Spoilers: Set between S1 and 2
A/N: After watching the Keeley Hawes/Philip Glenister River Cottage episode, I joked that it just screamed for a A2A AU, but in the end, I decided it could actually work as a canon fic. This is just a fluffy little smutfic to get used to the characters and *gulp* the language. My undying gratitude, through the grumbles, to aussiegirl41 for her assistance with British English. It's given me great respect for all the non-American writers trying to write in US universes.
"I don't know about planning a big jewellery heist," Alex said dryly, training her binoculars on the bedroom window across from her viewing spot. "The Mannings seem more concerned on setting the land speed record for the most shagging in an hour."
Gene leant over her shoulder, his breath warm on the tip of her ear. He focused his own glasses. "Easy enough to get the gold cup when yo'r a two minute man." He gave an indignant sniff.
Although she agreed, she wasn't going to concede the point. Anthony Manning's white ass bobbed up and down with a determined rhythm. Alex was grateful that they hadn't had time to install bugs yet. She said: "They've shagged four times—"
"Five," Gene corrected as he took a chair and pulled a form guide from his overcoat pocket.
"Five times since we've started surveillance and he hasn't gone down on her yet."
Gene glanced from his paper, showing a glimmer of interest. "So?"
"Just making note. Creating my profile—selfish pig. She's performed felatio twice," Alex pointed out.
"O' course she's been flashing him," he said, "I've seen more of this tart's bits and bobs today than I saw of the Missus in twenty years."
Alex glared over her shoulder. She could rarely tell if Gene was trying to wind her up or was truly that obtuse. But she said, "It means blow job," anyway, only to have a quick smirk flirt across his face. He had wanted to hear her say it, damn him.
"Maybe she's one of those women who doesn't like getting," he suggested, "prefers to give."
Alex faced Gene, hands on hips. Manning would take another minute before he would come. She raised an eyebrow, sharp as a scythe about to slash through wheat.
"Oh, one of those women? Those women from the Penthouse letters?" She wiggled her fingers in quote marks as she said, "I never thought it would happen to me but my bird only wants to give me head all day long—"
Gene's Adam's apple slid up and down but he kept his gaze locked with hers. "What do you know about those letters?" he asked prudishly.
She rolled her eyes. Then that damn mouth of his formed its infuriatingly familiar pout, and she suddenly had the vision of grabbing that rumpled golden mane and pushing those petulant lips to—
With a snap of her shoulders, she whirled back to the window and raised the binoculars. Manning tossed his head, gave his mute yowl and dropped out of sight. Right on schedule.
"Saw a kettle in the kitchen." Gene rose and tucked away his paper. "Fancy a cuppa?"
"Thanks," she said grudgingly.
"Right," Gene said behind her. The door snicked closed.
With a sigh, Alex leant against the window frame and watched the plume of cigarette smoke gently waft from the Mannings' bedroom window. It had only been the day, but so far this particular assignment seemed to be a complete waste of time.
She hadn't been awake enough to give any sort of resistance when Gene had knocked her up—make that banged her up—at six in the morning.
"Oi! Bolly! Up and at 'em!" had been bellowed through her front door. Still faintly hungover, it had taken her an awful, pulled-from-tar slow minute to realise that it was still 1981, she was still in the flat over Luigi's, and her loud-mouthed lout of a Guv, as always, wanted something.
Clutching her thumping head—too much cheap red wine or her bullet wound?—she made her way to entry and cracked the door.
"Pack up yer knickers—" Gene peered at her. "Wot's wrong wit' you?"
"It's six."
"I'm up, ain't I?" he pointed out, thoughtless as always. "Get a bag loaded. We've got a couple of blaggers to stake out."
Holding the door open wider, she admitted him while scratching her back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his head tilt to view the swath of skin revealed when her pyjama top rode up. Typical. All looking, not action. Understanding his motives and thoughts was like trying to untangled a ball of wool, but in other ways, he was a simple man. She tugged her top back down, keeping the tension in the fabric so it was taut over her untethered breasts. His gaze went soft and warm and pleased.
She folded her arms. "I need an overnight bag? For a stakeout?"
"We're out to the country for this gig. May take days. Need to be prepared."
"Outside of London? And our district?" she questioned, even as she padded back towards the bedroom. He followed, but stayed in the doorway. "Can we do that?"
"When said blaggers are from our patch, and just takin' a holiday to plan their next job, yes, we can." He moved to her dresser and started digging through a drawer.
"Excuse me!" she groused, grabbing the knickers from his hands. Looking them over, she sighed in exasperation and elbowed him out of her way to return the lace and satin pairs and select more practical ones. It was Gene's turn to sigh.
"You can wait on the couch." She tried to shoo him out but he ignored her. Incongruously, he started to straighten her bed, snapping the duvet tight.
"Wot?" he asked, seeing her puzzled expression.
"Thank you," was all she found to say, pushing a few things in the bag. She really didn't have the wardrobe for the country however, and brushing aside Gene's growls of protest, she went down the hall to Luigi's flat.
His wife Camilla was tall and lithe, a former fourth string film ingenue, vaguely in the style of Silvana Mangano, with sloe eyes and impossibly full lips. She never came down to the restaurant, spending all day in their flat to flip through back issues of Intimita and smoke gold-tipped cigarettes. But they did weekend in Dorset occasionally and she would have a wardrobe that would fit Alex.
This time, Gene stayed in the doorway, obviously intimidated in the presence of such a beautiful woman. Alex explained her needs. Camilla led her to the bedroom and lazily selected a mac, a pair of rubber boots, and more practical jumpers than Alex's off the shoulder numbers.
"Finally," Gene grumbled as he'd tossed her bag in the Quattro's boot.
His motorway driving was just as terrifying as it was in the city, and she was still tired and a bit nauseous. Closing her eyes, she tried to catch a nap, but her mind started to race, as it always did. What would happen as they left London? Would they fall off the edge of the Earth? Was her fantasy world finite? They were going to Wiltshire. Had she been there? Did she have the imagery to create the scenes?
Gene fiddled with the radio dial as they lost their station, until he caught the first bars of Over You and stopped.
"Why don't you play your music in the car, Gene?" she asked drowsily. "You hardly seem the Roxy Music type."
He grunted but didn't reply. She smelt burning tobacco as he lit a cigarette instead. Of course he listened to the music of her childhood. She couldn't hum a Jim Reeves song if she tried.
Very carefully, she dabbed the single tear that had eased through her closed eyelids.
But Gene must have seen it. "It'll be good for you to get away for a bit, Bolly," he said.
"You think?" She lolled her head but kept her eyes closed. Perhaps this was all a dream within a dream...
"You work too much. Getting to you. You're gonna crack up," he said kindly.
Cracked, as her mother's skull had been by the explosive heat, blackened down to the bone, that death grin leering at Alex through the blown-out windscreen. Her cheek twitched.
"You work just as much," she sniped, taking refuge in a sharp tongue.
"That's different. I'm the Guv."
She'd opened her eyes, letting him see them glistening and wet. "If I need a break, why have you brought me along? I could have taken things easy back at Fenchurch. Wouldn't you rather have Ray or Chris on this?"
He snorted. "Chris just natters on about Shaz, and Ray has a rum gut. Prone to indigestion."
She made a face, recalling the last time she was trapped in an enclosed space with Ray. If Gene had such issues, at least he stepped outside the Quattro to expel them, ignoring Ray's scoffing at his recently acquired courtesy. "I win by default?"
His glance lingered. "You got your good points."
As he drove, he told her the background of the case: Sharon and Anthony Manning, husband and wife jewel thieves. Sharon was sent in to case the jobs, being a pretty little tart with big tits, as Gene so eloquently put it. She'd chat up any shopgirls or flirt with the salesmen. Perhaps get into back offices to see the good stuff, or even the safe. Within a few days, the place would be cleaned out after hours. Gene believed they had a gang and were selling to international buyers. He didn't just want the Mannings, he wanted the whole lot.
He finished with: "I've gotten a cottage that's right next to the Mannings' place."
"What's our cover?" she asked.
"Cover?"
She looked him over. He was wearing his suit for Thursday; the dark grey. White shirt, already rumpled before their first tea break. His red, black, and grey striped tie; the one with the permanent pickle stain near that end. Hardly the attire for someone visiting the country. "It's obviously not holiday seekers."
"Why not?"
She sighed. "You couldn't even take the tie off?"
He bitched for a minute, then told her, "Go ahead; get rid of it then."
Shifting on the narrow bucket seat, Alex reached for his tie. As usual, the top button was undone and the knot loose. Slipping her finger between the tie and his shirt, she tugged. It had been a long time since she'd removed a tie from a man. Her most recent dates in her real life were more the Polo tee-shirt and cashmere jumper sort.
The silk length slid free easily. She kept her gaze firmly pinned on what she was doing, despite the warmth of Gene's breath on her temple. He kept his eyes on the road, but there was the slightest hitch to his chest when she tossed the tie into the backseat. She had to slide her fingers between the fabric and his throat to work his shirt's second button free. Trying to remember if she'd ever felt his bare skin before, she slowed her motions as she undid another button, then another...He'd been wearing a vest when she'd nestled under his arm in the vault. Now his chest was bare but the gold chain was still there. How 1970's of him...
"We're not going to a nudist colony," he said.
She jumped back to her side of the car. "Sorry."
"Another time," he said, but she only frowned.
There'd never be another time. He just teased—was there a male equivalent of a pricktease? If so, Gene Hunt was it. Not that she wanted to sleep with him, necessarily. He just kept her in a state of frustration with his remarks and pointed looks at her body. If he would at least make a try, then she could reject him and they could move onto the 'we're just friends' stage. She wasn't counting his suggestion they go up to her place after they'd had dinner. There was an uncomfortable sweetness in his tentativeness that warned her off. It would have been something different than a quick and dirty scratching of an itch, and that was the last thing she needed as she was about to save her parents' lives and leave this world.
Only she hadn't. She grimaced again. Should have just shagged Gene Hunt instead, apparently. Is that what some omnipotent being was trying to tell her?
As they left the motorway, the Quattro didn't fall off the earth but Alex remembered that she was prone to motion sickness on country roads. Gene couldn't drive with his usual speed and the slow, looping bends of the drive turned her green around the gills. She'd been grateful when he'd pulled into the narrow drive at a little thatched roof cottage.
"How charming," she'd exclaimed as she got out into the fine rain.
"It better have an indoor bog," Gene grumbled as he retrieved their bags. His cowboy boots squished in the mire but Alex already had her wellies on and led the way.
"Shit," he mumbled, bringing up the rear. "The things I do—"
"I am surprised you took this," she said, "I would expect you to fob this job off on the lads. Just not your sort of thing." Crossing the slate paved passage, she peered into the warren of tiny rooms, all soft plaster walls and low timbered ceilings. "It's lovely!"
"What, I can't do lovely?" He dropped their bags by the stairs.
She covered her gaffe. "Just would think that you could coordinate this operation from the station, that's all."
He had given one of his grumpy noises. "Somethings need the Guv," he had said, that gaze on her again, silver light in the dim passageway.
Gene shouldered through the door, carrying two full mugs of tea. When Alex turned from the window, she knocked her head on the low ceiling. This was to be his bedroom tonight; she had an equally tiny room across the landing, but at least it had a bigger bed.
"Damn." She clutched her forehead.
"Charming," he said with a sneer, handing her one of the mugs. "City banker wankers in their high-gloss waxed Limited Edition Land Rovers give a wad to sit in a pile o' rocks my Uncle Terry paid five bob a quarter rent on when he was his Nibs' cowman. For me, it's a dirty weekend at Blackpool, spent in a boozer and the clutches of a big-titted dumb-as-dirt Boots' salesgirl."
"Naturally," she drawled, blowing on the tea before drinking.
"Bet this is right up your track though. A spot of polo on the front lawn of the manor house with your old school chums—"
She furrowed her brow, but decided that setting him straight would only confirm his indictment of her as a toff.
"Actually, I haven't spent much time in the country. I'm a London girl, through and through. My parents would book holidays, but more often that not, a cas—work would come up and it would have to be cancelled. After they died, my godfather sent me on some country holidays, but they were those organised things at Girl Guide camps. We spent most of our time just melting toffees on the fire grate and braiding our hair." She smiled at the memory.
"Your parents died when you were a girl?"
She nodded and returned to the window. Anthony Manning had risen and was standing by his window, nude and scratching his balls. Lovely. She stepped back, out of his view and closer to Gene.
"And you were with your godfather?"
"Yes."
"Just like that little Alex Price. Maybe that's why you seem to be taking that case so rough."
Glancing at him, she pinned on a stiff smile. "'spose so." Her No Trespassing sign couldn't be any more obvious.
He stroked his throat with the back of his hand in that way that drove her mad; made her want to follow his fingers with her tongue. She returned to watching the Mannings' window. Sharon had joined her husband, wrapping her arms around his narrow torso and nibbling his shoulder.
Alex drained her tea, managing to find a few stray leaves that had escaped the bag, and sucked them on her tongue. The tannin was sharp, keeping her mind from feeling the crushing loneliness and need.
Gene put his mug aside. "I'm giving you the week, Bolly. Then you have to snap out of this."
"Snap out of what?"
Anthony and Sharon were kissing, hands grasping at breasts, arses, her hand coming between their bodies— Alex had to look at Gene instead.
He narrowed his eyes, intensifying the blue flame. She wasn't going to get out of this room without giving him what he wanted. Why was it that he never had to reveal any of his inner world, but she was expected to lay it all bare for him? Another unwelcome image, her lolling naked on that narrow cot that would be his bed tonight...
"You've been a moody thing ever since the Prices popped like Christmas crackers. Time for you to get over it—"
"I'm not going to get over it! It will mark me for the rest of my life!"
"Maybe that's the problem." He lit a cigarette. "Me, I don't think about the past. Just gives you indigestion worse than Old El Paso chilli con carne. Only without puffing the darts." He added helpfully, "All bottled up."
"That's the answer. Just don't think about it," she sneered.
He shrugged. "Works for me."
Anthony had Sharon against the wall and the glass of the window was shaking from his thrusts. Alex checked her watch. "That's five."
"Six."
Exhaustion finally won out for the Mannings, and there'd been no movement from them in two hours. As Gene continued to make his selections in his form guide, Alex wandered to her room and unpacked, then completed her disguise.
"Wot the hell?" Gene said when she returned.
"I have removed my makeup, Gene. Live with it." She'd also brushed out her hair, loosening the curls from their tight ringlets held in place by scrunch spray.
He was suspicious. "Don't think you're going to get me in some disguise. Don't do 'em. Ever since I had to wear that bloody squirrel costume..." he muttered.
"What?" She asked, although she'd heard him clearly. She just wanted him to repeat it.
"Downward slide, Bolly. Next, you won't be wearing a girdle."
"I never wear a girdle!" she protested.
"Bloody hell, you're really that scrawny?" His outrage grew. "How's a bloke to keep a hold with no handlebars on the bike?"
"I'm just going to get skinnier without some food. Did you have any groceries brought in?"
"Groceries?"
"Food," she explained carefully. "If we're going to be here for days, we'll need food."
His puzzled expression told her everything—he only ate at Luigi's or corner cafes, got takeaway. The pile of paper wrappers under his desk, the odour of grease that emitted from the Quattro's glove box, was the flotsam of his dining.
He gave a nod of his head. "I'll pop over the road and get us some takeaway." He yanked his overcoat off the hook by the door. "Curry or Chinky?"
Wincing, she shook her head. "I don't think you're going to find anything open this late in Enford. It's gone six."
"Sure I will! Up on the high street! What sort of place doesn't have takeaway?"
He was gone three hours. Alex mined the cottage, gathering what limited reserves there were and was consuming stale onion hoops dipped in some past the expiration date tinned mango chutney whilst wistfully watching the Mannings prepare and consume their delicious-looking dinner.
When Gene finally returned, they gathered around the heavy oak farm table in the kitchen and ripped the lids off the containers. The lamb curry was stone cold, the fat congealing in globs, but they ate it gratefully.
"Had to drive all the way to bloody Reading!" grumbled Gene between bites.
"I told you," she said smugly.
He only shook his head. "How does anyone manage out here?"
"We'll have to get in some food tomorrow. Cook." She glanced at the hob dubiously.
Finished, Gene pushed away the container and settled back in his chair with a deep sigh of contentment. "Be nice to have some home cooking. Haven't had any since the Missus chucked her ring in me face on her way out the door."
Alex sat up taller. "You think that I shall be cooking?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"Well, I shan't. Plugging in that kettle is about the extent of my culinary skills," she said, pointing to the appliance on the worktop.
"But you were married! Have a kid!" His brow knit in confusion.
She folded her arms. "Yes."
"Wot? Your husband cooked?" he said as a way of a joke.
"Yes, he was much better at it than me," she said matter a factly.
He only shook his head as he pulled out his cigarettes and lighter from his pocket.
She challenged him with: "What?"
"I'd always figured that you'd keep your man's knob well and truly stuck in a honeypot-"
She watched him toy with his lighter, his chin in his chest. Those damn long lashes of his swept his cheeks. He'd thought about what she'd be like in a relationship, huh?
"I wouldn't describe it that way. We simply divided labour by who did it best."
"Until you gave him the heave ho? Decided his todger wasn't fulfilling the job requirements?" Gene looked up quickly, catching her staring. It was her turn to drop her gaze.
"Not exactly. It was he who found another option."
He choked on his smoke, exhaling a great puff. "Wot?" Shaking his head like a bear bothered by bees, he finally found speech. "Who the bloody hell did he pull? Fucking Julie Christie?"
For some reason, his defence of her charms brought tears to her eyes. "Thank you," she murmured. "That's very sweet."
"It's the truth!" he raved, still indignant.
She tugged at the baggy jumper that she wore. "I didn't always look like I do in London. Truly, I'm rather dull; this is more indicative of my usual dress."
"Bolly, there's one thing you are not, and this is dull." She was suddenly aware that her thick makeup had made for a very effective mask. His warm gaze picked out her freckles and fluttering eyelashes, the nip of her teeth on her pale lower lip. "You can be a chatterin' set o' wind up teeth, but you look good while you do it."
"She was younger. I was only twenty-two, and she was still younger. A student. He was her tutor."
"Perv," he ground out.
She collected their empty food containers and took them to the bin, moving out of the reach of his heat. "Well, she also wasn't wearing a maternity bra or had stretch marks or was nearly psychotic from lack of sleep. He left when our daughter was six months old."
"Poofter," Gene growled. "Little nancy boy not ready to face up to his responsibilities. Nothing to do with you."
Gripping her chair back, Alex leant on it to glare at him. "Were your affairs not about your wife?"
He blew out a stream of smoke. "What're you on about?"
"Perhaps I'm sensitive to the topic." Pulling out her chair, she sat again, crossing her legs tightly. "Sam said you were always willing to take what was offered by a woman." She narrowed her eyes at him. Except when it was her, of course.
He lit another cigarette from the one he was smoking. "It wasn't that sort of marriage."
"What sort?"
"Where you stay faithful."
"Did she know that?"
"She was grateful if I was only around for Sunday tea."
Before she could stop herself, Alex said tartly, "If I can deal with you day and night, why couldn't she?"
He didn't reply. His steady gaze was unnerving. She turned away and became fascinated by a long crack in the oak tabletop. There, she'd said it aloud. They might as well be married. He was the first person she saw in the morning, they dined together, and he was the one to whom she said goodnight before heading to bed. Alone. There was just one thing missing from this relationship and now she was more certain than ever that it was because he just wasn't interested. She was too skinny, too mouthy, too privileged. But from a man who'd eat the end of yesterday's bacon butty he found under his carseat, the rejection was particularly stinging.
"Right then," he said, rising quickly. The scrape of his chair's feet was loud on the slate floor. "I better get back to it."
"To it?" She shook her head to clear the fog.
"Watching the Mannings. The reason we're out here. Remember?"
"Oh right." She rubbed her hand over her eyes. She was so tired. Hadn't been sleeping...The nightmares.
"I'll take first watch. You can take over in a couple of hours."
"Thanks," she said dryly. "I best take to my bed then."
Surprisingly, she fell right to sleep, despite the lumpy mattress. Rain pattered on the thatched roof, sighing waves of water that lulled her right off. But the nightmares came again anyway.
The clown was in the bed with her, nestled close, holding her tight to his side. She tried to struggle, but her limbs were too numb to get free. He had The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe open on his lap and read from it. His voice had once been so soothing, and now it was the sound of terror.
"Stop, stop!" she screamed. Finally able to move, she fought, thrashing against the twisted bedding and heavy quilt.
He was reaching for her, holding her in strong arms.
"NO!" Unable to strike out, she bit, her teeth sinking into warm skin.
"Ow, you dozy mare!" he snarled, but didn't let her go.
That woke her. "Gene," she gasped. "It's only you." Exhausted, she fell against his chest, panting for breath.
"Who else would it be?" His big palm cradled the back of her head. "An' you took a chomp right outta me. Good thing I'm up on me tetanus shot. Those prozzies bite too."
She found the wound and pressed her lips to it in the form of a healing kiss. Still dizzy and shaking with terror, it just seemed the right thing to do. She lay her palm over his heart; the beats were deep and true as they'd been on the first day that she had met him. It was so easy to believe he was real when she felt that rhythm. Or was it simpler to imagine that he was a figment that she could shag with no repercussions?
"What's that about?" he husked.
She purposefully misunderstood. "I had a nightmare," she murmured.
He had to bend his head down to hear. "What's that?" he asked again, just as low.
"I...I keep seeing it," she said, hating the tears in her voice.
"Sometimes that happens." His hand still held her head close, but the other was making soothing circles along her back. "You just gotta get rid of it. Stomp more bastards, drive faster, drink more."
She gave a ragged laugh. "I think that's you, not me."
"Give a try then," he urged, shifting on the bed. She took his movement as an invitation and climbed onto his lap.
Drive faster sounded like a plan. He might not want to shag her, but she could make him get in the Quattro, press down on the accelerator, shift quickly through the gears until they were in overdrive-
Her lips travelled up his neck. He made his grumpy sound, causing his throat to bob. She rode that right up to his jaw, her teeth and lips exploring in the near darkness. She thought that she knew his smell, but now, this close, there was another undernote, like letting wine rest on your tongue before swallowing. What he'd dismissed as Man Stink was deep and complex as a full-bodied Cabernet, and she was drunk on a few sips.
He helped her to straddle him, making her feel small and feminine, exploring this outcropping of muscle, tendon, and surprisingly solid torso. Why the hell wasn't he kissing her? She grabbed fistfuls of his hair and dragged his mouth to hers.
She inhaled, he inhaled and there was no preliminary kisses, just open-mouthed, wet movement, tongues finding each other in the dark. His hands slid down to her bottom, spanning the cheeks to drag her tight against him. One hand drifted up to her breast, cupping its heavy weight through her satin pyjama top. He used the slick fabric to burnish her flesh, bringing her nipple instantly to a tight peak.
They were definitely in a top gear already. She might as well roll the windows down and get some wind in her hair. She began to rock against him. With a grumble, he shifted, and she had a moment of terror that he was pulling away. When she scooted after him, gripping his hips with her thighs to trap him, she realised that he'd just needed to free his erection from under her.
With a groan of approval against his mouth, she slid up his length straining through his trousers. Up, up, up, she mapped the shape, her crotch moulding to his hardness. His hands were back on her arse, guiding her. He pulled his lips away, ignoring her hiss of discontent, to press shockingly light kisses along her throat, burrowing under her chin to nibble at her collarbone. His hair was so incredibly soft, brushing against her flaming cheek. Moaning, she rubbed the strands against her lips, swollen and tender with their kisses.
He surged against her just as she rocked forward and she nearly came right in the contact between her clit and his hardness. But then he said, "Bolly," and the pleading in his voice, such an un-Gene sound, pulled her back to a form of sanity.
"Do you have protection?" she gasped.
He rested his forehead on her shoulder, catching his breath. "Wot? ...Me gun's in my suitcase. You want me to get it?"
"No, a condom," she hissed, pushing back.
"What for?"
"STD's—"
"What's that? Like VAT? You're gonna charge me after all?"
"Pregnancy."
That seemed to have a chilling effect on him. He stumbled off the bed. "No, I don't."
"Well then..." she said lamely. His no was like a splash of cold water on her face. What the hell was she doing? Could she get pregnant in this world by an imaginary construct? So far, she hadn't been able to control a single thing, so why not?
Of all things, he said, "So you'll be able to sleep now?" as though what had just transpired was some sort of sleep aid.
"Yes, thank you," she said stiffly.
"Right then—" He kept running his fingers through his hair, leaving it more and more dishevelled.
"You should get back to the watch," she murmured.
He finally stopped. "What?"
"The Mannings. Even if it's the middle of the night, this might be a time for their gang to show up."
"'pose so," he muttered, giving a short nod. He slipped through the door, closing it firmly behind him.
Crawling back on the rumpled bed, Alex lay in the dark, mortified. She'd behaved like one of those pathetic slags found in a wine bar just before closing time, frantically rubbing on the closest available male. And poor Gene had let her, out of pity, she was sure. For the good of the team. He'd thought her already near a breakdown, he'd said, and that's why he'd brought her out here for this stakeout. Now she'd acted in an utterly unprofessional and slutty manner.
This was worse than when she'd practically begged him to shag her. He must think her completely mental. First she'd punched him, then she'd hit on him. He'd been upset when she'd screwed the wanker; not because he'd wanted her for himself, but because it looked bad in the CID. He must have thought he had to give her a few crumbs tonight or she'd rush down to the local pub and find some other bloke, causing who knows what disruptions to their operation here. God, was she is danger of losing her job over this? If he decided that she was so unstable?
Pressing quivering hands to her hot face, she wondered how she could possible face him tomorrow. Dawn was already creeping into the room. If ever she needed the hand of God to pull her back to her time, it was now. Or to just go ahead and die. That would be fine too.
~End Part One