Addicted to Pearls (Revised) (Pearls Series) (2 page)

“Hi
Tori
, what wicked things have you done this week?” Gloria asked her.  This was Gloria’s way of teasing Tori, and secretly trying to open Tori up to a little fun.  Gloria was always trying to get Tori to do things with her, but Tori remained firm with thoughts of the gossip in mind.  That didn’t stop their tentative friendship, although it was decidedly favored to one side.  Gloria did most of the talking, often telling Tori of some naughty thing she’d done.  But with Gloria, naughty was nice.  She was happily married and kept her naughty comments centered on things like some slinky negligee she met her husband at the door with and stories of that nature.  Tori always blushed and continued working, but Gloria persisted.

Tori dreamed of the day she could answer Gloria with
something naughty of her own
to share
.  But in the three years since Gloria had become judge and sashayed into Tori’s world, that day hadn’t come.

“You need to get a life, have some fun,” Gloria told her adding “life is going to pass you by and one day you’ll look back and wish you’d taken a chance on fun.”   Tori smiled but didn’t say anything.  For some reason, today those words struck home.   Gloria was right, the way she was
heading
she was going to die a sad, lonely virgin.   At this rate she may never even get a second kiss, never mind kids.  If she was going to live, to really have a chance at love and a life with any laughter and romance she was going to have to do something about it, and soon.  

Tori sat there at her desk telling herself that things were going to have to change soon.  Thinking about changing brought a smile to her face.   She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but she thought she could slowly start and see how it
went
. 

This was the exact moment when her life got a jolt.  Tori heard the gunshot
,
her mind processed the noise
,
but she couldn’t seem to move or accept what was going on.  A man came running through the hall wildly firing shots.  He was waving the gun around, yelling.  His wild eyes were that of someone who had lost all reason.  Normally
,
a person would at least duck and hide.  Tori didn’t
. I
t was if she was just a spectator in her own life.  Watching to see what happened.  There was a moment when she knew a shot had been aimed in her general direction.  She saw the gunman look at her briefly, fire
,
then run off.  She felt the slight disruption of air near her face.   The bullet must
have just barely missed her and she hadn’t even flinched. 
Then her thoughts changed course and she realized that not only ha
d
she almost
died but she may still die this day.  Her mind whirled with all the lost days, the lack of love and how sad it would be to leave this earth without having experienced life.   She heard one more gunshot and more yelling but still she sat immobile thinking about her life.  She later remembered thinking that if she lived through this, she wouldn’t take it slow, she would start living right away. 

It’s funny, she thought, how dramatically a few moments of fear and chaos can change a person.  This was Tori’s moment.  It wasn’t long before the man with the gun was subdued and taken away.  People had been fired at but thankfully no one was hurt, just scared.   One officer stopped and asked Tori if she was ok and she nodded but she never even moved from her desk.  She had remained sitting in the same spot the entire time.   It was an hour later when she had figured it all out in her mind.  This was her wake up call.

The conference coming up in two days in the city seemed like the perfect place and time to start.  With a smile that would have surprised anyone if they’d bothered to look, Tori hurried and put up her work so that she could head home.  There was planning to do and a new life to begin.   

That evening Tori began packing for the conference.  She included some of her normal clothing for the conference itself but she added some of the new clothes she had hidden away along with the new contacts and attitude.   On the first evening of the conference there would be a friendly gathering at an area bar.  That seemed like a good time and place to begin living life as the new sexy, wild and outgoing
Tori
.  
Tori
decided that she would go to the bar early and get used to the idea of actually being in a bar.  She would wear something sexy this time.  Then when the others came in, hopefully she would at least be somewhat used to it and could relax and try to enjoy being with others.   This was going to be a test and she was going to ace it.  No more holding back, watching from the sidelines and wishing.  It was her time.

I love this city and my job Victor reminded himself, but at this moment he was not a happy man.  His favorite female undercover officer was pregnant and showing.  This timid little girl in front of him was never going to pull off the sex kitten image he needed for this operation.  Especially not a wicked sex kitten with a bit of backbone character.  Nope, no way, no how was she going to be able to handle it.

“Vic, this is the way it is, we’ll just have to do the best we can,” Paul, Vic’s
Sargent
was saying as the young female officer sat looking at the floor not saying a word.

Paul was right though; there wasn’t time to find anyone else.  He looked at the woman again and she happened to look up at him, blushed and dropped her head even lower if that was possible.  Vic groaned inwardly and tried bringing the woman back into the conversation.   Fifteen minutes later, she had only said two words
. 
No he thought,
this wasn’t going well.

There was a lot riding on this operation.
So Vic made himself feel better by going over
it
one more time, trying to sound friendly.  Making this work could potentially save the community from some
very
bad drug dealers. 

Vic really did love his job, being a lieutenant in the police force
,
and the opportunity to dip into undercover work now and then
,
fed his need for adventure.  He was a thrill seeker at heart,
and
luckily his step
-
mother had tempered it with a good dose of common sense, just barely keeping Vic from being reckless.

Growing up Vic had gotten himself into several scrapes.  He would try things that others would have been afraid to even think about.  Living out on the ranch had given him a strong back, stronger work ethics and values
,
but it took the love of his step
-
mother to rein in those crazier stunt antics.  Betty had married Vic’s dad when Vic was only 10.   He had been an angry kid before that, not really understanding that he was grieving for his mother who had
passed away from cancer.
If Betty hadn’t been as patient and understanding as she was, Vic surely would have ended up behind bars.   Now, she was someone he loved and looked up to.  Vic was treated the same as the two boys she and
his
father soon had.  The five of them
had become
a real family.  There was no doubt in Vic’s mind that he owed his life to the woman his father had married. 

His mind focused back on the job at hand, once the newly acquired so called sex kitten had shyly left his office, Vic paged the clerk on duty to file the pile of forms he’d finally completed.  Forms and paperwork were the bane of any police officers life, but it had to be done.

Dot, the clerk sashayed into his office.  That’s the only way one could explain her walk.  She would have loved the undercover assignment, even asked for it.  But she wasn’t a certified officer, thank
fully
, thought Vic.   Not that Vic didn’t enjoy women, even aggressive women
,
now
and then.  But this female was driving him crazy.  She was just a little to
o
brazen and sometimes he actually felt sexually harassed, which made him snicker.  Still
,
getting her to back off was becoming a pain.

“Yes, Boss?” she said in her obviously well practiced “sexy whisper.”  Vic sighed, what was it with this woman.  Dot had asked Vic out about six months ago.  She just wasn’t his type, though he really didn’t have a
specific
type.  He just wasn’t interested in her.  She was tall, thin and suggestive just like most of the women he’d dated, but his skin seemed to crawl at her touch.  Not a good start to a relationship, he figured. 

“Please get these processed as soon as possible,” he asked her and was glad when she has sashayed back on out of his office.   As the tactical expert on this assignment he had plenty of work to make sure everything was ready for this evening.

Vic was the lead on several of the undercover operations for his precinct.  He was an alpha male and made no excuses about it.  Men looked to him for leadership and women just looked
at
him
.  Then again, many women tried touching too, which was usually just fine with Vic. He had a healthy appetite when it came to sex.  He just didn’t want the romance that so many women wanted with it.  He’d seen
too
many of his fellow officer’s marriages end badly.  This job was rough on families.

He seemed to be at an impasse lately, his normal round of easy to be with women who understood that there was no future with him, didn’t interest him anymore.  He was restless and looking for something more, he just wasn’t sure what that was.   

Vic was working to set up a potential undercover officer
,
and a critical part of the plan was to have his character get arrested in front of a couple of bad guys.  He had to make it look good and just to complicate the matter, the bad guys had to have wanted to take him down as well.  Not an easy way to start things off but
,
in this case, it was how it needed to be.  They had come up with a plan to botch a big drug distribution buy at a local bar, and when Vic’s character backed out, hopefully the bad buys would be pissed off enough to chas
e him and see the
arrest, therefore leaving the slot open for the other undercover officer to slid
e
into position.  The local “LEO’s” (cops) had to be seen chasing and arresting Vic.  The plan seemed sound enough, except for the rookie female officer
whose
part was pivotal as she was the catalyst to make Vic walk away from the deal for no good reason.  The ground work to make this situation intolerable for the dealers had already been done and things were ready. 
He
wasn’t feeling good about the whole thing at this point but too much work had gone into the operation to back out now. 

Tori was early, which is normally good but not when waiting for others at a bar.  Not only was Tori not a normal bar patron
,
but, she was nervous because she was dressed more provocatively tha
n
she was used to.  Then again who could see what she was wearing with her long coat covering it all.  She wore a shorter leather skirt and tight blouse that could be unbuttoned over a sexy camisole to show off a bit of cleavage.  Who would have
thought
that she would wear something like
this?
  As Tori looked around she realized that she was still dressed more conservatively than others around her
,
long coat
notwithstanding
.

Rather than think about it she began watching the people around her and realized there was something going on a couple tables down.  Luckily
,
there wasn’t anyone sitting between them so she could listen without
being obvious
, as her curiosity got the better of her.  Besides it gave her something to think about other than herself and what she was doing in a bar with sexy clothes on under her coat.  So she sipped her wine and listened.

As she listened she realized it was
an
undercover police officer discussing some kind of an operation, right here in the bar.  Oh, a cop sting, she loved it.  She never got to watch the cop side of things and this could be exciting.  Just what I need, she thought, a little excitement without any personal involvement.

There were two cops talking, a male and a female.  The female was obviously dressed to appear as the male’s girlfriend.  But even from this distance, Tori could see how nervous the male cop made the woman.  The woman reminded Tori of herself. 
She was far too withdrawn and shy to pull off the sexy look. 
But not anymore
,
Tori reminded herself, she was going to be a new woman, starting today. 

She continued watching
the male officer ‘bad boy’ she nicknamed
him
.  I
t seemed to fit his demeanor and the wicked vibes radiated off him.  She felt sorry for the female officer he was working with, understanding exactly how the woman would
feel. 
Bad Boy was trying to give instructions to the female officer, but it was evident that she was
too
nervous and he was getting frustrated.