Stepping into the deep end

Blowing out a breath, Sinead tapped the folded paper against her thumb as she sat in her car looking up at the apartment building.

“What the fuck am I doing?” she asked herself.

Going to get the test had been agonisingly embarrassing. Not that there was anything wrong with getting an STD test, it was the reason that she was getting it that made her stomach knot up.

Am I really doing this? She thought to herself.

She was stuck between a rock and a hard place on the case. Or it felt that way, at least. Maybe it was that Irish blood that her father had always said she’d inherited even though her family hadn’t set foot on Irish soil for a good century. She could just walk away. Someone else would find something else about Le Français at some point. No criminal network could last forever.

But the trail was going cold, and God she wanted to grab this tiger by the tail and try to wrestle it.

This, though…

Marc was an attractive man. She’d recognized it when she’d first seen him. Sinead couldn’t deny that she might have been willing to hook up with him under different circumstances. And this was only one time, for one specific goal. It wasn’t wrong, it was… expedient.

“God, fuck,” she grunted and got out of her car before she could circle back on herself. She was cutting it close to being late and Marc wasn’t the kind of guy who was wishy-washy on timing.

The fact that she recognized that and felt herself care about it, even a little, made her stomach knot a little bit again.

She went up to the floor where his loft was and rang the doorbell, and he answered dressed in one of those suits that were cut so well on his frame. They were probably ridiculously expensive, but they looked good. His black hair was perfectly quaffed just like every time she’d seen him, and it looked like he might have freshly shaved the stubble on his cheeks.

“Detective,” he said. “Come in, please.”

She stepped in and felt like one weight had lifted from her shoulders but another had settled in her chest. The decision was made. She was here. She was doing this.

Sinead followed Marc to his kitchen, where he reached for an envelope on that expansive kitchen island he had and he handed it to her. “As promised, so you know we can have some good, clean fun.”

“Same,” Sinead said, handing him her folded test results and then opening the envelope. She scanned down the printout quickly. He didn’t have anything.

“Lovely,” Marc said, smiling softly as he checked her paper and then re-folded it and set it down. “I find, when engaging with a new partner even for a short time, it’s best to put things out in the open for everyone’s comfort. No judgement intended, of course. I don’t know what sort of sexual history you have.”

“I’m divorced,” Sinead said and wasn’t sure why she blurted it out. “I mean, I’m not seeing anyone regularly. There’s been a couple of casual hookups since then, but nothing major.”

“I wasn’t asking, Sinead,” Marc said with that fucking smile of his. “Though I appreciate the honesty.”

“So what now?” Sinead asked, leaning back into her frustration at him, and at herself, to try and ground her. “We head up to your bed and get busy?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He stepped around the kitchen island and opened his laptop before turning it to her. “As I said, I find everyone being comfortable to be very important when headed into a sexual encounter. I’ve finished my analysis and I believe it should fill in some answers for you.”

“You’ve finished already?” Sinead asked, stepping forward and leaning down to scan through his write-up.

“You gave me the where,” he said. “I just had the how. You should be able to pick up the mastermind behind the financial firewall system whenever you can get your warrant.”

“This is big,” Sinead muttered. Marc had pinpointed a few new names associated with the money and even a physical address for the IP that a lot of the orders were routed through. One of the names was highlighted with a note that they worked for a bank. “This is really big.”

“Happy to be of service,” Marc said.

“What now, then?” Sinead asked, standing back up. Part of her wanted to slam the laptop closed and run out of there with it. But she knew that would be wrong. She’d already backed out on one deal with Marc, if she did it again…

If she did it again, nothing would happen. He couldn’t exactly report it. She would take what she’d learned and life would go on.

But it felt wrong.

“Now, I’m going to set this timer,” Marc said, walking into his kitchen and taking an egg timer out of a drawer and bringing it over to show her. It was a stupid little yellow chick with a bright red timer front on it, and he twisted it all the way around to mark 60 minutes and it started ticking. “One hour.”

“One hour,” Sinead agreed. She felt like her stomach and her heart were trying to switch places inside her, but even more confusing was that she could also feel herself getting horny.

“Now that we’ve started, Sinead,” Marc said. “I think first you should undress me.”

“Really?” Sinead asked. She’d been expecting that she would be the naked one.

“Detective, if you’re going to question everything, this hour is going to be a lot more tedious than it needs to be,” Marc said.

“Sorry,” she said and hated that she felt the need to apologize. He was practically blackmailing her for this, for crying out loud!

“You may begin,” Marc said and spread his arms out a little bit.

Sinead hesitated, but reached for his tie. It was silk, of course, and there was a tiny part of her that wanted to just yank it tight and run. But she didn’t. She pulled it loose, her fingers running over the fabric of it, and then folded it neatly and set it on the kitchen island. Then she started on the buttons of his shirt. He had chest hair, though she’d known that from the time he’d been wearing his robe when she came here. His chest was also nicely defined without being overly muscled and fit - he kept himself in shape. Sinead unbuttoned down to his stomach before realizing that she should have taken his suit jacket off.

He smiled as she went behind him and helped him out of it.

Fuck that smile!

Breakthebar erotica is powered by Patreon, where early chapters are released ahead for all of my series. Le Francais is a Commissioned Work. PM if interested in helping fund the series, or if you are looking to commission a story of your own!