Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
We came down gradually, shaking with intense aftershocks of pleasure, covered in sweat and clinging to each other. Dmitri had collapsed on top of me, his arms around my shoulders, and it was a minute before he could push himself up a few inches, his mouth finding mine. He kissed me tenderly, then reached down between us and slowly eased out of me, holding on to the base of his cock to keep the condom in place. He rolled off me and got rid of the condom, and in an instant had me in his arms again, kissing me.
I wrapped my arms around him and whispered against his lips, “How soon can we do that again?”
He smiled at me, his eyes sparkling. “Does that mean you liked it?”
“God yes. It was amazing.” I reached up and brushed his sweat-dampened hair off his forehead. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”
“Thank you for trusting me.” He kissed me again, and I snuggled into his arms.
I whispered against his shoulder, “I’m yours, Dmitri, but without strings or pressure. I just want you to know that I’m planning to stick around for as long as you want me.”
“What if I want you forever?” he said softly against my hair.
I tilted my head back to look at him. “We don’t have forever, baby. At best, we have ten months. And what I’m trying to tell you is, I’ll stick around right up until the end if you want me to, right up until you get married.”
Some sort of powerful emotion churned in his blue eyes. “And then you’ll walk away from me? You’ll just let me go?”
I broke eye contact, my own emotions threatening to overwhelm me. And I said quietly, “It’ll be the hardest thing I ever do.”
I stopped talking then. I had to. Because if I tried to say anything else, I’d burst into tears and beg him not to get married, and that would be so unfair to him. I knew the score, knew what I’d signed on for. There was no forever here – I didn’t have that option.
Chapter Five
Monday morning I sat in the break room at my station, sipping coffee and staring out the window. I wore my badge on a tag around my neck, and fidgeted with the shield idly.
And I thought back to last night. After we’d had sex, Dmitri spent the rest of the night completely doting on me – cleaning me up, bringing me dinner in bed, waiting on me hand and foot and spoiling me. I ended up falling asleep in his arms just moments into Blade Runner, after insisting I wasn’t too tired to watch it. The memory made me grin, but then I sobered up as I remembered what I was about to do.
In a few minutes, I was going to go into my captain’s office and ask for a leave of absence. I was just waiting for him to get out of a meeting. Part of me wondered if I should just go ahead and quit. Truthfully, I wasn’t cut out to be a cop, and never had been. Being a uniformed patrol officer meant deathly boredom interspersed with sudden, unexpected violence. I basically hated every minute of it.
I’d held out a lot of hope for undercover work, thinking maybe that would be where I excelled. And man, talk about an epic fail. I’d let my own emotions botch up my first assignment from the moment it began. Even if I hadn’t fallen in love with the suspect (and that had to be on page one in the What Not To Do Undercover handbook), I’d screwed up in a million other ways, too. Clearly, working undercover wasn’t going to be the thing that made this job bearable for me.
So maybe it was time I stopped living the life my family wanted for me, and figured out what the hell I wanted.
One of my fellow officers stuck his head in the lounge and said, “Hey Jamie. Halpern’s out of his meeting. Said to tell you he only has ten minutes, so you better hustle.”
“Thanks, Dave.” I drained my coffee and chucked the cup in the trash on the way out the door.
Captain Michael Halpern was a huge black man with a shaved head and a cut-to-the-chase attitude. He stared me down as I came into his office, and as always, I flinched under his gaze.
I didn’t want to waste his time. So as I walked into his office, I blurted, “I totally fucked up the assignment, Captain. I blew my cover. I’m not cut out for undercover work, and to be honest, I’m really not cut out for police work in general. I’m requesting a leave of absence, and in all likelihood, I’ll probably follow that up with my resignation from the force.” There, I said it. And I braced myself to get my ass chewed off.