Chapter Four #2
Her eyes spark with a fury that tells me I’m pushing my luck.
It’s not unheard of for us to get into near wrestling matches.
Her claws come out; my strength and size allow me to take a beating without consequence, knowing I could overpower her if I wanted to.
But it’s cute she thinks otherwise. Is that what I’m doing?
Baiting her into putting her hands on me so we could take it in a new direction this time?
She pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts.
“Next time, bring your own car. I’m not your chauffeur.”
“I’m surprised you still have a license. There’s no way you’d get a permit to be anyone's chauffeur.” I smile, knowing this is going to piss her off even more than the comment about her tits.
“I hit that pole one time.” She throws her hands up. “And you were distracting me.”
“How exactly was that again?”
Her cheeks turn beetroot, no doubt a curse of the redheads, as she mutters something about a shirtless dickwad under her breath. That would be me. The shirtless dickwad.
“So, your place or mine?”
“What?” she splutters.
“To go over the case notes before tomorrow.”
She rolls her eyes, huffing, and I think her percentage might be about to drop back down to eighty.
“Let’s go.”
“Are you sure you don’t need to check with the detective first?”
“Shut up!” she snaps.
◆◆◆
Katie takes us to a café a few blocks down.
We park surprisingly easily, and she waves hello, smiling at one of the café workers as if she’s not a wolf in sheep's clothing. She must come here at least semi-regularly, chatting with the barista as she orders us both a coffee, getting my order right without having to ask me. She moves purposefully around the tables before reaching an empty booth at the back. Maybe she’s trying to pull a power play because of the coffee I made her on Sunday morning.
Or maybe she’s just ordering my coffee. Who the hell knows with this trickster?
I’m almost tempted to ask her if she spat in it as she slides it over to me, but I don’t.
Looking over murder case files is not strictly suitable for the café she settled on.
The exposed brick and hanging lights create more of a cozy vibe.
There are a lot of unnecessary cushions here.
And even though we’re tucked into a booth at the back, we’re still getting a lot of stares.
Someone even went as far as to thank me for my service when I arrived.
The woman behind the counter making the coffees shoots me a flirty smile as she trails her eyes down my uniform.
I’m not going to say this doesn’t happen a lot, because a lot of people have a bit of a uniform kink.
Cops, firefighters, armed forces. Hell, I get it.
The power, the guns, the rage. Getting fucked by someone in a uniform is like opening a door to danger.
A part of the world you’re mostly protected from.
I don’t necessarily seek out these women; they let themselves be known when they see me.
But I would not have pegged Katie as one.
She’d never given any indication that she liked a soldier.
But from the way her gaze keeps dipping down to my uniform, as it has all day, I’d say it's information that’s new to her as well.
Although perhaps Detective Biceps also has a uniform?
I clench my jaw, watching her take a sip as she spreads out the case files.
“Usually, I start by going to the crime scene. I watch the initial interviews, sometimes in person, sometimes a recording. But I go to the crime scene and get a feel for the place.” She coughs, waiting for me to say something.
I don’t know if she’s waiting for a fight or a snide comment, but I don’t give her one.
“Okay, well then, once I’ve been cleared, I will do my first assessment of the suspect.
Interviewing them, trying to work out what kind of person they are.
We generally don’t go into the specifics of the crime at this stage.
I try to get more of an idea of their background, their reactions to certain stimuli.
I ask them what they remember about the crime, how they felt. ”
“Makes sense. You’re not interrogating them. The police do that.”
“Exactly.”
“I assume you’re privy to more information on this case than I am, but I appreciate you sharing with me what you know and what you’ve been told.
” I throw her a bone because working with Katie is going to be a hell of a lot easier than working against her.
Besides, I think she may have had enough of my teasing today.
The dark gray circles under her eyes would certainly indicate so.
She pauses for a moment, assessing me. Perhaps I’m the one who's being interviewed now. After a split second where her eyes drop yet again, she continues.
“It will be different from what you’re used to, I’m sure.
For the most part, you would have a report on what happened to those you’re treating.
In this case, we have to work out what happened, not only from the evidence but also from the suspect’s friends and family members.
We need to establish what kind of person they are. ”
“We both took forensic psychology, Katie.”
“Yes, but you studied this, what? Twelve years ago? I’m just going through my process.”
I take a deep breath. Reminding myself that I need her to work with me on this, not against me. I don’t relish the fact that we’re on her territory and not mine. She has the upper hand, and she knows it.
“You’re right, I’m still sore you beat me on Professor Kendrick’s final, that’s all.”
That blast from the past awards me a smile. Katie may not be manageable. But there are some things I know how to do to sweeten her up. Namely, insinuating that she has won, or admitting that she’s smarter than I am. The latter one hundred percent being annoyingly true.
“Professor Kendrick was a fuddy-duddy who chose cheat questions to trick us.”
“And yet you got one hundred percent on that final.” I arch an eyebrow at her, and she rolls her eyes.
Sighing, she says, “I visited him a few weeks before and asked him for past papers so I could get a better feel for the types of questions we’d be receiving.”
Relief floods through me. “Thank God you said that. I thought you were going to tell me you visited him a few weeks before and gave him a blowjob.”
“Jonesy! What the hell? I would never. Not with Professor Kendrick, anyway. Dr. Hans, however. Good lord, I would have stroked that man’s ego.”
Jesus Christ.
“Gross, princess. I don’t want to think about you stroking anything.”
She laughs, taking a sip of her coffee and wiping a stray drop from the corner of her mouth.
Soft lips that I’ve only had the pleasure of tasting once.
One time was all I’ll ever have because I royally messed it up, and if I haven’t found a way to make her forgive me in eight years, I’m not going to find one now.
“Good thing we’ll never have to worry about that, eh?”
She watches me over the rim of her coffee mug, her eyes dipping down to my chest once more.
It feels like a new game, one where I don’t understand the rules.
Whilst she’s preoccupied with my uniform, I take the opportunity to watch the column of her neck, the roll of her throat when she swallows.
The warmth of the café is making me sweat.
The proximity of Katie, when I haven’t been alone with her in nearly a decade, is making my knee bounce up and down.
What the hell are we going to talk about?
“Yeah, good thing.”
◆◆◆
We work for a few hours, passing each other different papers once we’re finished. We have a basic background on Connor Maddox. Not much more than what I was told in the sergeant major’s office this morning.
Daisy, a blonde-haired, short little thing from behind the counter, who stared a little too long at my uniform earlier, saunters over, offering me another coffee on the house to thank me for my service.
She completely blanks Katie, which causes her to pout her lips together, her eyes refusing to watch my conversation with Daisy unfold.
Daisy’s face pales as her eyes scan over the crime scene photos. I quickly try to put them away, forgetting that blood and guts aren’t usually what people see in their day-to-day.
“You should put those away. Someone else might see.”
“Sorry, Daisy, I’ll put them in my bag,” I say with a small smile. A light flush spreads over her cheeks, and she gives me a small nod before returning behind the counter.
“Sorry, Daisy,” Katie mimics, pulling a face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, are you jealous?”
“Pfft. No more than you were of Anthony.” She still refuses to look at me, instead focusing her unmoving eyes on the report in front of her.
“Anthon—oh, yes. Detective Biceps. How long has that been going on, anyway?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says stiffly, pulling out another crime scene photo, I’m sure just to spite Daisy.
“Uh huh. And the reason he looked like he wanted to bark at me after tattooing his name on your forehead was because you’re just friends?”
Daisy returns before she can respond, handing me a slip of blank receipt paper. It has her name and number. A heart over the “I” in Daisy in place of a dot. She’s cute, but not for me. I like my women a little less demure, with a bit of a stronger stomach.
“This is for you.” She smiles before turning to Katie and scowling. “I did ask you to hide those photos. We have other patrons who won’t want to see those.”
“You’re right,” Katie says sweetly, reaching out to place her hand over mine. “Honey, shall we go home now? If we leave now, we can fit in a quickie before we pick up the kids from school.”
The warmth from her palm is no match for the cold, sharp tone of her voice. Sickly sweet, she’s not a good actor, because even as she grips her nails into my palm, her face is contorted as if she’s smelled something awful.
I laugh, playing along if only to keep her hand on mine a little longer. “Three ways aren’t really our thing, Daisy. The wife gets a little possessive if you know what I mean.” I wink at her, and she scurries off, a red flush creeping across her cheeks.
The second her back is turned, Katie drops my hand and starts packing away the case files, muttering under her breath about having to find a new café now, as she’ll never be able to return here.
“If you had just come back to mine as I offered on the way over here, you wouldn’t have had to lose your favorite café,” I chuckle, clenching my now-empty hand into a tight fist.
“And have to deal with moldy towels and sweaty gym socks. No thanks. I know how you lived in college.”
Katie wouldn’t know this, as we rarely see each other outside of dinner club, but believe it or not, I am a fully grown adult now, and I'm in the army. There’s no way I’d get away with that in basic training.
Besides, living like a frat boy loses its appeal after a year or two of college. “I’m house-trained, I promise.”
She ignores me. “We’re done for the day. I take it you can Uber home?”
“I’m good.”
As we leave the café, I wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her close to me as we walk past Daisy. I lean down, brushing my lips over the shell of her ear.
“You know, if you wanted to hold my hand, you could have just said so. You didn’t need to embarrass the poor girl.”
Katie juts out her chin, her lips parting for a split second before they close again into a flat line. I don’t miss the way her eyes dart down at my uniform one last time before she spits her venom.
“She’ll live. Now get off me.” She shoves at my side, digging her perfectly manicured nails in between my ribs before setting off down the road to her car.
“See you in the morning, princess,” I call out to her. Her signature middle finger is her only response.