Romeo looked relieved.
Then his head hung, and he held out his hands in front of him.
I cuffed him seconds later, walking him to the cell that he’d occupied before this had all gone down.
Once he was inside, I closed the cell door and gestured for him to poke his hands through the door.
He did, and I uncuffed him.
“We’ll fix this, Romeo,” I said softly.
When Romeo looked up and caught my eyes, I saw desolation there. He’d given up all hope.
The look made my insides turn.
“We’ll fix this,” I repeated.
Romeo shook his head. “You can’t fix this. Nobody can.”
He turned away, leaving me with my cuffs, and collapsed onto the bed.
The sheets he’d used to fake hang himself were still hanging from the rafters.
I should’ve removed them.
Instead, I left them there, and will forever regret that I didn’t.
***
“Since we’re all here,” Bennett said. “And I have a warrant for Julian Ricci’s arrest, we’ll execute it now.”
Being able to execute the warrant tonight felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.
Except, ten minutes later, when we arrived at the house, it was to find it completely empty.
The doors were open, every single window was open wide, and there wasn’t a damn soul to be found in the entire place.
Son of a bitch!
“Well, motherfucker.” I kicked the closest garbage can, causing it to tumble end over end until it came to a rest next to the wall, its contents spilling out onto the tiled floor.
“Need to get the mother here,” Saint suggested. “See if we can get her to give us any information on where he might be.”
“No need,” Bennett said as he gestured toward a car driving down the length of the road. “I was able to get Foster to head to where she was presumed to be staying. He sent her here.”
We watched as the woman got out of her car and hustled to the front door.
The moment that she saw all of us standing in her entryway, she stiffened and stilled.
“Miss Ricci, do you happen to know the whereabouts of your son, Julian Ricci?” I asked stiffly.
She blinked owlishly at me.
“Why?” she asked. “What has he done?”
Saint went about explaining.
The woman’s eyes widened when we told her what her son had done.
“My Julian wouldn’t have done that,” Tiana Ricci affirmed. “He’s a good boy. Just gets lost sometimes.”
“We have him on video,” Saint said, trying to be careful with his words as if not to piss her off. “And Romeo affirmed that Julian was the one to do it.”
She shook her head. “No, it was Romeo. Romeo’s the bad one, not my Julian.”
I tilted my head. “Romeo didn’t do it. Julian did.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t. I promise.”
The bad thing was, she actually believed her words.
My gut intuition, however, confirmed that it wasn’t Romeo. You didn’t fake emotion like that. And, after analyzing the video again, I knew what to look for this time. Romeo was right. He and the brother did share the same tattoo. Romeo, however, had a few scars on his wrists that the person on the video didn’t have.
“It doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t him right now,” Saint said. “He’s wanted for questioning. Now, do you know where he is?”
Tiana Ricci shook her head. “No.”
She was lying.
She knew damn well where he was.
“If you lie to us, you could go to jail for obstruction,” Bennett said bluntly. “And we will take you to jail.”
“I gave him the keys to our house in Florida,” she said softly, eyes forlorn. “He left last night. He actually should already be there.”
I cursed inwardly, pissed as hell that I hadn’t figured this out before it’d happened.
Then a thought occurred to me, and I looked over at Bennett. He caught the questioning look in my eye, then gestured for me to follow him out of the house.
He left Saint there, continuing to ask questions.
“What is it?” Bennett asked.
“If he left last night, how’d that bird get pinned to the side of her house this morning?” I asked. “It wasn’t there when I dropped her off. I would’ve seen it. So it happened in between me dropping her off and then us getting back just after my shift ended. I don’t think he’s in Florida. Either he lied and told her he was going, or she’s lying.”
Bennett turned to survey Tiana.
“I think she really did give him the keys,” Bennett murmured. “I’m pretty good at reading body language. She’s not lying about that. What I do think, though, is that she knows more than she’s telling us.”
“Damn right,” I muttered.
Chapter 14
Professional patience tester.
-Coffee Cup
Louis
By the time I got home a couple hours later, I was no less pissed and frustrated than I was when I’d left Calloway all alone, warm and snugly.
The only difference was, now I knew that she was still in danger.
Which chapped my ass. I didn’t like the way it felt when I couldn’t control things. The thought of Calloway in any danger at all was making my heart hurt. Even worse, I knew that there really wasn’t anything that I could do until Julian showed his face again.
There were thousands and thousands of people in Kilgore and more than enough room to hide.
When I closed the door to my place quietly behind me, I smiled immediately at what I saw.
Calloway was huddled around a bowl of half-eaten popcorn.
Her face was resting next to the bowl. The remote control was next to that, pressed against her face.
Then there were the three-quarters of the way empty water bottles—I still didn’t understand why she never finished her water bottles. Still, to this day, she liked to say that the last couple of swallows were ninety-nine percent backwash.
Grinning like a goddamn fool, I walked to the television and turned the TV off. The ‘Are you still watching?’ was on the screen.
Turning the television off plunged the room into darkness, making it kind of hard to navigate her bottles of water, bowl of popcorn, and various piles of random crap.
There was a computer. The computer cord. A mouse. A bottle of hairspray. A bottle of nail polish. Then there was the most random of things—a single card—the ace of spades.
Pulling the remote from where it was pasted against her face, I placed it on the table and followed it up with the bowl of popcorn.
Seconds after that, I had my woman in my arms and I was carrying her to my bed.
She shifted and curled into me, her sweet mouth pressing against the pulse in my neck.
“What took you so long?” she murmured, threading her arms around me.
I didn’t want to tell her about any of it now.
I liked that she was sleepy, warm, and ignorant of the fact that she still had someone putting dead animals on her doorstep.
More so, if she was going to be awake, I had some more interesting things that I’d like to do with her. Things that didn’t include talking.
Laying her down on the bed, I watched as she rolled and curled up into my pillow, directly in the middle of the bed.
She didn’t push about what took me so long, but she did watch me undress.
The only light there was came from the bathroom, but with the door being mostly closed, only the smallest of amounts shone through.
Right on my body and where I was disrobing.
I could see her eyes glittering. Knew they were on me.
So I took extra time getting naked.
I ran my hands over my skin, taking much longer to push my pants down my legs than it would’ve normally taken me.
And when my cock popped free of its confines, hard and ready, I knew that she was no longer paying attention to anything but that certain appendage.
Keeping the theme of not talking going, I turned sideways and kicked my clothes in the general vicinity of the hamper, then shucked my shirt by grasping the collar and hauling it over my head.
Tossing that, too, I stretched my arms up high over my head, popping my back as I did.
Then, while my eyes stayed locked on her face, I crawled onto the bed and moved until I was lying down beside her. Not touching, but so close that I might as well be.
She started to inch closer, but when she did, I sat up and grasped the comforter that’d been kicked to the end of the bed, tossing it over the both of us.
The moment it settled into place, I hauled her to me and turned her so that she was facing away.
When her back was pressed to mine, she wiggled and scooched her body until it was in line perfectly with mine. My cock was pressed tightly to her ass, splitting the seam of it and causing me to nearly groan.
She felt so fucking hot.
I moved until I could maneuver her sweatpants down her legs, and she helped me when they got to her knees by kicking them off.
She did her shirt on her own, leaving her in a bra and panties.
Since this was a normal occurrence—me sleeping naked and her in her bra and panties—at first she likely thought we were just going to sleep.
But we wouldn’t be sleeping.
Not for a while.
Since neither of us had to get up tomorrow, we weren’t pressed for time.
So it didn’t matter when we went to bed, because we could sleep as late as we wanted.
Meaning, she’d get her sleep—afterward.
She wiggled back into me, and the feeling of her warm flesh under my palms had me groaning inwardly.
God, why was she so fuckin’ warm?
I pressed a kiss to the spot just below her ear, causing her to shiver.
“We aren’t going to sleep, are we?” her voice whispered into the darkness.
“Nope,” I said. “We’re not.”
She wiggled again, this time removing her panties.
My naked cock pressing up to her naked backside? Heaven.
Then her back was peeling away from my chest.
“Undo my bra,” she ordered.
I did, and she pulled that off seconds later, too.
“Better,” she said as she snuggled back in, tangling her legs with mine.
I moved so that I could press my nose to her hair.
Cherries and vanilla.
She smelled like a cherry cheesecake.
Which made me hungry.
She shifted again, this time bringing her leg up and over mine, widening her thighs and twisting around until my cock lodged itself where she wanted it—against her pussy.
I grinned when she once again closed her legs.
“Impressive,” I murmured.
“I got skills,” she teased.
I brought my thumb up and swept it across the nipple that I could feel poking against my forearm.
She hissed in a breath of surprise.
I did it again and she wriggled.
God, the wriggling was killing me. Slowly and surely.
The wetness of her pussy was bathing my cock, and I was nearly cross-eyed as I forced myself to stay still. Her adding the wriggling into the mix? Yeah, this cuddling thing wasn’t going to be considered cuddling for long.
I moved my hand up to palm her breast, causing her to inhale sharply.
Again, she wriggled.
Jesus help me.
I couldn’t stop myself from pumping my hips once, sawing the length of my cock between her pussy lips and inner thighs. Just one pump of my cock, but it was enough to coat it completely with her juices.
I could feel the tip of my cock being kissed with cool air and nearly groaned when she reached down between her legs and circled the head with one finger.
I bit down lightly on the cord of her neck.
“Fuck,” I exhaled. “You kill me.”
“I kill you?” she chuckled. “Try the other way around, Lou.”
I loved it when she called me Lou. Or Louie.
Hell, I’d take asshole from her if it meant that she was still talking to me.
“I’m not trying to kill you,” I told her honestly. “I kind of just wanted to cuddle. I missed you.”
“Cuddle later.” She laughed, digging her nails into the hand that was still cupping her breast. My thumb ever so slowly was swiping over her nipple. In an unhurried fashion, and definitely not in a rhythm that she could anticipate the next move.
I licked my lips, tasting salt.
Then I moved so that I could drag my tongue along the length of her neck, stopping just below her ear.
She breathed out slowly, her nipple pebbling even harder in my hand.
Then she moved her ass, this time purposefully, and caused my cock to tunnel through her folds again.
But she didn’t stop at just once like I had.
She continued to do it. Over and over again, keeping her hand at the front of her thighs so that her fingers could touch my cock head when I reached the end.
“Jesus, baby,” I said softly. “I just wanted to cuddle.”
She snickered and tilted her hips, this time when I went to tunnel forward, I pushed straight into her tight pussy.
My hand on her breast tightened as ecstasy rushed through me.
Being inside her any time was a treat. Being inside her after denying myself the privilege was like coming home after a long day.
It felt right.
Perfect.
Like mine.
“God,” she breathed, her leg lifting to hook backward against my leg again.
I nearly came right then and there when I felt her hands at her entrance, feeling where we were connected.
I thrust hard into her, licking my lips when her belly contracted against the palm of my hand where I was holding her for my assault.
I lifted my top leg up, taking hers with me, spreading her wide for the taking.
She shifted her hips a bit, and suddenly there was no more talking. No more anything but the thrusting of my hips, the slap of flesh, and the sound of our heavy breathing.
I moved my hand down to her hip for a better handhold and strengthened my thrusts.
Her hand at where we were connected pressed down hard, and then she was coming.
Her internal muscles squeezed my dick hard, coaxing my release from me in a matter of seconds.
I cursed, felt my balls draw up, and then gave one final thrust before freezing inside of her and coming.
I could feel the hot pulses leaving me and entering her, bathing her insides with my essence.
Muscle by muscle, I finally came unfrozen, realizing rather quickly that my handhold on her hip likely would be a bruise on her in the morning.
I rubbed the hurt away before rolling us so that I was sitting up on the side of the bed, my cock still firmly lodged inside of her.
“As much as I want you to stay just like this,” I said. “I only have one set of sheets, and if we get these wet with my cum, then we’re gonna have to sleep in it.”
She started to giggle as she pressed a smacking kiss to my cheek.
Then she climbed off.
It took everything that I had to let her.
Seconds after, I followed behind her, watching as she cranked the shower on.
“A shower at this hour?” I asked.
She tossed me a smile over her shoulder.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m not overly tired, and it’s already four in the morning. I think I’m going to get up and work on this article… and you look like you can use the shower.”
I could.
I’d done a lot of nervous sweating over the last couple of hours, as well as actual sweat
ing. The gear that we had to wear on the SWAT calls was hot as balls.
Needless to say, she was right.
Following in after her, I hissed and pulled away from the stream of water.
“Sorry,” she said as she stayed exactly where she was, boiling her skin off with the temperature of the water.
“You’re not sorry,” I said, pulling her toward me with a hand around her waist.
I reversed our positions, feeling the skin of my back practically sloughing off with the water.
I hissed in a breath through my teeth, causing her to laugh.
“You can handle all that crap you go through on a daily basis that comes with being a police officer.” She tilted her head back so she could eye me. “I literally saw you drink that black sludge you call coffee yesterday when I was there, too. Yet you can’t handle a little hot water?”
I shivered when my skin finally got used to the overheated feeling.
“This isn’t just hot water. Did you even add any cold to it when you turned it on and stepped inside?” I asked, pulling her closer.
Her hair started to slick back from her face, and I took everything in that I could see. From her wet head to the tips of her breasts that were pressed against my chest.
“I turned it on a little bit,” she allowed, her eyes narrowing. “We need to talk.”
I felt something inside my chest start to break wide open.
This was it.
This was what I was waiting for.
I knew that it was coming.
Eventually, I knew that she was going to realize that she’d…
“I love you, too.”
Everything that was screaming inside of my head came to a sudden bone-jarring halt.
“I’m… what?” I asked.
She pushed my hair back away from my face, her eyes glittering with amusement.
“You keep saying it, then running away like a little girl,” she said. “And I just wanted you to know that I love you, too. I’ve never stopped.”
My heart started to pound.
“Now that I’ve cleared that up… we need to talk about birth control,” she said softly. “I’m not going to leave, Lou.”
“That’s not the only reason…” I started, but the roll of her eyes had me stopping.
“Do you seriously want a kid right now?” she asked.
I… didn’t know.
“We may have already taken the choice out of either one of our hands,” she said. “Now, I realize that we’ll have to wait to confirm… and I should know in the next week. But I think that we need to start using birth control. I love you, but there are things that I want to do with just us before we get to that point.”
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