by Caisey Quinn
“I don’t know,” Chase admitted reluctantly. “But I damn sure intend to find out.”
Twenty-two
After they arrived at the house and took quick showers to wash the grimy aftermath of their shift off, Vivien stepped inside Chase’s darkened bedroom in only a towel. Because he often worked nights and slept during the day, he had the best blackout curtains she’d ever seen. After the shift they’d had, she should’ve been dead on her feet. But watching him stand there with only a black towel wrapped around his waist, her body was instantly on high alert, excess energy and anxiety surging through her as if she were hooked to an electric current.
Darkness was still an issue for her, even after all these years, but she breathed through it. Inhaling the warm, clean scent of the man she loved helped.
“I can turn the lamp on,” he told her, pulling her into his arms before they lowered themselves onto the bed.
“I can handle it.” The bed dipped beneath their weight.
“Don’t think about the darkness. Focus on something else.”
She purred against his lips. “And what do you think I should focus on?”
“This,” Chase answered, opening her towel to expose a taut nipple to his mouth.
She arched against him, savoring the sensations his attention provoked. He continued laving his tongue against her sensitive flesh until she was whimpering pleas for him to relieve the needful ache his ministrations caused.
He lowered his mouth to her stomach while gently easing the towel out from under her body.
Once it had been tossed aside Chase licked lower, leaving a damp trail from her belly button to her pelvic bone.
“Spread for me, sweetheart.”
She did as he commanded, happy to relinquish the control for a while.
He slid his tongue gently through her folds, increasing pressure with each stroke until she was moaning his name.
“I will never get enough of you, of the taste of you, the scent, the feel . . .” He shifted upward, bracing himself above her and lacing his fingers with hers.
Vivien marveled at how holding hands while he entered her could be just as intimate as his mouth on her.
He rocked gently, setting a rhythm that had her climbing the ascent to orgasm within moments.
Just as she began to enter the euphoric freefall, Chase froze, holding her still with his electric stare.
“I love you, Viv. I have always loved you. I promise to love you until my last breath. Probably even after that.”
Emotions welled inside of her, breaking with the force of a tidal wave. “I love you, too, baby. More than you could possibly imagine.”
He thrusted hard inside, then lowered his mouth to her ear. “Never leave me again, Viv. Not to protect me, not to chase a perp, and sure as hell not for a job or my own good or whatever reason you think of. Promise you’ll never leave again.”
Vivien turned her head to kiss his mouth. There was a deep sensual meeting of lips and tongues before she pulled back. “I will never leave you, Chase. You’re stuck with me. For as long as you want me.”
“Forever, Viv. I want you forever.”
***
Vivien blinked herself awake, unsure as to what time it was. She was typically an early riser, but the Music City Bomber case had her pulling insane shifts night and day.
Chase’s embrace tightened around her from behind.
“Morning,” he mumbled sleepily in her ear—the deep cadence of his voice rumbling through to her core.
“More like afternoon, I think.”
“It’s killing you not to be up and running at the crack of dawn, isn’t it?”
Vivien laughed. “Maybe a little.”
“Think you can put your run off for a little while? Come somewhere with me?”
She turned in his arms and rubbed her nose against the length of his. “Hmm. Maybe. If there’s food and coffee involved.”
Chase grinned. “I think I can manage that.” He slapped her bare ass lightly. “But if you don’t get dressed soon, we aren’t leaving this bed. Ever.”
She kissed his lips softly. “Is that right?”
He arched a thick, dark brow. “You want to test the theory?”
She felt him hardening against her. She bit his bottom lip and sucked it into her mouth. “Maybe.”
Chase pulled her body flush against his. “We still have a lot of lost time to make up for, babe.”
She ran her fingers through his hair before tracing his jawline. “And how do you propose we do that?”
He smirked. “It involves me being inside you for as long as possible. We might need to use our vacation time.”
Vivien was about to tell him that that was just fine by her when the bedroom door opened slightly. “I’m not looking. I see nothing,” Annalise’s voice announced to no one in particular. “And I’m sorry for interrupting. But I have three very important things to tell you.”
Chase pulled the covers over them. “We’re covered. Let’s hear it.”
Annalise still didn’t come into the room; she just nudged the door open a little further.
“Thing number one, I think we’ve decoded the map so to speak in the Music City Bomber case.”
Chase sat up so Vivien followed suit. “And?”
“And most of the public locations marked are stages or major vendor locations for the CMA Music Festival. Several of the musicians we contacted are performing there.”
“Son of a bitch,” Chase muttered. “When is it?”
“One week,” Annalise reported glumly. “Which isn’t much time to prepare. But I’ve already started petitioning the Chief to allow us to alert all the vendors, artists, and sponsors involved.”
“Well, that’s a start. What else?”
“Tobias Edwards, Lewis’s ex-roommate?”
Chase frowned as if trying to remember.
“Blond guy. Worked at the containment facility where Lewis obtained the materials found in the storage unit.”
Chase’s brow lines eased slightly. “Ah. Okay. What about him?”
Annalise stepped further into the room but kept her eyes averted. “He lied. He didn’t meet Lewis when he put an ad for a roommate on Craigslist like he said.”
“How do you know?” Vivien asked, making sure the covers were securely in place so she wasn’t flashing her friend.
“I checked Lewis’s unit from his time in the Marine Corps. Edwards was in the same company. They were deployed together for seven months.”
“What the hell?” Chase bit out. “Has he been picked up yet? Did he think we were stupid and we wouldn’t check?”
Annalise shrugged. “He’s in the wind, but you can ask him when we find him.”
“Jesus.” Chase sighed. “Well, that’s something at least. What’s the third thing?”
Annalise looked less stressed about the rest of the news she had to deliver. “Ethan just called me looking for you.”
Vivien gave him a questioning glance.
“Yeah, we’re running late. You mind texting and telling him we’ll be there in a few?”
“I told him you were currently tied up,” Annalise said with a giggle. “I wasn’t sure if that was completely accurate but I suspected.”
“Do you ever go to your own place?”
Vivien could tell that the ribbing he gave was good-natured. In a way, as much as she hung around, Annalise had become like a little sister to him, it seemed. For a guy with not much family to speak of, Vivien knew he probably cared a great deal for the woman. She was glad it seemed to be completely platonic though on both of their ends.
“Shut it, Fisk. I’ll text Ethan, but he sounded anxious.” As an afterthought she added, “Call me later, V!”
“Okay,” Vivien called back.
“V?” Chase inquired.
He shook his head as he stood. “She grows on people like that.”
As they each began putting on clothes, Vivien asked the question that had been burning in the back of her mind. “So Luke and Annalise . . .”
“Are both shady as hell when it comes to the other.” He zipped and buttoned his jeans. “They’re friends but I always feel like they’re doing this elaborate dance to avoid coming in close contact with each other. Honestly, I don’t know any details. I met them all later, during basic training. But there’s some history there for sure. Just can’t figure out what it is.”
Vivien nodded. “I’m a Federal freaking Agent and I can’t figure it out.”
Chase laughed. “Come on, Federal freaking Agent. We have somewhere to be.”
They left the house, stopping to pick up Mishka from Becca Chan’s house before driving nearly an hour into the country to where Ethan Meadows’s parents lived.
“It’ll be good for her to visit him,” Vivien said as the landscape stretched into acres of farmland.
Chase nodded absently while fiddling with the radio. “It’s more than a visit.”
Vivien glanced at the dog, who appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the windows in the back being down. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn the K9 was smiling. “She looks awfully healthy for early retirement.”
Chase turned the volume down. “She has PTSD. From what happened to him.”
“Really?” Vivien fisted her hair with one hand to keep the wind from blowing it in her face. Chase handed her a Yankees ball cap, and she slid it on backward.
Chase shrugged. “That’s what the paperwork says. So that’s what we’re going with.”
Vivien felt a broad smile stretch across her face. “You facilitate this, Officer Fisk?”
He took her hand on the gearshift and kissed the top of it. “I’m not the Tin Man, you know. I have a heart.”
“And a good heart it is.”
“He needs her,” Chase said softly. “And I get that. Now more than ever.”
Half an hour later, Vivien stood at the edge of fenced yard watching Chase and Ethan take turns throwing a red ball for the black Lab while Chase filled Ethan in on the updates with the bomber case.
He was good man with a good heart. How she’d lived four years without him, she didn’t know. It hadn’t been living, she supposed. More like merely existing.
Her mind regressed to two years in the past. She watched herself get out of the car, walk to his doorstep, and tell the random blonde she’d pay for her Uber ride home.
Maybe that was what she should’ve done. But she hadn’t. And she had to live with that. They’d taken the long way around, but the destination was the same.
Chase Fisk was her forever.
A small red two-door sports car rolled down the gravel drive, and Ethan lit up even more than he had when Mishka had arrived.
The therapist she’d met in the hospital—Olivia, Vivien remembered—stepped out and shook her head.
“I need her approval,” she told Vivien, nodding at the dog, once they’d said their hellos.
“For?”
The other woman rolled her eyes. “She’s my maid of honor.”
Vivien laughed out loud but a rush of emotion brought gooseflesh to her arms. “So he was right. You are going to marry him?”
Olivia nodded her head and her curls bobbed. “The day he was released from the hospital I realized I didn’t want to go a day without seeing him. Without hearing his voice or telling him to wipe that cocky grin off his face.” She sighed. “He’s a fighter. He never gave up once, no matter how hard I pushed or how low the odds of a full recovery seemed. And, Lord, girl, he asked me out every day and I turned him down until I was blue in the face. But he never got discouraged, never got hateful or bitter about me not being receptive to his advances. He turned down every single nurse that hit on him. Told them he couldn’t do anything to upset his future wife. And it’s crazy, I know it’s crazy, but I don’t think there are many men out there with that kind of fortitude and tenacity. Plus he’s superhot. So there’s that.”
“I don’t think it’s crazy,” Vivien told her with a laugh. “I think it’s brave. For both of you. Taking a chance on love, it’s terrifying and amazing all at once.”
Ethan jogged over to them and gave Olivia a kiss worthy of a Hollywood movie scene. Mishka nosed her way between them, giving the petite brunette several hand licks of approval. Vivien met Chase’s eyes as he rolled them at her and grinned.
Love was kind of crazy, Vivien decided. Putting that kind of hope and faith and trust in another person just because they asked you to. Risking everything even though there were no tests that could give definitive proof, no guarantees, no net. Just a freefall, hoping on a wing and a prayer the other person would be there to catch you at the bottom.
When Chase and Vivien finally left Ethan, Olivia, and Mishka—all three looking like it was the happiest day of their lives—Vivien reached her hand out to his with a heart full of emotion.
He took it and she savored his warmth against her skin. He always seemed to radiate heat, and for a woman who was still a cold little girl hiding in a closet on the inside, that was important.
“Love is a funny thing,” she said as they made their way to the rental currently replacing his destroyed truck.
“Meaning?”
She shrugged. “Meaning it’s alive. It’s tangible. It’s undeniable. It survives the harshest of circumstances, thrives when you least expect it to.”
“Just like you,” Chase answered.
“Just like us,” she corrected him.
Twenty-three
Three days before the CMA Music Festival
Chase pressed his earpiece in deeper. “Clear on Broadway.”
A few women who were obviously tourists, judging from their bedazzled cowgirl boots, gave him an interested once-over. He kept walking.
“Clear on Church,” Vivien’s voice said over the radio.
“Park’s clear,” Becca Chan reported.
The remaining officers, including Campbell, reported their locations as clear as well.
Annalise had presented her case to the department and there was no denying that the plans they’d found in the storage facility heavily indicated the attack would take place at CMA Fest. It was the only time the multiple locations marked on the map would be used simultaneously and it was undoubtedly going to be when downtown Nashville was the most heavily populated.
For many people in Nashville, CMA Fest meant booze and live music. For some it meant traffic for days.
For Chase and the rest of the EOD team, it was a logistical nightmare.
Eighty thousand fans. Another couple hundred people, including high-profile performers and their entourages. Television crews and radio personalities would be giving the event tons of social and regular media coverage. It was a four-day-long event that would be a prime target for a would-be bomber.
The sprawling festival would take up several city blocks, including the Ascend Amphitheater, the Green—a large open landscape surrounded by buildings—Walk of Fame Park, and practically every street in the heart of downtown. Roads would be closed to everyone except emergency vehicles, bodies would be everywhere, and a maniac was still on the loose. Tobias Edwards was now officially a suspect even though they hadn’t located him yet. Lewis was being followed, but evidence was still scarce when it came to making an arrest.
The tail they’d put on Lewis hadn’t been able to nail him doing much of anything except coming and going between his mom’s house and the liquor store. He’d given them the slip a few times for a few hours here and there, and Chase suspected those were the windows of time in which he’d been working on rebuilding what they’d taken from him.
“The dud at the Ryman was a test run,” Annalise had explained during their last shift. “He probably timed everything from start to finish. So now he knows how long it takes him to plant it, how long it takes us to find it and respond, as well as defuse it and clear out.”
Chase hated feeling like he was being played.
As much as he hated to admit it, it was a pretty solid plan. Even with all the off duty cops working the festival along with the private security people that traveled with the artists, they still wouldn’t have the manpower to cover every inch of downtown.
The fact that they were days away from the festival and still didn’t have enough evidence to hold Eric Lewis for more than twenty-four hours made him sick to his stomach.
Music drifted in and out of the bars on the strip, blending together in a medley of modern and traditional country songs.
They were sweeping potential locations day in and day out with no luck. It was frustrating work and the higher-ups were already consulting with the folks in charge to recommend canceling the festival completely. Canceling would mean a huge revenue loss for the city, not to mention the reduction in tourism if word of the threat got out.
More important to Chase, it would mean that he had failed. His boss, his city, and to keep Vivien safe.
As the sun began to set, the neon lights glowed even brighter on the strip. Dwarfed by the skyscrapers that made up the skyline, the rows of bars, shops, restaurants, and honky tonks came to life with people spilling out at every turn. Chase tried to make eye contact, to search every face for any signs of malice. But so far it was just a booze-scented, harmless crowd. Everyone he saw only seemed to be out to have a good time.
After two more rounds of check-ins with no news of anything suspicious, Chase and his team headed back to the precinct.
Vivien met him at the SUV parked down by the river. “Any word from his tail?”
“Still at his mom’s, far as we can tell.”
“I’m starving,” Vivien confessed. “I kept meaning to grab something but never did.”