Page 46 of Sunshine
“Blast my balls off? They teach you that in police college?” I keep my voice calm. “This isn’t what it looks like,” I say sounding like every perp I’d ever arrested in my time as an RCMP officer. I hear Tessa snicker. When I train my eyes on her, she’s rising and dusting herself off.
“Just you wait,” I growl from my prone position on the gravel, and she sticks her tongue out at me as she bends forward to pluck my phone from my hand. I growl again, deeper this time.And the little brat sticks it in her cleavage. Again, my cock thickens knowing my phone is nestled between her tits. Which is saying something since there’s a green-as-fuck rookie holding a gun on me.
“Stay where you are,” the cop says.
I turn my head as the gravel crunches beneath his tactical boots alerting me of his approach. He’s awkward as he slaps the bracelets on me as if it’s first time. Even though he’s a pipsqueak compared to me, the cop attempts to help me rise from the ground. And dammit, if Tessa doesn’t double over and clutch her gut in silent laughter when the guy drops me on my face into the dirt.
“You okay, ma’am?”
“Issheokay?” I grumble, rising on my own although not easily and would be mostly impossible if I wasn’t in the best shape of my life.
“I don’t know, officer,” she says, sounding a little choked up.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter as the cop gives me a rough shove toward his car.
“Just let me put this guy in the back and I’ll take your statement. Why don’t you have a seat on the steps there, ma’am. You’ve had an ordeal.” As he bends to open the back of the cruiser, I catch Tessa’s eye. The spark of amusement has my gaze dropping to her mouth where she forms the silent words, “10 am.”
I grit my teeth, my jaw achingly tight and give one severe nod.
“Officer?”
“Ma’am, just one minute.” He shoves me against the cruiser. Considering our size difference, and his dropping me only moments earlier, his strength is rather impressive. “You got anything sharp on you? Any drugs? Weapons? Anything I should know about before I search you?”
I consider a smartass remark, but I know the drill and this guy isn’t the type to appreciate the chuckle. “I’m former RCMP. My retirement badge is in my wallet.” I say the words quietly, not wanting Tessa to hear.“I’m also about to be your boss.”
Maybe I’d spoken too low, or maybe he just ignores me, because he takes his time patting me down.
“I’m going to put you back here while I take the lady’s statement. Don’t worry, it’s nice and cozy.” The useless officer doesn’t even find Tessa’s cell, or the lock-pick set in my front pockets, then again maybe he’s avoiding that area since my cock is still semi-hard from my tussle with Tessa. Because damn it, I fucking love feisty women, even if it’s my downfall.
“Right,” I reply, and since I’d been put in a cruiser countless times while undercover in Satan’s Ransom, and I’m familiar with the process, I duck my head.
I give my neighbor the death glare as the officer slams the door, locking me in the back of the handleless cruiser. It’s hotand smells like the last guy in it had been sent to dry out overnight in lockup. I eye a suspicious wet spot near my foot on the floor. Body odor, yeasty beer and sour vomit is the ambience back here and I don’t appreciate the accommodations one bit, something I plan to share with my neighbor as soon as I’m able.
Tessa and the officer talk for several minutes longer than necessary if you ask me, but I manage to twist my jeans around far enough to fish out my lock pick and get out of the bracelets. I toss them aside and pull out Tessa’s phone, texting my own.
“You are in so much trouble, Sunshine. Forget the belt, I’m using a god damn two-by-four on your ass.”
I watch as she lowers her face to look at my phone screen. I know the notification has come up when her eyes widen slightly and then narrow.
The phone quite suddenly flies from her hand into the grass and damn, she’s got a good throw. The officer watches the phone arc, his head moving to follow it until it lands. I clench my jaw even tighter. She won’t sit for a bloody month when I get my hands on her.
Finally, they finish their leisurely conversation, and the officer comes to sit in the front of the car where he opens my wallet so he can look me up on his console computer.
He turns in his seat, looking closely at me after his search and makes an indistinguishable noise. “You’re the guy.” He presses his lips and nods. “I have a cousin who works at Toronto-south.”
It’s the roughest provincial detention center in the area.
“I grew up in the GTA.”
“Yeah?” I say, still eyeing Tessa out the window. “Where in the greater Toronto area?”
“Brampton,” he says. “You’re the badge that brought down the Ransom in River’s Bend.” It wasn’t a question, so I ignore him.
“Long time to be undercover,” he adds.
Again, I say nothing. He eyes me through the rearview and the cage. “You sure you’re not more Paul ‘Python’ Keller than you are Case Callen? Maybe you got used to knocking the girls around when you didn’t get what you wanted?”
I roll my eyes. “Fuck you.” I don’t bother pointing out that in a few months, I’ll have the power to put him on the shittiest work detail there is in this small township. Mostly because it would be an idle threat. I’m not that kind of guy. Besides, if I drove by and saw the same scene, I’d toss me in the back of cruiser too. And cops may take care of their own, but that doesn’t mean we’re blind to the statistics.
