Chapter One
The dog just kept yapping and it was starting to piss me off. This whole thing was starting to feel like a bad idea. Perhaps I should never have driven all the way out here.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, kissing my neck and guiding me backwards towards the kitchen table.
“It’s the dog,” I whispered, lying down and screwing my eyes shut, trying to block out the sound of it in the distance.
“Just ignore it and relax,” he hushed, his whiskey breath hot against my neck.
“Perhaps your dad is on his way back – that’s why the dog’s...” I started and opened my eyes again, looking up into his face.
“He won’t be back for hours,” he murmured, unbuttoning my work shirt, the faintest of smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth, eyes half-shut like two crescent moons.
With one hand placed on the back of his thick neck, I eased myself up onto the table, wondering now if this wasn’t all a big mistake – one which I would later regret. I’d pulled a lot of crazy stunts in the past, but nothing like this – not on duty. But hey, I was just twenty, and entitled to a little bit of fun now and then. I knew, though, that was me talking and not my dad – my sergeant – who was hoping that I would’ve said goodbye to my wild ways once I had joined the police force. I had only joined to make him happy – to get rid of that disapproving look he had in his eyes for me ever since I had turned thirteen. I was twenty now – so he kept reminding me. Time to grow up and take some responsibility.
With the dog howling like a wolf on the other side of the farm, Michael pulled open my shirt, bent forward, and started to kiss my nipples, through the thin lacy fabric of my bra.
“Officer, I need to be punished,” he groaned.
Officer? I rolled my eyes. He really was getting a kick out of me being a cop. I glanced to the left, down at the stone kitchen floor where some of my uniform now lay. My utility belt with the cuffs, baton, CS spray still attached and my police radio, which hissed and crackled as if searching for a signal. I needed to keep it close – listen for any urgent calls. What with the dog howling and the radio hissing and spitting, how was I ever going to relax enough to enjoy Michael? It was no good and I just couldn’t cross that line of no return and fully let go. As Michael trailed a soft, wet line of kisses over my breasts and down the flat of stomach, I reached forward, fumbled for his trouser belt, then let go.
“Don’t stop,” he breathed, pushing himself against my thigh. I could tell that he was excited and having no problem in giving in to the moment.
“I can’t,” I breathed, my heart starting to race – not with excitement, but fear. What if a call should come in now, a call for urgent assistance from one of my colleagues? I was miles from town. Could my radio even get a signal this far out? It had the other day, hadn’t it? I tried to remember. Even though Michael was smothering me in kisses and now trying to tug my trousers free, this whole thing didn’t seem like a good idea anymore.
I’d known Michael had wanted me from the moment I had arrived at his father’s farmhouse three days ago. The call had come in from Control as an attempted burglary, but it wasn’t. After arriving and being met at the gate by the farmer, he led me around the side of the house and towards a dilapidated barn. It had been raining all that morning, and as I’d traipsed behind the broad-shouldered farmer, mud and animal shit had splattered over my boots and up my trousers. It had stunk.
The farmer seemed undeterred by the driving rain and mud, and stopped before the rickety barn, with rain falling over his bald head, down the length of his weather-worn face, and through the thick blond hairs which covered his meaty forearms.
“Take a look at this,” he said, rattling a broken padlock and chain with one huge hand.
Take a look at what? I felt like asking upon seeing the rusty, broken lock. It was so old it could have fallen to pieces of its own accord for all I knew or cared.
“Thieves, that’s what they are,” the farmer said, looking at me through the rain.
“Who are?” I asked, just wanting to be back in my patrol car and out of the cold.
“Whoever smashed this here lock and got into my barn,” he huffed at me, like I was some kind of freaking retard.
I knew what he was thinking. Why had they sent a woman to do a man’s job?
“Has anything been stolen?” I said, pushing open the door and peering into the barn. It was dark inside, and just like outside, it smelt of shit. I took my torch from my belt and flashed a wide beam of light around the inside of the barn. There didn’t appear to be anything of great value – not to me, anyhow. It looked cluttered with nothing more than a bunch of rusty-looking crap like old tractor parts, tired-looking pieces of machinery, scattered bales of hay, and more animal shit.