by Eva Chase
“So, how long have you worked with the Freising police, Firecracker?” I asked, keeping my tone casual. We’d barely asked her anything about herself so far. Although maybe Sherlock had already catalogued her entire life history from the shape of her fingernails and the angle at which she tipped her head, so he hadn’t felt the need to.
Jemma answered easily enough. “Coming up on three years—since I finished school. I’ve been based in Germany for five years altogether.”
“And before that?”
She shrugged, swirling a chuck of potato in a pool of melted butter. “A little while here in the UK, in various parts of America, Portugal, Thailand, New Zealand… I’ve gotten around. My parents were roamers. I expect at some point I’ll get restless and continue the tradition. It’s useful having picked up the different languages and so on.”
Being born and bred in London, I had trouble imagining a life that chaotic. How did you ever feel at home? Jemma didn’t look fazed, though, and that hardly seemed like an appropriate question to ask a woman I was only just getting to know.
Before I could decide on a different angle from which to prod her, she glanced around the table. “I’m curious about the three of you. You seem to work together so well. How did you end up collaborating like this?”
“I found myself in London a couple years back, after my stint in the army ended for obvious reasons.” John motioned to his leg. “I couldn’t afford a place of my own, and a friend of mine knew this lunatic who was constantly over at the university experimenting with everything from poisons to bruising but who happened to need a roommate…” He raised his eyebrows at Sherlock.
“Oh, dear,” Jemma said with a grin, brushing her fingers against his forearm again. “I suppose we should be glad you’re still here and not dissected.”
“I assure you, I have never dissected anyone who wasn’t already dead,” Sherlock said, straight-faced. “John proved a decent living companion and an excellent partner in the field. I can achieve a lot on my own, but I can’t be everywhere, and some gambits are better pulled off with company.”
I jumped in before they could continue their mutual adoration fest. “Sherlock has been offering Scotland Yard help with difficult cases for a few years. He… occasionally rubs some of the detectives the wrong way. He and I found we could cooperate without my wanting to strangle him—at least not very often. So, the commissioner often pairs us up.”
“Garrett is the best of the lot over there,” Sherlock said. “The police force truly is in a sorry state.”
That was a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one. But Jemma was shaking her head at Sherlock and turning back to me. “Investigating can be a lot more difficult with the sorts of red tape we have to deal with. You must have quite the success rate with your own cases, or you wouldn’t be here.”
She wasn’t even touching me, her hand lingering over the handle of her knife. I couldn’t have called the blouse and slacks she was wearing anything but modest. So, why was my attention drawn more than before to the subtle curves beneath those clothes, to the fullness of her lips?
It'd been too long since I’d last had a shag, clearly.
I had to just ignore those impulses. And at the same time I desperately wanted to stop her from shifting her attention away from me again.
A couple of officers from one of the other tables sidled over, their hands twisted nervously in front of them. “Mr. Holmes?” the man said. “It’s amazing to meet you in person. I’ve followed all of Dr. Watson’s accounts of your investigations.”
“They should have you giving all the talks here,” the woman gushed. “Would you—is it too silly to ask you to autograph our program booklets?”
“I suppose I might as well,” Sherlock said, bemused. As he brought pen to paper without a word of thanks for their compliments, John gave Jemma a nudge and rolled his eyes in mock exasperation.
“Poor you,” she said, looking at him through her eyelashes. “The permanent bridesmaid?”
John chuckled, his face bright as he gazed back at her, and my stomach twisted the way it had right before I’d slammed my coffee mug on the table yesterday morning. Like a fool.
“Well,” Sherlock said when his admirers had wandered off, “should we convene to discuss our next steps somewhere more private? Garrett, your room is the closest.”
“It is,” I agreed before I could think about whether I was being foolish now. “Why not? Let’s go back to mine.”
Chapter Six
Jemma
After the four of us had talked for a while in Garrett’s room, I’d flopped down on my back at the foot of the bed—not in a provocative pose, just as if the change in position and view might jog some new ideas loose. But when I propped myself up on one elbow as the conversation wound down, John’s gaze lingered on the slope of my body for long enough to tell me the evening had been a success.
“All right then,” the doctor said. “I’ll see if there’s anyone I know in the Munich area who could weigh in, and I guess we can make a final decision about how to proceed after we’ve slept on it.” He stifled a yawn, his fingers clenching the handle of his walking stick a little tighter than usual. Even his grin looked a bit weary, though it was barely ten at night.
I knew from the medical records I’d dug up that he’d left his military service with more than just a limp. The infection he’d gotten while recovering from his initial wounds had left his whole body weakened. This was the first sign of that larger infirmity I’d seen in person. He held himself together rather well.
“Until tomorrow,” Sherlock said in his lofty way, as if he thought he might have the whole case tied up by then. His gaze didn’t linger on me at all, but I hadn’t expected it to. He was above emotion, after all.
Imagine what I might find beneath that cool exterior if I managed to wake up a feeling or two.
That wasn’t tonight’s plan, though, as appealing as the idea was. As the two men left, I pushed myself upright and rolled my shoulders. Garrett glanced over at me with a flash of hunger in his eyes.
It didn’t take much to generate that kind of reaction if you knew how to handle yourself. The slightest arch of my back, the angle of my face, the way I trailed my fingers here or there—I could have been dressed like a nun and still brought lust into a man’s mind when I wanted to. Both John and Garrett were aware of me as a woman now in ways they hadn’t quite been before. And I’d made sure Garrett had noticed John’s awareness as much as his own.
I didn’t think the detective inspector wanted to come in second place yet again.
Now that taking Richter down for his past crimes was off the table, I had to shift focus from the short con I’d hoped for to the long con I’d prepared. All three of the trio had to be totally invested if I was going to pull this off. Garrett appeared to be the best place to start, especially since I had another ruse I needed to carry out here.
“I suppose I should get going too,” I said, standing up. To stay in the game, I was going to have to engage his sympathies as well as his desires. Not the easiest maneuver when he still seemed wary about the three of them being involved in my affairs at all.
I ambled toward the door and paused as if grappling with the question. “When do you think you’ll put that call in to Freising?” I asked without quite meeting his eyes.
“First thing in the morning, I was planning,” Garrett said.
I nodded stiffly, and that was enough, now that we were alone, to prompt the question he’d really wanted to ask.
He closed the notepad he’d been alternately scrawling and sketching in. “You don’t like the idea of me talking to them, do you?”
I jerked around to face him. “Why would you say that?”
He tipped his head toward me. “Because you reacted like that to me saying it, Firecracker. Because you seem nervous about the subject every time it’s come up.” He folded his arms over his lean chest, drawing himself up a little taller. “What’s going on?”
The woman he thought I was wouldn’t give in that easily. My mouth twisted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re hiding something. Don’t you think it’s going to come out, and sooner rather than later? Do you really think Sherlock won’t figure out the whole story in five seconds flat?”
That last sentence held a touch of bitterness. Oh, yes, this man’s competitive streak and the insecurities that fed it ran deep.
I stiffened as if the possibility hadn’t occurred to me before and then sank into the chair at the desk, dropping my face into my hands. “It’s nothing he’d even be concerned about. It’s just embarrassing. It won’t affect how you handle the case—I can promise you that.”
“I’d be a lot more willing to believe that if you’d say what the problem is,” Garrett said.
I took a deep breath and let my mind slip back to old childhood memories. All the jockeying for favor, the glares and the vicious sabotage, the desperation that had wrenched through me on the rare occasions I’d faltered and met my parents’ glowers of disappointment. The fear that I’d also let down my little sister who couldn’t quite keep up. The looming presence of the shrouded folk always watching, judging. Those tangled, fraught emotions prickled up to color my voice.
“It’s been kind of tense at the department. I was at the top of my class, and I got a good position right out of the gate. A lot of the other officers resent that, I think. They hassle me and make sure the hardest cases end up on my desk. I work twice as hard as anyone there just to make sure I don’t look like I’m falling behind.”
“Go on,” Garrett said—firmly but softer.
I let my head dip lower. “This case, the murder—I totally botched it. I ran down a lead I thought was good, and it went nowhere, and then the trail was getting cold. I couldn’t get a foothold anywhere else… Everyone there has been sneering at me like I’m a failure, mocking the fact that I was picked for this conference, taking potshots at me every chance they get.”
“That’s ridiculous. No one solves every case.”
“I was so sure with this one, though. I can handle the potshots. I’ll survive. But I know when you call and tell them you’re picking up the case, they’re going to assume I went running to Scotland Yard to beg for help, and even my boss is going to lose all respect for me.”
I tightened my voice on the last sentence, mastering the emotions I’d let leak out. When I raised my eyes, Garrett was staring at me. His jaw twitched as he grappled with the emotions my “confession” had stirred in him.
“I suppose I’m being as pathetic as they’d think I am if I let my worries affect how you handle the case,” I said. “Forget I said anything. It’s my problem to deal with. I’m sorry you had to listen to all that.”
I got up from the chair and made for the door again, but Garrett reached for my arm.
“Hey.” He eased me back around to face him. Whatever else he’d been feeling, compassion had won. It shone in his dark brown eyes, even if the rest of his expression had stayed tense.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he said. “I know what it’s like to feel that no matter what you do, you can’t quite earn the respect you want. I rose in the ranks quickly like you did, and it’s a lot of weight knowing everyone’s watching for proof that you didn’t deserve the things you worked so hard for. Of course you’re nervous. I’m sorry I pushed you into talking about it.”
I gave him a pained smile. “Well, maybe it’s better that you know. That way you won’t be surprised about the attitude they might have about me when you call.”
Garrett’s fingers adjusted against my arm, but he didn’t let go. The warmth of his hand bled through the thin cotton of my blouse. “What if… What if I didn’t mention you at all?” he said. “Richter came here. We have every reason to be keeping an eye on him regardless. I can simply say that we heard about the murder and noticed that the timing of his visit to your area matched up, and we’d like to investigate further on our end.”
My body relaxed. “That—that would be such a relief.” Especially because if he did happen to mention an Officer Moriarty to any of the actual police in Freising, they’d have no clue who he was talking about. Bash had been meant to handle that call if it happened, but since Garrett had thwarted my earlier attempts to control the direction of the call, this was the most elegant possible solution. And he thought it was his idea.
He might not even have minded the deception if he’d known he was actually protecting me from a fate worse than death.
“It’s easy enough,” Garrett said with a rare smile. “Why should I let them think you came running to us when really it’s that Sherlock badgered you into letting us on the case?”
“There is that too,” I said, and laughed.
Garrett laughed too, looking more at ease in that moment than I’d ever seen him. He really was a rather good-looking man when he wasn’t scowling or narrowing his eyes in skepticism. Which meant tonight’s finale might be particularly enjoyable.
It was too bad the trio hadn’t found a way to get Richter locked up quickly on some unrelated charge. That would have made saving my life so much easier. Now, to see the larger plan through, they were going to have to cross a lot more lines than a little play-acting in a gentleman’s club. They were going to have to want to.
And the simplest way to get them invested in my case was to get them invested in me.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “Really. You’re a good man.” I leaned in and brushed a kiss to his cheek.
As I eased back, Garrett swallowed audibly. I wet my lips, holding his gaze, as clear a come-on as I could make after the subtle tension I’d spent all evening building without outright jumping his bones. But he stayed where he was, frozen, his mouth slanting with indecision.
All right. There were ways I could make the decision even simpler for him.
I slipped my arm from his grasp and gave him a regretful smile. “It seems like I really should go. I’ll drop in on John on my way up and see if he’s gotten anywhere with his possible local connections.”
I said John’s name with an affectionate lilt, and a possessive spark lit in Garrett’s eyes. He caught my arm again with a sudden intensity that set off a flare of heat right through me.
“You don’t have to leave,” he said in a low hoarse voice, and tugged me into a kiss.
He tasted like the sweet brandy John had passed around while we’d brainstormed, his mouth hot enough to burn. I slipped my arm around his neck and kissed him back hard, not wanting to leave any doubt that I was completely on board with wherever he wanted to take this next.
My body swayed against his. With a rough sound, he turned us and lifted me onto the desk, never breaking the kiss. My legs splayed around his hips. I gave myself over to the pulse of need spreading from my core.
It was the best kind of ploy, really. I got one step closer to freeing my soul and ridding the world of a much greater evil than I could ever claim to be. He got to feel he’d won the prize. We both got our rocks off, well. Wins all around.
Our mouths crashed even more urgently together. Garrett tangled his fingers in my hair, his other hand stroking up and down my side over my blouse. His scent filled my nose, as singeing sharp as a live wire.
Mmm, I liked that.
I scooted closer on the desk, bringing my body completely in line with his, shivering eagerly at the feel of him already hard behind the zipper of his slacks. Garrett let out a choked sort of groan and eased back from the kiss, but when I raised my chin to offer him access to my neck, he couldn’t resist. He pressed his mouth to the sensitive skin along my throat. The flick of his hot tongue brought a pleased sigh to my lips.
“So you do have it in you after all,” I murmured.
His mouth trailed down to my collarbone. His hand was working its way up under my blouse, stroking bare skin now. A shaky breath spilled over my flesh. “I don’t normally think it’s a good idea to mix work with—with, ah—”
>
“Pleasure?” I ran my fingertips down his chest, tracing the taut muscles there. “I find it’s good to burn off the tensions of the job every now and then if I can find the right partner. Which isn’t always easy, I’ll admit. I was starting to think you weren’t game.”
He captured my mouth again, kissing me so intently and thoroughly that I lost my breath despite myself. Maybe he was aiming to top every man who’d ever kissed me before. I wasn’t going to argue with that ambition.
“Are you convinced now?” he muttered against my skin. At the same moment, he unhooked my bra. As his hand cupped my breast, his thumb swiveling over the nipple, I leaned into his touch.
“I wouldn’t mind if you convinced me a whole lot more.”
He let out a ragged laugh and resumed his plunder of my mouth. I rocked against him, wanting even more than this.
Garrett took the hint. He tipped my head back, his tongue tangling with mine, and fingered the clasp on my dress pants until he’d dislodged it. I lifted my hips, he jerked, and my slacks slipped off to pool on the floor.
He pressed his fingers to my panties, but not to dislodge them yet. A hungry rumble escaped him at the dampness already forming there. He teased his thumb over my clit and down to my opening, forcing a whimper out of me.
I grasped the front of his slacks and popped the button free. At the yank of the zipper, he tore his lips from mine just for a second. “Do you have—?”
“My purse.” I reached for the bag where I’d dropped it on the desk beside me and fished out a foil packet.
There’d been men in the past who’d balked for a second at how readily I’d produced protection, who’d even sneered a bit. Garrett didn’t so much as blink. With a few tugs of fabric, my panties were dangling from one ankle and his pants and boxers were at his feet. He sheathed himself in an instant. I arched toward him, and he plunged into me with a blissful groan.