Twisted and Tied

by Mary Calmes

  “Smooth talker,” I murmured, hearing my heart pound in my ears.

  He tried to smile.

  Lifting one hand, I struggled to get my jacket off. I needed to slow the bleeding and warm him up so he didn’t go into shock.

  “Do not ruin a perfectly good Tom Ford jacket,” he scolded. “It’s no use. Just sit here for a moment and take the gun.”

  I looked at the automatic rifle and then back at his rapidly graying face. “What?”

  “Honestly,” he sighed, “how you’ve stayed alive this long… the driver is still—”

  The sound of an engine revving caught our attention before the van drove off with a squeal of tires.

  “Well, that’s heartening,” he deadpanned before he coughed up some blood.

  “Shit,” I choked out, rummaging through his jacket for his phone, having left mine with Ian. “Where the hell is your—”

  “In the van,” he whispered, letting go of the gun and lifting his left hand toward me.

  I grabbed it fast with my right, felt how cold it was, and held tighter even as blood pooled between the fingers of my left. “Goddammit, where the fuck is everyone?!”

  “Oh,” he said so softly I had to lean down, my ear close to his mouth. “You’re really scared, aren’t you?”

  It was so useless now. He wasn’t a threat anymore, and yes, he was a horror, but somehow… not. It made no sense and revolved as much around the life of a mixed-breed dog as it did me and him and how he’d been in my life longer than even Ian. A very big part of me was defined by my interactions with him. I could feel it in my heart, in my stomach, the rising ache.

  “I don’t—this isn’t how I wanted—we’re supposed to be even,” I said, turning to look at him, into his eyes, so close, our noses almost bumping. “I saved you, you saved me—how am I gonna pay you back?” I asked, my eyes filling.

  “Next time,” he whispered, lifting his chin. “Come here.”

  Without thought, I turned my head so his lips pressed to my cheek as he squeezed my hand, so tight for just a moment.

  “Always knew you were mine,” he said, exhaling.

  I stayed there, frozen for a second, and then turned to meet his gaze as his grip slowly lessened, and his hand would have slipped from mine if I wasn’t the one holding on.

  The last tear slipped down the side of his face, and I brushed it away before closing his eyes.

  It made no sense to cry. He was not a good man. He was, in fact, a monster. But somewhere between him shoving a kitchen knife into my side and taking a rib from me, and telling me that, no, my dog was not dead… he had become my monster. We were not what we once were, and in the end, he took a pair of bullets meant for me and saved my life. People would be writing about him for years.

  I had no idea how to feel, what to think, but sitting there, holding his hand, seemed like the only right thing to do.

  IT WAS quiet and still, like the whole world had stopped, but in another few minutes, I caught the faint sound of sirens.

  I slowly let Hartley’s hand go and placed both, together, on his chest. He looked like he was resting, peaceful, and when he blurred, I realized my eyes were filling, and I put my face in my hands and let myself cry, in private, and mourn a man no one, even Ian, would understand the why of.

  He’d done horrific things to me, but they were mine to forgive, and so I would. Not because he’d saved me. Nothing so cut-and-dry. If he’d left me on the side of the road like he wanted with a “Have a nice life, Miro,” my feelings would be the same. God help me, but he was my friend in some freaky way that made no logical sense.

  So I sat there, bawling, chest tight, tears running down my face because Craig Hartley was the first person I’d ever lost who meant something to me, who was close to me and who had altered the course of my life. I had no parents, no birth family, no one besides Ian and the girls and a few other friends who loved me, and none of them had ever died. This serial killer was the first, and so I broke down there beside him in the mud and felt what it was to lose one of the people who’d helped shape the man I’d become.

  I was glad the cavalry wasn’t there yet because it was allowing me time to grieve, to pour my tears into the ground and come completely apart. It was fortunate no one was there to see me purge the vault of my heart.

  Then a wall of police cars raced by.

  “Miro!”

  Wiping at my eyes roughly, I took a breath, lifted my head, and saw the row of SUVs stopping beside me and Hartley and Kelson.

  “Holy shit,” Ian gasped as he climbed out of the passenger-side door and charged over to me, dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around me.

  I couldn’t breathe, and I was pretty sure he crushed my ribs. But that was okay because he was there, solid and warm, and as long as I was in his arms at the end of things, I called that a win.

  “Oh, baby, what happened?”

  But I couldn’t, not quite yet. All of it too much to vocalize at the moment.

  He held me to his heart, kissed my eyes, my cheeks, the line of my jaw, and then brushed his mouth over mine. I wanted more, and he murmured a promise of showing me how much I was loved when we got home.

  When the Feds arrived along with CPD, Ian helped me to my feet because no way could I walk alone. I couldn’t watch them touch Hartley, didn’t want to see whatever they were going to do with him, so I didn’t look back when Ian put me in the back behind the passenger seat. Eli was driving, and even as Stigler walked toward the SUV, he pulled out and whipped the SUV around, doing a U-turn in the middle of the road leading to the Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling where Hartley had been headed.

  “He saved me,” I said to Ian and Eli—and Ryan and Dorsey, who were also in the SUV—new tears coming fast. “I—Kelson tried to kill me, and Hartley…. He saved me.”

  No one said a word.

  “He took the bullets that Kelson fired at me.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Ian croaked, turning in his seat to give me his hand.

  “Only you, Jones,” Ryan sighed, and when I glanced over at him, he was smiling ruefully. “I don’t know anyone but you who gets saved by a serial killer.”

  We rode the rest of the way back to the office in silence.

  Once there, Ian went with me to one of the smaller meeting rooms, where a forensic team met us.

  He left to get me a set of sweats while the supervisor and two others stripped me down to my underwear, combed mud from my hair, scraped blood from under my nails, and shot an endless amount of pictures of me from every imaginable angle. It didn’t take long, but I was shivering by the time they were done. Ian came in once they finished, pulled the sweatshirt down over my head, and helped me into the pants before he lunged and wrapped me up tight.

  I hugged him back so hard I pulled a groan from deep in his chest.

  “You’re alive and you’re here with me,” he whispered into my hair. “As soon as you’re done talking to the Feds, I’m gonna take you home, and we’re gonna wreck the bed, all right?”

  I nodded into his shoulder. Not that I didn’t always want him, but now I needed him. I needed his warmth over me, around me, in me…. I was cold to my core, and only Ian could make me me again.

  Outside in the hall, Eli was there waiting to lead Ian and me to the large meeting room. Kage was there, along with Stigler and Ryerson and Adair and many others, all of them taking up one side of the enormous table and fanned out around the room.

  Once I was sitting between Ian and Eli, I looked up at Ryerson, who was leaning forward, hands clasped in front of him on the table.

  “How is your son, sir?”

  “Scared but fine, thanks to you, Marshal.”

  I nodded. “I hope that you checked on Kelson before your men got close.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “He did maybe have a bomb in him after all.”

  All eyes lifted to Kage, who was standing somewhere behind me. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him there.
/>   “I told you when I got there to call the bomb squad first, as you will recall.”

  Ryerson turned first to Stigler and then swiveled in his seat to Adair. “Did someone do as the chief deputy suggested and call them?”

  Stigler leaped from her chair and bolted from the room.

  “You people run the biggest clusterfuck I’ve ever seen,” Kage informed Ryerson. “From how many times Hartley got away to this latest debacle. I swear to God, if I ran my office like this, there would be bodies stacked up to the sky.”

  “Chief Deputy, we—”

  “Oh dear God,” Stigler yelled as she rushed back into the room. “No one was hurt, but because the bomb squad wasn’t on-site to check and defuse the device inside Kelson, his body exploded and destroyed two of the SUVs parked on-site.”

  “Holy fuckin’ shit,” Eli snorted, and I did a slow pan to him.

  “What?” he said, gesturing with both hands at Ryerson. “Are you kidding?”

  “And Hartley’s body?” Ryerson asked.

  “Destroyed,” she whispered.

  And suddenly everyone was talking at once.

  I couldn’t even deal. It was too ridiculous. Who didn’t listen to the goddamn chief deputy of Northern Illinois? What kind of idiots just blew him off? How did they not call the bomb squad first fucking thing? It was… insane.

  Leaning my head in my hand, the tears came again even as I started laughing.

  “Marshal?” Ryerson asked.

  How much would Hartley have loved this? His legend was growing already.

  “He’s done,” Ian informed him.

  “But we have questions.”

  “Put it in a memo,” Kage said flatly, patting my shoulder at the same time. “You get up, go home. I don’t want to see you until Monday.”

  “Yessir,” I said, getting to my feet.

  “You too, Doyle. You’re relieved.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  We were out in the hall, where I could breathe, when Eli joined us. Even through walls that were supposed to be pretty damn well-insulated, I could hear Kage yelling.

  “He’s going to eat them,” I told Ian.

  “I certainly fuckin’ hope so.”

  As we walked by the break room on the way out of the office, Eli ducked in and grabbed a couple of kiwis from the enormous basket Mrs. Guzman still sent monthly for Ian and me.

  “I sent her an email again,” I told Ian as Eli caught back up with us. “But I don’t think she’s ever gonna stop sending us fruit.”

  “No,” he agreed, slipping his hand into mine, “I don’t think so either, but that’s okay, right? She can send the fruit if she wants to.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “We think we were just doing our jobs, but that’s not what she thinks. She’s allowed to feel how she wants. We all are.”

  And I got, then, that when I thought before Ian wouldn’t understand how I felt, I was wrong about him. He could read me like a book.

  In the elevator I leaned into him, kissing the side of his neck, inhaling citrus and leather, gun oil, a trace of cedarwood, and just Ian. He smelled like home, and that fast my eyes were swimming again.

  “I really need to take a shower,” I said gruffly, my voice breaking as I rubbed my eyes hard, trying to grind the tears away.

  “Don’t do that,” he cautioned, turning so I could put my cheek down on his shoulder, wiping my whole face on his wool peacoat. “Just hold on, we’ll be home soon.”

  But I was about to dissolve all over again. Everything felt unsteady, like there was nothing underneath me and I wasn’t tethered to anything. I could float away so easily.

  “Can you drive us?” I heard Ian ask Eli.

  “You bet.”

  It was a fog I was walking through, and only Ian’s hands on me, guiding me, steering me forward, kept me moving.

  He got on the phone with someone, but I couldn’t tell who, and honestly, I hardly cared. He was there with me, and that was all that mattered.

  There was snow falling outside my window as I sat in the back seat, my face against the cold glass, wondering what would happen to all of Hartley’s shoes. He had so many.

  And his suits.

  And his art collection, and everything else. If a life came down to what was accumulated, where was it all?

  “Do you think they’ll cremate what’s left of Hartley?” I asked Ian.

  “I dunno,” he murmured gently, taking hold of my hand. “Jesus, you’re like ice,” he grumbled. “C’mon already, Eli.”

  “This is Chicago in rush hour, are you kidding?”

  I closed my eyes for a second, and then Ian was telling me to watch my head as he helped me out of the car.

  Eli hugged me, for whatever reason, and I felt bad for not giving him my regular full-body one back—he was one of my best friends now too—but I just couldn’t summon the energy. And then I was at the front door, having somehow climbed the stoop with Ian.

  “I fell asleep in the car, huh?”

  “Yes, love,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. “C’mon.”

  Inside, he dropped the keys, locked the door, got me out of my parka, and led me upstairs. He got the shower going, stripped me down, and then had me step in under the warm spray.

  “I’m gonna hang everything up, stow the guns, make you some soup—”

  “But I’m not—”

  “You’re gonna eat,” he promised. “But just for now, shower. You’ll feel better after you do.”

  I nodded, and he closed the door.

  “I’ll be right back to check on you, all right?”

  “Okay,” I said, putting my head under the water.

  It was weird, but it was like I couldn’t feel the water, like it wasn’t touching me. I couldn’t feel the warmth, like I hadn’t felt anything when Eli hugged me. It was strange, off, and I wasn’t sure what would turn it back on.

  I went through the motions of washing my hair and body and stood there until the water was turned off and Ian was there, easing me out, putting a towel over my head.

  He was gentle, towel-drying my hair, kissing my cheek when he was done, then drying my face and smiling at me.

  “You’re gorgeous,” I told him, sighing deeply. My beautiful man with his chiseled features and sculpted body was a work of art. “Holy fuck, did I win the lottery or what?”

  “Man, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were stoned,” he teased, drying the rest of me, but not slow like he did when he wanted to fool around, but fast, deliberate, like he wanted it done. “Come on. Aruna’s downstairs, and she brought Chickie and food so you have something better than just chicken noodle.”

  “I like chicken noodle soup,” I said as he passed me my deodorant.

  “Yeah, but Aruna’s food is always a step up, right?”

  There was no argument to be made.

  “Just come on,” he prodded, piloting me out of the bathroom to our bedroom. I got a kiss on the cheek, and then he was gone.

  I could hear them downstairs, and a minute later, Chickie came up the stairs and padded over to the bed where I was sitting with only sweats on.

  Seeing him made me think again of Hartley, and it was stupid, but there were fresh tears as I wrapped my arms around the dog and hugged him.

  Chickie, who outweighed some people I knew, namely Aruna, always considered himself to be a lap dog, so he maneuvered his way up and into my lap, and that was where Ian found us, sitting on the bed together, Chickie rumbling happily as I sobbed into his fur.

  “Oh, baby, you’re gonna hafta take another shower if you smell like wet dog,” he grumbled. “Chickie, get down—go see Aru—don’t you growl at me, you piece of crap, he doesn’t belong to you!” He sounded very affronted, and that, finally, made me smile.

  “Oh, there he is,” Ian murmured before he took my face in his hands, leaned in, and laid a kiss on me that curled my toes. His mouth on mine was mauling, firm, parting my lips as I moaned deeply, needing mo
re, wanting more, craving the heat of him because I was absolutely freezing inside.

  He broke the kiss, and I gasped, clutching at him, wanting him back, my body more than ready for him, willing, able, shivering with something utterly primal. The connection was utterly necessary, and I had to have it.

  Climbing off the bed, he leaned over the railing and yelled down to Aruna. “I need you to walk the dog for me, three times around the block’ll do it, all right?”

  “Going now,” she called back up.

  He was back on the bed in seconds, climbing over me, and I reached up as he bent and took my mouth again, tenderly but possessively, opening me up, rubbing his tongue over mine.

  I wanted his clothes off, but he swatted my hands away, rolling me to my side and holding me there as I sank down into the bed.

  I was a block of ice until Ian was there at my back, his sleek, warm skin sliding over mine as he spooned me, shucking down my sweats at the same time as I felt the head of his cock notch against my crease.

  “Oh please,” I moaned as I heard the cap of the lube flicked open.

  He nuzzled his face into my hair and kissed the back of my neck, taking hold of my shaft and stroking from balls to head as I arched back into him. His hard, muscular thighs were against mine, his ridged stomach and broad chest on my back as he fumbled for a moment, slicking his cock, and I could hear it and smell the mint flavoring of the lubricant he’d purchased by accident last time and ended up liking.

  He used the tee he’d been wearing under his dress shirt and wiped his hand on it, throwing it off the bed as he positioned himself against my hole and pressed slowly inside.

  I cried out his name.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he growled into my hair before he kissed the side of my neck and my cheek. “Turn your head.”

  I twisted for him, and he lifted to kiss me at the same time he pulled me back, pushing deeper, the long, hard, hot length of him so very welcome as he seated himself fully.

  “Miro,” he gasped, releasing my mouth, stroking in and easing out over and over, rolling his hips in a seamless, searing rhythm I ached for. “You’re alive, love, and I’ve got you, I’ll always be here… I’ll always have you. I’m your safety net. You can count on me.”