The other officer sneered in disgust at all of us and began to drag Stormy down the stairs toward the closest door. The cop knocked Stormy off-balance and he blasted his elbow against the railing, which made him hiss out a pained sound.
“Be careful with him,” I shouted, and Officer Paxton put a hand on my shoulder, walking me forward after them at a much more sedate pace. My cock was uncomfortable, to say the least. I was long past the age of being embarrassed about what my dick decided to do—or I’d thought so, anyway. Officer Paxton went out first, and I was wholly unprepared to walk out into the hallway to a camera in my face.
“What the fuck?” I grumbled, and Avery Wysocki gave me a crooked grin as he snapped a photo. He stood back to get another one. Wysocki was tall with a boyish face and reddish-brown curls that tumbled onto his forehead. The leech was also a reporter for the local newspaper, and the one who had dropped the article that nearly ended Vane Elwood’s career as deputy mayor.
“I was here because of the city budget meeting, which is boring, and heard there was some trouble. Thought it wouldn’t hurt to look into it since I was downstairs.” He flashed me a blinding white smile. “You’re just in time to hit the evening news.”
“You’re not allowed up here without a pass!”
Wysocki shrugged. “And it appears you’re under arrest. What for?” He looked at the officers with a pleased gleam in his grubby reporter eyes.Fucking hell.
Officer Paxton shook his head. “We’re taking Mayor Midberry in to answer some questions—”
“Soliciting a prostitute,” the other cop snapped. Stormy ducked his head and tried to hide his face as Wysocki took a photograph of him, too. He refused to pick up his head and made the cop with him guide him along as we walked toward the elevator in a pack.
“Fuck!” I snapped. If no one had seen anything, I might have been able to get out of this somehow. Maybe I could have greased the right palms. Well, okay, Vane would have paid off the right people. I was broke from fucking Stormy. My mind raced and my hands sweated, and my fucking cock got harder as I tugged at the cuffs. I’d always gotten fear-wood—an adrenaline boner, whatever people wanted to call it—and the cuffs were making it worse.
“Enough of this. We have a job to do,” Officer Paxton said politely, but he left no room for argument as he stepped forward and left me in the unpleasant position of following him when, really, I wanted to run away, or even better, rewind the last ten minutes of my life. I was so fucked.
Stormy glanced over his shoulder and winced, mouthing “sorry” at me. And I believed him. He would be sorry. He was the best guy. How the hell would I be able to afford to pay him ten times a week to stick that delightful ass in the air for my cock without my paycheck from the city? I wouldn’t be destitute, but I would certainly not have that sort of dough.Fuck my life.
“Chin up,” Officer Paxton said when we were finally outside in the spring sunshine, and he led me along the sidewalk to his black-and-white cruiser parked next to the curb. “Things look bad now, but I’m sure they’ll all turn out okay in the end.” He tried for a comforting smile, and I only laughed as I sat in the back seat.
“Pretty sure my life is fucking ruined.” It was strange but I oddly didn’t feel as bad about that as I thought maybe I should. After he closed the door and locked me in, I scanned the back seat for something… what, I wasn’t sure, since I wasn’t skilled enough to make a break for it. He went around and got into the driver’s seat. “Where’s Stormy?” I asked.
“If at all possible, it’s procedure not to let people involved in a crime together travel to the police station in the same vehicle. We do try to go by the book now and again.” I watched as Stormy was loaded into a different cruiser ahead of us by that asshole cop and my gut sank. I had a bad feeling about this, and it wasn’t just because I’d put the coup de grâce on my mayoral term.
How would I ever apologize to Vane? Why hadn’t I been more careful? I tugged on the cuffs. I knew why. I got off on doing things I knew I shouldn’t. People gathered on the sidewalk to watch, and I covered my face with my hands, my dick still as obvious in my pants as a redwood.
Vane had warned me, threatened me, and finally begged me to do something different with my life. Get help if I needed it to stop doing the things I did. I’d told him I had everything under control. We’d both known I was full of shit, but he was a good friend, so he trusted me. Guilt had me hunching forward with what felt like seasickness as the car started to move, leaving behind my crumbling empire at city hall.
2
Lane “Stormy” Kennedy
There weretwo things I knew about cops—they liked catching politicians doing illegal shit, and they hated professionals. Both of these facts were going to make the situation a lot more difficult for me right now, especially because Ross had given the cops so much hell over the last year.
I glared at Officer Naylor, the cop who’d roughly shoved me into the back of a police cruiser, and then yanked me out again when we got to the station. Cameras were already waiting, flashes of light blinding me until I saw white dots dancing in front of my eyes. Naylor didn’t seem to care, though, taking the time to smirk at me and then smile at the reporters, like he was a celebrity and they were here for him. I’d only crossed this asswipe two times in my career, but he was the kind of cop who was memorable because of his hatred for all things sex work. He acted as though he was an angel who didn’t blow his wad by watching porn after his wife went to bed. I knew his type:Do as I say and not as I do.It also didn’t help that the first time he’d caught me, it involved a blow job as payment for letting me go without any charges. When the second time happened and he’d apparently grown half a conscience, I’d had Madam Winters and River Demchenko to save my ass.
“Are we really doing this again, Naylor?” I grumbled, fluttering my eyelashes at him over my shoulder. “You know what happened last time. Ms. Winters will come in here with our lawyer and destroy you.”
He grunted as he shoved me up the steps and toward the station’s doors. There wasn’t anything subtle about the way he pushed and jerked me around. He wanted the reporters to think he was astrongpolice officer who took the law very seriously, but in the end, he was another two-faced cretin. There were good cops on the force, of course. I’d met some of them, Naylor’s partner included, but I always seemed to get targeted by the assholes.
“Shut up, Kennedy.”
I rolled my eyes. He thought he had some power by knowing my legal name, but Naylor knew nothing about my real identity. If he did, he would have been pissing his pants. “I want to have my one phone call.”
“Soon.” He grunted again as he paraded me through the station like he’d caught a criminal on the most-wanted list. One of the nice cops I knew, Caro, sent me a sympathetic smile from where he sat at his desk. I winked at him on the way past because it didn’t matter what Naylor did, I wasn’t fazed. I’d seen my fair share of pricks, thank you very much, and he wasn’t anything new.
We went through the usual booking process—headshot, fingerprints, phone call, all that jazz—before he marched me to the cells to await my lawyer. I’d been through this before, too, so it was another walk in the park as far as I was concerned. I was still annoyed I hadn’t listened to my horoscope today. It had never let me down before, but Ross was so insistent, and Ilikedhim. He wasn’t the type of person Iwantedto say no to, so I’d gone along with the idea. He was a junkie for sex in semipublic places. For me, getting caught wasn’t a big deal, but he was the mayor, and the media was everywhere.
The thought of what might happen to Ross made me wince as Naylor took off my cuffs and shoved me through the door into a holding cell with three other guys. He laughed, as though he was the reason for my reaction, before the buffoon slammed the door shut and strode off again, his thumbs hooked into his belt as he swaggered his way back out of the room.
I rolled my eyes. “Meathead.”
The sound of laughter made me turn, and I flashed a dazzling smile at the three men in the cage with me. One of them, the man who laughed, sat with his back to the corner of the cell, a leather jacket with a patch I knew well embroidered on the right of his chest. A King. I liked the biker clubs around here. They didn’t judge us and they paid well. The Kings of Men MC knew how to party, and I’d been to their clubhouse more than once and gotten my ass pounded. I couldn’t quite remember this guy, though.
“Did I say something funny?” I asked and plopped down on the metal bench. The two other guys in the cell weren’t as good-looking as the King, and while one didn’t seem interested in our conversation, the other’s beady eyes watched me like I was a meal he wanted to devour. Usually I wouldn’t have minded, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be paid in here for doing anything down and dirty.
