Wished Away: A Broken Fairy Tale (4 page)

“You ruin me Jess, you absolutely ruin me.” Dave takes my face in his hands, slowing everything down. His eyes are so full of love and devotion I almost explode right there just by that one look. He smiles and sweeps me up into his arms and takes me upstairs to our room.

“Wait, I bought something to wear for you.” I run my fingers through his hair while he carries me to our room, placing delicate kisses up my neck the entire way.

He places my naked body on the bed and stands above me looking like a Greek god in all of his muscular, hard glory. “Save it, I want you now. I’m going to spend all night making sure you know how much I love you.”

When he comes down on top of me, I sigh in relief at the feeling of his skin on mine. I’m pulsing with need when I feel him brush up against my sex, teasing me as he takes my hands and holds them above my head with a sultry smile. I wrap my legs around his muscular thighs, pulling him towards me with them, unable to wait any longer to have him inside me. “Please Dave, I want you. I
need
you right now.”

He lets out a growl and slides slowly inside me, letting me feel every inch of him fill my core. He begins to move slowly back, his deep brown eyes burrowing into mine, watching my pleasure escalate with each thrust inside me. He releases my hands allowing me to wrap them around his taught, muscular arms while he takes my full breasts in his hand.

“You are so amazing,” he says breathless, “so fucking amazing, I can do this all night.”

“I could do this forever,” I say climbing closer to my release.

“You’re my forever.”

Dave spends the rest of the night proving he really can make love to me all night. Never in all the times we’ve been together, have I felt more loved, more content, more aroused than tonight. His touch is like a dream that I never want to end. There’s nothing else in the world that matters but him. My love. My life.

Dave

L
ast night was close to one of the best of my life. I’m one lucky bastard, and I have no idea what I did to get a life this good, but I’ll take it.

Charlotte’s a ball of fire like her mother when she comes bouncing out the front door of my parent’s house. She’s the picture of Jess when she was ten years old, with long blonde curly hair, and eyes so blue, you think you’re looking into the Caribbean.

I step out of the car just as Charlotte leaps up and gives me a big hug. “Hey Dad, you ready to take me home? Sophie, Ellie and I are going to the beach today with Mom.” She grabs my hand and begins swinging it back and forth looking up at me with puppy dog eyes and I know she is up to something. “Can I spend the night at Aunt Cam’s tonight, please?” Charlotte knows I have a firm rule of not having two sleepovers in a row and is surely trying to soften me up to get her way. I deal with some of the toughest people in the world in my line of work and never break, but my little girl can make me putty in her hands with one look.

“Char, you know my rule. You just spent the night at Grammy’s and I don’t want you Miss. Grumpy after two sleepovers.” I rub the top of her head trying to make her pout turn to a smile. “How about tomorrow night, alright? I’m going to be home tonight after my shift, and your mom is making a special birthday dinner just for the three of us.”

“Tomorrow night then, deal?” She holds out her tiny hand, and I shake it firmly back.

“Deal.”

My parents come up to us with Charlotte’s overnight bag and a present for me.

“Happy birthday Davey.” My mom kisses my cheek and hands me the small green gift bag.

“It was my idea,” my dad ruffs behind her.

My parents are polar opposites like Jess and me. My dad’s a tall, slim, serious man. He now runs a small construction business, and was once a sheriff in Mantoloking just like me, but that was before he was shot in the line of duty. He’s a man of honor and unwavering pride for family. He’s someone I still look up to. My mom is loving to a fault. She literally smothered me with affection growing up, never letting me clean my own plate, or wash my own clothes. Poor Jess. When we were first married, I thought she was going to kill me with how sloppy I was. Truth is, I never had to lift a finger when I lived at home, my mom did everything.

I pull out the tissue paper and reach in the bag pulling out a small black jewelry box. I look up at my parents confused and then back at the tiny box wondering what in the world was inside.

“Open it, open it!” Charlotte cheers me on, not able to contain her excitement.

I lift the lid revealing a pendant of St. Michael, the patron saint of ultimate protection.

“I wore this every day on the force, and your grandfather before me did the same. I’ve been meaning to give it to you for a while now, and thought today was as good of a day as any.”

I smile at my dad knowing how hard it’s for him to part with this. I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen him without it. “Thanks Dad. It means a lot.”

I close the box and slide it in my pocket before thanking my parents once more and taking Charlotte home for her play date at the beach. Summer is coming to an end, and I’ll be glad when Mantoloking and Point Pleasant slow down to the quiet beach towns I love so much. Every weekend is filled with rowdy out of towners who rent houses at the shore or college kids who come down to let loose on the boardwalk and bars. It seems as each year passes more and more douche bags make their way down here and do nothing but cause trouble making my job a real pain in the ass.

I pull into the station, already five minutes late to see a group of officers congregating at the side of the tall brick building. The look on Sarg’s face tells me something’s up and it isn’t good. My first thought is there are a bunch of drunk dudes at the beach causing trouble, and I’d have to start my shift dealing with it. I open the box that holds my dad’s present and take the pendant from the box, putting in my pocket instead of on when Sarg begins calling for me.

“Dave, what the hell man, why haven’t you answered my calls? Where the hell have you been?”

“I’m here now, what’s up?” I know he didn’t expect an answer.

“Surprise!”

I’m instantly assaulted with piles of colorful crazy string and confetti. All my friends are laughing and cheering as they cover me in this sticky, ridiculous mess and I can do nothing but laugh. These guys are like brothers to me. We’re a small tight knit department, and our bond is unbreakable. Yep, life is good.

Today has been an easy shift considering I’ve only had to patrol Mantoloking and didn’t have to deal with the drunks at the boardwalk.

The past twenty four hours have been too good to get ruined by some drunk kids having no idea how their actions today will affect the rest of their lives if they’re actually arrested. A lot of these kids have money pouring out of their pores, with their mommies and daddies paying for extravagant houses for them and their friends to destroy for a weekend getaway. Nope, the worst I’ve seen today is an old lady jay walking. I actually think she may have tried to assault me if I gave her a ticket, so I let her off with a warning, telling her it’s my birthday and was my present to her. She kissed my cheek and said that was her present in return.

All I can think of today is how hot Jess looked last night in that tight red dress that hugged all of her drool worthy curves just the right way. She’s quite literally the sexiest woman I’ve ever met and I sometimes still can’t believe she choose me. I’m no slouch myself, but I don’t have the magnetic personality Jess has. She lights up a room wherever she goes, and I love basking in the glow of her any chance I get. I turn over my arm and look at the tattoo I have etched in script on my forearm. It reads
Blessed.
I got it the first night of my honeymoon, and Jess has one to match. I always look at it and think of that time with her, and am always amazed how blessed I still feel.

A call suddenly blasts over my radio breaking me from my thoughts.

“10-26 at 322 Poppie Street. No communication with residence. Proceed with caution,” the dispatcher’s voice is calm and direct.

I reach for my radio and call in that I’m on my way. It’s only about a mile from here, and will give me something exciting to do on my last hour on duty. As much as I enjoy a quiet day, I live for this shit. It’s why I’m a cop, it’s why I’m working my way up to detective.

I love investigating crime scenes, and figuring out what happened by putting together clues. It’s almost as good as sex sometimes. Almost. With my Yale degree behind me, I know my next step in the force isn’t far behind. I’m good, damn good at what I do.

After Camryn and Mr. Dade were attacked last year and Jake was arrested, I had a lot of pieces to put together from that night and what happened with Camryn. I almost couldn’t believe what I found, and what the Waters family had been able to keep hidden for so long. What I learned in that investigation was unbelievable. Jake suffered years of abuse and torture from his mentally ill mother, keeping the secret even from his father, the state senator. She began physically torturing Jake at a very young age if he disobeyed any of her psychotic requests, and as he grew up, her requests became more and more outrageous. Out of her jealous rages caused by her schizophrenia that none of us knew she suffered from, she forced Jake to rape Camryn when we were only teenagers, and finally ended with her trying to force Jake to kill Camryn. Only he didn’t, he killed his mother instead. It took a lot of work to try and help Holden put together a case against Jake, making sure he would get the psychiatric help he needed rather than just being put in jail for rape and murder. Digging up his twisted past made me realize you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

I pull up to the enormous estate that sits on the beach side of the street and look for any other back up, but none have arrived yet. The wheels of my patrol car crunch under the stone covered driveway and seem to be announcing my arrival, so I decide to park and walk the rest of the way on foot. I radio back into the station that I’ve arrived on the scene and am going to survey the perimeter and wait for back up before entering.

Adrenaline shoots through me when I open my door and step onto the stones. This is the shit I live for. I release my gun from its holster and hold it at attention on the rare chance that there actually is an intruder and not just a cat that has set off the alarm, which is the case nine times out of ten. I look back onto route 35, checking to see if there are any other patrol cars approaching before making my entrance into the yard. I know if I enter without back up, Sarg will have my ass, even if it is a cat.

Suddenly I hear a blood curling scream come from the house in front of me, and a loud unmistakable bang. I reach for my radio, my heart racing with excitement, “10-49. Shots fired,” I say calmly into the speaker, and begin approaching the residence cautiously. Just then I hear the sirens in the distance and know backup will be here in seconds. I run up to the large picture window and flatten my body against the side of the house, waiting to take a glimpse inside. I can hear the faint moaning of a woman and a man yelling at her to shut up. I turn slightly to look in the window and what I see makes my heart stop. A large, stocky man is standing over a woman lying on the floor with blood all over her stomach. But what I see next to her almost makes me jump through the window. There’s a little girl crying hysterically over what I can only assume is her mother. Her long blonde hair makes her look like Charlotte. My Charlotte. I see several police cars pull into the driveway, followed by a fire truck, and notice the man with the gun turn to look out the window. He surely sees the droves of police cars that begin filling the area, because he turns and starts waving his gun wildly in the air, and takes the little girl, kicking and screaming in his arms. I don’t think, I act.

I turn and grab one of the striped lounge chairs on the front porch and hurdle it through the window, causing glass to shatter in every direction. I jump through the window and dive at the stunned murderer, filled with intense rage. The little girl goes flying in the other direction as I throw the man to the ground with all the force I can muster, reaching for his hand holding the gun.