Thicker than Water

by Danae Ayusso

  She nodded her understanding. Colt knew that it takes twenty-minutes, at least, for Cat to get into her disguise, and the fact that she was waiting for him and not expecting anyone else could have possibly exposed her.

  “I tried text messaging you, but it was undeliverable. I thought you ran,” he said softly as he caressed the back of his finger against her cheek.

  Cat looked down at him and forced a smile. “I’m not running,” she assured him. “I’ll take a look at your phone and see what you did to it this time, Fury. I swear, you and electronics are a dangerous combo.”

  He nodded. “I agree. You promise you won’t leave me?”

  Cat wanted to assure him more than anything, but she couldn’t. Lieutenant Catalina Rossi didn’t lie, to anyone about anything. And telling Colt that she’d always be here and that they would be together just wasn’t something that she could, in good conscience, do.

  “Not at the moment,” she whispered instead; that was open ended enough.

  Colt saw it for what it was, but he expected no less from her . She was honest, and he respected that. “Why did you come here?” he asked instead of pressing it.

  She chuckled. “Honestly?”

  He reluctantly nodded.

  “There was no place else I rather be,” Cat said with a smile and it made him smile in return. “While I made myself at home,” she said, sliding the Beretta under the pillow and pulled out a pink and white diary, “I did some reading. You didn’t finish Vicks’ diary, did you?”

  Colt sighed and looked away from her then made himself comfortable on her chest. “No.”

  “You should have finished it,” she scolded.

  He shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly. “Mid-way through, it started to piss me off… I never realized how infantile she was and what she truly thought of me. Seeing the world, reading her thoughts through her eyes and words, made me realize that I never knew her at all. All of the reassuring that she did, telling me how I wasn’t like my father, mother or grandfather, and that I wasn’t a pushover like my dad, was in actually Vicks telling me what she, in essence, wanted me to assure her of. She wasn’t all sacrificing like her parents, wasn’t scared to be herself like her twin, wasn’t bitter and cynical like her grandmother. I never knew that she thought of herself like that so I never assured her that she wasn’t like that… Not that any of that was a bad thing, but in her mind, in her eyes, it was the end of the world.”

  Cat nodded. “I know. She... Fury, don’t take this the wrong way, but you two were all wrong for each other.”

  A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he saw the opening he’d been waiting for. “You don’t say? And what do I need, Rossi?” he asked as indifferently as possible.

  “You need someone who has your back with a Glock, who is strong enough to tell you when you’re being a scemo, who won’t back down, won’t let you turn into your grandfather, mother, father, or dad. You needed someone who is just as strong as you are so they can help shoulder the burden—emotional, physical, spiritual, job wise—and in return you’d do the same. Vicks, she wanted some Prince fucking Charming that’d lay his jacket on the ground over puddles and who smiled and never let the harsh realities of the world get to him because the world was perfect in his eyes. She was… I would have smacked her,” she said pointblank, her accent getting so thick that Colt had to struggle to understand her. “If I would have known her and saw the disaster that you two were together, I would have smacked her and most likely shot you. Just a flesh wound, but still. You needed someone who is-”

  “Like you,” he interrupted.

  Cat opened her mouth to rebut him but promptly closed it.

  Colt nodded his understanding with a smile.

  “Huh, how in the hell did that happen?” she asked.

  He rested his chin on his arm that was draped across her breasts and looked up at her. “Does that upset you, Rossi?”

  She made a face. “No, but Frankie would be laughing his ass off at me right now. He always said I was oblivious to what’s in front of me.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Colt said.

  “It’s true. Frankie told me that I need to be honest with you so I’m going to attempt it.”

  He nodded and slid off of her.

  “Hey! Where are you going? I was trying to open up here,” she complained, sounding like a girl from the Bronx.

  “And I appreciate that more than you’ll ever know, but there’s something I’ve never wanted to do with anyone other than you, and I think that you’ll relax more if you opened up there.”

  Cat cocked an eyebrow. “That sounds strangely ominous yet kinky,” she admitted.

  Colt chuckled. “Only you, Rossi,” he said and disappeared into the bathroom.

  She huffed. “Am I supposed to follow or are you taking a dump?” she called out.

  He ducked his head out of the bathroom doorway and gave her a look. “You’re supposed to follow, but you paint such a lovely mental picture.”

  A smile consumed her face.

  “I’ve never been romantic,” he continued, his head disappearing back into the bathroom but his voice carried really well, “but for some reason I feel the need to give it a try with you. I got Vicks flowers and candy, but she always was the one that hinted that she would have liked something so I’d buy it. She appeared to have liked the attempt but I suppose I could have done more.”

  Cat had padded across the floor and leaned against the doorframe, watching as Colt made a fire in the out of place fireplace in the bathroom. She thought it was funny to have one in there, but after nearly freezing to death a couple of times when the fire went out and the only thing keeping her warm was the mountain of a man wrapped around her in the bed, she quickly learned that the more fireplaces the merrier in Montana. “She reminded me of a needy broad,” she said.

  Colt looked over his shoulder at her. “In not so many words, but I’ve never heard anyone but you call her a broad.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “A bit but I know you use the term loosely… You’ve called Emma a broad a few times and she just laughs. I don’t take offense to it, but I wouldn’t use it around Jimmy. He’ll go off. He was always protective of her.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about-”

  “No,” he cut her off.

  “Fury, you don’t understand-” she started to argue, but he cut her off again.

  “No shoptalk. This is a moment for us, not for Vicks or Jimmy or Pope…not even for Frankie. This is just you and I, doing something slightly romantic in the only way that I know how to actually be romantic and true to myself. You were going to attempt to open up to me, and I am more than eager for you to do that, but I want to do it in a bath.”

  Cat roared with laughter, sliding down the doorframe when her shaking legs could no longer support her.

  Colt wasn’t laughing or joking. He ignored her and plugged the antique claw foot tub then turned the water on as hot as it would and began to fill it.

  Steam quickly rolled across the surface of the water, veiling the room in a hazy ambiance.

  “How did you-” she asked between bouts of laughter.

  “Water heater,” he said, once again cutting her off. “I told you there’s power out here. I was just too lazy to flip the switch. After the first night you stayed, I flipped the switch. I wanted you comfortable, and for the longest time this tub has just sat here. It called out to me from a flea market while I was on leave when I was twenty and I had to get it….it’s hard to find a tub big enough for a man my size, let alone one big enough for me and someone else. It wasn’t until I came back from town that first night you stayed here and I found you wrapped in a blanket with a fire going, huddled up in it with case file in hand, reading in the morning light coming through the window, that I realized the person I wanted to share it with for the first time was you.”

  Cat cocked an eyebrow; she’d never admit it, but that was the mo
st romantic thing anyone has ever said to her.

  Colt sat back on his heels and looked over at her. “I’m not romantic, Rossi. We both know I’m not Prince fucking Charming, as you put it. I don’t open up and express myself…you tend to bring that out in me, as much as I don’t like it. Rossi, I feel towards you more than I ever felt towards Vicks and that scares the hell out of me.”

  “Why?” Cat whispered, struggling to keep the tears stinging her eyes back.

  “I knew Vicks wasn’t going anywhere,” he said. “Her life was here in Eureka, as much as I hated the place, it was the only place I knew she’d ever call home. But with you, I could open my eyes in the morning, and all that would remain of you is a pillow with your scent and the hollow feeling in my heart, which once housed the hope that you could love me in return.” He shut the water off and turned his attention to the water’s surface. “When I got back to the cabin, I knew you weren’t there before I even opened the door. Never had I felt more abandonment and loss than I did at that moment…not even when I lost my parents, grandfather, or Vicks. Then when I pulled up to my hole in the mountain, it didn’t feel how I thought it would. I felt as if I was home, and that was purely because I knew you were inside. It doesn’t matter where I am, Rossi. Home is where you are. I can only hope one day you feel the same.”

  ‘I told you he loves you that much,’ Frankie’s voice amusingly echoed in her mind. ‘Stop being scared to let someone in and let him see you for you, Rossi. You honored me with allowing me to see nearly all of you…and not in the naked sense, though I’m not complaining about that in the least....but you never truly let me see all of you. I love you, Rossi. Always have and always will, but now it’s time for someone else to love you, only now you have the chance to love him in return. Be the man I know you are…okay, that was funny. But you know what I mean.’

  Sadly I do.

  Cat stood and offered Colt her hand and she pulled him to his feet. “You ask a lot, Fury,” she informed him and he nodded. “But I can’t fault you for that. I’m a hot piece of ass, I’ve heard.”

  He laughed and, again, nodded his agreement.

  “You’re offering something for the first time… It’s my first as well,” she reluctantly admitted. “How’d you want to do this? Naked or underwear?”

  Colt swallowed hard. “Your choice,” he managed to say. He didn’t expect her to say yes just like that.

  “God you’re cute when you blush,” she informed him and went to work unfastening his belt buckle. “I’m not scared of being naked in front of people that I trust…I’ve been shot a couple of times, and I’m sure you’ve seen the scars, but they’re ugly badges of regret, not honor so…” her words trailed off as she freed the last button on his button fly.

  Colt took her face between his hands and coaxed her to look up at him. “Scars or not, Rossi, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I dream of your amazing body…most of the time you’re dead, cut up and in a field, but still, you’re beautiful.”

  She snorted and it made him smile. “You sure do know how to show a girl a good time.”

  “I’m trying,” he reminded her.

  “It’s more than anyone else has ever done,” she assured him and slid his pants down his hips and thighs, then cocked an eyebrow at the impressive pitch in the front of his boxer briefs.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  Cat stood and looked him in the eye. “That’s impressive, Fury. But let me air my dirty laundry before I do something we both might regret later. Deal?”

  Not entirely sure what he would regret, he nodded and allowed her to pull his undershirt over his head, dropping it to the floor behind him and he stepped out of his pants.

  Colt didn’t have anything other than rose scented oil, and when Cat cocked an eyebrow over it and crossed her arms as she made a silent stand, he nodded his understanding: Cat didn’t do flowers or anything sweet smelling.

  When he slid into the steaming water, she watched him with a look on her face that he’d never seen from her before. For the first time she appeared completely content yet vulnerable. He wasn’t entirely sure if he liked the latter or what could possibly make her feel like that, especially in his presence, but he was too nervous to ask. Once he was situated, his long legs bent at the knees and sticking out of the water, his large body nearly filling the entire tub, Cat turned her back to him and pulled the undershirt she wore over her head and dropped it to the floor and covered her breasts with one arm.

  “I’m not repeating with my drawers,” she informed him with a smirk.

  “Thank you,” he said before he could stop himself; the thought of her naked in the bathtub with him was nearly too much for him to handle—he already felt as if he was going to burst at any moment.

  Cat stepped into the water, one arm firmly over her breasts, and made herself comfortable opposite of Colt so she could look at him. His large feet hugged her hips and there was really no place for her legs so she rested her feet on his stomach, her toes playfully scrunching the thin coat of golden hair under them.

  Colt chuckled and took one foot between his hands, and tenderly rubbed the knots from it.

  “Ooh, that feels amazing,” she mumbled, her body instantly relaxing in the hot water under his touch.

  He simply nodded and watched her in the dancing light from the fireplace. He could see the tension visibly leave her body, and all of her features relaxed and became softer looking. Yes, she was still Lieutenant Rossi and would forever have that hard-ass cop edge, but there was now a softer, feminine side to her that made Cat even more beautiful.

  After a moment of silence, Cat licked her lips and reluctantly opened her eyes to look at him. “You’ve told me so much about you, and I’ve told you nothing about me. Yet, you love me and I think that I’m…I feel strongly towards you. That’s the closest thing I can say to match your sentiment. I’m really damaged,” she admitted. “I’ve never said I love you to anyone before, not even mio madre. Not telling her, or Frankie for that matter, that I loved them is one of the biggest regrets I have in my life. I wasn’t in love with Frankie, but I loved him. He was the better part of me in many ways, and he got me when no one else did and never judged me. Questioned me a million times, sure, but he never judged me. That was more than I could say for anyone else I had ever met in my life.”

  Colt nodded his understanding but didn’t say anything.

  “I have a thing for badges, Fury. Each person I’ve…hit the sheets with, let’s say, were badge carrying members of the right side of the law. Mio padre, he was on one side of the law and I was hell bent that I was going to be on the other. I went out of my way to try to put him away…what kind of daughter does that make me? I spent my entire adult life trying to put the one person who unconditionally loved me behind bars. Never did I tell him thank you or that I loved him. That I wished things could have been different between us. I never got that opportunity. And now, looking back on it, it’s just another regret to add to the ever growing list.”

  She huffed and shook her head in aspiration.

  “You know what’s funny, Fury?” she rhetorically asked. “Padre was always there for me no matter what. He paid for my schooling, after Madre died he paid for my Au Pair and he added security, even though he didn’t know I knew about it, I did, and he paid for my tuition to the Police Academy. Padre knew that my sole reason for existing, after Madre died, was to put him away. I blamed him for her death…still do to an extent, but never did he say or try to convince me that it wasn’t his fault. I found out later that it actually wasn’t, but I still blamed him because it was easier to hate and blame him for everything that’s gone wrong in my life than it was to simply say I’m sorry.

  “After I graduated from the Police Academy, which he went to the ceremony… Do you have any idea how awkward it was to have every uniform in the place turn and look at him, their fingers itching on their triggers? Yet, he paid them no attention at all
; he just smiled as he watched me glare at him from the stage? Then when Frankie and I moved into our loft in Queens, it was only rent controlled because Padre was paying ninety-percent of the rent. I didn’t know, neither did Frankie, but I caught a button man delivering the next three-month’s rent when I was coming home from the precinct. I guess I should have known better, how else would two beat cops, rookies at that, be able to afford a water view loft in Queens? When we moved to the Bronx, Padre did the same thing: paid the rent. I told him to stop. I practically begged him to stop, but he didn’t and simply kissed me on the top of the head and smiled before leaving. The man was stubborn...Madre always said I got that from him.

  “When I went to I.A. and started busting their meat eaters…cops on their payroll,” she explained, “I went after every family. It got me a big target on my head. And a part of me welcomed it because it meant that I was doing the right thing. But I was untouchable. There are rules that even the Five Families abide by no matter what, and the one that stands above the rest is that you don’t touch a child of someone in the organization if they aren’t in the organization…in not so many words. My actions and badge earned me many enemies on the streets and within the Five Families, but Padre never asked me to stop. He was proud of me even as I tried my damnedest to ruin him and everything he worked so damn hard for.

  “Two years ago,” she whispered, struggling to find the words, “a private war between the Families went public. Soldiers started acting on the orders of those that should never have been giving orders. Button men were icing people at an alarming rate, many of whom had no ties to any Family. It was chaos. But I knew who was behind it.”

  “Your father?” Colt whispered.

  Cat smiled. “No. Padre was a man of honor, even if he chose not to follow an honorable path. No, the problem was Daniele Calandriello, the consigliere of the Calandriello Family. Something set him off. I’m not entirely sure what, but I have a pretty good idea.”

  “What?” he asked, curious about the inner workings of the world she used to be part of, in essence.