Savage Rage (5 page)

Yet his fondness for animals didn't explain or justify his outburst. She'd been having such a good time at the party. She knew Jack and her father didn't get along. But the two men had kept their distance from each other after the initial greeting. Then Jack had gone and ruined a wonderful evening by snapping at her father. Perhaps her dad had been needling Jack some, but still it didn't warrant his reaction.

If only the two men in her life could get along. Karen was tired of being the peacekeeper. She knew her dad didn't approve of Jack, never had, and he couldn't, or more likely wouldn't, see the wonderful qualities that had made her fall in love with him. And Jack couldn't understand that all her father wanted was for her to be secure in life; unfortunately, that wasn't possible on a police salary. At least not in George Hawthorn's eyes.

So Karen was trapped between them, always trying to bridge the chasm separating husband and father, doing her best to please them both. For her father, she was continually furthering her education, building her credentials. She knew he still dreamed of her teaching at a university, preferably following and then succeeding him at the University of Toronto.

Keeping Jack happy was so much easier and more pleasurable. He was an amazing lover and she never grew tired of his touch. There had been that time, for almost two months, when he had lost his sex drive. That had been a dark time, shortly after the incident in their home. Nightmares had plagued him every time he slept and the pitiful sleep he had managed to get did little to ease his stress. His mood at the time grew bleak and his temper unpredictably short. She feared he was suffering from depression. But he assured her, often with a strained smile, that the psychiatrist told him what he was experiencing was to be expected, typical even, and would pass in time.

And it had. Christmas had been a magical time. Even the ever-present tension between her two men had been buried beneath good friends, parties and presents. And after the holidays, Jack had gone back to work but not to that horrible 51 area. Karen had wanted him to quit altogether, use this time as a spring board to a new career, but he had insisted, rather stubbornly, that he was a cop and that it was all he knew how to do. They had finally compromised on 53 Division, which Jack guaranteed was the quietest in the city. Her friend Barb, an officer from Jack's original division and the one who had introduced them, had confirmed 53's status for her.

Everything had been great. Jack, though still a cop, was working someplace safe, his nightmares had faded and with more restful sleep his mood and temper had improved. Until tonight. His overreaction scared her, churning up old memories of the night he had not come home. He said he had spent the night at a beach party with his shift and she believed him; Jack was not the type to cheat. But he mentioned a female officer — PWs they were called — he occasionally chatted with. Barb had done some checking for Karen. What she had learned — all too quickly and easily — did not sit well with Karen. The PW, Jenny, had quite the reputation as a party girl and had, by the sound of it, slept with most of the married officers in the station.

Karen trusted Jack completely, but there was no harm in him staying away from such a woman.

She wasn't looking forward to tomorrow. No doubt Dad would call, wanting to have the conversation she had rudely escaped by going after Jack. But she could worry about her father's lecture later. Right now she had to take care of her husband, thank him — the term “reward” never crossed her mind — for going to the party. She wanted to make sure he didn't dwell on the spat with Dad. Jack had a tendency to keep things inside, letting them fester and bloat until they erupted at inappropriate times and places.

And if, in thanking Jack, she had another chance at fulfilling her own dream —
Don't you mean agenda?
a little voice asked from deep in her conscience, but she brushed it aside — then what was the harm?

While Jack was looking at her with a mischievous grin, Karen unclipped her seat belt and reclined the seat slightly. Not so far that her man would have to turn his head too much to see her but enough to give her some room to play.

“And what kind of reminder would that be?” he asked, sharing his attention between her and the road.

Again, she was happy they weren't on the highway. Playing in the car on the highway was a risky game. Not that she was worried about being seen by other drivers, far from it, but high speeds and foreplay just weren't a safe mixture.

“I could tell you, but I'd rather show you.” She let the fur coat fall open, exposing the little black dress Jack loved so much. Slowly, she inched the dress up her thighs to reveal the tops of her stockings. “Did you like it when I showed you my stockings before we went in to the party?”

“Oh, yeah. Did you like showing me?”

“I did,” she whispered and she had. Jack loved to be teased and she loved to tease him, so after he had parked the SUV at her dad's house she had hiked up her dress, displaying the stockings and garter belt. If she hadn't been wearing the coat, she would have turned slowly to let him see the matching thong. The brief exhibition had him touching her constantly throughout the party, building the sexual tension between them. And now it was time to let it loose.

Karen had intended to give Jack a bit of a show until he could find a secluded place to stop, but now she wanted more. She ran her hands up the insides of her thighs and pulled her thong aside. Stroking herself, she breathed, “Stop somewhere, Jack. Hurry.”

“I'm looking, hon, I'm looking.”

Her fingers played and the pleasure built. “Do you know what I want to do in this coat?” she whispered and Jack grunted a quick no. “I want to go downtown one evening wearing only the coat and high heels. Nothing on under it. Would you like that?”

“Oh, God, yes.” He spared her a tortured look then resumed searching for a side street. Frantically.

Soon she was lost in the fantasy and was only dimly aware of the car bumping over rough ground. Then Jack was kissing her, whispering in her ear as his hand teased her nipple through the thin fabric of her dress. “Don't stop, Kare, don't stop.”

And she couldn't. The pleasure, the intensity, was building too quickly, too powerfully, to be stopped or even delayed. The orgasm seized her and thundered through her body, arching her back in ecstasy. Her hips thrust convulsively against her fingers as she consumed Jack's mouth with hers.

In time — a shivering forever gone too soon — her body quieted, quivering as the last few ripples of pleasure ran through her, miniature aftershocks following a massive quake. “Sorry, Jack. I couldn't wait.”

He kissed her, tenderly, passionately. “Don't apologize. I love watching you come.”

She smiled up at him. A wicked grin her father would never have thought possible from her. “Your turn.”

His hand ran down her body to the sensitive area her fingers had just left. She gasped as his fingers slid into her wetness.

“If it wasn't so cold, I'd take you outside and bend you over the hood,” he told her as his fingers began a new rhythm.

“I think we can manage something.” She stilled his hand. “Come around to my side.”

Leaving the SUV running and the heater on high, he climbed carefully out of the driver's seat while Karen freed herself from her coat. Jack had found them an empty field with mounds of dirt. The Honda's tracks — Jack had backed in between piles — came in along a rough road, no more than a wide path, really. There were no street lights in sight, but she was able to see more earthen knolls stretching across the field. Farmland designated for housing? Whatever they were, the hillocks made the perfect spot for a secluded interlude.

Jack opened the passenger door and she met him with a kiss. Her hands dropped to his pants and within seconds she had them around his knees. She twisted in the seat, lowered her booted right foot to the ground, propped her left foot on the SUV's frame and leaned across the seat, thrusting her buttocks into the cold. She wanted Jack to fuck her. And quickly, but not because of the temperature.

Jack pushed her dress up to her waist while she pulled her thong aside. She felt him position himself, then push forward, filling her in one wonderful motion. He withdrew almost completely, then eased forward. Back and forward, building slowly, but she would have none of that.

“Fuck me, Jack. Fuck me now.”

And he did. She laughed joyfully as he rode her, thrusting into her with ever-increasing speed and power. She could feel the tension gripping him, feel the urgency needing release.

“That's it, baby. Give it to me. Give it to me!”

Jack cried out as he came in her.

Spent and utterly happy, Jack pulled out of Karen. “Sorry, hon, no time for being polite; my ass is freezing.” He yanked up his pants as she pulled her leg into the car and rearranged her dress. Belted up, he closed her door and stepped carefully around the truck.

The snow wasn't deep but the footing was treacherous. The evening had turned ugly thanks to Karen's dad and Jack had scared himself with the sudden rage he had felt, but Karen had known just what he needed to feel better. The last thing he wanted to do was slip and fall or twist an ankle. His anger was lessened for now. Not gone — he could feel it coiled inside him, waiting — but banished from his thoughts by Karen's love.

“Breaking an ankle would be a shitty way to end the night,” he muttered as he gained the driver's side. He reached for the door and his feet went out from under him. He landed on his ass with a cracking splat.

Karen opened the driver's door. “Jack! Are you okay?” She was leaning across from the passenger side, her arms braced on the driver's seat.

“Yeah, I'm okay,” he told her. “I slipped on some ice beneath the snow and —” He stopped, not wanting to believe what his nose was telling him.

“And what? What's wrong?”

He took another whiff and confirmed what he already knew, laughing at the absurdity. “I broke through the ice and now my ass is sitting in semi-frozen cow shit.”

Karen was trying to look mortified but her giggles betrayed her look. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as cow shit stinks,” he said and threw back his head and laughed.

“All right, maybe you can answer this,” Jack's escort surmised over coffee. “No one I've asked knows. Why are the portable radios called mitres? I thought a mitre is the hat the Pope wore.”

“As far as I know, it's an old type of radio or something. I don't —”

“Stand by for the hotshot,”
the dispatcher announced, cutting Jack off.

Jack grimaced.
Like it's coming our way.

Hotshots — radio calls that needed immediate attention — were more of a rarity in 53 than downtown. He just hadn't realized how infrequent they were in midtown until he was sitting in a scout car wishing something exciting would happen. He could listen to all the fun calls going to the 51 cars. Oh, sure, 53 got its share of hotshots: medical calls, domestics, the odd bank robbery and more medical calls, but nothing like the seemingly endless and sometimes overwhelming deluge of priority calls down in the city's toilet.

Jack sighed. He missed working in the toilet.

“43 Eglinton Avenue East, apartment 1802. Male threatening suicide. Has a history of depression. No means indicated. Ted McManus, age 27. Time 2349.”

“He lives on the eighteenth floor, dispatch,” Jack muttered into his tea. “Three guesses on how he'll do it.”

“5306, that last hotshot is yours,”
the dispatcher snapped, sounding vaguely pissed. Had she heard Jack's comment? He quickly checked for an open carrier but the mike was closed. Man, he hated when the mike was stuck open. There was nothing more embarrassing than having what you assumed was a private chat get broadcast over the air for everyone's entertainment. And, of course, no one ever bothers to inform you of the open mike at the start of the conversation.

Jack grinned. Last summer a copper on another platoon had been dating a PW from the same shift, which is generally not a good idea. Cops from the same station dating could be considered an office romance; dating someone on the same shift was like dating the person you shared a cubicle with. And if you wound up in the same car . . . well, you had to hope the relationship was going smoothly. The copper had met the PW for coffee and in stereotypical pig fashion had broken up with her while parked next to her — it had been too hot to get out of the air-conditioned car — in the parking lot next to the Beer Store at Gerrard and Ontario. Very scenic. Very classy. No wonder cops had shitty reputations when it came to dating.

Everybody working that day, in 51 and air band–sharing 53, immediately learned about the rather nasty break-up firsthand since the control button on his mike had been stuck open and every word had been transmitted to all the cars, portable radios, the two stations and the dispatcher. And to his wife, who just happened to be a copper in 53. Rumour had it his keys hadn't worked when he got home that evening.

“What's the smile for, Jacky?” Juliet Larson asked as she tapped the Accept Detail button.

“Just something that happened down in 51.” He drained the last of his tea and slipped the paper cup behind his seat. “Remind me to toss that out later.”

“We get a call for a guy who might take a swan dive onto the sidewalk and it reminds you of something funny? Jeez, you 51 guys are warped.”

Juliet had a couple of years on the job and was a nice enough kid but so inexperienced it was like working with a rookie straight out of the college. Two years in 53 taught new officers next to nothing beyond medical complaints and alarm calls. Brett was right the other week when he said that the service needed to get back to training divisions.

But then again 51 would eat Juliet alive; the assholes down there and in any shithole division could spot rookies as easily as seasoned cops could spot assholes. And to add to the whole Officer Friendly image, she was cute. Her hair was done up tight to her head at least, not hanging down in a ponytail some piece of scum could use as a handhold while he pounded her face to mush. But it was so blonde it gleamed when she was in the sunlight. Not as brightly as her perfectly white teeth, though. Jack figured she should be on a billboard or in a magazine ad for toothpaste or soap or some wholesome, not-cop-related product.