Marital Bitch (Men with Badges)

Chapter TWENTY

(Brad)

The girl turns my brain to sludge.

COLLEEN IS SO hot and cold all of the time that it makes my head spin. But I'm not complaining because she's been giving Mac all kinds of attention lately. I make her mad and then reap the rewards of it. It's screwed up, but it's also so typical of how we've always been. Part of it is that we don’t communicators, but I think that most of it is that she enjoys being a pain in the ass. Not that I'm an angel, but I like to think I'm the more reasonable of the two.

That Monday, after the porntop incident as Colleen is referring to it, I was nervous as hell. I should have just told her outright what I'd had Adam do before she left the house; but she was all nice and sharing her coffee and I was naked. Plus, Mac thought she looked good in that power suit. I know it was a dumb, messed up idea. I’m an idiot. I have no defense except to say that the girl turns my brain to sludge. Horny sludge.

I don’t even want to get started on the Vicky situation. I told her I called it off but once Colleen started acting up she didn’t care. I guess she’s being a good friend by looking out for me because she thinks Colleen is a spoiled princess because she strings me along. I’ve tried to tell her time and time again how untrue that is, but she won’t listen. She just doesn’t get us. Most people don’t.

Now it’s Friday and I’ve spent all week with a serious case of paranoia. You know that saying “sleep with one eye open”? Yeah. I’ve mastered that shit. Every tiny movement in the bed at night and I’m on high alert. Wednesday night after I reached for my gun after Colleen got up to pee, she demanded that I put it across the room at night. Then she proceeded to tell me that if she was intent on killing me that I wouldn’t be able to get to the gun in time. Then she told me not to worry. Not to worry? The hell? And then she tried to cuddle me. So now I don’t even have my gun to keep me safe at night.

I know something’s coming. Colleen doesn’t know how to let anything go and this was a big thing. I haven’t slept well in days, delirium is getting to me and I swear to God that my shampoo smells funny when I use it. I took a shower last night and asked Colleen if my hair looked darker when I got out. She leaned up, kissed my cheek and told me I looked just as handsome as I ever did. So now I’m convinced there’s something in my hair. When Colleen is that kind to me, something’s very, very wrong.

I’m in the kitchen, drinking my coffee and waiting for the devil herself to come downstairs. I check my watch. I have to leave if I want to get to work on time. I give her another minute to come downstairs and when she doesn’t I trudge upstairs to say goodbye. She may have me ready to piss myself with fear, but I still want to tell Satan’s leader goodbye before heading off to work.

When I get upstairs she’s still sound asleep. I creep toward the bed and kiss her cheek. She jumps suddenly a huge smile on her face and shouts “good morning.” I jump backwards nearly falling on my ass. My heart is about to jump out of my chest and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve nearly peed myself.

“You’re so jumpy this morning,” she smiles innocently.

“You’re evil,” I mutter, my hand over my heart.

“What, you don’t like surprises? I mean, it could have been worse. You could have been at work when it happened.” Her nose wrinkles at the thought. I narrow my eyes at her. She crawls across the bed and stands on her knees. Placing her hands on my chest she lets them wander south below my belt buckle. When her hand finds Mac and she starts stroking him through the fabric, I’m at a loss.

“I have to go, pretty girl,” I hiss and let my head fall back. The last thing I want to do is leave but I really do have to show up. It doesn’t help that we haven’t had sex since Monday night. I have to sleep every night with that tight little butt pushed against Mac and pretend to be oblivious to her obvious attempts to rile me up.

“I know, pretty boy,” she says huskily. She unzips my fly and pulls out my straining erection, circling her thumb on the moistened tip. “You’re so ready to go, baby,” she whispers. I hear the bed move and next thing I know her mouth is on Mac. She feels amazing. But then, moments later her mouth is gone. She tucks me back in and zips me back up and crawls off the bed. From the doorway she’s giggling. “I just wanted to make sure you’re hard for me all day, baby.” And she walks off. I’m going to kill her one of these days if she doesn’t kill me first.

I use the drive to work to will away my painful erection. She felt good. So warm and wet, moving up and down… damn it. I’m not convinced that I’m going to be able to leave my truck until I see James’s wide load crawling out of his SUV. A few breaths later and I’m good to go. I’d have to punish her for that later on—sending me to the station like that.

Medusa herself calls me around noon and lets me know that she’s bringing me lunch. She’s been on a really fierce bender this week and somehow negotiated with her boss to work from home today. I don’t even want to know what she said to get him to agree to that. Normally she says he’s a stickler about being out of the office. Frankly, I kind of want to call the guy up and demand that he demand she goes back into the office. At least when she’s there I know I’m safe. I don’t know how she’s been at work and I really don’t care. He can worry about watching his back and I’ll worry about mine.

“Hey, Brad. Come in here, will ya?” Dan calls me into his office. I stand up from my desk and stretch. I hate filling out paperwork. If I could, I’d make some dumb rookie do it for me so his sorry ass can be stuck at his desk all day. At this point I think I’d even go for being a meter maid if I didn’t have to fill out anymore forms.

“What’s up, Chief?” I ask as I walk into his office and plop down in one of the guest chairs.

“Is there something going on at home?” he asks slowly. The Chief is all for talking personal stuff when it’s positive but the moment things goes south, he’s out of there. I shrug my shoulders.

“Sure. Why?” I ask.

“Um,” he sits in his chair and clasps his hands together. His head is down and his shoulders are shaking. “You just look a little blue, that’s all.” And he breaks out into a full-on chuckle. This joke is clearly over my head. I have no idea what’s funny about the color blue.

“You, uh, drinkin’ at work again, Chief?” I laugh, thinking that I’m funny. He narrows his eyes at me and I sit up straighter. “Sorry,” I mutter and rub my neck. Right when Colleen and I were graduating high school, Louise got pregnant with twins but lost them pretty late in the second trimester. That was a rough time in the Frasier household. I knew it wasn’t their first miscarriage but it had hit them the hardest because she’d lost them so late.

“It’s okay, son,” the Chief says. He looks at me seriously and sighs. “You’re a husband now. I just want to know that you’re taking care of my little girl.”

“I’m trying but you know how she is,” I grumble.

“That I do,” he laughs wistfully. “She seems happier with you. I haven’t seen her so lively since she went off to that damn college. She’s been all work and no play. It’s time my girl enjoyed her life.” I smile at him.

“I want wring her stubborn neck every other minute, but she’s it for me, you know?” I say. Dan smiles at me. I gulp, a little surprised at my confession. It’s not like he didn’t know before. Like any good father, he just likes hearing it.

“Don’t think there aren’t times that I don’t want to ship Louise off somewhere tropical.” We laugh for a moment. “So things are okay? There’s nothing fishy going on that’d make you blue?” Again with the blue!

“No, sir,” I lean forward with a slight bit of confusion. “Do I look blue or something?” And he bursts out laughing again. I stand up, annoyed now because I have no idea why he keeps talking about the color blue. He waves me off and I walk back to my desk. Colleen is in my chair, playing with her phone.

“You come to feed me, pretty girl?” she looks up and smiles. I give her a kiss on the forehead. She stands up and pulls me down to her, kissing me passionately. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her close. As the kiss heats up I can hear cheers from all around.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” James mutters in complete shock. Colleen pulls away and kisses the side of my mouth. I look around to see that we’ve attracted quite the audience.

“Before you eat baby, you might want to take one of these.” Colleen smirks and tosses me a prescription bottle. I look at the label. Viagra. Oh, she’s hilarious. The label is obviously homemade. My pharmacy prints my middle initial on the bottle and this label doesn’t have that. Yeah, Viagra my ass.

“My wife is funny,” I laugh and hold the bottle up so the boys can see it. “She thinks I need Viagra.” They all start laughing. Colleen bites her lip and stomps her foot, obviously annoyed that I’m not buying it.

“Baby,” she whines, “how do you expect us to conceive Bradley Jr. if you don’t take your little pill first? Come on, baby. Let’s have a nooner!” she says with faux enthusiasm and rubs her belly. Yeah, like this is going to embarrass me. I smile and wink at her.

“Oh, baby, that’s not how you talk in bed.” I puff my chest out because yeah, I know I’m a stud and if she wasn’t on the pill or whatever, she would be knocked up by now.

“My ears!” James shouts. I look at him to laugh but my dad is standing behind him and even he looks disgusted. Maybe that was too much?

“Well,” Colleen challenges, “I’m ovulating. So go ahead, pop your little blue pill so we can get on it. Will ya?” I smirk at her and open the lid. Her eyes grow wide. I know she’s faking it. These things have to be sugar pills or something. I reach in and grab one and toss it into my mouth.

“Bradley!” she screams. The Chief comes running out of his office to see what all the fuss is about but the moment he sees that it’s just me and Colleen, he waves us off and walks back into his office. I laugh at the Chief’s dismissal. Before I know it, Colleen is pulling me off to the side, pulling me down to her height.

“That was really Viagra, you idiot!” she seethes in my ear. I laugh and shrug her off. I’m not going to panic, not until I have a problem that won’t go away.

“DUDE,” JAMES SAYS knocking on the bathroom door. “Are you okay?” I grunt, incapable of voicing exactly how not okay I am at this moment. It hurts. I’ve taken care of the issue twice but figured out after the second time that that wasn’t doing me any good. Orgasms are no fun when they keep coming back and won’t go away.

“Go away!” I yell. I’m on the floor, my pants are down around my hips and my erection is literally painfully hard. Poor Mac is so sensitive that I can’t even touch him. It may not last long but the relief is unimaginable.

“It’s been three hours!” James yells. I kick the door and wince. That action shook my torso. “You should know that Colleen just got here. She feels real bad, dude!” James will always defend his sister. I scoff.

“Your sister is a bitch!” I shout just loud enough for only James and whatever other nosey a*shole is outside to hear. All the lug nut does is laugh.

“Porntop, dude, porntop.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumble. I’m never going to live that one down.

I scramble to cover myself up when I see the lock turn and the door open quickly. Colleen sneaks in and re-locks the door behind her. I practically growl at her. I can’t decide if I want to have my way with her until she’s as uncomfortable as I am or if I want to hogtie her and leave her for dead on the Southeast Expressway.

“I am so sorry!” Colleen whispers. Her eyes are red and she looks truly sorry. I want to believe her but Mac isn’t buying it. If he has to take a trip to the hospital, he’s going to withhold sex for a week. I’d go for longer but I’m a sucker for her big blue eyes.

“Just forgive her, dude,” James says through the door. Colleen turns around and pushes her face to the crack of the door.

“James, I’m about to try some creative techniques to take care of Brad’s problem in here, so unless you want to hear, I suggest you back up.” I laugh and then moan because even moving hurts at this point. Colleen turns back to me and I notice that she’s wearing a skirt—without panties. Half of me has had this fantasy for a long time and the other half of me is about to cry because I’m not sure Mac can take it.