An Internal Affair

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Chad stretched, yawning as he rolled his head over to look at the clock – it was still early, and he reached over Andrea to turn the alarm off. His girlfriend sighed in her sleep and hugged the pillow she was clutching to her chest, looking so beautiful that he stared at her for a long while before getting out of the bed. He ran a hand down the bare skin of her back and placed a kiss at the base of her spine, pulling a sheet to cover her and resetting the alarm to ring thirty minutes later than it usually did.

After gathering up his clothes and moving silently into the bathroom to take a shower, Chad flipped on the water and was nearly finished when a very sleepy and slightly grumpy Andrea pushed the shower curtain back. “’S too early. Why didn’t you wake me when you got up?” She jumped backwards as he flicked some water at her. “Hey!”

“You looked like you needed the sleep,” Chad explained. “Coming in, or selling tickets?”

Andrea’s smile was transformed into a huge yawn. “Wonder how much I could get for a Shelten viewing?” She pushed her skimpy panties off her hips and stepped into the shower with him to snuggle against his chest. “God, I’ve gotta go get that arrest report… leave it to Eddie to ruin my day.” Andrea slipped around him and rested her forehead between his shoulder blades, encircling his waist with her arms.

“But it’s going to be a good day,” he reminded her as he reached for the soap and poured a handful in his palm. “It started out with naked me, after all.”

She giggled. “That’s right, it did.” Her left hand slipped lower and her fingertips brushed over the tip of his hardening cock.

“We don’t have time for that,” he warned.

Andrea moved her hand up to gather up some of the soap on her fingers, and wrapped her hand around him. “Just enjoy it, then... ” She began to fist him slowly, then faster while she reached under him to knead his balls with her other hand. As always, his first instinct was to hold back, to draw things out. “Chad,” she chastised. Andrea always told him that he had nothing to prove to her, so there was no need to hold back if he felt like coming; of course she’d also warned him to give in to the impulse because prolonged handjobs made her wrist hurt and that she’d kill him if she developed carpal tunnel just from jacking him off.

“Sorry,” he panted, closing his eyes. “Faster.” Another few flicks of her wrist and he came with a groan, jerking his hips.

Andrea released him as soon as she’d drawn the last shudders from him, and kissed his spine lovingly. “You’ll be late if you don’t go now,” she said softly when he turned to take her in his arms. “You can return the favor when your shift ends.” Chad let her go reluctantly with a lingering kiss and ducked back beneath the water before stepping out to reach for a towel. “Chad?”

“Yeah, baby?” he turned back.

She smiled. “Be careless.”

An hour later, he got a chance to do just that. It’d been a relatively slow morning, since lately it seemed as if the entire LAPD had nothing better to do than to bring SWAT along for every little thing that might cause them trouble. Chad didn’t really mind since he got more training hours in that way, even though he was practically leading Second Team these days… he’d only seventy to eighty left out of the required two thousand hours, give or take a few. Steve Ramiro came in to throw a roll of blueprints on his desk. “Get ‘em ready, we’ve got a situation.”

“Yes, sir.” On route, the SWAT lieutenant briefed him; apparently some insurance agent downtown had gone off the deep end over something and had taken hostages. Ramiro took off to get the negotiations started while Chad’s team got sight and sound set up. “Looks like we can reach the floor above our disgruntled employee,” he pointed out, looking over to Faith Lipson. “Get our gear ready, and meet me up top.”

She heaved a worried sigh. “Right away, Sergeant.”

It seemed to take forever to get clearance to get going, but finally Ramiro radioed him with the go ahead after two hours of fruitless negotiations. “This punk’s not moving, Shelten – get in and get the hostages down. Take him out if necessary.”

After signaling acknowledgement and getting their lines set up, Chad swung over the side of the building and slid down slightly to wait for Lipson to catch up to him. He eyed her approvingly as she fought past her initial fearful reaction and began to rappel down to him. “See? You’re doing fine,” he reassured her, and was rewarded by a shaky smile. “Now, he’s on the sixth floor so we’re stopping at the seventh – why?”

She breathed in, closing her eyes. “Because he’ll be expecting us to come up after him, and not down?”

“That’s right. I’ll go down and across first, you follow me.” Chad set his boots on the side of the building to push off, and felt a strange tremor in his line. Huh. That’s odd. He put it from his mind and settled himself to push once more… and felt it again.

Beside him, Lipson squeaked slightly. “Sarge, you feel that?”

Chad twisted to look below them just as Ramiro demanded to know why he wasn’t in position. He slowly reached a hand across to his radio. “Lieutenant? We may have a problem here.”

“Sergeant Shelten, get in position,” Ramiro snapped. “The only problem is that you’re not where you need to be.”

He looked over at Lipson, who still had no idea exactly what was happening, and reached for the radio once more. “Williams? Check the lines, please.”

“But, Sergean-”

“Check the lines, Dave. Do it now.” He dug his fingers into the brick in front of him and tried to think of what they could do… and came up with a whole lot of nothing, since they were still about eight stories up and below them were a handful of squad cars and stretches of cement to break their fall when the lines snapped. He should have told Andrea that he loved her when he left for work.

Chad closed his eyes as he heard the flurry of panic on the radio when Williams shakily announced that the ropes had been tampered with, and were nearing their stress limit. Lipson began to hyperventilate. “You think they can get enough men up top to haul us up?” she asked, eyes wide. “I don’t want to fall, Chad.”

“I promised to look out for you, Faith. I won’t let you fall.” He outlined his plan quickly for getting as close to the ground as they could while the ropes still held. “Are you ready?”

They were almost to the fifth floor when he felt his line start to break.


_ _ _ _ _


Andrea yawned yet again as she reached for her cup of coffee, and Hopper rolled his eyes. “I don’t even wanna know why you’re so tired,” he commented.

“Like I’d tell you anyway? Please.” She shook her head amusedly and took a sip. Ah, caffeine. What would I do without you? Flipping open the file that held the arrest report on Eddie, Andrea saw Hopper lean over slightly so that he could take a look at it. The phone on her desk rang and she reached for it, stifling another yawn. Thank God it was Friday and she’d get a chance to catch up on her sleep. “Battle.”

For some reason, Eddie had decided to call her from where he was locked up in County. “Andrea, get me outta here.”

“Not gonna happen, Eddie. Shouldn’t you be calling your cousin to arrange bail? I’m sure as shit not going to help you out with that.”

Anger started seeping into his tone. “You don’t wanna do this to me, puta. I can cause trouble for you.”

“You know what, Eddie? Save it. Even if I weren’t going to press charges, Chad sure as hell would.”

She started to hang up when Eddie said something in a tone so venomous that her blood ran cold. “Shelten won’t be doing much of anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He snickered. “Guy that big must be heavy. You know that saying, the bigger they are…? “

He can’t be suggesting… “Eddie,” she said warningly.

“I hear he climbs buildings; that’s a lot of weight for one rope to hold, yeah?” Across the desk, Hopper looked at her curiously as the blood drained from her face. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to fly – guess Shelten’s gonna beat me to it,” Eddie hissed.

Andrea dropped the phone and was out of her seat in seconds, Hopper running after her asking what was wrong. Nearly spraining her ankle on her rush down the stairs because she didn’t want to lose time waiting for the elevator, she dialed the SWAT office and a bored-sounding Hawkins answered. “Hawkins, have the teams been called out today?”

“Yep, Chad took the other boys and girls off to the Allied building two hours ag-”

She hung up on him and fumbled for her keys, which Hopper snatched from her hands with a demand to know what was going on. “God damn it, Hopper! Give them back,” she screamed, lunging for the keys. Panic was flooding her body; she had to get to Chad to let him know not to climb.

“At least tell me where you’re going; I’ll drive you,” her partner said in a shocked tone, handing the keys back hurriedly.

“Allied building. Eddie said that Chad-”

“Okay, let’s go.”

On the way there, he questioned her and the blind panic receded just far enough to let her answer. “Hurry,” she begged. “It’s just up there, I can see it…” Andrea’s words trailed off as the first scream of the siren reached her ears, and all she could do was stare at the ambulance as it passed them with an escort of SWAT cars. She knew without a doubt that Chad was inside it. “Oh, my God.”

To his credit, Hopper didn’t say a word but managed to get them turned around and following the other cars as her cell phone rang. Hopper answered. “Yes, she’s right here… we’re on our way. Thank you, Lieutenant.” He hung up and turned to look at her. “They’re taking him to the hospital Rita works at.”

She caught her breath at the gentle confirmation in her partner’s tone. “Please hurry,” she said in a small voice. The flashing lights of the ambulance up ahead blurred through her tears.


tbc…
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