Being a woman in her line of work, Becca always thought the problem would be breaking into the Old Boys' Club. It certainly has been, along the way. At the academy, in the early days on patrol, she'd had to weather her share of posturing, pissing matches, and No Girls Allowed exclusions.
Nowadays, though, half the time she had trouble feeling like one of the girls. It's not that she resented every beautiful woman she came across on the street who naturally captivated men — Becca resented Katie and the way she ultimately drew in everyone's attention without evening fucking trying.
She had tried to keep herself in a good mood but as the evening went out she found herself rolling her eyes a hundred times at some stupid story Katie told as though the entire table didn't already know it besides her.
When the meal was cleared away, she found herself to be the only one who didn't get up from the table besides Aaron and she didn't mind. Becca drained her glass of wine while she heard Katie's parents and Ned lightly bickered about who was doing the dishes and Katie said she was putting Asher to bed.
"So bad day at work I'm guessing," Aaron said, definitely directed at her once she realized they were alone in the backyard.
"Why do you think that?" She asked, setting her glass down and reaching to pour the last bit out of the bottle into it.
Aaron chuckled and finished his beer. "I can feel the tension between you and Ned," he said, eyes focused on her as though he was reading her. "And you've been pretty closed off considering this dinner was to welcome you."
"Maybe I'm just not very talkative," she replied, taking a sip of wine.
He shrugged as he stood up. "Maybe you are then," he replied.
She reached out on a whim and placed her hand on his thigh, hoping he would sit back down and make this conversation a little bit better, but Aaron brushed her hand away.
"I have a girlfriend," he told her punctually and moved out of her reach.
She glanced around. "And where is she?" She asked.
"Not that it's any of your business Becca, considering you just made a pass at me, but my girlfriend Michele hasn't been feeling good and didn't want to get anyone sick," Aaron told her with a roll of her eyes as he pulled open the sliding glass door. "Maybe if you paid attention to anything said at dinner that didn't come out of my brother-in-law's mouth, you would know that."
And with that, Becca was alone again and felt like she was on the outs in junior high again.
After twenty minutes of sulking on her own and slowly finishing her glass of wine, Becca made her way into the house to see that Katie's dad was washing dishes while Aaron was dancing— more like rocking back and forth to old jazz music— with his mother in the living room.
Katie and Ned were missing.
"Looks like the lovebirds have snuck off for an early desert," Jim quipped, looking up from the sudsy water and over at her.
She'd gone into the kitchen to throw out the empty bottle of wine and utterly regretted it now.
"You think so?" She asked, her mind already playing through the possible scenarios.
"Oh, Becca, I thought you were my wife…" Jim chuckled and trailed off, but then she watched his shoulder shrug slightly. "But it seems so. Katie went up a while ago to put Asher to bed and Ned slipped away to say goodnight. When you have a little one in the house you sneak away when you can."
Even with company and family over? However, Becca kept that question to herself and just focused on finishing the wine in her glass.
"I bet it gets annoying," she said.
"What does?" Jim asked.
"Them sneaking off all the time," she said. "They share lunch every day too, and don't take this the wrong way because I get that you're in a hard place being Katie's dad, but I just thought I was getting partnered with Ned. Someone I could actually talk to, right? This just isn't what I pictured."
She wondered if she'd gone too far, but Jim cleared his throat. "I guess I can understand that," he said as he wiped his hands off with a towel. "It's not easy being the new kid. I got my fair share of that when I worked at the fire station and then when I became a doctor."
"But I get it. Being a husband is more important than being my partner at work." She muttered, draining the last of her wine from the glass. "He's a great partner. Most of the time."
"Ned has always taken his job seriously," Jim said as he stepped closer to her by the kitchen island. "And I'm sure he didn't know how this made you feel. You should tell him, but I can mention it to him if you want."
This was too easy. Ned had been a hard guy to figure out, but Jim? He was like all the rest. Pull out the sympathy card and they were all over her trying to fix and make things easier.
"Oh please don't mention anything," she sighed, letting a tear shed from her right eye. "I know I'm just being dumb."
"Hey, you aren't dumb," Jim chided gently and placed his hand on her shoulder.
She sniffled, shaking her head. "No, I am and I definitely don't need Katie hating me more than she already does." Becca turned around then without another word and left the kitchen with a smirk on her face.
The seed was planted. Now she just had to wait and hope it would take root.
Katie groaned as quietly as possible while Ned nipped his way from her jaw to her shoulder. He was doing everything in his power to make her break, make her speak, or make a noise that would ultimately get them caught.
His mouth trailed over her pulse point and away, before trailing back and latching onto the throbbing vein under her skin. His hand had finally decided to venture past her hip, following the path of her short strapless dress she'd decided to wear, and finally reaching between her thighs.
His breathing turned labored against her skin, and she knew had he been a lesser man she would have heard him mutter the curse he held in and therefore handed her the win. Instead, a thrill ran down her spine as his fingers touched her.
This was exactly what she had needed after that disaster of a dinner party. As much as she wanted to like Ned's new partner Becca, she had a hard time liking someone who so openly did not like her in return.
Katie bit her lip hard, head-banging silently against the rickety wall of the hall closet they were in as she mentally cursed her husband. They were in their own house for god's sake. Why were they in the closet?
But instead, he was torturing her with his light touches, wide circles around her clit, fingers playing an unknown tune within her. He passed over her clit once, forcing another bruising clench of her lip as his fingers found her ready entrance and then eased two fingers into her.
Grinding her hips down onto his fingers, thumb finally finding purchase against her clit she found his mouth easily, kissing him hard as she silently undid his trousers, pulled aside his pants, and fished out his cock.
He was like velvet steel in her hand, ready and weeping for her attention. Letting him go for a moment, she felt the way he bit onto her lip to keep from whining as she pulled away, spit into her hand, and returned to caress him.
It seemed kissing was the only thing that helped them keep noises, sounds, even deep panting to a minimum as they both attempted to outdo the other. She ripped her mouth away from his, her hand leaving his cock, as she gripped his roaming arm hard. Her mouth opened, silent as she quaked around his fingers, her walls clamping hard around him.
She forced her gaze on his and smiled, his opened mouth mimicking hers as they panted through it together, but without giving her a moment more to catch her breath, he turned her around and was nibbling on her neck.
"Just tell me if I'm being too rough," he whispered, breaking the silence momentarily before he pushed her against the dingy bookshelf that was shoved into the corner and she brought a hand down fast, stopping right before it made contact with the wood as he readied himself behind her.
This was what she loved about him. The spontaneous nature that was being Ned Banks' wife and lover. Nothing could compare to that except the love she felt for her family.
Katie didn't even pretend to hold herself up, sagging back into him as her recent orgasm still shot seizures of pleasure through her. Ned held her hips roughly, excited for the bruises she would have him kiss when they were alone again later, as he pulled out, sometimes slipping out all the way before he slammed back in stopping just shy of slapping skin on skin.
And fuck if that wasn't the worst part of this silent quickie. She loved, more than anything, the way Ned could make the most obscene noises send pleasure skirting through her veins. The way he never asked her to hold back and always encouraged her most ridiculous desires, even at the detriment of their time, like now.
She pushed her sweaty hair off her brow, biting her cheek to hold back a lustful moan as his large hand grabbed her hair out of her own grip and held it tightly. She knew she only needed a little push to plummet once more but stole a glance at her watch to determine if they had the time.
There was only so much time they could spend upstairs before someone downstairs would notice they had been gone for too long. It would be easy to say that Asher had wanted another book or two read to him to claim their missing time, but that was running out, and knew even then that her parents would never buy that story anyway.
They'd been gone for twenty minutes and Asher was always easy to put down unless the little boy had eaten too much candy before bed, which he hadn't. They had very little time left and Ned's rapid concession to her teasing throughout tonight was silence, silence, and fucking her close to the group just downstairs.
Katie had excitedly obliged, but now, as one hand forced her neck up, thick cock sliding in and out of her in rapid, almost shallow thrusts, silence could go hang. Now all she wanted to do was scream in rapture as he continued to rock into her.
She wanted Becca to hear her while her husband fucked her and they definitely had another five to ten minutes; she also knew how very much Ned and her could get up to at that time. Sending a raised brow over her shoulder, he concentrated his efforts understanding flashing in his eyes before angling her hips higher to hit her g-spot and fucked her almost to the hilt over and over. His hand tightened around her hair, arching her neck back further and she knew he was just as close as she was.
With a final snap, a light sound escaping between their bodies, he collapsed on top of her as they both came together. She was about to speak, about to tell him how much she loved him when his cell phone rang as he kissed up and down her covered spine.
Thinking it to possibly be someone downstairs trying to get their attention, with a nod, he released his hold on her and lovingly helped her up and off the bookshelf before kissing her tenderly on the lips. He didn't demand their tongues meet or their heads move against the other. Instead, this joining of lips was about gratitude for the moment, gratitude that she had once again bestowed him with a gift he didn't realize he had wanted.
Breaking apart they worked to set each other to rights before slipping out of the cupboard, satisfied, sore, and not speaking a word.
When Ned's phone rang again as he stepped down onto the first step, he fished it from his pocket and the last thing either of them had expected was for it to be a call from the station. The times when that happened were few between when it was his night off, but he answered for that reason.
"What's with not picking up the first time, Banks?" Samantha Blair was on the other end.
"Sorry, was a little preoccupied," he said, clearing his throat and glancing at her as she slid past him and tugged on his fly to make sure it was up.
The woman laughed, but it was short-lived. "Good, Katie's with you. Bring her down to the station when you come in. I have a few questions for her that I think she could answer for me."
He slowly walked down the steps, fixing the collar on his shirt as he came down to the first level of his and Katie's house. "Uh, what kind of questions do you need to ask her?" He asked.
"Don't play coy with me, Banks. You know what your wife and her mother can do as well as I do," Blair responded on the other end. "Bring Katie down to the station unless she's busy. I can always call Melinda."
"No, no. Melinda is here too." He replied, seeing that all four of the people they'd had dinner with were in the living room now, glancing at Katie and now at him. "Katie and I will be in shortly. Should Kane come in too?"
"Yes, bring your partner with you too," Blair replied. "There have been some leads in the case, but I'm just not sure which one we should follow."
"Ok. On it Sargent Blair," he said and hung up as he came into the living room.
Sharing a look with Becca, he could tell she'd gotten the call already too, but probably hadn't told anyone yet and definitely didn't know about Katie needing to come in either.
"Why do you need me to come?" Katie asked, clearly confused.
"I always need you," he teased and smiled at her as he leaned in to kiss her forehead and whispered something for only her to hear. "Blair said she has some questions about the case. Questions that only you or your mother could answer."
She nodded and turned away from him with a peck to his hey. "Mom, dad, could one of you stay to watch Asher since apparently, Sargent Blair has questions for me." She asked.
Becca looked confused and he didn't know what he could tell her. "Questions? About what?" His partner asked, curious as well, but he couldn't tell who the question was directed at even if she was looking at him.
Katie replied to him all the same. "We won't know until we get there," she shrugged off and went to sit beside Melinda, speaking to her in hushed tones.
"She didn't say," was all Ned said and then turned to grab his jacket. "She just said to bring Katie in. You too. Something about a lead on the case."
"That's all she said to me. Nothing about your wife." It came out as a sneer and he had to resist the urge to pull Becca out onto the porch and scold her.
What was with this unneeded hostility between her and Katie? There was only so much he could take.
"Of course we'll stay to wash Ash," Jim said suddenly, breaking his train of thought. "We have a babysitter at the house for Lana and Emma so it's not a problem."
"Thanks, Dad," Katie said. "I shouldn't be there for very long and if Ned gets stuck there I'll call an uber."
"No, you'll call me," Jim said as she stood up and he did too. "Don't waste your money on some stranger to drive you when you can call your dad."
Katie hugged him and then pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Okay, sad sap. Love you too," she said smiling at them. "But I promise. I won't be gone long."