lower my voice. "Either cooperate or I’ll file a report with photos."
"So tough." She laughs. "I missed this."
Me too. I don’t say it. I get close enough for her to feel my breath. She rolls her eyes, but swallows. There’s my Alaska: cocky, obedient when she wants, mine right now.
"Good," I say. "We start now. And don’t make me repeat the orders."
My voice shakes. Real boss, sure, with my pulse like a fucking drum. I rub my palms on my jeans to wipe the sweat and fake control. Running my mouth won’t help me, and today I’m burning that into my brain.
"Just one thing: forget Irina, the protocols, and your mafia surname for a while. I want you to stop treating me like I’m going to break, Nat. And... I wanted to make you nervous with what I’ve got in there, see if your body still wakes up and you remember what you like."
The image makes me tense. Not because of skin.
Because of what it drags with it. She gives me space, sure, and at the same time she argues it with every look.
She measures me word by word. She wants me to take control of the game—the one that doesn’t come automatic with her anymore and spooks me a little.
And the irony: if I follow her script, I’m the one who ends up obeying. Hell of a plan.
"You’re not putting anything on, Alaska," I decide, voice steady—finally my voice is behaving. If she wants kin k? lite, I’ll serve the full course and dessert.
"Oh, really?" she tosses back, that tone both tempting and sharp.
"No." I take her wrist. Warm skin, quick pulse, a tiny scar near the bone that always distracts me. "Today we play."
No theatrics. She exhales through her nose, slow.
Her body falls into place on its own: back straight, shoulders loose, chin high.
She looks at me with a shine in her eyes.
Not a docile look—doesn’t need to be. It’s a choice.
She chooses me. It has weight. It gets to me.
And yeah, it scares me and I like it, both at once—what a surprise, me complicating my life, as usual.
"Rules, Alaska," I tell her, firm, with a hint of sass—protocol heats up if you use it right. "If there’s something you don’t like, say it loud and clear. If you get too clever, I stop you. And if you laugh in my face... I’ll collect, with interest and late fees."
"Same as before, right?" she asks, with fake-as-hell innocence, the kind that makes me want to bite her smile.