Bounce Down: 1st Quarter: Start of Play (10 page)

He dropped his head slightly at
the implications. “No strings. Do you want your nightie or
something more comfortable to sleep in?”

I knew by his
tone
more comfortable
meant less sexy.

“
What did you
have in mind?”

He went to one of the mirrored
wardrobes, identical to those in the other rooms and from a drawer
brought out a white T-shirt, like the one he had worn the previous
week.

I was beginning to have second
thoughts. Yes I wanted to come, but he had stated no strings and
that’s why I agreed to stay. “Perhaps I should sleep in the other
room, in case your urges get the better of you during the
night?”

“
Let me
handle my urges, okay? I said there would be no pressure, no
strings and I’ve already pushed those boundaries in the
shower.”

He handed over the shirt and
nodded towards the en-suite. “You can change in there if you
like.”

Just a
T-shirt, nothing else?
“My spare underwear
is in the car.”

“
You won’t
need any underwear.”

I stared back at him, doubting
his words.

“
The shirt
will be long on you and besides, I’m going to keep my word,
okay?”

I nodded, then slipped into the
bathroom and closed the door. After changing, I pulled a comb
through my hair and used my toothbrush.

By the time I returned he had
also dressed, well partially; all he was wearing were some boxers.
I couldn’t help but smile to see they were in his football club
colours, green and white, sporting the official Swan River Football
Club (SRFC) logo.

At my smirk, he spread his arms
wide. “Hey, they’re freebies, everyone has a pair.”

I felt overdressed with his
shirt coming down to my knees. Of course this was the point wasn’t
it, to protect me from his advances?

He looked me over approvingly.
“I will be back in a minute.”

As he went back into the
bathroom, I quickly slipped under the covers before he returned. As
I lay there, I tried to remember why I was denying us from having
sex. I definitely wanted it and from the size of his cock in the
shower, it seemed certain he was up for it. We had already done it
twice and earlier he had proved he could make me come, even against
my will. Not to mention my present unfulfilled state, thanks to his
cleansing technique.

What would
this no strings arrangement achieve?
The
answer was staring me in the face. No strings, they were his words,
his arrangement. Granted, he had suggested it because I was about
to leave, but would I have left?

If he had
straight off said sorry and kissed me, I would have relented and
stayed.
Well I was staying now, wasn’t
I?
Yes, with one big difference, which I
was about to rectify.

I was getting out of bed as he
emerged from the en-suite.

“
What’s
wrong?” Concern was etched on his face as though he believed I was
leaving.

I smiled to reassure him. “I
forgot something.” I dashed to the bathroom before he could
question me further.

When I returned I saw he had
dimmed the lights and, having come from the brightly lit en-suite,
it took my eyes a moment to adjust.

“
What
the...?”

I saw him rise from the bed and
come towards me.

“
Why are you
wearing...?”

I interrupted
and gave him a cheeky grin. “I will be
more comfortable
in my
nightie.”

He shook his head at this. “No
Suzie, not a good idea.”

“
Why not?” I
closed the distance between us.

He put me at arm’s length.
“Because my cock and I won’t be able to keep our promise.”

I wrapped my arms around his
neck and purred, “Promises you can’t keep are the best kind.”

Images of the weekend flashed
through my head like a newsreel; Friday night, our vanilla
lovemaking, the fight, the discipline, the shower and my red
nightie.

The sex that followed had been
so hard and fast it took my breath away. I blushed at the memory.
We then continued at a more leisurely pace, as we explored each
other’s bodies deep into the night. Thankfully, he seemed to have
an unlimited supply of protection.

We finished with another shower
and by the time I fell into an exhausted sleep, it was almost dawn.
The most special moment of the weekend was waking up next to him
for the first time and studying him while he slept. I remembered
how handsome he looked, handsome but innocent, like a little
boy.

We slept late and enjoyed a
light brunch. It was during this meal, Brendon brought up my issue
of being made to stay upstairs if he had visitors. His problem was
explaining my presence.

Since I wasn’t his girlfriend,
he didn’t want to introduce me as a friend because it would look
like I was a one night-stand. Then, if the situation arose when
visitors returned and again saw me, they would wonder what kind of
relationship we had.

I felt ashamed as I recalled my
callous words to Brendon.

“
I will just
have to keep you suitably occupied.” I queried this statement and
he had winked, stating, “I’ll tell you later.”

“
Good
morning, Suzie.”

Peter’s words brought me back
to the present. I glanced up and saw him and two guys from his team
coming through the door. The others called their greetings and kept
going through to the squad room, but Peter had stopped at my
desk.

“
Good morning
Pete.”

He got straight down to
business. “So how’s Bob, or should I say Brendon?”

My eyes
widened at his knowledge.
How did he find
out, surely he hadn’t had me followed?

I elected to play dumb. “What
are you talking about?”

Peter plonked himself down on
his favourite corner of my desk. “The jig is up, so you might as
well ‘fess up.”

I eyed him
warily and decided I was not about to tell him anything, until I
established how much he knew. It was one of their tried and true
tactics they used on Persons of Interest (POIs). If the Police
acted like they knew the full story, by dropping a few snippets of
the truth, then in all likelihood the POIs would roll over
on their associates, never realising they had put
them in solely on their own confession.

My email
pinged and I saw the sender’s name, Amanda Stewart, with the
subject title,
‘Sorry
.
’
Of
course, he had grilled her for information and she had spilled the
beans. I didn’t bother opening the email to confirm this, not with
him hovering like a vulture.

At least I knew Peter, like
Mandy, knew practically nothing, apart from his Christian name and
that we met on a blind date at a park.

Now with the upper hand, I
stared up at him and smiled sweetly. “Brendon’s fine, thanks for
asking.”

I broke eye contact and
returned to typing an urgent report for the Inspector. Speak of the
devil, Inspector Dave White emerged from his glass-walled office
directly behind my partition and popped his head around the
corner.

“
Are you
nearly finished Suzie, I have to get the report to the AC
(Assistant Commissioner) by nine?”

He frowned at Peter’s presence.
“I hope you’re not distracting our typist? Don’t you have work of
your own to do?”

“
Of course.”
He gave me that ‘
we’re not
finished’
look, before he headed towards
the squad room.

Dave winked at me. “You owe me
one.”

Dave was one of my favourites
at Homicide. He alone had been instrumental in getting me into the
Squad, all but poaching me from another section, the Drug Squad
Support Unit (DSSU). He was one of those policemen you could pick
from a mile away; mid-forties, naturally tall, medium build, short
dark hair with matching colour moustache and an air of authority
no-one challenged. Even though he was old-school, he was quick at
reading situations and could tell I was not happy with Peter’s
presence.

After handing over the printed
report for Dave’s signature, I clicked into Mandy’s email. It was
as expected and I gave her a quick call, wanting details.

“
Sorry Suze,
but your pal Pete and his buddies cornered me.” Mandy worked in the
same building, a few floors below.

“
But why did
you tell them anything?”

“
Peter said
he was worried about your safety. He kept firing questions at me
about how you two met and I let it slip about the blind
date.”

“
Great, so
what, specifically, did you tell him?”

There was a guilty silence,
before she admitted quietly, “Everything I know, from the meeting
in the park, to leaving your car behind and going to his place. I
even told him about talking to me on Skype.”

At my exasperated sigh, she
added, “I’m really sorry, but he was so intimidating. Please don’t
be mad at me.”

Thank god I had told her
nothing else.

She asked if I could spare some
time for a cuppa and I declined, pleading a busy morning. The last
thing I wanted was Mandy within earshot of Peter.

I took an early lunch break so
I would be relatively alone in the cafeteria upstairs. I was
starting on my meal as my phone buzzed – it was mum.

She rang to ask me to come over
for tea and I readily agreed. To mum and dad, tea meant dinner – it
was breakfast, dinner and tea, although I had often tried to tell
them it was breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“
How was your
weekend?”

“
I had a
great weekend and will tell you about it tonight.”

“
It sounds
like you’ve met someone.”

I smiled. She could always tell
my mood by the tone of my voice.

After I hung up, I gazed out
over the Perth skyline and pondered what to tell mum and dad
regarding Brendon. We had discussed what I should tell my family
and friends and why I was not available every weekend.

Brendon had eventually agreed
to let me them know his identity, but not any details about our
relationship. He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell anyone we
only saw each other on weekends and didn’t go out anywhere
together, let alone what we did behind closed doors. Well, that was
definitely one thing we both agreed on.

I would have to keep my cards
close to my chest during dinner, sorry tea, with mum and dad. It
would be extremely hard, given the questions they were likely to
ask.

As I headed back downstairs I
pondered whether I should also tell Peter. Telling him who Brendon
was may make him back off. However knowing Peter, he would probably
dig even deeper to discover our unusual relationship. I would wait
to speak with Jeanette in person and of course, I should tell
Mandy, but on the proviso she didn’t crack under any further Police
interrogation.

Back at my computer, I was
taken aback to see an email from Brendon. He had asked for my work
email, in case he needed to contact me during the day, as opposed
to phoning at an inconvenient time.

‘
Thanks
’ was the subject with the
short message, ‘
Thanks for staying, thanks
for letting my best friend and I break our promise and a special
thanks for the red nightie, Brendon.’
This
time it was signed Brendon instead of Mac.

I smiled broadly and was about
to reply as Tony and Rick, Peter’s other team members, came up to
my desk, one on either side of me.

“
What you up
to, are you busy?”

In case they tried to read the
email I quickly switched screens, blocking Brendon’s message from
their prying eyes.

“
Not really,
what’s up?” I glanced up at them, not fazed by their overbearing
presence as they stood over me.

I had worked with many young
ego-fuelled detectives over the years and knew not to show weakness
in the face of their intimidation. So far it had worked for me, to
the point where I had gained respect from my police work
colleagues. However, these young pups were fairly new to the squad
and as they were under Peter’s tutelage, I had to be on my
guard.

“
Hammer’s
interviewing a suspect in the Jacobs case, so he’ll need you to
type the ROI,” Rick stated, as he passed some handwritten notes to
me.

When a Record of Interview
(ROI) was being taken down by hand, the pages would be brought out
a few at a time, as the interview progressed. In this way, by the
time they had finished, I would only be a couple of pages behind
and could quickly type them, so they could be read and signed by
the suspect, or POI being the preferred term.

Of course it would be much
quicker if the detectives could type the ROI directly onto a laptop
in the room, but they didn’t have the typing speed I did. Plus,
they needed to be accurate and set out a certain way for Court.
Having said that, many of the guys and girls in the squad did type
their own reports and emailed them to me for formatting and
printing.

“
Sure no
worries, I’ll get started on these pages then.”

I put my reply to Brendon’s
email on the back burner, as I typed Peter’s notes.

Due to the
length of the ROI and work from other squad members, it was almost
five by the time I got back to Brendon’s,
‘Thanks’
email.