Suspect Passions Read online

  When the brunette finally registered her presence, Regan knew she had to get out before she launched into a diatribe about the inappropriateness of their behavior in public.

  “Honey, are you all right? You look all flushed again. What’s going on?” Grandma Izzy was staring at her with those Irish eyes that knew when she was lied to.

  “I walked in on a couple having sex in the ladies’ room at this club. Just surprised me.”

  Izzy took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Honey, it wouldn’t do you any harm to have a little sex. It’s been a year since Martha. Get on with your life while you’re still young enough to enjoy it.”

  “Please don’t start, Gram. I’m just not ready. All I want is to spend time with you and get more established in my job.” Regan rose from the recliner and kissed her grandmother’s hand. “I love you, Gram. I’ll see you later.”

  “Come back soon, honey. I’ve made a new friend I want you to meet. She works as a volunteer, and we’re getting pretty chummy. I think you’d like her.”

  “Only if you promise no matchmaking.”

  “Who, me?” Izzy feigned hurt feelings as Regan blew her a kiss and left.

  On the short drive home, Regan thought about the brunette from the club and about her own reactions to the scene she’d witnessed. How had she let herself get so involved in watching? It had been a long time since she had sex but that certainly wasn’t her style. Still, she had to admit she’d been aroused by something that she’d never considered, the whole dominance/submissive thing. Even though she was the control freak, Martha had always directed their sex life—when they had it, how they had it, and if they had it. To be aroused by something different was natural, Regan decided, yet something else had happened. She had allowed her compassion for a complete stranger to get the best of her. She’d looked beyond the obvious lack of self-respect such a display implied and seen something deeper. But any woman who would allow herself to be fist-fucked in a public restroom was not someone worthy of her interest.

  Regan pulled into the garage of her contemporary-style home and forced the image of the orgasmic brunette from her head and the sharp pangs of arousal from her loins.

  *

  “You lose the lottery or something?” Jesse Finn asked as Syd plunked herself back down on a stool at the bar.

  “Actually, I good as won it.” Syd pulled a memo from the back pocket of her slacks and flattened it out in front of her best friend. “Take a look.”

  Jesse had been out running an errand when Syd marched triumphantly into the Cop Out an hour earlier. The owner, barista, and bartender, Jesse served coffee and tea all day to the workforce around city hall, in the middle of High Point’s revitalized furniture district. After five, the back room opened into a small dance floor with intimate seating and the transition from café to club began. Everyone from judges to college students frequented the downtown hot spot. Jesse’s previous law-enforcement experience allowed her to run her establishment with the right combination of discipline and decadence.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?” Jesse tilted her head expectantly, a wide grin spread across her slightly weathered face.

  “Yes, ma’am. Internal Affairs finally cleared me on that robbery shooting. Cleared by the shrink. I go back to work Monday. It’s all good.” Syd tried to sound cavalier, but Jesse had lived through the investigation with her as only a best friend could. She knew exactly what this meant.

  “I’m so glad, honey. I know you’re relieved.” Jesse tousled Syd’s hair. “Sounds like cause for celebration. What’ll it be?”

  “My usual, dirty goose.” Syd neatly refolded the memo and slid it back in her pocket as Jesse mixed her favorite martini with Grey Goose vodka, a splash of vermouth, and three olives. “God, I’m glad this is over. This desk duty drives me nuts.”

  As she spoke, she let her trained gaze sweep the dance floor. The high of her sexual escapade in the restroom had been eliminated completely by the sneer of that disapproving bluenose, and she wanted to feel good again. She sipped the dirty martini Jesse slid across the bar and watched women tantalizing each other with their bodies. Searching eyes sought to connect hungry patrons with equally willing partners. Hands casually brushed strangers and, encountering no resistance, lingered and became more demanding. Body language and physical proximity provided clues to the level of intimacy between participants.

  The visual stimuli summoned pangs of arousal between Syd’s legs and loneliness deep in her chest. She thought of her latest attempt at a relationship, Tina. That had lasted almost a year. It might’ve gone longer if not for the investigation. Then again, Tina had grown impatient waiting for a commitment, and Syd’s commitment lessened in direct proportion to her impatience. Why couldn’t good sex just be good sex forever? Women always wanted more than she could give.

  “Quite a show, isn’t it?” Jesse followed Syd’s gaze around the room.

  “Yes, it certainly is.” Syd loved Jesse’s place. Since being on administrative leave, she’d frequented Cop Out in search of the excitement her job normally provided. She usually found plenty.

  “It’s a good thing you’ll be back to getting your thrills on the job,” Jesse said dryly. “You’re going through my customers like a swarm of sand fleas at the beach.”

  “What am I supposed to do? A woman needs companionship, right?”

  Jesse placed her hand over Syd’s, forcing Syd to meet her gaze. “My friend, you just need to find the woman who can ride you long, hard, and consistently, in spite of your puny attempts to buck her off. And when you do, I’m going to tell her that you’re a femme trapped in a butch job mimicking a stud.”

  Syd pulled her hand from Jesse’s and poked a fake pout with her lips. “You’ll do no such thing. Besides, if she’s half the woman I want her to be, she’ll find out for herself.”

  “That could pose a challenge.” Jesse started drying shot glasses. “You put up a hell of a front. Most lesbians have been married and divorced several times by your age.”

  “My point exactly. Why suffer unnecessarily?”

  “And on that subject, was it Lacy I saw ducking out of the restroom after you?”

  Syd shrugged. “Could be.”

  Jesse gave her a skeptical look. “What goes on at the Cop Out stays at the Cop Out as far as I’m concerned. But, like I told you last time, you don’t want to go there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jesse’s drying cloth froze in mid-swipe. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Syd shook her head, trying to dislodge the cobwebs of confusion that camouflaged her memory. “Okay, so we’ve hooked up a couple of times. What’s the problem?”

  “Look, Syd, I’m not your mother, your conscience, or your girlfriend, so I don’t tell you how to live your life. But going after another cop’s wife? After everything you’ve just been through, are you nuts?”

  “Huh?”

  Jesse wiped her way down the long mahogany bar. “Just be careful.”

  “Wait, you’re saying Lacy’s married to a cop?”

  Jesse nodded in the affirmative.

  “And you already told me?” Another nod. “Jeez, I better get my shit together and fast.”

  A couple at the other end of the bar waved to Jesse. “Gotta go. See you later. Or not.”

  Syd returned her attention to the small dance floor, bemused. Her mind spun through question after question to which there were no answers. A desire to run clashed with a need to find out what was happening to her. Granted, she’d been distracted with the investigation and more sexually active the last few months, but she’d never completely forgotten a woman’s face or their interaction, let alone the kind of important detail Jesse just mentioned. Maybe she was more distracted than she’d thought. Either way, she had to make some changes.

  She wondered about the chasm between her reluctance to give her heart and the freedom with which she gave herself physically. Sex was easy, an expression of emotional turmo
il combined with bodily hunger that she had no words to explain. But the giving of her heart was another matter. She’d never known deep intimacy or the passionate need to translate and communicate it into lovemaking. She’d been unable to trust anyone with both the light and shadow sides of her life. Did anyone else experience this kind of disconnect? Pushing the troubling thoughts from her mind, she returned to the sensual scenes before her.

  Her body grew warm watching the women interact. Her hand slid down the length of her outer thigh and back up to rest at her crotch. She licked her dry lips as a young blonde ran her tongue over a potential lover’s earlobe. When the blonde pressed her pelvis against the other woman’s thigh, Syd squeezed her legs together.

  She tried to remember when her feelings had become so intense and raw. Where sex was concerned, she’d always been ravenous. But since the shooting it was as if something inside her was trying to claw its way out, something beyond the need for physical connection. She’d lost herself in more sex, with more women, to salve the body and distract the heart.

  But Jesse’s warning coupled with the blond voyeur’s disapproving sneer had thrown her off her usual game. Another hookup tonight was highly unlikely. She downed her martini with a gulp, waved to Jesse, and headed home to do the one thing that frightened her most, lately—be alone.

  Chapter Two

  Regan stepped into the small elevator on Monday morning with only a cursory glance and obligatory greeting to the other occupant, a female police officer with cinnamon-brown hair feathered around her face and a hat pulled low on her forehead. When the doors slid together, the other woman’s heady perfume permeated the cavity and sparked an involuntary response in Regan. The fragrance oozed and twitched through her system, tugging in her gut like something familiar.

  Annoyed by the unsolicited response to a stranger, she surveyed her companion’s reflection in the shiny doors of the lift. The black uniform was molded to her form, taut and revealing. Even the bulletproof vest, so obvious under her shirt, couldn’t disguise the swell of ample breasts. The woman rolled her shoulders as if the cumbersome garment chafed in places she couldn’t touch in public. She tugged at the weighty equipment belt around her shapely hips and leaned against the elevator wall.

  Regan had seen women in uniform too many times to find the look a novelty and, typically, she wasn’t attracted to the butch types who wore them, but something about this officer’s carriage and presence seemed incongruous. It was almost as if her body was incompatible with the garb although, physically, everything fit quite well. Regan wanted to see the woman’s face, to get a reading from her eyes about the person underneath the clothing barrier, but the shiny billed hat and dip of her head made eye contact impossible. Probably just as well. Her reactions had been off since the unseemly encounter with the couple in the bar three nights ago.

  “Like what you see?” the officer asked without shifting position.

  A surprised breath escaped before Regan could stop it. She realized she’d been openly staring since the lift doors shut. Of course the officer had been discreetly observing Regan’s reflection as well. How stupid, she thought. Now what? She turned toward her, feigning unawareness. “I beg your pardon?”

  The officer’s head moved only slightly as she surveyed Regan’s body with an up-and-down inspection. “I asked if you like what you see.”

  Her voice was soft and disturbingly provocative, without the slightest hint of arrogance or challenge. It was the kind of voice that would normally turn Regan’s head. But these weren’t normal times.

  “I’m sorry if you thought I was staring. I was thinking about work, that’s all.” Regan wondered if her attempt at recovery sounded as lame as she thought.

  The reflection hadn’t done the officer justice. Her body was indeed shapely and highlighted by the tight fit of her uniform, but what didn’t translate was the aura of total femininity that radiated from her. It screamed vulnerability and clashed mightily with the harsh accoutrements of her profession. The bill of her hat shadowed her face to just above her lips—lips deep rose and lush like they’d been kissed all night and were still ripe for a lover. Regan watched them move to speak.

  “I do,” said the officer.

  “You do what?” Regan fidgeted with her briefcase and sent up two prayers simultaneously—that she could see this woman’s face and that the lift doors would open and she’d be swallowed by the workday before embarrassment completely consumed her.

  The officer stepped closer and whispered, “Like what I see.”

  Regan’s heart thumped wildly against the walls of her chest. She felt rattled. Heat flushed her cheeks and she knew her reaction was evident on her face. She moved closer to the doors and, mercifully, they opened with a swish. As she exited the elevator she heard a soft chuckle behind her and some comment about her ass. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear Izzy had put the Irish moxie on every woman in her path lately just to get a rise out of her. First the immodest couple in the bar, now this officer who thought it was okay to flirt with someone she didn’t know in a public workplace.

  But having a police officer come on to her so blatantly was a different twist, and it felt unsettling. Regan usually made the first move if she liked a woman. She was assertive and adept at handling any situation, verbally and physically. It wasn’t like her to be surprised and, she had to admit, excited, by a total stranger.

  Her thoughts returned to the woman in the club restroom. Like the officer, she was a brunette, but her hair had been drenched in perspiration and swept back from her face. They both had firm, curvy bodies, the kind that said they were all woman and took care of themselves. Their attitudes were also similar, bold and unafraid. And like the pub crawler, the officer gave off the vibes of a woman on the prowl, always ready for her next conquest and never really having to work for it. Women like that considered fidelity a nuisance and would probably lobby to have the word removed from the English language.

  Heat gathered between Regan’s legs as she reached her desk and plopped into the swivel chair. She could not understand why her reaction to both women had been so visceral. Whatever the reason, she needed to enjoy the fantasy for what it was, the momentary diversion of a sex-starved divorcee. She was disciplined, she could redirect her energy to her work. But the tingling in her crotch as it strained against the seam of her slacks let her know that would be easier said than done.

  *

  Syd chuckled and propped her foot against the elevator door as it started to close. She couldn’t resist the urge to watch Miss Friday Night Snob strut off in righteous indignation after being caught looking again. “Nice ass,” she said as the doors slid shut, blocking her view of the gorgeous pinstripe-covered bottom.

  She’d recognized the blond voyeur from the bar as soon as she’d entered the elevator, and had tugged her hat down to shield her eyes. The last thing she needed was a city employee reminding her of her private indiscretion in a public facility. She wasn’t sure if the woman recognized her or not, but Syd couldn’t forget the icicles those blue eyes had scraped across her postorgasmic skin. There had been something in their depths that called to Syd in a haunting, almost pleading way.

  But that look had been fleeting, quickly replaced by disbelief and eventually distaste. Upon closer inspection today, Syd decided the tall, androgynous prude might not be so genteel after all. Anyone who would openly scope out another woman in a public elevator had to have some sexual virtues. And her voice. The moment she spoke, Syd was captivated. Her tone was sanguine and inviting, the kind of voice you wanted urging you on during sex.

  Something else about this woman attracted Syd. Perhaps it was her not-too-femme appearance, or her air of assertiveness, or just the sense that she was ripe for a foray into her untapped sexual treasure chest. Blondie gave off all those vibes and more, the more being cause for hesitation. This woman’s restraint was the result of pain, deep and unresolved. Syd recognized the look. The same one haunted her any time she’d gazed int
o a mirror the past eight months. The stranger couldn’t hide that kind of hurt, not with her confident demeanor, swaggering walk, or unconcerned looks. It was still there visible through the windows of her soul.

  This was the kind of woman that intrigued Syd. She liked the challenge of cracking open that hard exterior shell of protection and safety and finding the creamy filling of love, nurture, and trust. So far she’d been disappointed. The women she’d dated either had layer upon layer of shell, or no filling at all, no real substance, just a need to be attached at the hip for identity purposes. Syd had no use for another appendage beyond the occasional lover’s strap-on. She wanted an equal, a real partner, a challenge. Someone who didn’t bore her within a week of their meeting. But she’d had that wish for years and it wasn’t likely to be granted today. Today was about getting back to work, and that in itself was a cause for celebration.

  When she stepped off the elevator on the police-department level, her entire squad descended on her like a “hot now” sign at the donut shop. They kidded and jostled her all the way to the lineup room, where a big cake occupied the center of the sergeant’s table.

  “Let’s eat this thing before it melts,” Sergeant Miller grumbled, but his big smile said he was just as happy to have her back as the rest of the squad. They were like a family, with one new addition, Gil Brady, who stood off to the side.

  Syd motioned for him to join the group as she dug hunks of ice-cream cake into plastic saucers and handed them out. Gil was a shy, thirtyish country boy who had recently returned from a stretch in Iraq and was newly married. Syd couldn’t imagine the reentry problems he was having. Just coming back from that hellhole was enough, but with a new wife in tow, a wife who was also a war veteran, it couldn’t be easy. He’d been assigned to the squad just before the shooting so she hadn’t gotten to know him at all yet. He seemed nice enough. Time would tell.

  After the party and assignments, they all hit the street. As she walked to the patrol car and stowed her gear, Syd was amazed at how unchanged everything seemed: same procedures, same criminals on the wanted list, same job, and same zone partners. These guys really cared about her, and this job meant something in the whole scheme of things. But a nagging sensation in her gut told her that something had definitely shifted. No matter how vital the job, it should never require her to take a life.