Smut 69: Scent
Any cop who said stake outs were fun needed serious psychological help. Once a certain rank was attained the hours of boredom and inactivity could be avoided easily. When the rank of Captain was attained there was no reason to be sitting in the passenger seat of a Durango at ten-thirty PM watching the house of a known drug dealer. Jimmy Deakins had made the excuse that his wife and girls were visiting her mother and he’d just be rambling around the empty house, but Alex Eames thought maybe there was some trouble there. He’d been sticking close to his detectives a lot lately.
Not that she minded. Deakins was good company. He didn’t feel the need to fill the quiet with pointless conversation, but he wasn’t afraid to say anything. He asked after her family and because they were alone she could answer beyond polite generalizations. He answered her inquiry about his family with information mostly about his daughters, supporting her theory something was wrong. He gave her an opening to talk about Bobby but, even though her partner could be infuriating, she didn’t want to give the impression she wanted a change. Bobby was the best partner she’d ever had and working with him was always fascinating.
When they’d gone quiet again, she glanced over at him. He’d leaned well back in the seat and closed his eyes. It was odd to watch him in repose; he was always moving some part of him. Shoulders rolled, hands fidgeted, hips shifted or he just got up and paced his office like a caged animal. His face looked different, much more vulnerable. She had a feeling he knew she was watching him; that feeling of the barely contained wild thing didn’t go away even though he was resting. The longer he let her watch without comment, the more carefully she examined him.
After a long while she realized it wasn’t the close cropped silver hair she was paying the most attention to or his strong hands sitting on his powerful, jean clad thighs, not that she wasn’t aware of those things. She grew a little warm at the though of just how aware she was of them. What cut through all of that was considerably more subtle than the line of his throat or the blue of his eyes when he finally turned back to look at her.
She knew there was cologne in there somewhere, no doubt something bought every year by his daughters. There was the clean aroma of soap and she thought maybe a cigarette or two, even though she’d never seen him smoke one. Underneath it all was something warm and rich and deeply masculine. If pressed she would have talked about wood fires and sawdust or motor oil and gunpowder. None of those described the scent that made her want to slide across the seat and bury her nose in the open collar of his shirt.
Every time he leaned across her desk she got a whiff of it. Every time he brushed past her in the bullpen she had a taste. Every time she leaned into his office she was drawn deeper in by the scent of him. All without realizing it until she was trapped in the car with him, studying him. Her heart pounded in her chest and she knew she was blushing furiously. Still, he was the one who bowed his head and spoke softly before she had a chance to stammer out an explanation.
“Are you wearing a new perfume, Alex?” His voice dropped again, to a husky whisper. “You smell good today.”