Chapter 1: The Ticket and the Trap
The cruiser’s heater was losing the battle against the deep, invasive cold. Ada watched the snow drift across the blacktop, a relentless, white-shrouded silence pressing in from all sides. Then a flash of metallic blue shattered the stillness, going a solid twenty over the limit.
“Shit,” Ada muttered, flipping on the lights. The car, an old Buick, obediently pulled onto the wide, snowy shoulder.
The woman who rolled down the window had a face like a wrinkled apple doll, bright blue eyes blinking up from a nest of woolen scarves. “Oh, officer, was I going a little fast? This old jalopy just gets away from me on these straightaways.”
“License and registration, ma’am.” Ada’s voice was flat, professional. The routine was a suit of armor.
The woman, Anna according to her license, which listed her as 80, fumbled in her purse. “It’s just, my grandson’s expecting me. I hate to be late.”
Ada took the documents, her gloved fingers already going numb. “I’ll be right back.” She walked back to the cruiser, the crunch of her boots on the packed snow the only sound. The system whirred, processing. Clean record. She filled out the ticket, the carbon copies a familiar ritual. A hundred and fifty dollars. Enough to ruin someone’s week.
When she returned, Anna’s expression had shifted. The helpless old lady act was gone, replaced by a sharp, calculating look. “You know, dear, you don’t have to do this.”
“The law’s the law, Ms. Petrov.”
“Anna. Please.” She sighed, a theatrical puff of frost. “Look, could you… come around here? I’m a little hard of hearing, and the wind is just dreadful.”
A classic ploy. Ada’s instincts buzzed, but what was an eighty-year-old woman going to do? She walked around the front of the Buick, the engine ticking as it cooled. The spot was hidden from the road by the bulk of the car, a private little stage in the vast white landscape.
Anna was out of the car now, surprisingly agile. She stood close, too close. Ada could smell a faint hint of lavender and something else, something wilder.
“You’re very good at your job, aren’t you?” Anna said, her voice a low murmur. “All those rules. They must be so… comforting.”
“Ma’am, I just need you to sign here.”
“Or what? You’ll arrest me?” Anna laughed, a dry, rustling sound. “What a story that would be.” Her eyes locked with Ada’s. They were impossibly clear, seeing too much. “All that tension you’re carrying. In your shoulders. In that tight, beautiful jaw. It must be exhausting.”
Ada felt a flush creep up her neck. This was not in the manual. “Sign the ticket.”
“I have a better idea.”
It happened fast. One moment Anna was an old woman in a scarf, the next she was a force of nature. Her hands, strong and sure, came up and framed Ada’s face. Before Ada could process it, could shove her away, Anna’s lips were on hers.
It wasn’t a peck. It was a deep, shockingly passionate kiss. Anna’s tongue pushed past her lips, and a jolt, raw and electric, shot straight down Ada’s spine. Her training screamed resistance, threat, subdue! But her body, her traitorous, starved body, froze for a critical second, then melted. A low, helpless sound escaped her throat.
What the fuck is happening?
Anna’s mind was racing, a sly, triumphant clockwork ticking behind the kiss. Stiff as a board, but she’s still kissing back. Where is it? Where’s the crack? Her hands slid from Ada’s face, one arm wrapping around her waist to hold her close, the other drifting down her side. She felt the solid muscle of Ada’s hip, the tense line of her thigh. Nothing.
Then she heard it. A faint, rhythmic scraping sound from the ground.
She broke the kiss just enough to glance down.
Ada’s right foot, still encased in its polished black duty boot, was grinding into the snow and gravel. The movement was frantic, involuntary. The toes were curling and flexing, trying to claw their way out of the leather.
Oh, you beautiful, repressed thing, Anna thought, a surge of pure victory coursing through her. Aha. That’s your weak spot.
She crashed her lips back onto Ada’s, swallowing the younger woman’s gasp. This time, her free hand dropped, fingers splaying against the small of Ada’s back, pressing their bodies together. She felt Ada’s entire frame shudder. The scraping from the ground became more desperate. The boot was rubbing against everything—the frozen ground, the side of the Buick’s tire, itself. It was a frantic, sexual dance of friction.
Ada’s mind was white noise. The cold, the lavender, the shocking softness of the old woman’s lips—it all blurred into a single, overwhelming sensation centered on her foot. It was on fire. The confinement of the boot and the thick sock beneath was suddenly a torture. She needed it off. She needed to feel the air, the cold, anything.
With a final, brutal twist of her ankle, she forced her foot against the frozen rim of the tire. The friction did it. The boot, loosened by her struggle, slipped off. A moment later, the sweat-dampened sock was kicked away, following it into the dirty snow.
Her bare foot met the freezing air. The shock was exquisite. It was freedom and exposure all at once. Blindly, instinctively, she sought warmth, pressure, something. She lifted her leg, her bare foot sliding up Anna’s calf, searching.
Anna almost laughed into the kiss. Yes. She guided Ada’s questing foot onto her own thigh, right through the thick wool of her slacks. The feel of the bare, sensitive skin against her was intoxicating. Ada’s toes, cold and incredibly agile, curled into the fabric, seeking anchor.
Anna kissed her harder, deeper, a claiming. Her hand left Ada’s back and slid down, over the curve of her ass, and down her leg. She didn’t break the kiss as her fingers found Ada’s bare ankle, then traced up to the arch of her foot.
The moment her thumb pressed into the center of Ada’s arch, Ada broke. A raw, guttural moan was torn from her throat, a sound she didn’t know she could make. Her body went limp against Anna’s, held up only by the old woman’s surprising strength and the car at her back. Her fingers, which had been gripping Anna’s coat, went slack.
Anna massaged the foot, her thumb working circles into the tense muscle, her fingers stroking the sensitive skin. She felt every tremor, every shiver of response that ran through Ada’s powerful body. It was like playing a instrument she’d just discovered.
Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the two discarded articles lying in the snow: the polished black leather shoe and the plain, dark sock. They looked like the shed skin of a completely different person.
She finally broke the kiss, her lips lingering for a last, soft moment. She looked at Ada’s face. The policewoman’s green eyes were glazed, unfocused, her breath coming in ragged pants that plumed in the cold air. She looked utterly, completely undone.
Anna smiled, her mischievous, blue-eyed smile. She gently lowered Ada’s foot back to the frozen ground.
“Now,” Anna whispered, her voice husky. “About that ticket.”