She feared the answer.
All Stella had ever wanted to be was a cop, a good cop. She’d come from a long line of good cops. One of her ancestors had been a county sheriff somewhere just south of the Shoals Area way back in the day when Alabama had been a state. He’d been famous for taking down some very bad Dixie Mafia types who’d run the good ol’ boy rackets in Northwest Alabama and Eastern Mississippi. Some had even compared him to that sheriff up in Tennessee who carried some kind of big club around.
Her grandfather had been a homicide detective for the City of Huntsville back in the day. Her father had been a police lieutenant when all metropolitan, county, and state forces amalgamated into the Zone Patrol. Just a few days past her twelfth birthday, her uncle had been killed in the line of duty, shot down by a small-time hood during a routine traffic stop.
Cops were all she knew. So maybe it was only natural that she became involved with Matt. An ambitious, well-respected cop, who had a pair with hair, it was no secret he was on his way up the ladder. His personality and charisma drew people to him. When the opportunity arose for her to become his adjutant, it was a no-brainer. She didn’t give it a second thought. Not only was it a logical step in advancing her career with the Patrol, but she would get to work with a handsome, likable star on the rise. He was going places, and she would ride his coattails. A can’t-miss opportunity.
The sparks had sizzled between the two almost immediately. Handsome and charismatic, it hadn’t taken him long to let his interests be known. She’d resisted at first, trying to keep it all on a professional level, somewhat taken aback by the hints and innuendo. While it was nothing that warranted reporting to I.A., there was no mistaking the signals. And although she tried her best to deny it, deep down, she was just as interested. And the more he chased, the hotter it made her. Perhaps the reason he stayed so persistent was that he saw right through her.
Whatever the reason, eventually, she would succumb. At last year’s Regional Peace Officer’s Conference in Atlanta, after one too many drinks at the hotel bar, she’d agreed to follow him up to his room for a nightcap, and of course, the rest, as they say, was history. It was like igniting a blast furnace of passion. It was a fire that still blazed hot enough to melt steel to this day, growing more and more passionate and erotic with each clandestine meeting.
Of course, there’d been the whole wife thing to have to deal with. It should’ve bothered her more, she supposed, but she could never really find the guilt that she needed to achieve it. After all, she wasn’t the one cheating. She went home to an empty apartment every night. And yet, if things went to hell and shit hit the fan, she’d be the one who would end up taking the fall. She was the proverbial “other woman.” If it ended up going to Internal Affairs, she’d be the one shit-canned or transferred down to the women’s stockade to deal with all those badass, rough-ass lezzies. Matt might get a slap on the wrist and an ass-chewing, but stars like him don’t fall from grace. He’d get a new Ex Oh and move right along.
No, she never felt bad about fucking her married boss. Maybe she was a cold-hearted bitch, too ambitious and too jaded to care. Perhaps it was the fact that the sex was just too damned unbelievably fantastic! Why should she feel wrong about something that felt so good?
Of course, things had changed slightly in the past few weeks. As he’d been promising to do, he’d finally separated from Cheryl and told her he wanted to talk about a divorce. While it wasn’t precisely what Stella had been hoping for, at least it was a nudge in the right direction.
Baby steps, she kept telling herself as she gritted her teeth and pushed the throttle forward. The Centurion soared like an eagle on the wind. Baby steps.
Still, what had happened earlier gave her pause, and she pondered it all the way home, streaking across the afternoon sky, a black-and-white blur. ZP regulations stated all vehicles would use the Skyways when not in emergency mode. But the way Stella saw it, what good was it to be a cop if you couldn’t get away with a little shit? Therefore, most afternoons, she was full throttle, passing those trapped civilians below her as if they were standing still. It gave her a sense of freedom and helped her clear her mind after long days at the Post.
She had set her mind earlier today to confront him about what had happened when he came over later tonight, but now she wondered if she should even do that. Maybe she should give him the cold shoulder for a few days; call and tell him something had come up tonight, and she was going to have to cancel. That would get his attention. Maybe he needed a little reality check. Perhaps he’d come to take her stuff for granted and begun to assume it had his name on it.
“That would be a big mistake, Special Inspector Burlington,” she muttered to herself between gritted teeth, as she banked toward her apartment building’s landing platform. It was going to take a lot more than just fantastic booty calls for him to break this little filly. Sure, the sex was out of this world, and sure, the two had a special connection, but at the same time, he treated her as if he was ashamed of her sometimes. The sneaking around was getting old. For a while, it’d been exciting, like some naughty, deep undercover mission, but eventually, that had worn thin. She wanted
