Carter's Cuffs

Chapter One

“Hey, Sparks. Lookin’ good tonight.”

Erin Sparks glanced up from the parking lot toward a second-floor balcony to find her sexy-as-sin neighbor, Carter Brooks, giving her a wink. He leaned forward in his patio chair, his arms resting on the railing, his chin perched lazily atop loose fists.

Her pussy spasmed slightly.

Was it because he looked so damn good sitting there with his dark, messy hair and cutoffs, that naughty twinkle in his eye?

Or because of the way
she
looked right now?

She wore a tiny black skirt that barely covered her ass, a tight red halter top that hugged what it didn’t reveal of her breasts, and red stripper heels. Her dark hair, which she usually wore straight, fell in voluminous waves around her face and over her shoulders. Her eyes were done smoky with thick eyeliner and mascara, and she’d painted her lips the same color as her top and shoes. She’d just been transferred to the vice squad a month ago and given that she was used to wearing a simple beige police uniform, it was hard not to
feel
how she was dressed right now.

“I’m on my way to work,” she explained, holding in her smile. She had no intention of flirting with Carter, no matter how either
one
of them looked.

“Damn. If this is how lady cops dress for work, I might have to start breaking some laws.”

His slow, teasing grin melted all through her, and her own snuck out—against her will. “This isn’t our usual look, you know.”

“It should be,” he told her. “You’d have the bad guys chasing
you
.”

“Well, tonight, hopefully they will. Not chase me,” she added, a little nervous around him. “But…you know.” They’d discussed her new assignment before—working north of the Vegas Strip, hanging outside a seedy old-time bar while her partner Danny sat nearby in an unmarked car. Two other plainclothes cops would be nearby, too, all waiting to move in for a bust.

“
Proposition
you,” Carter replied.

She nodded, and for some reason her breasts tingled just hearing Carter use the word
proposition
and knowing they were talking about sex.

“I’m still confused by this,” he said then, his expression less teasing and more puzzled. “There are naked chicks parading around on stages all over this town, and signs on every cab and billboard offering female company—but the Vegas P.D. is on a mission to stamp out prostitution?”

She only shrugged. She saw the weirdness in that, too. People came to Las Vegas seeking forbidden pleasures they couldn’t get at home, and the city catered to their fantasies—in every way but one. In the
state
of Nevada, prostitution
was
legal, but in Las Vegas city limits, no. “I don’t make the laws,” she pointed out.

Carter laughed quietly as he gave her another unguarded once-over. “No, you just walk around making it impossible for guys to obey them.”

Another twinge in her panties told her it was time to go. Besides, she didn’t need to let the rest of their neighbors in the condo complex see her parading around looking like, well…like a whore. Even if the way Carter looked at her right now made her feel ready and willing to do her pretend job with him, instead of her real one. She reached for her car door and ignored the urge to give him another smile.

“What if
I
propositioned you, Sparks?”

She turned back toward him, raising her eyebrows. “With money? Afraid I’d have to haul your ass to jail.” Despite herself, she grinned. She liked him. It was hard
not
to flirt, even if it was in her best interests to hold back.

“I wasn’t planning on offering you money.”

She lowered her chin. “What then?”

He grinned, easy and confident. “Just me, babe. Just me.”

She threw her head back in a trill of laughter, pretending her panties weren’t becoming more soaked by the second, then finally opened the car door. It was well past time to leave—before she climbed up onto that balcony and attacked him. “See you later, Carter.”

“Have a good night, Erin. And hey, go easy on the bad guys. You
gotta
feel sorry for ’em, ’cause you’re
extremely
hard to resist, honey.”

She’d seldom been as aware of her own body as when she was finally driving away from him. Jeez, that man
did
something to her. Even though she barely knew him.

He lived two doors down from her place, but they’d only exchanged a few pleasantries in the hall until Diana and Marc, whose condo sat between theirs, had invited her to a dinner party—where she’d ended up seated next to Carter.

One mere look into those eyes had left her wanting. Even just brushing her arm against his at the table had been electrifying in a way she could scarcely explain to herself. He simply
moved
her. Deeply. Sexually.

Diana had told her Carter was a great guy, but not overly outgoing—and Erin thought it an apt description from her observations at the dinner. Yet with
her
, he’d whispered little jokes and flirted mercilessly the whole evening. He’d asked her out twice since then, but each time she’d turned him down, claiming her job kept her too busy and that she didn’t want to see anyone right now.

“Aw, come on, Sparks,” he’d said after her last refusal, his green gaze sparkling in the sun as he flashed a playful smile. “Throw a guy a bone.”

He’d been outside at the time, running an electric edger along a walkway near the condo pool. He worked in construction, building the large hotel-casinos that sprang up one after another on Las Vegas Boulevard, but he also did some maintenance at the condos. Wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped out, long cargo shorts tattered on the edges, and a pair of dirty work boots with the laces undone, he
shouldn’t
have been sexy. But he
had
been. Big, messy, rugged, sweaty—and brutally, almost
painfully
sexy.

Turning him down had been agonizing—but she’d stuck to her guns. “Sorry, Carter,” she’d said, trying to sound casual and carefree as she whisked toward her car—that day wearing her beige police uniform, her hair pulled back into a low ponytail. “No bones to spare.”

But in reality, she wanted to
jump
his bones. She wanted to release her inhibitions and do things with him she’d never even thought about before.

She had no idea why she felt such a strong pull toward him. Could it be because of what Diana had told her over too many margaritas one night not too long after the dinner party—that early in her relationship with Marc, they’d shared a spectacular three-way with Carter? Did knowing he was that wild and that comfortable with himself and his sexuality increase her arousal for him? Or was it simpler than that? Was it his eyes? His body? His dark, tousled hair and the dark stubble on his chin? Was this just chemistry—the most powerful chemistry she’d ever experienced with a guy?

As she drove toward the downtown bureau to meet Danny, she let out a sigh. The fact was, it didn’t really matter
why
she felt such heady attraction to Carter—she still couldn’t act on it.

* * * * *

A little while later, she sat in the passenger seat of an old Nissan Sentra—light blue with a dented fender—that blended in on any city street. No one would suspect the guy behind the wheel was a plainclothes cop. Next to her, Danny maneuvered the car toward the Desert Oasis, which had probably been in its heyday about the time Frank and Sammy and the rest of the Rat Pack had been appearing nightly at the Sands.

“Explain this to me again,” Danny said. Hispanic and a bit older than her, in his mid-thirties, Danny was happily married with kids. They’d grown close, as police partners often did, so it wasn’t unusual for her to share personal matters with him. “You won’t go out with the guy because you like him too much? Help me out here, Sparks—that doesn’t make any sense.”

She scowled at him from beneath her heavily made-up eyes. “You know how I feel about getting into a serious relationship.”

Danny only gave his head a tired shake, which annoyed the hell out of her. “Well, don’t come crying to me when you end up old and alone.”

“I won’t. Because as long as I’m a cop,
that’s
what my life is about.” Erin’s father had been a Las Vegas cop, too. He’d died in the line of duty when Erin was fifteen—exactly half her life ago—shot during a response to a domestic violence call.

It had happened when her mother was ill—battling breast cancer—and the whole family had been stressed. Now her mother had long since beaten the cancer, but at the time it had torn her father apart. He’d tried to put on a strong face for both Erin and her mom, but Erin had seen how he’d suffered. And she’d also known that, because of it, he hadn’t been focused on his work—he’d made a couple of mistakes on the job. She’d heard him talking on the phone about it to a friend when he didn’t realize she was listening.

No one had ever said it, but Erin knew his worry over her mother had contributed to his death. He simply hadn’t been at the top of his game. And a cop on the streets
had
to be at the top of his or her game—that simple.

Still, she’d admired her father immensely. She’d always understood from early childhood that he risked his life every day—but that he saw each and every moment up until then as a chance to help people in trouble. So Erin had followed in her father’s footsteps without a shred of doubt that she wanted to live the same way—contributing something, doing a job that mattered. And even if standing on Las Vegas Boulevard shaking her ass at potential “johns” didn’t exactly feel like a worthwhile contribution, she knew it was. Just as her previous patrol work had been, and just as the work she’d done with kids—taking the D.A.R.E. program into schools—had been worthwhile, too.

And if she kept at it long enough and did enough good work, someday she’d be promoted to detective and get to solve more serious crimes. After her father’s violent death, it had become her passion in life not only to help others, but to help people find answers—families of murder victims and those suffering other kinds of loss. When and if she made detective, she hoped to make an even bigger difference.

So the work mattered. But the work required, for her at least, never letting herself become vulnerable, staying in control of herself and her emotions at all times.

So sure, she dated casually on occasion—and it met certain needs, for companionship, sex. But she would never let herself become so attached to someone that it would make her needy. She was a strong, tough cop, but she knew that inside her still lurked an emotional little girl. Falling in love with somebody, letting herself sink that deep into her heart, into her
feelings
, would only weaken her as a police officer. And a Las Vegas cop simply couldn’t afford to risk losing her edge.

“You’re a serious control freak,” Danny told her as he pulled to the curb half a block from the bar. She spotted their backups already in position. Carl was reading the newspaper in an ancient brown Ford station wagon, and Bobby was dressed raggedly, pretending to be asleep on a bench across the street.

“But the difference between me and most control freaks,” Erin pointed out, “is that I’m not trying to control anything but myself, my life. So it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

“Nope, nobody but you,” he agreed. “Here you want to go out with this guy, but you won’t. That’s crazy, Erin.”

She shrugged but felt a bit desolate. Normally, her “no relationships” way of life worked fine. She hadn’t had a serious boyfriend since she’d joined the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at the age of twenty-four. Six years later, she was content with her existence, liked living alone with her cat Columbo, and if she needed someone to lean on, she had her friends, her mom, or Danny. But damn it, something about this attraction to Carter was harder to fight—and making her feel lonely for the first time since she’d given up “attachments” to the opposite sex. “Maybe,” she conceded to Danny. “But you know about my dad.”

“I know your
theory
about your dad. And I know the guy had a fuller life than
you
, because his job was only one part of it. Just like me, he had a family he loved. And I’m betting when all was said and done, if you’d asked him which meant more to him—the family or the badge—he’d have chosen you and your mom without even blinking.”

Erin sighed. She loved Danny, but she hated when he lectured her. Then again, she’d brought this up herself so it was her own fault. “I’m hitting the street,” she said, ready to end the conversation.

“We got your back, babe, but be careful out there.”

She nodded, then exited the car and once more felt the full measure of how she was dressed, how much of her body was on display as she sashayed up the lightly littered sidewalk toward the streetlamp she would lean against, licking her lips when guys slowed down to stare and maybe consider making her an offer.

Darkness had just fallen over Sin City and Erin’s cunt still ached for attention. She’d thought talking with Danny had distracted her from her arousal, but now that she was by herself again, more able to think, more able to feel, she couldn’t believe how turned on she remained after her conversation with Carter an hour ago. Glancing down, she wasn’t surprised to see her nipples erect and jutting through her tight top. God, she hoped Danny hadn’t noticed. They rubbed against the thin fabric when she shifted from one foot to the other and she found herself wishing she could touch herself.