Absolute Power (Southern Justice #1 (14 page)

“Get in here,” he barked. Smoking for the majority of his life, gave him the hoarseness he used as intimidation. “Close the door behind ya.”

He was leaning back in his chair, the wood creaking from his weight, his level of activity limited to his laps between his desk and the coffee pot. “Got an interesting call last night.” His blue eyes were surrounded by wrinkles and silver hair framed his sun-damaged face. He laced his fingers behind his head, his face in a disapproving grimace. “Anything you want to tell me?”

Major was the type of man to give you enough rope to hang yourself. I used the same tactics with my guys, but given his position, I’d save the cockiness for Shayla later tonight.

“I walked up on an assault over on campus.”

“Did you call for backup? Coordinate with campus police?”

The fucker knew the answers, he was baiting me, but I didn’t feel like being one of the trophy fish he hung on his wall. “I saved a girl from years of expensive therapy and found the man responsible without costing the city overtime.” My straight and honest answer was one he couldn’t debate or hold against me. It was just my way of cutting to the chase.

“Listen, Dylan, I know the type of cop you are.” He leaned his elbows onto his massive desk. “Hell, I wish I had three hundred of you walking the streets every day.” He looked over to his left, where the window was open with a view of the bridge in sight. “I can’t have you going all solo and shit. Campus Police want an investigation into why they didn’t get a call from dispatch.”

“What did you tell them? ’Cause I know you’ve spoken with them already.”

He was trying hard as hell not to smile. “I told them our Detectives have never contacted them during an investigation before, why would the Captain start now?” He moved his body back to leaning in his chair, satisfied in his answer. “Now, tell me what happened. The truth, not the shit the newspaper is gonna print.”

Twenty minutes later, I had filled him in on every last detail. Well, not the fact I was having chest pain when I was near Claire, but everything he needed to know about the attack. “All right. Next time, send a message to the proper people. I’ll smooth things over with the Chief.” He reached for and opened a file from the stack he had on his desk. I started to get up from my chair when he held up his hand.

“And, Dylan.” His face was as serious as the situation. “Next time, rip his fucking balls off and feed them to him.”

“You got it,” I agreed as I two finger saluted him.

With another air kiss to Ms. Melba, I headed downstairs to my office. A decision I regretted all day. Once the media got hold of who the officer was involved, the phone never stopped ringing. Celia threatened to unplug the damn thing if it continued. Murphy and Kennedy let me know Frances didn’t try to bond out, opting to stay as a guest of the county jail. He also refused to let the medical staff have a look at him. It was the highlight of the day when they described how one of the nurses down there made him stand in the shower while she scrubbed him with a brush.

Celia had been tasked with creating a report on how many cases we worked on that received a guilty verdict and how many were dismissed. As I scanned over the fifty pages, my anger and anxiety grew. Nearly sixty-five percent of all perps involved in the crimes we investigated never served a day in jail. Of those, which did result in a conviction, thirty percent were overturned on appeal.

“Celia, tell me how in the fuck I still have a job?” She looked perplexed as she registered my question. “If my team’s investigation skills are this shitty, why in the hell do I still have a job?”

She stuck her pencil back behind her ear, a deep sigh leaving her body. “Actually, you have the highest numbers in the city.” I sat, stunned, in one of the chairs before her. “Listen, Dylan, you can’t save the city from itself.” She shook her head for emphasis. “We all do what we can, and believe we are making a solid difference for the familys we try to protect. But…”

“But the attorneys and the legislature are working just as hard to free the innocent,” I shot back. “And we all know there are only innocent people sitting in jail.”

I slammed my fist on my desk and pushed my chair backward, slamming into the bookcase against the wall. I’d seen enough and needed to get the hell out of there. “Celia, thank you, I’ll see you in the morning,” I tossed over my shoulder as I rushed out of the office.

I needed a drink, a stiff one. The closest place to my office was Columbo’s, a decent place, big with the tourists. I knew one of the bartenders from a case I responded to a few years ago, Jessie. Her husband beat the hell out of her, so she called the cops and had him arrested. She filed for divorce before he even made it to central booking. She met the owner of the bar when she applied for the open waitress position. He showed her how a man treated someone he cared about and married her a year later. They’d worked together ever since.

It had been a while since I’d been there, but nothing had changed except a few of the employees, including the young lady who stood at the door. I declined a table, pointing to the bar instead. She smiled a little and nodded her head, continuing on to the couple behind me.

“Uh-oh, I’ve seen that look before.” Jessie didn’t stop to ask what I wanted to drink; she poured and I accepted, not bothering to thank her, just nodding my head.

Jessie, without question, was a beautiful woman. Her skinny frame and large chest helped keep the male clientele coming in. Her big assed bear of a husband kept them respectable. Just as the burn of the whiskey hit my throat, I saw her; dark hair falling softly against her shoulders as it swayed with her movements. Her jeans wrapped around her ass and thighs, giving every male eye something to appreciate. It was her laugh, though, feminine and carefree, which gutted me the most. I closed my eyes tight, and slid the empty shot glass back in Jessie’s direction. She didn’t disappoint as she returned a full glass. Of all the bars in this goddamn city, why did she have to pick this one? Opening my eyes, I caught her laughter and the one responsible for its release.

I’d seen him in the ER, one of the docs over there. Irish fuck if I remembered correctly. Were they dating? Was he her boyfriend?

“Shit, why the fuck do I even care?” I mumbled as I downed the second drink.

“Hey, baby.” I flinched as her nails scraped against the skin of my forearms, trying her damnedest to be sexy and alluring. By the slur of her words, she had been partying for quite a while now. I’d sent her a text, telling her to meet me here. As much as I wanted to forget this afternoon and all the statistical bullshit I discovered, only one thing would help make it happen.

Shayla was a girl I met at one of the strip bars just north of the city. She had been waiting tables, among other things, while working her way through school. Chase, being a fucktard, paid her a hundred bucks to give me a lap dance for my birthday. One dance led to two, which led to her pressed to the brick on the back of the building, and me fucking the shit out of her. She gave me no resistance when I told her I wasn’t interested in her snatch. With the ease with which I slid into her, she was no stranger to anal either.

“Well, looks like you’ve gotten a better offer,” Jessie joked, pointing to the empty glass and questioning me with her eyes. What she said wasn’t funny, but Shayla broke out into a fit of giggles. One of those, where try as you might, you couldn’t help but laugh with them.

“Come on, I know how to make it all go away.” She bit the skin on my earlobe, something I didn’t find a turn on, at all. I needed to go, to get away from my feelings of failure as a good cop, the pain which was creeping back into my chest, and the twitching my cock was doing at the thought of what Shayla was willing to give me. I needed release from my realities, pun intended.

I slid some cash into the empty glass and, giving Jessie a friendly smile, pulled myself off the bar stool, the smell of Claire in the air. She was sweet, kind, caring, and, no doubt, loyal as fuck. Had friends who would do anything to protect her, fight for her if it came to it. She was everything I didn’t want, commitment, dinner dates, meeting a family who would no doubt judge me. I had enough people judging me, an entire fucking file full of them.

With Shayla tucked under my arm, my hand gripped her waist in a gesture which, to any onlooker, would seem loving, but was actually an attempt to keep me from ripping Claire’s date’s hand from her lower back. It was a move I’d seen a thousand times, a true turn on for a chick who was into that romance bullshit. I stood there, looking into her big doe eyes, trying like hell to seem like I was the least bit interested in Shayla. I sounded like a complete idiot when I could only mutter a few words to her, my voice sounding intoxicated, which would have helped if it were true. I ignored the overwhelming feeling in my chest and the desire to tell Dr. Notre Dame to take Shayla home for me, leaving me time to fuck this girl out of my system. How much better would I feel if I could? Bend that fine ass of hers over a desk and fuck her for all she was worth, creating yet another notch on my bedpost, and move on.

Karma could be a fickle bitch and I’d managed to piss her off one too many times. If it weren’t for me giving my word to Carson, I wouldn’t be practically carrying a drunk Shayla to her apartment.

When we got inside Shayla’s place, there were dirty clothes scattered about and takeout boxes littered about the room. The rancid smell of trash, which should have been taken out days ago, permeated the air. This was how her house always looked. Shayla didn’t care who was coming over, she was a take it or leave it kind of girl. She was also always ready to fuck—her bare ass and pussy in the air, fingers going crazy playing with her clit. Shayla loved things on the kinky side. She even had both nipples pierced with weighted bells through them. She had dozens of vibrators and dildos, using them to help get herself off. She didn’t care if you participated or just watched the show. She, like myself, was in it for her own pleasure.

She wet her fingers with a bottle of oil and spread it around her back door, her free hand never leaving the piercing which ran through her clit. I eased down my zipper, my hard cock springing free. He was familiar with her seduction and knew exactly how to get in and get what we needed.
Come on Dylan, she wants us.
I could practically hear my dick shouting at me. I placed my left hand on her lower back, resting it beside the mythological tattoo she had done a few years ago. A single hand, vines and leaves weaved around and between the fingers, in the center, a single eye, some legend about warding off your enemy. Yet, all it brought me was the memory of Notre Dame’s hand on the small of Claire’s back, protecting her, claiming her. Where was his hand now? Was he feeling her soft skin, her pert nipples? Had she welcomed him into her bed and screamed his name?

“Come on, baby,” Shayla demanded, shaking her ass, trying to find my exposed cock.

I shook my head, ridding my mind of who, and what, Claire was doing. My hand gripped Shayla’s hip a little harder, only to find my cock had deflated, a lot. Stroking myself as I watched Shayla having her first orgasm, her hand held vibrator working her pussy into a frenzy. Did Claire own a vibrator? Did she think about me as she slid it into her?

Jesus fucking Christ, why was I thinking about
her
? I
had what I needed right in front of me, begging me to fuck her. Yet, every single time I opened my eyes and reminded myself this was Shayla, not Claire, my fucking dick went flat. Pissed off and wanting to regain some balance of control, I pulled Shayla off her knees and placed her directly in front of her dressing mirror. I wrapped one hand around her waist and slid my finger inside her slick folds. Just because I preferred to fuck a girl in her ass, didn’t mean I had no clue how to explore a fucking pussy.

I pushed three fingers in with my palm on her clit. Her fingers pulled at the bells on her nipples, my name falling from her lips as I leaned my head down and bit the skin on her shoulder. I worked my fingers faster and faster, feeling her body as her pussy began to contract. Shayla’s head fell back against my chest, her eyes closed and face relaxed with a hint of a satisfied smile. I removed my drenched hand and watched her body falling limp to the floor. Shayla and I had never done anything close to this, typically limiting our interaction to only fucking.

For the first time in my life, I left a beautiful woman, completely sated and, more than likely, thinking our relationship had changed.