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Lucy doesn’t think of him as she enters her apartment, slinging her keys in the hook by the door, gliding past the room that was once Jackson’s. Tamara’s been blasting DojaCat for a week straight prepping for finals, and the thin walls do nothing to disguise the leaking bass.
Better that way. She doesn’t feel up for small talk. Having to slide around the topic of work; who she’s been spending more and more time with. She knows there’s an edge that’s crept into her tone whenever Tamara brings up “Officer Zaddy”, and she’s finding it harder and harder to explain why it rankles.
She reasons (the way a psych major does) that she’s probably just having an emotional hangover. It’s been hard since Jackson died, and that night when he’d offered up his home, had pulled her to him, let her grieve in his arms…hell, ever since he’d dug her up from that fucking barrel…Tim Bradford has just happened to witness some of the most traumatic moments of Lucy’s life. It’s only natural she gravitates towards him in times of crisis.
She also reasons (quite rationally) that there are factors she can’t control. Like how her childhood predisposes her to building unhealthy attachments with authority figures (a product of a constantly disapproving father). “Idealization of a superior due to environmental stressors” is her latest diagnosis. And — if she squints hard enough — “some form of trauma bonding” that comes from training with a ruthless T.O.
Officer Lucy Chen is nothing if not self-aware.
He’d probably snort and tell her that “being a cop isn’t about analyzing, Boot — it’s about action.” But all the labels and self-diagnoses help to distract from far more dangerous thoughts; like how his broad shoulders had felt beneath her palms when she’d pulled him to her after he’d seen his dying father, his bent form sagging against her in a rare show of defeat.
His stubble had scratched the crook of her neck, cheek pressed against the pulse point just beneath her jaw. She still feels the pound of his heart against hers. The slide of his tears against her cheek.
She doesn’t think about it as she passes her shower, swivels the handle open.Doesn’t think of the way his weight had felt against her as she slides her jeans off, the rest of her clothes, and steps beneath the scalding spray.
Doesn’t think about the way he’d looked at her at Angela’s wedding; all cocky grace and appraising stare, that full mouth set in pure satisfaction as he’d taken her in, as if he’d suddenly come to some revelatory conclusion and stood on the precipice of finally acting on it. (Had it been the emerald dress she’d spent hours scouring the stores for after she’d overheard him say he liked green? Or the shock-red lipstick she’d bought after trying 20 failed shades at Sephora? Jackson had abandoned her for a latte, claiming it was even too much for him.)
She doesn’t imagine how his hands would have felt on her if they’d gotten that dance; fingers gliding over her back, her waist, comforting and safe even as they’d send tendrils of frisson curling around her waist, her breasts, in between her thighs. Those broad hands would’ve practically spanned the width of her back; would have commandeered an entire thigh if he’d have managed to get them alone, pressing her up against a secluded corner; invade her space the way he always seemed to be doing these days.
She imagines that now; his tall frame crowding her back against the shower stall, the space so laughably small that he’d have to crouch to fit. A chuckle gusts out of her at the thought of him towering over the showerhead, all that tall lank and broad chest struggling to cram itself in between bottles of Pantene and coconut body wash.
He’d probably mutter something about the perils of renting apartments that were former crime scenes, and then tilt his head in that characteristically assessing way, gaze turning tactical and quiet as he finally focused on her, the edge of hunger in his —
Nope.
She shakes her head, grabs the soap. Diligently goes about the task of washing the day’s watch off: the bullpen, the holding cells, the shop that always smells like him, no matter how low she rolls the windows.
Truth is, she’d been aching all day in that fucking car. Aware that her every fidget was silently being catalogued. If he noted her discomfort, he didn’t let on, and she can’t for the life of her understand why imagining one sideways glance from him, one casually thrown out “everything OK, Chen?” has her clenching her thighs as she scrubs herself down.
When she at last finishes, all pretense of cleaning gone, she sighs in defeat at the ache that remains. She can still feel his eyes on her; that appraising stare that manages to convey everything while saying nothing. And when she at last slides a hand down to cup her breast, releasing a pent up little sigh, she absolutely does not imagine his much larger one covering it instead.
Doesn’t swear beneath the spray as she imagines his full mouth sliding across her neck, tongue flat as it licks a path along the tattoo emblazoned there. Doesn’t arch beneath the water to give him better access; cup the square set of his jaw as she burns against his touch.
Doesn’t imagine his gaze dipping, considering her hand cupping her breast, like she’s some ancient fertility statue offering herself up to him: an invitation to drink, to feast. He’d probably waste no time, lips sliding over the peak with military precision, and she can’t stifle the small moan that escapes at the thought, his teeth and lips and tongue a wicked symphony that would rasp and antagonize every raw nerve.
She’s so caught up in the fantasy that she doesn’t even realize she’s slid to the edge of the shower ledge until she feels her back meet cold tile, and the shock of it has her arching her up, pushing herself into his hot mouth with a guttural plea for more, more, more.
Nails scrape softly into his scalp; a wordless demand, and then he’s nuzzling lower, hands sliding down her waist to cup her hips, sliding around the generous curve of her ass.
“Please,” she rasps.
Hard eyes flick up to hers in admonishment, and she cocks her head down, an apology automatically on her tongue.
“Sorry,” she demurs breathlessly, and after a quick moment: “Sir.”
Curses she didn’t know a good Catholic boy was capable of fall from his mouth as he looms over her, eyes darkening. “If that’s how you’re going to play it —”
“I…wasn’t — ”
“If that’s how you’re going to play it — ” his voice low, guttural. “Then turn around.”
“Tim —”
“Turn around, Officer Chen.”
His voice brooks no argument; the role of TO easily slipped into as he presses her against the wall. Her cheek hits tile, his mouth latching onto her neck, fingers curling into her hair to pull her back and up against him, adjusting her the way he likes And then he’s sliding those clever fingers down, past the day of death on her ribs that she still hasn’t managed to remove, past her stomach that can’t stop trembling, and down to the aching place she’s dreamt of him touching for months.
“Christ, Lucy,” he murmurs. Fingers slide into her, slicking through wetness that has nothing to do with the shower, and he lets out a low, satisfied grunt that shudders through her spine. She wants to deny it; wants to tell him the mess between her legs is absolutely not about him, but then he’s slipping a finger inside, and a shocked cry escapes her as that long digit spears through swollen, aching flesh, soothing the painful emptiness that’s been torturing her since this morning, ever since he’d slid into the shop and given her a brief once-over with his eyes.
Fuck, she has it bad.
“What do you need, Lucy?” Her name, so rarely uttered by him, is enough to have her clenching involuntarily, need blossoming into something harder, insistent.
“I nee — need —”
“Mmm?”
“Need you.”
“Good,” he murmurs. Smirks when she clenches around him again, knowing just how deeply his praise hits; how she’d break every law in that goddamn code of conduct if it meant hearing him compliment her in that gravelly tone. He adds another finger, thumb expertly strumming her clit, and she arches, desperate for more, no longer caring who hears her or what she’s saying, she wants, she wants —
“I know,” he murmurs. “I know.” And soon Lucy’s teetering on the edge, shaking around fingers that expertly curl within her, close, so desperately close —
His fingers still; and Lucy whines, jerking against him. “What the hell are you —”
A hard, quick slap lands on her ass; abrupt enough that it robs her of breath.
“Are you questioning me?”
“N - no.”
Another smack; this one lower, between her ass and thigh, just enough to send a warm, hard burn tingling through her.
“No, what?”
He squeezes her ass, hard enough to make her yelp in real pain. “No sir!” she gasps, anger and desire coiling into an untenable mix of need that has her writhing anew, desperate for any friction, anything -
“Good.” One hand glides up her back, rests against her neck. “Now be a good girl and bend over for me.”
She swallows. Oh god. Oh —
“I said bend, Chen.”
Trembling, Lucy lets him pull her back, guiding her down so that her palms are flat against the wall, her back arched, held prisoner by his large, solid hand across it, legs nudged apart by his own, her still-burning ass nestled against his corded thighs.
She feels him pause for a moment; cranes her neck around just in time to see the fingers he’d had buried inside her sucked into his mouth, eyes locked onto hers as he cleans her off of him. And then his tongue is on her neck, licking fire down her spine as he traces each vertebrae with his tongue, and Lucy’s barely able to keep herself upright, she’s shaking so bad. Nearly loses it when he sinks down completely, shoulders knocking down all her shampoo bottles so he can be level with her pussy.
For a long moment, it’s just her ragged breaths and the sound of the water between them. Briefly, she wonders if he’s having second thoughts; if he doesn’t want…but then she turns, and his eyes are filled with such hunger and longing and reverence as he gazes up at her that she can’t help but gust his name out in a small prayer, and when he leans forward to suck her clit into his mouth, the only thing that saves her from breaking her kneecaps as her legs give way are those broad hands, clutching her thighs with such bruising grip that she knows she won’t be able to sit during roll call tomorrow.
Then he’s everywhere: tongue swirling indulgently around her clit; spearing into her soaked channel, his fingers sliding back inside with a torturous ease that has her wondering why any woman would ever leave him; why any drug would be better than this, what cross-country job would be worth taking to create even the slightest distance between Tim Bradford’s mouth and a pussy he’s worshipping.
She sobs when he licks straight up her center; lets out a tiny, shocked gasp when she collapses and comes around him abruptly, hands scrabbling for purchase as his fingers and tongue work in devastating tandem to drive her into a sharp, clenching orgasm that has her shouting in surprise; and again, when she sinks against him, fingers working furiously on her clit as he shoves his tongue so deep that she’s clenching around it as she shivers into her second, shimmering climax; limbs trembling beneath the scalding spray as she muffles his name into her bicep.
And then he’s lining her still-shaking body up against his; leisurely rubbing his cock in the mess he’s created, groaning in approval as he coats himself with her. His stubble scrapes her neck; lips ghosting over the blushed-kissed apple of her cheek, one hand steadying her shuddering back.
“Hold on, baby.”
And then Lucy’s crying out with blessed relief as she feels the man she absolutely doesn’t think about finally push inside her.
“God, Tim.” Her forehead falls to the wall, eyes reflexively rolling back. She doesn’t allow herself to think about this part much: the way he feels, how she readily stretches to accommodate him, how perfectly they fit together, because that would imply she thinks about it at all.
But every time she’s in the men’s locker room pulling some prank; every time they linger after work making idle conversation — every moment she’s not focusing on her job, maintaining her professional decorum — her thoughts inevitably slide to what it would be like to let him consume her. Feel him invade her so deeply and fully that she has no place to go, no way to disguise or hide or make light of the love that —
What the fuck? Lucy snaps out of the fantasy abruptly, fingers jerking from between her thighs. She shakes her head. That’s — that’s not…there are feelings, sure. Born of frustration and stress and proximity. But — what she feels is not…that. Especially given the fact that he’s never —
But Fantasy Tim drags her back. Tilts her hips up so the angle is that much more devastating; lets gravity slide him home so she can feel his heartbeat in her womb. And she suddenly aches to feel him everywhere, pull him into the recesses of all the parts of her he doesn’t have yet; the parts he’s silently been trying to reach through every look, every word.
And as she slides her fingers back between her thighs, imagining him beginning to thrust slowly, reminder after unwelcome reminder crashes through her: his bone-sagging relief after he’d pulled her up from that barrel; his soft gaze in the hospital room when she’d woken up; his alpha posturing at her undercover assignments; his relentless need to seek her out in moments of personal crisis; the lingering gaze that night in his apartment, when they’d almost kissed.
Every label in her mind withers; every self-diagnosis charred with a terrible flash of realization: Tim Bradford might be a little bit in love with her.
And she just might return the sentiment.
“Come on, baby,” his voice in her mind encourages, and her hands work furiously between her thighs as she imagines them in every filthy and delicious way: her prone and open beneath him, thighs resting on his knees as he rises up and spears into her; her arching to meet him as he pounds her from behind, one hand fisted in the tight braid of her hair; her legs wrapped around him as she straddles his lap, chest to chest and mouth to mouth, each breath shakily exchanged as she slowly impales him inside her body; his steady hands clutching her waist and ass as he pounds into her, impatient and needy.
When Lucy comes, her orgasm is a sharp, violent thing that rips the breath from her lungs even as she lets out a long, shattering moan with his name somewhere inside it. And when she imagines him coming at last, spilling into her with measured strokes, she clenches tight, her body asserting what her mind still denies—how much she wants him here; needs this thing she didn’t realize they’d both been stumbling towards.
She collapses, legs banging against hard tile. It’ll bruise tomorrow — whatever. She can still feel him there, around her, inside her, his phantom hands and cock still caging her; his phantom mouth planting kisses on her shuddering body; the now-tepid water drowning confessions he’s murmuring against her skin; words she’s too terrified to hear, too hungry to ignore.
And the next day at roll call, she doesn’t catch herself eyeing his mouth as he rattles off assignments; doesn’t let herself linger on his eyes, his forearms resting comfortably on his belt. Doesn’t move when he catches her gaze, something shifting behind his eyes, as if he knows exactly what she was up to last night; can feel it like a phantom touch in the air.
And when he flicks his eyes down, a barely perceptible drop to her mouth, she doesn’t clench her thighs, doesn’t force her breath to slow, doesn’t purposefully take her time getting up and swiveling around so he can take a good, long look at her walking away from him.
She doesn’t.