LITMIR.BIZ

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into the sort of trouble that Danny could help with. A few minutes later, the club’s second-prettiest dancer made her way over to where Peter sat.

      Peter raised an eyebrow as the blonde draped herself around his shoulders, chuckled under his breath as she rubbed her breasts on the back of his neck. He scanned the room for Delia, then asked the blond girl a question. She shrugged and nodded in Danny’s direction; he fixed a smile on his face and lifted his drink as Peter looked his way, tried to make it look as if he’d bought the girl for Peter simply because it was a cool thing for one guy to do for another.

      The two men locked eyes, gaze broken when the blond dancer took Peter’s hand to lead him to the back room. He stood and followed, paused as they neared the bar.

      He leaned in to Danny. “I saw what you did there,” Peter said, mouth showing amusement that his eyes didn’t share. “I think it’s cute that you like that girl enough to pull a stunt like that.” He paused. “Don’t you ever fucking cockblock me like that again.”

      He turned without waiting for a response and continued through the curtains to the private rooms.

      Danny stayed where he was, hands clenched into fists in the pockets of his jacket, telling himself he was controlling himself from going after Peter and beating that smug, superior smile from his face, but knowing that he was actually fighting down the sick knowledge that he and Peter might be cut from the same cloth, but they sure as shit weren’t equals, weren’t partners of any sort. And as much as he hated Peter at this moment, he knew that when the man summoned him he’d go and do what he was told, like a goddamned trained dog. Too much to lose if he didn’t.

      He also knew that he didn’t want to go to a private room with Delia. He turned back to the bartender. “The redheaded kid down by the left stage. Is he a dick to the girls?”

      Bartender shook his head. “Nah. Comes in with twenty bucks a coupla times a week. Never caused trouble.”

      “Give him my room. Tell him happy fucking birthday.” He peeled off another hundred to cover a tip. “And tell him if he gets out of line with Delia, I’ll break his fucking neck.”

      He left the club, waited in the bar across the street for her to finish her shift. When he finally saw her step out of the back door, he dropped a twenty to cover his tab and went out to meet her.

      She was with two other women. A petite, mousy thing who tried and failed to do “sexy librarian” and a curvy Hispanic with big tits and long legs. As he approached they paused their low conversation. Delia’s eyes held a whisper of uncertainty, but the other two watched him with the naked wariness of a rabbit watching a fox.

      He wanted to growl to the two rabbits to get lost, watch them skitter off, but instead he merely asked Delia, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

      As if she hadn’t heard his question, she turned to the other girls. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow night,” she told them, exchanged quick hugs. Not until the two were halfway down the block did she return her attention to Danny. Her mouth pressed into a tight, thin line.

      “I’m not a whore,” she said flatly.

      Danny found himself smiling. “I know. I promise, I just want to buy you a cup of coffee.”

      The look she gave him was measuring, doubtful. He wondered if she knew what he’d done in the club and, if so, whether she could possibly understand why. Then again, he didn’t completely understand it himself.

      “There’s a café over on Decatur,” she finally said. “It’s really good, but I don’t like walking there by myself at night.”

      “I’ll protect you,” he replied.

      She liked her coffee sweet and rich, added enough cream to where it matched the pale mocha color of her skin. Her croissant she tore into small bits before eating it in dainty bites between sips of coffee and conversation.

      Like anyone else in the city, they talked first about why they were still there after the Switch, why they hadn’t abandoned the city the way that the river had. After all, anyone who could had left, leaving only the very poor, the rich who knew how to profit from disaster, and the few people those rich needed to get richer and stay comfortable.

      “Lots of cops left and went over to Morgan City,” he told her. “Plenty of work there. But … I dunno. I didn’t want to leave, and I had enough seniority to avoid the layoffs.” And plenty of stroke, too, he added silently. He’d called in a lot of favors to make sure that not only would he stay but those in line ahead of him for promotion would get the ax instead. He’d made captain less than six months later.

      “This is my home” was all she said to explain why she stayed. “I love this city.”

      “Even now?” he asked her, eyebrow cocked in disbelief.

      “Especially now,” she replied, a soft smile on her lips.

      He thought about that for a moment while he drank his café au lait. The night breeze brought the stagnant scent of the river, mingled with the aroma of beer and piss in the street. Even hours before dawn, the muggy air wrapped around them with warm tendrils, promising a brutal summer to come. But this city suited him, suited his personality. The Switch had been the best goddamn thing that had ever happened to him.

      “Me too,” he finally said, because he knew she expected it, and pushed aside the strange twinge of sadness that came from realizing that he loved it for far different reasons than she did.

      Though he never went back inside the club, he waited for her each night and walked her to the café. On the third night, she tucked her arm through his as they walked. On the fifth, she greeted him with a kiss and a smile.

      On the seventh, she asked, “Do you have a coffeemaker at home?”

      He had an apartment south of the Quarter, a more than decent place where he lived for free, thanks to a desperate landlord who agreed that it was better to have a cop live there than have squatters take up residence. With so many vacant homes and apartments in the city, it was rare for any cop to pay rent.

      It was almost a mile from the café, but she insisted that she didn’t mind walking.

      His place wasn’t overly messy, but it sure as hell wasn’t set up as a nice place to have company. The curtains had been left behind by the previous tenants, and had likely been old back then. Décor was limited to a pile of magazines with scantily clad women on the covers, a cluster of empty beer bottles on the coffee table, and, by the door, a framed newspaper article from several years back with the headline: Witness recants testimony. NOPD officers cleared in wrongdoing.

      He never brought girls back here, had never thought what it would look like through a woman’s eyes. Oddly ashamed, he started to apologize, but she stopped him with a smile. “It’s all right. It’s good. You’re a good person.” Which only made his shame increase, because he knew that he wasn’t, though it had never mattered to him before.

      He snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her tightly to him. She let out a small squeak of surprise. “Nah, I’m a bad boy,” he said, trying to be flip, yet feeling it like a confession. He instantly felt silly for saying it and sorry for being rough. He didn’t want this girl to think of him like that. He didn’t want her to be the kind who was only attracted to the assholes and pricks.

      But she simply smiled and laid her hand on his cheek. “You’re not fooling me,” she said, voice low and husky. “You’re my good boy.”

      Danny knew how to fuck, how to get what he wanted, how not to care. He’d lost count of the number of prostitution “arrests” he’d made—girls who’d paid their fine directly to him with their mouth or cunt. It had been a long time since he’d had any sort of concern for the pleasure of his partner, and he felt like a fumbling virgin as he touched Delia, shamed and horrified when his uncertainty translated into a betrayal of his own physical response.

      Yet she neither mocked nor took insult. Lowering her head, she gently coaxed him back, easing him, exciting him. And before he could squander her efforts, he shifted her to her back and returned the attention. She tasted

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