Holding Out for a Fairy Tale (11 page)

“¿Y qué te pongo?” She asked Ray for his order casually.

“The same,” Ray growled.

To her credit, the woman’s smile only flickered a little. “And what can I get you to drink?” She shifted into perfect English.

“Just water.”

“It’ll be out in a few.”

Elliot watched her go and quirked an eyebrow at him from across the table.

“You eat a lot of tacos, huh?”

“Is your ego so fragile that you can’t handle a pretty girl paying attention to anyone other than you?” Elliot smirked.

Ray’s mouth dropped open before he could school his features. He tried to turn his shocked expression into a bright smile, but it was already too late. He saw the understanding sparkle in Elliot’s eyes, noticed the way the smirk grew into a real smile.

“Oh.” Elliot shifted in his chair, crossing his legs.

Ray needed to get control of himself. It was ridiculous to get jealous over someone he’d already slept with. The only people he had repeat encounters with were ones who understood they were just getting together for a bit of fun, people who wouldn’t get jealous and possessive when Ray picked up someone else. Ray had always figured it was only fair not to act possessive in return, and he’d never had a problem with that approach. Of course, when he wanted someone, he was used to commanding their full attention.

He needed to distract himself, so he decided to try changing the subject. “So what are you going to do while your tech guys are dissecting Sophie’s hard drive?”

“Don’t know. Probably check in with Sophie’s parents, this sister of yours, too, since you said Sophie lived with her. I’ve talked to each of her professors now, and her neighbors in the dorm, but I’ve obviously got to talk to the last professor again.”

“You know that little shit was just spouting accusations because she broke up with him.”

Elliot chuckled and shook his head. “I was going to ask if you wanted to tag along, but it might be better if you didn’t.”

“I’m fine, just tense. I need to go workout, or go get laid. Probably both, then I’ll be fine.”

Elliot’s grin just grew. “You want a real workout?”

Ray felt his pulse pick up at the implications. He glanced around fast to make sure no one would overhear them. “Was that a proposition? ’Cause with guys, I’m never sure. But if you were a woman I’d be throwing money on the table and dragging you out the door right now.”

“You can’t be that hard up,” Elliot laughed. “It wasn’t a line, I’m serious. It’s Saturday, and I wasn’t actually planning on spending my day off working unless I had to, and I need to get a workout in.”

“Oh.”

Across the table, Elliot laughed at him again. “You’re pouting.”

Ray just shrugged. “An actual workout wouldn’t be as much fun. I’m not like Hayes. I work out because I have to, but I don’t have the willpower to be enthusiastic about it.”

“You might enjoy this.”

L
ESS
THAN
an hour later, Ray found himself following Elliot into an unmarked door in a dark alley. There was no sign on the door, just a plain number. The door wasn’t locked, and Elliot walked right in, so Ray assumed it was fine. Just past an empty bathroom, the floor was covered with thick blue gymnastic mats from one end to the other. Three walls around the mats were covered with mirrors from floor to ceiling. A dozen men and a couple of women, dressed in everything from judo robes to yoga pants, were scattered across the mats, matched into sparring pairs.

“Some friends of mine own the place,” said Elliot. “This is the advanced adult class.”

“A martial arts class?”

“Sort of. It’s a mixed martial arts club. I agreed to help out in some of the evening classes, when I have time, in exchange for a place to train. It’s fun, and it’s a great workout. You must have taken some basic ground fighting classes through the department, right?”

“Uh….” Ray had, but they had been years before. He personally believed letting a suspect get close enough for ground fighting tactics meant letting them get close enough to slit his throat. Ray felt that a gun, or any other projectile, was a better option in his case.

Elliot waved to a few of the fighters, called out greetings to others, then stopped by a locker with his last name on it. He pulled out a large duffel bag and began to pull out workout clothes. He tossed a T-shirt and loose pants at Ray. “If you haven’t, it doesn’t matter.” He glanced sideways at Ray, then tossed a sports cup to him, too. “I teach beginners workshops all the time. I’ll go easy on you. You can get changed in there.” Elliot pointed back to the bathroom.

“You teach judo?”

“Yeah. This place is why I wanted to transfer to San Diego. One of the owners works for the Bureau. We met during my first assignment out of the academy, almost six years ago now, when we were both looking for decent sparring partners. She’s a good friend. She’s permanently assigned down here now, so her husband decided to ope up his own dojo.”

“Damn it, I knew you were too good to be true.” Ray waved an accusing finger at him. “If it’s not ultramarathons, or people who treat CrossFit like some kind of cult, it’s martial arts…. Sometimes I think I am the only person on the planet who would rather be a couch potato.”

“You’re not, though. You’re in good shape.”

“Only because I have to be. Just because I
want
to be a couch potato doesn’t mean I can afford to be. If it weren’t a requirement for the job, I’d take a science-fiction movie marathon over the gym any day.”

Elliot just laughed at him.

“Don’t look at me like that. I already told you, being a geek has been sexy for decades now. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“When I was a kid, I took karate. I earned my first black belt at fifteen, and when I walked into ROTC basic training the summer before I started college, I thought I could hold my own. The first time I got into a real fight was a few weeks into the first phase of training, when three other guys found out I was gay. The moment the fight went to the ground, I panicked. I flailed and spent all of my energy trying to get back on my feet. A really hot shorter man, dressed as a civilian had come to my rescue. Honestly, I figured we were both going to get our asses kicked when the guy just let them tackle him. But he just knocked two of the guys unconscious and broke the third guy’s arm like it was a twig. Afterward, I found out he was going to be one of my unarmed combat instructors and he convinced me that the karate I’d spent so many years practicing was worthless once a fight went to the ground. So I started judo instead.”

“One of your instructors? The instructor?”

Elliot nodded. “He made one hell of an impression.”

“Give me the clothes.” Ray took the bundle of clothes and turned toward the bathroom. There was no way he was going to let a look like the one Elliot was giving him go without challenge.

Four hours of throws, joint locks, and tumbles later, Ray was too tired and too sore to stay on his feet. He’d managed to keep up with Elliot for the first hour, but after that, the other man had thrown him around like a rag doll. He collapsed against one of the walls where some of the other fighters were resting. All of them were covered in sweat, and some of them were still red and panting. They all quietly watched Elliot and one of the club’s owners wrestle in a full-contact match.

Ray cringed as Elliot’s opponent knocked his head to the side with a sharp jab of his elbow. “They don’t fool around, do they?”

“They’re instructors,” said a young man farther down the wall. “They’ve got enough experience to play rough without hurting each other.”

When Elliot swept the other man’s feet out from under him and took them both to the ground, they hit the mat with a loud smack that made Ray jump. Ray stared at the focused, painful expression on Elliot’s face for a moment and realized that the last time Ray had seen a similar look on his face was in a mirror mounted above the hotel room bureau as Ray buried himself inside the other man’s body. He wanted to see that look on Elliot’s face again, that solid grimace of concentration before his climax slammed into him and left him drifting and droopy-eyed. He always made sure to take care of his lovers, but seeing another person orgasm had never thrilled him, until Elliot. Ray wanted to be the one responsible for putting that expression back on Elliot’s face.

He sighed and turned away. Sports cup or not, a hard-on wasn’t going to be comfortable.

“That’s just what they tell you kids to keep you from hurting each other.” That came from one of the two female fighters who added, “They want a real challenge, not a sparring match. They both know it, so they won’t whine about getting hurt afterward.”

Ray wanted to make a joke about not knowing that Elliot was a masochist, but he didn’t want to piss the other man off. He briefly imagined what it might be like to be the man Elliot was pinning to the mat, but he crushed that thought immediately.

There were some elements of gay sex he hadn’t found the courage to explore yet, and being pinned down and fucked by another man was at the top of the list. Anal sex itself wasn’t strange, he enjoyed it as much with women as with men, and it was easier to talk gay men into it than women. He’d been with a few men over the last eight months who had tried to convince him to switch roles, but no matter how good they said it felt, Ray just couldn’t do it. Fucking another man might make him bisexual. He could accept being bisexual. But in his mind, bottoming for another man was where the line between bisexual and gay was drawn. In a culture where strength was everything, where machismo was hardwired into every social sphere, it was unthinkable to cross that line.

Either way, fantasizing about it here and now was not a good idea.

“I know I’ve seen you before.” The woman beside him was staring at him. There hadn’t been time for introductions since most of the fighters were already sparring when they arrived, and there was nothing flirtatious in her expression. “Do you compete?”

Ray looked at the woman carefully, trying to place her face. She was pretty and short, with silky dark hair pulled back in a tight braid. Her face was makeup free, but she was flushed from the sparring matches, giving her cheeks a soft glow. She was also so muscular, she qualified as butch. In her midthirties, she had muscle definition not only around her arms and shoulders but around her abs as well. Ray hadn’t met many women who could pull that off. Impressive as it was in terms of fitness, it had never been something that turned Ray on. He ran through as many memories of all the brunette lovers as he could call to mind, just in case. The last thing women he’d slept with liked to hear was
How nice to meet you.
Ray shook his head fast. “No. No, I don’t do any of this. You look kind of familiar to me, too, though.”

“How do you know Belkamp? He hasn’t been assigned here long enough to meet many people outside of work and the club.”

“Work,” said Ray, and then immediately regretted it. A friend would call him Elliot, not Belkamp, so this woman was probably a colleague. Ray must have run into her professionally, too.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit. You don’t work with him.”

“I’ve run into him on the job. I’m with the San Diego Police Department.”

On the mat, Elliot grunted. “He’s the detective who kicked Hathaway’s ass….”

The woman’s eyes widened and a huge smile lit her face. “You’re Captain Jenkins’ poster boy?”

“Poster boy?” Ray was too exhausted to figure out what his captain, who was still furious with him over his less than professional rant about the intelligence, civility, and decorum of Special Agent Hathaway, had to do with anything.

“You’re the officer who handed Hathaway’s ass to him in front of the downtown district office with fifty other officers watching? You’re Raymond Delgado?”

“I am Ray Delgado, yes. I don’t think we had that big of an audience, though.”

“The same Raymond Delgado with a seventy-one percent resolution rate for your cases?”

Ray leaned back, confused. “Seventy-three. And are they publishing this shit now? That’s supposed to be internal data.”

The woman grinned. “Everybody talks about it. You’re Captain Jenkins’ golden boy, the one who can get away with
anything
because they can’t afford to lose you.”

“You make that sound so dirty.” Ray shifted nervously, panicking about just how much this woman might know about him. “And I can’t get away with
anything
. I was suspended for two weeks over that little spat with Special Agent Hathaway.”

“When anyone else would have faced felony charges. Shit, I’m glad he didn’t show up tonight.”

“Hathaway?” Ray smirked. He was tired, but he could still deal with an idiotic twit like Hathaway. “He trains here? I’m tired, but that could be fun.”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you even think about it!” The woman’s smile was fixed in place, but her eyes were hard and serious.

“It’s all just sparring, isn’t it? It’s not like either of us would actually hurt each other. Much.”

“I’m still dealing with paperwork from the last time. Hathaway might not be able to kick your ass, but I assure you detective, I can. If I have to do another disciplinary report because of you, I will. I’m Penelope St. Claire. Special Agent in Charge, Penelope St. Claire.”