Chapter 1
My name is John Aldea. Thirty-four years old. Homicide detective. And, by choice, very much single.
I’ve been on the force for ten years now. Started out in Robbery ten years ago — chasing adrenaline junkies and smash-and-grab crews through the city at all hours. Those were wild years. Then I moved to Homicide three years back. The pace is different. Darker. But at least the middle-of-the-night calls aren’t quite as constant. Still, the job owns you. It always has.
I’m proud of being single. I wear it like a badge. A relationship? That shit doesn’t fit this life. I tried it when I was younger, green and still in uniform. A couple of women got close enough to spend the night. But nothing kills the romance faster than your phone screaming at 2 a.m. and you having to roll out of bed, kiss her on the forehead, and disappear for twelve hours. Or twenty-four. Or three days. They never got used to it. I got tired of the disappointed looks, the fights, the slow drift into resentment. So I stopped trying.
Now my apartment is small, tidy, and quiet — exactly how I like it. Leather couch, minimal furniture, a fridge that’s usually half-empty except for beer, eggs, and black coffee. I run at 5:30 most mornings, hit the gym, then the station. Nights are for case files, the occasional beer, and silence. It works for me.
To keep it that way, I built rules:
One: Never sleep over.
Two: Never give out my real number.
Three: Never see the same woman more than once.
Everything controlled. Everything on my terms. No mess. No complications. No bleeding of pleasure into the one thing that actually matters — the job.
A few years back, after one brutal stakeout too many, boredom got the better of me and I installed Tinder. Profile deliberately vague: just a side-profile shot, jaw tight, eyes looking away into the distance. Bio: “Black coffee. No drama.” I figured it would be quiet. I was wrong.
The matches came faster than I expected. Apparently women like the guarded-cop thing.
Most were one-and-done, exactly how I wanted. Controlled. Clean.
The yoga instructor was my first match. Calm voice, incredibly flexible body, talked nonstop about energy flows and chakras. Sex was slow, intentional, full of long eye contact and deep breathing. She wrapped around me in ways that felt almost athletic. I kept my pace measured, stayed fully in control, made sure she finished first. Then I was gone before sunrise. Nice enough, but nothing I needed twice.
Then came the bartender.
Sleeve tattoos, loud filthy laugh, zero filter. We met for drinks, traded dark jokes, and ended up at her place. The second things got physical I took over — pinned her against the kitchen counter, set the rhythm exactly how I wanted it. Hard, but controlled. One hand fisted in her hair, the other gripping her hip. I fucked her until she was loud and shaking, coming hard before I finally let myself go. Still on my terms. Still in control. I was out the door before the sweat dried, ignoring her follow-up text the next day. One time. Always.
That was the pattern for a while. Safe. Predictable. Rules intact.
Until Chen. A year ago, when I’d already been in Homicide for two years.
Chen was partnered with another detective in our unit — not mine. We’d only crossed paths a few times at the station. Then we had a stakeout. A suspect we’d been calling the Plumber, someone we’d been watching for a week already. We couldn’t afford another victim. My usual partner got pulled into another case, so the chief sent Chen with me instead.
A stakeout meant bad coffee, burgers, dark cop humor, and for the two nights we sat together in the same car, we did all of it. And then it happened. We saw the suspect coming out the back of the house, looking carefully around him. Chen decided it was a good moment to look like anything other than two detectives on surveillance, so I found her pulling me by the collar and kissing me hard. My eyes were still on the suspect and I watched him, half lost in the kiss with Chen, glance at us, pause for one second, and move on. He got in his car and drove. We followed.
We radioed dispatch that the suspect was moving. When he stopped in a quiet residential neighborhood, we radioed our location again, got out of the car, and continued surveillance from the shadow of an adjacent building. We watched him clear a fence and access a back yard. Then we called in the team.
At 4 a.m. they arrived. We went in together and caught him in the act — two victims already restrained, a mother and daughter tied to the bathroom pipes. As we walked back to our vehicles, Chen looked at me, eyes direct.
“Straight home?” she asked, voice low. “Or do you want to stop at a hotel for a bit?”
I knew the smart play. I knew my rules. But the long night, the leftover adrenaline, and the way she was looking at me made me answer:
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
We picked a nondescript hotel on the edge of town. The moment the door locked behind us, the leash slipped.
Chen shoved me against the wall, kissing me like she was starving, her hands already working my belt. I spun her fast, pressing her front to the wall, yanking her blouse open. My mouth found her neck while my hands cupped her breasts, thumbs teasing her nipples until they were hard and she was gasping. I slid one hand down into her pants — she was soaked. Two fingers inside her, curling exactly right, thumb on her clit, keeping her right on the edge while she moaned and pushed back against me.
I dropped to my knees, pulled her pants down, and ate her out from behind like a man possessed — tongue and fingers working together until her legs shook and she came hard, crying out against the wall.
Then I stood, turned her around, lifted her. Her legs locked around my waist as I carried her to the bed and thrust deep in one stroke. I fucked her steady and hard, watching her face the whole time, pinning her wrists above her head. I changed angles until she came again, clenching around me. Flipped her onto all fours, gripped her hips, and drove into her deeper, one hand reaching around to rub her clit. She came a third time, loud and trembling.
Only then did I let go —coming hard with a low groan, filling her completely.
We barely caught our breath before she climbed on top. She rode me slow and filthy while I guided her hips, still controlling the pace even underneath her. We went again until the first light of morning crept through the curtains.
For the first time in years, I broke my biggest rule. I fell asleep with her curled against my chest.
That night fucked with my head. It wasn’t just the sex — though it was easily the best I’d ever had. It was how easily the line between the job and pleasure had blurred, even indirectly. A week later I deleted Tinder.
The relationship that followed lasted eight months — the first three the most intense of my life. But we were both more invested in the job than in each other, and eventually we couldn’t ignore it. We avoided each other for a while, then had an honest conversation. She didn’t want to be a secret. I didn’t see the point of announcing it to the department. Neither of us could change what we were, so we ended it.
Amicably. Which is the word people use when something ends without anyone doing anything wrong and it still costs more than you expected.
Business had touched pleasure, and it felt too good to ignore.
I tightened the rules for good, replacing the third one, which I already broke with Chan:
*Never mix business with pleasure. Ever.*
No one even loosely connected to the department or my job. No exceptions.
I went back to my quiet, controlled life. Celibate. Focused. Alone — and proud of it.
But today, today I reinstalled the damn app.
In hours, I already had a match:
“Nina.”
I have no idea how completely this woman is going to burn every single one of my rules to ash.
