Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel (7 page)

“Being approved for a fluffy PR piece doesn’t give her open access to information.”

Mike stiffened, the veteran cop not willing to be pushed around too much. Billy probably would have wet himself, which was why Leland was talking to Mike. “I didn’t tell her anything, Sarge. You know me better than that. And she does, too. She didn’t ask me anything about what’s going on. She was just saying good morning, bringing us some coffee.”

Yeah, and even a mature cop confronted with a pretty, smiling woman didn’t always have his head on straight. A good reporter knew how to extract information without her source realizing he’d let things slip.

As if reading the direction of his thoughts, Mike sobered. “I know the routine, Leland. But she’s different from the rest of them. Me and the other guys feel like when we get a reporter who treats us fair, it’s okay to give her a bone now and then.”

He winced as Leland gave him a fish-eye. “No, Christ. Not like that. She’s not a badge bunny. Most the time she carries on as much shit with us as we do with each other. I think she was raised with brothers. Never has dated anyone on the force that we know about.”

As Leland’s gut eased, he realized he’d reacted more personally than expected to the idea that he’d been played a fool. Hearing that he hadn’t, helped. But it also pissed him off with himself. Still, he reined back the irritation. “Why do you think she’s different from the rest of them? Other than her great legs?” And the gorgeous rack. Her ass was a little on the skinny side for him, but he still didn’t mind wrapping his hands around it.

“When God gives a woman those kinds of gifts and arms her with coffee, you have to show some kind of appreciation.” Mike held up a hand when Leland seared him with a look. “Kidding. She doesn’t pick up a piece of a story and give it the slant she wants, like most of them do. She’s thorough, careful. Checks her sources. I won’t say she hasn’t ever managed to get some tidbit out of one of us on an off day, but it doesn’t come back to bite us. Not with her.”

“A cop can be written up for that kind of shit. Or lose his job.” He jerked his head toward Johnson. “Maybe you know how to watch your tongue, because you have enough years and brain cells. You want to get his rookie ass fired because he sees his partner chatting up the press and thinks it’s okay to do the same?”

A flare of resentment in Mike’s eyes said he’d hit target, but Leland let it stand. The resentment would pass. A sergeant might be considered one of the guys on most days, but when it mattered, he’d chew their asses. It was better than one of the lieutenants doing it, and it sure as hell was better than them taking risks that could get them killed. While talking to a reporter wasn’t a life-or-death situation, it was a slip in protocol that could open the door to other ones. Their lives were far more important to him than their friendship. And he valued their friendship as if they were family, because they were.

“Yeah, Sarge. Won’t happen again.”

“See to it. You’re a hell of a good cop, Carter. Johnson will benefit from your experience. You’ll help keep him on his toes.”

He pivoted and strode toward Johnson. The blue-eyed rookie’s military haircut didn’t conceal that it was as fine as when his mother brushed it as a baby. He’d paled, telling Leland his expression was still forbidding, more in the mood to kick asses than pat them. He heard the young cop’s relieved sigh as he passed him without stopping, headed for the other end of the perimeter barrier.

While he’d been grilling Mike, he’d seen Celeste leave her spot. She’d spent a few minutes talking to one of the onlookers in a store across the street. The two kids had watched her the whole time, and the store patron had noticed it as well, disappearing back inside in a matter of seconds. Shrugging, Celeste had come back to her chair. Now she was making notes and sipping the last cup of coffee in the tray. Despite that, Leland would bet his squad car she was aware of every move he’d made and the tone of the conversation he was having with Mike.

“Miss Lewis? Come here.”

The formal address brought her head up, and put those hazel eyes on him. He remembered them last night, disoriented with lust, her lips parted, gasping for air as he ate her pussy, stroked her silken skin. She looked wary, but her expression had a tinge of arrogance, that public-has-the-right-to-know and I-have-the-right-to-be-here bullshit.

He could have been dead wrong about her last night. Not the Dom/sub stuff, he wasn’t wrong about that, but about whether or not it was a good idea for him to be pursuing anything with her. Mike’s opinion carried weight with him, but he knew he’d better stay cautious, take the same advice he’d just given his man. She’d tripped his trigger and he’d tripped hers, but she could still fuck with his head. Actually, that meant she had far more potential to do so.

As she rose and moved toward him, he saw spots of color on her fair cheeks. He’d issued her an order that he might give to anyone in the crowd. “Come here.” “Stand back.” “Clear this area.” But she’d registered it a different way. Her responding to it with that flush didn’t help settle him, so he darkened his scowl. She stopped two feet from the barrier, as if she thought he might reach across and grab her. It was an intriguing thought. Instead, he crooked a finger at her to bring her closer. She did, another step, then found her brass, because she lifted her chin and leveled eyes sparking with some fire on him.

“I have a right to be here,” she said.

He almost bared his teeth in a grin.
So not the right thing to say, sweetheart.

“You have the right to be on that side of the barrier, just like all these other good folk. As well as the not-so-good ones.” He flicked a gaze toward the two gang members who were watching him with suspicious eyes.

“Darryl and Sean are in the tenth grade at the local high school,” she responded. “Darryl’s mother is a junkie, but Sean’s mom works at the Piggly Wiggly. She doesn’t know that they’re hanging out here instead of being in school. Which she will know, once I stop by and see her there today to pick up some fresh tomatoes.” She cocked her head. “I’m having a craving for them.”

He pressed his lips together. They were far enough away from anyone that the conversation couldn’t be overheard, though the intensity of their locked gazes might be interpreted myriad ways. Christ, she had delicate features.

“Neither one is sixteen yet,” she continued, “so you could have them picked up for truancy and carted back to school. Then the MoneyBoyz won’t have eyes on your crime scene and see who you’re questioning.”

He noted the pulse thudding in her throat. When she spoke, he detected the faint scent of chocolate, telling him the last coffee wasn’t coffee at all. She preferred hot chocolate in the morning. He wondered if she liked whipped cream in it and thought about tasting that on her lips, teasing it away with his tongue.

Seriously, Keller?

“Did you give them hot chocolate, too?”

“Sean took hot chocolate, Darryl took the coffee, though I think he would have preferred the hot chocolate. He just didn’t want to be seen as a baby.” Her expression flickered. “Though they both are, more’s the pity.”

And either one of them might shoot her without a second thought if one of the more hardened members of the MoneyBoyz told them to do it. He kept his scowl in place. “From here forward, you don’t talk to my officers, and you don’t bring them coffee.”

“There’s no law against a reporter attempting to talk to your officers or giving them coffee. They do a tough job. I’m showing appreciation as a Baton Rouge citizen.”

He pursed his lips, nodded. Then he bent so he spoke into her ear. He’d bet that little tender spot beneath it would taste sweet and smell like some kind of powder or fragrance. “I see you doing it again, I will put you over my knee and blister your ass.” He drew back enough to meet her startled gaze. Shock was followed by indignation, a trace of anger, but it was the little ripple of arousal, the quick indrawn breath, that made him want to do exactly as he’d threatened.

“Are we clear, Celeste?” He kept his eyes on hers, his tone steady. He wondered what he would do if she said “Yes, sir.” Probably nurse a hard-on for the rest of the morning.

He forced himself to straighten, to ease back on a couple different levels. “You should have taken the sweatshirt to stay warm this morning. I bet that car of yours doesn’t heat worth shit.”

She blinked in surprise again. He hadn’t intended to say something stupidly intimate like that, but it was out before he could call it back. Her flush deepened. “It does well enough,” she said. “Underwear would have helped, but they were stolen. I expect I should report that to local law enforcement.”

“Items like that are rarely recovered. The perp has usually taken them for personal reasons, not to fence.”

Her brow lifted, then her gaze swept his lower torso. “So he might be
wearing
them?”

She was not going to make him laugh, though it was a near thing. He’d just called out his man for just taking her coffee and he was flirting with her. Really fine damn example he was.

Fueled by that, he gave her a hard look. Time to put things on the right footing. His job was to protect and serve, and she was one of those he was supposed to be protecting. “Remember what we discussed, Celeste. I mean it. This neighborhood is too dangerous for you to be distracting my men. And way too damn dangerous for you to be strolling through it, chatting up high risk subjects like you know what the hell you’re doing when you don’t.”

In a blink, her expression went from spirited sass and confused lust to hard-as-nails anger. He could handle that, just like he could handle Mike’s irritation, but the quick flash of hurt dug into him. “Yes, Sergeant,” she said icily. “I’ll file that under ‘go fuck yourself’. You don’t know anything about me. My psych profile isn’t tucked up inside my pussy like the prize inside a Cracker Jack box. Asshole.”

She pivoted and stalked back to the curb, taking a seat once again on the chair. Though he talked to Johnson and Carter a couple more minutes before going into the store to see the demolished aisles of food, the smears of blood left by the severely beaten store owner, she didn’t make eye contact with him again.

§

To any onlookers, it looked like he’d set a reporter back on her heels. In reality, she’d set him back on his. He hadn’t expected her at the scene. He sure as hell hadn’t expected to see her talking to the type of people responsible for most of Baton Rouge’s violent crime and homicide rate. The type of people who valued life as much as they did bird shit.

There were a handful of female officers in District 1, and he was fine with that. Yeah, maybe he worried a little more about his female officers than his male ones because he was wired that way, but he put extra effort into shoving down that bias. What he’d told Mike about being an example for Billy applied just as much to him. He made sure any differences in the way he treated members of his squad had to do with their experience, not their gender. He didn’t want any of his guys second-guessing or being overprotective toward an officer just because she had girl parts. The calls they faced required total concentration and trust in one another.

Logically, he knew women were competent, tough. Yet he still had a strong desire to protect them from harm. That alone didn’t make him a prick. However, when he let that desire get twisted into an angry retort because he wasn’t sure of his footing in a situation, then that changed things.

Expecting the unexpected was part of the job, which was why his knee-jerk reaction to her appearance irritated him. The downside of being off the dating circuit for so long was he was rusty at dealing with those edges where personal and professional overlapped. Since he was interested in a woman who was standing right on that boundary, he’d stepped right into it. She’d shown intelligence and grit, and he’d acted like what she’d called him. An asshole. In short, he needed to man up and apologize.

He’d had the two boys picked up for truancy, because that had been a good idea, no question. He’d let the detective on scene know, and Detective Allen had him send out a couple squad members to see what they could get out of the onlookers with the kids gone. After he took care of that, Leland called in an hour of personal time and went looking for her.

Celeste’s car hadn’t been parked on the street and she’d taken her leave on foot, so he followed a hunch. The logo on the coffee had been for a shop about two blocks away, a cheap breakfast place that cooked everything in so much grease a cardiologist could set up a chop shop right outside its doors.

Sure enough, he found the beat up little blue Honda there. Through the window, he saw her sitting at a table, tapping her tablet and scribbling in a notebook. A bagel and dish of cream cheese sat next to her.

He stepped into the shop, giving the tired-looking waitress a nod. “Just a coffee, black,” he said. Then he moved toward Celeste’s table.

She didn’t lift her head when he stopped in front of it. “Seat’s taken,” she said shortly. “I’m expecting someone who isn’t a jerk.”

“He couldn’t make it.” Leland slid into the booth across from her, turned his radio down as it started to chatter. “I’m sorry.”

She stopped tapping but kept her eyes on the screen. “Sorry he couldn’t make it?”

“Sorry I said that. I wasn’t expecting to see you there. And you talking to those guys threw me. If they aren’t already, they’re only a step or two away from becoming what turned that store owner into a pile of bloody meat. I had my hands on you last night, my mouth, and everything I touched was delicate, beautiful. Something I want to keep safe. That’s the way I’m built, and I won’t apologize for that, but I will apologize for it making me say something that stupid.”

She lifted her gaze to his, her eyes thoughtful. “Wow. For a guy who just put his size fifty shoe in his mouth, that’s a pretty good apology. Way more honest than I would have expected.”

It was good to see those pretty multi-colored irises, the blink of her lashes, and know she was less mad at him. “I’m straight with women. What I want from them, the things I demand…clear communication is essential. You understand me?”