Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) (10 page)

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I knocked hard on the apartment door. I pounded my closed fist against the smooth plane of the door with such force, I imagined rattling the 8C from its place. The door swung open moments later. Julia stood in the threshold, looking surprised by my appearance. She was still in her work clothes—a grey silk shell that buttoned up its center and crisp black pants. The grey shirt was unbuttoned at the neck to reveal the elegant wrap of a pearl necklace.

“Cassidy. What’s wrong?” she asked. Her hand went to her throat as she regarded me. I looked wild and unkempt compared to her perpetual polish. “And why are you all wet?”

I hadn’t bothered changing out of my uniform at the end of my shift. I realized it was the first time Julia had seen me in the full outfit.

“Later,” I grunted. “I need to forget today. Can you do that for me?”

She bit her lower lip in contemplation. We’d agreed to not see each other until the date of her mother’s trial, and I felt guilty for caving so soon after she’d asked for no distractions. But I needed this. I needed her. I didn’t know what I’d do if she’d denied me. Thankfully, she nodded and took a step back into the apartment to let me inside.

As soon as she closed the door behind us, I had her back pressed against an adjacent wall, and my lips were hungry at her mouth. She eagerly kissed me back, and I lost myself to the electricity that seemed to shoot all over my body wherever she was pressed against me. Her mouth was soft, yet firm against my own lips, and every now and again her tongue darted between my parted lips and brushed tantalizingly against my own tongue. When she sucked my bottom lip into her mouth and gently bit down, I felt warm all over.

We had options: the living room with its stiff, but functional furniture; the dining room table I’d smudge with fingerprints and whatever other body parts might make contact. The bedroom was too deliberate, and at this point, too many steps away.

I opted for the kitchen.

I planned on perching her on the kitchen countertop and losing myself between her legs. I imagined the granite countertop cold against her naked backside and thighs, but Julia had other ideas. She grabbed me by the front of my uniform shirt and pinned me against the refrigerator. For the size of the one-bedroom apartment, the refrigerator was massive—one of those double-door kind with the freezer drawer at the bottom.

She wasted little time. She tugged roughly at the tail end of my thick leather belt until it loosed itself from the metal buckle. She unsnapped the brass button at the top of my pants and slammed the zipper down. Polyester uniform pants were yanked down my hips and collected around my kneecaps.

She dropped to her knees in front of me.

“Oh God,” I groaned in anticipation.

She pulled down on the front panel of my underwear and sucked my clit into her mouth. My knees buckled at the intensity of the jolt of pleasure that rocketed through my limbs. Her tongue slid along the length of my slit and flicked against my waiting clit. She flattened her tongue and rubbed it hard against the protruding nub.

“Fuck,” I hissed, practically seeing stars.

She continued to swirl my clit around and around with the tip of her tongue. Her hands rounded my hips and traveled to my ass, which she palmed and roughly squeezed. There was no foreplay, no long, drawn-out teasing.  Her touch was solid, hard, and abrupt. She seemed to sense exactly what I needed.

She looked up at me beneath dark, thick eyelashes. The lids of her eyes were shadowed in grays and purples. I raked my fingers through the front of her hair and rounded to the back of her head. But when I tried to pull her tighter against me, she wasn’t having it. She slapped my hands away.

“Do I have to get your handcuffs?” she quietly threatened.

I immediately stopped trying to guide her head. “Okay, I’ll stop!”

She rewarded my compliance by pulling my underwear the rest of the way down my thighs. They didn’t travel very far, however, and I couldn’t widen my stance. With my pants and underwear pulled halfway down my legs, I was trapped in that position. I still stood in my police boots and uniform shirt—even my bulletproof vest remained.

She teased my opening with her middle finger dipping shallowly inside. She remained motionless, save for the light but steady attention her mouth focused on my clit. She pressed harder, but not enough to allow more of her finger inside. Finally, she entered me down to the second knuckle, and I hissed my approval. She immediately withdrew, but before I could register the loss, she pierced me with a second finger.

I needed something to hold on to, but I worried if I latched onto the back of her head again, she would stop altogether. I clawed at the refrigerator door I remained pressed against, but my hands slid uselessly against its smooth surface.

She rose from her knees, standing to her full height. Her fingers never lost contact. If anything, she slid harder and deeper inside of me.

“How are you doing, dear?” She grazed my neck with blunted teeth. “Still thinking about your day?”

“A little.”

“Then I suppose I have no choice but to continue.”

I wordlessly nodded. “Please.”

“So polite,” she smirked.

Her free hand moved up my chest, but with my uniform shirt and bulletproof vest still on, her touch barely registered.

“Take off that ridiculous uniform,” she practically growled. “How can you expect me to fuck you properly with so many layers on?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I readily complied.

I tugged my boots off and with them my socks. With my feet free, I finally finagled my legs out of my uniform pants and tossed them and my belt in a heap a few yards away.

My fingers were still cold and numb from being out in the rain all day. I fumbled with the buttons on my shirt. There were far too many of them, and Julia huffed with impatience. The Kevlar vest came off next. It velcroed around my ribs, but I tugged it up and off my torso like a t-shirt to save time. It hit the ground with a heavy sound.

Julia curled her fingers around the neckline of my white undershirt. Buried beneath layers of clothing it was the only part of my uniform that had escaped the rain. “There she is,” she purred. “There’s my girl.” She once again pinned me flush against the refrigerator. My bare ass pressed against the door.

“What was that you said to me after our first date?” She tapped her fingertips against her pursed lips.

I didn’t know what she was referring to.

“Oh, that’s right,” she answered her own question. “That I shouldn’t take it easy on you.”

Her smile—slow and calculating—sent a shiver of anticipation crawling up my spine.

“Turn around and grab your ankles.”

My mouth fell open in a noiseless gasp.

“I won’t tell you again.”

My body shook with a combination of anticipation and nerves. I trusted Julia. Explicitly. But she was asking—no,
demanding
—that I voluntarily make myself vulnerable. I sucked in a breath and did as I was told.

She nudged my legs farther apart with the use of her right foot.

“Really, Officer,” she chastised in a displeased tone, “I thought you knew how this worked.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever been in this position before,” I replied.

“I would hope not.”

Julia stroked her hand down the center of my back. Her fingertips tickled down my spine. I noticeably flinched when her fingers reached my scars.

“If this makes you uncomfortable, Cassidy, just say the word.” Her tone had lost its earlier edge.

I tucked my chin to my chest. “No. Keep going.”

Her warm hands rounded the curve of my naked backside. She leaned her body over mine. I wore only my bra and undershirt, but she was still fully clothed.

She reached around my torso and slid her fingers down my stomach, through the closely cropped curls, and down to my swollen sex. She pressed the pad of her middle finger against my clit and rubbed me in a slow, compact circle.

My knees nearly buckled, but I kept my legs spread for her and my hands clenched around my ankles.

She continued to rub my clit in a soft, lazy circle. With her free hand, she removed the hair band that held my blonde curls back in a bun. She brushed my damp hair forward so it fell over my shoulders like a golden waterfall. She pressed her mouth at the nape of my neck. Her mouth was warm and wet, and the ragged sound of her breath near my ear turned me on even more.

Her fingers worked their way beneath my t-shirt and the underwire of my bra. Her fingers were warm, but my nipples were cold. She pinched and pulled at the hard buds while her other hand continued to manipulate my clit and coax more arousal from my aching sex.

I couldn’t take much more of this slow tease. I needed to be fucked. I needed to be fucked by her.

I arched my back and pressed my backside more firmly against the front of her thighs. She lightly slapped my clit. “Patience, my pet.”

The heightened contact made me groan, but she continued to play with me, never quite giving me what I wanted.

Finally, I felt her fingers at the entrance of my sex. She slid two fingers into me with her other hand resting on my tailbone for stability. I was wet enough that she didn’t have to give me time to adjust to her fingers, although I doubted in her state if she would have cared. I had once told her not to take it easy on me and she was following my orders, as I was hers.

She began a slow cadence of penetrating me from behind. It was a precarious exercise in balance. Whenever she plunged hard and deep into me, my body threatened to fall forward. Without the use of my arms, which remained useless and immobile as I continued to hold onto my ankles, I used the muscles in my core and upper thighs to keep myself from tipping over.

“Such a magnificent body,” she murmured aloud, yet almost to herself. “So pliable and eager to be pleased.”

Her left hand periodically stroked down the center of my back before coming down hard and slapping my ass. I didn’t know what to focus on—the pleasure of her fingers sawing through my sex or the sharp flash of pain each time her second hand spanked me.

She curled her fingers each time she bottomed out. I made a quiet, involuntary noise with every thrust. Soon enough, her slow, laborious thrusts increased in pace and intensity. I couldn’t catch my breath. She was fucking the breath out of me.

“Still thinking about your day, darling?” she purred in my ear.

“Fuck no.”

Julia sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor with her back against the refrigerator and my head in her lap. She had grabbed a blanket from the living room and the area rug in the kitchen acted as our mattress. It wasn’t the coziest place for pillow talk, but I’d take what I could get.

Her fingers idly raked through my long hair, and her fingertips periodically massaged my scalp. I shut my eyes and let her moving fingers relieve me of some of that built-up pressure. The comforting touch was making it hard to stay awake.

“It was naïve of me to think I could focus on my mother’s case without you around. My mind continually wandered at work, wondering what you might be up to, wanting to call your phone or simply invite myself over.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I have a little bit of self-restraint,” she sniffed. “Not much,” she qualified, “but just enough.”

Her words were a welcomed revelation. Sometimes I worried my intense feelings for her were uneven. I knew she reciprocated the same level of lust and need for me, but I thought myself emotionally dependent on her already.

“What happened today?” she asked me.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

It was reflex to clam up, to shut down. The day had been far from my most challenging on the job. In fact, it had been fairly typical. Unfortunately, death and its aftermath were relatively common occurrences in my line of work. To admit that it had affected me was only human, but it was weakness as well.

“Someone died in a car accident,” I finally revealed, “and I had to tell his wife.”

“Oh.” Her fingertips massaged my scalp with new rigor. “I’m sorry, Cassidy.”

Julia’s caramel-colored irises regarded me seriously, but I saw neither pity nor remorse reflected in them. It was something I had grown to appreciate about her; she didn’t treat me as fragile. She knew about my past and I hers, but it didn’t affect the way we interacted in these moments. She didn’t try to mother me or solve my issues. If anything, we challenged each other to do better—to rise above all that. She made me feel strong and capable even when it felt like I was falling apart.

“Pensacola called yesterday. He wants to see me.”

“Your military friend? The one you saved?”

Her choice of words sat strangely in my head. Saved. Had I
saved
Pensacola? I’d never been sure about that.

“He and his wife are gonna be in town next week to test out new robot legs or something.”

“Did you say yes?”

“Yeah.” The syllable caught in my throat. “I didn’t think I had a choice.”

“There’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask,” Julia said, continuing to stare down on me, “but it’s absolutely none of my business.”