"Of course, madam." He slid his fingertips into a side pocket of the briefcase and took out a small, thin book with a burgundy and gold cover. The lions stamped on the front kind of looked like Casimir's tattoo on the inside of his forearm.
The officer reached for it over Rox's shoulder again, while Rox was still stirring the boxes of mints and gum and tissue and tampons and receipts, trying to dig up her wallet. She got a glimpse of the cover of Casimir's passport as they passed it right by her face. The words on the front read, Diplomatiek Paspoort.
Those words might have been Dutch, but Rox could figure out what they meant. She was still so shocked-stupid from getting shot at and nearly dying on the freeway that she almost giggled at the fact that his official diplomatic passport had the word "poo" in it.
Rox found her thick wallet in her purse and unzipped it on three sides. Damn, she had meant to clean it out. The wallet was so full that it looked like she had stuffed a deck of playing cards in there.
"It's here." Rox glanced back at the police officer while she separated the loyalty rewards cards and credit cards and gym ID with her fingernails. "I swear to God, it's in here."
"Take your time." The officer examined the small book and asked Casimir, "Is this real?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
"We don't see this kind of thing very often."
Casimir shrugged. "I can call someone, if you'd prefer."
"It's no problem. I just have to check it out."
Among the cluster of cards in her wallet, Rox found her driver's license. She put her thumb over the picture lest Casimir see that horrible photo and held it out to the police officer. "Found it."
"Thank you, ma'am. I'll just run these." The officer walked back to her car and bent to get in the front seat.
"What was that?" Rox asked.
Cash raised one eyebrow. "What?"
"That passport. That diplomatic passport."
"I carry a diplomatic passport. It gets me out of parking tickets."
"This isn't a parking ticket."
"And we didn't do anything wrong. We were the victims of a crime, and the passport will help smooth things over."
"Why does a lawyer need a diplomatic passport?"
He was looking straight at her, and while he didn't look angry, he did look like he was wearing his resting bitch face, the stern expression that he put on when dealing with antagonistic opposing counsel. "All Dutch citizens carry a diplomatic passport. There are only fifty of us."
Rox said, "I call bullshit."
"Fine, but let's talk about this later."
"Oh, we will. You can count on that."
A small smile sneaked through his blank expression. "I suppose we shall."
Four more police cars sped into the parking lot, sirens blaring and rollers flashing. They surrounded the first police car and their SUV.
"Cash, is there something you need to tell me?" Rox raised her hands slowly, making no sudden moves that might be misinterpreted.
The police officers in the other cars hopped out, drew their handguns, and faced outward, surveying the parking lot around them.
"What the heck is going on?" Rox asked him.
"We've been the victim of a violent crime," Casimir said. "Surely the police are here to protect us."
The first police officer came back to the car and handed them back their identification. "Thank you, sir, ma'am. You're free to go. Do you require any additional assistance, a tow truck or medical assistance? Do you need a ride home?"
"Uh, no thanks?" Rox had never heard of a police officer offering someone a ride in California.
Back home, sure. Back home, a police officer might offer to drive you home if you were coming out of a bar and hadn't gotten into your car yet, just to make sure everyone got home safely.
But in California? That was weird.
"Thank you, officer," Casimir said. "We would appreciate a ride back to my house."
"We don't need a ride," Rox told him. "We could just call a cab, or I could call Brandy or Wren or somebody to give us a lift." She turned to the police officer. "I'm sure that we don't need to trouble you."
"I believe that you would be safer in an official vehicle with a police escort, ma'am," she said.
One of the other officers, also a woman, looked back over her shoulder and said, "You should accept our offer, sir. I'll drive you."
"I was the responding officer," the first police officer called back at her. When she turned her head, Rox could see that her black hair was braided into a complicated bun on the back of her head. "I'll drive them home."
"I took the diplomatic defensive driving course, and I outrank you," the other lady officer retorted.
"But I am the responding officer!"
Rox leaned over to Cash and whispered, "Lord Almighty, you haven't slept with both of them, have you?"
"No," Casimir said. "It's the diplomatic passport. It brings out the best in everyone."
She squinted at him, but she couldn't tell if he was kidding or not.
Casimir called out, "Thank you, officers. We would be most grateful for a ride home."
THE HACIENDA, AGAIN
The entourage of police vehicles dropped them off at Casimir's house.
Rox walked inside without holding on to anything. Waves of weakness ran up her legs. She was almost falling off her heels, and she stood inside the house right next to the door from the garage, leaning against the wall.
Casimir stood beside her and hung out of the doorway, waving at the retreating battalion of police cars. The garage door rattled down.
Rox had tried to slow her breathing down, but she was still panting, scared to her core. She wasn't going to let herself act like a scared little skunk. No way, no how.
Her hands tingled, though, and she couldn't seem to take a deep enough breath to calm the flutters in her chest.
Outside, the garage door thunked closed.
Casimir slammed closed the door beside her. He grabbed her into his arms and pressed her against the wall, his mouth finding hers. He kissed her hard, pressing his mouth to hers and groping her waist and her ass.
She almost thought, Wow, what's gotten into him? but her body answered his, a hot blast of desperate emotion dragged raw by the spraying glass and bullets singing with death. Rox grabbed him with one arm around his neck, her other hand clutching his waist, and one leg wrapped around his thigh.
He groaned into her mouth and ground his hips against her. His lips opened on hers, and she angled her head to kiss him more deeply. He shoved at her suit jacket, tangling her arms in it as he tried to take it off of her. She yanked at the jacket to get it off, but he was already sliding his hand up her thigh to hike her skirt up around her waist and tugging at her underwear, sliding his fingers over her hip and downward.
His cool fingers slipped over the heated skin between her legs. Flutters trickled over her body, and Rox whimpered. His lips opened farther, and his tongue ran over hers, licking her tongue while his fingers slipped in the same rhythm over her clit.
She curled against him, craving every second of contact between his hand on her ribs and waist and the other one between her legs and needing to believe that he was alive, that she was alive, and that her world hadn't ended with a sniper's bullet or the explosion of a car crash.
He tore his mouth away from hers and dove for her neck, lifting her from under her thighs and crushing her between his hard body and the wall. Rox cinched her legs around his back, pushing her slim skirt up farther around her waist.
One of her high-heeled shoes fell off behind his back, clattering on the Spanish tile floor.
He held her waist with one arm and fumbled with his pants with the other, and Rox tried to help by moving her leg but she kissed his jaw and his face, holding him around his shoulders, and breathed in the faint vanilla and spice of his cologne. His suit jacket and the collar of his white shirt kept getting in the way of where she wanted to lick and bite his neck, so she grabbed the knot of his tie and pulled, loosening it. His afternoon stubble felt like rough sand under her lips. When she nipped the tender skin over the pulse in his neck, his body jerked in her arms and between her legs.
Her legs were locked around his waist, and there was no way she could take her panties off now. He dragged the thin silk out of the way, and she felt him pushing at her core.
She threw her head back and moaned, knocking her head against the wall as her body took his cock inside. He growled against her neck, holding her up with his burly arms and pushing himself inside her. She slid down over him, taking him all inside. His hard erection filled her.