by Yvonne Heidt
Why not me? The anguish in Shade’s telepathic question threatened to crush her, but Sunny laid her head on Shade’s knee and felt the hand that smoothed her hair. She gathered all the love in her heart for Shade and radiated it outward. Light pressed against the dark, rolling with the energy of Shade’s emotional pain as Sunny tried to soothe her.
“I want you to be happy.” Shade’s voice broke a little. “Even if it’s not with me.”
“I know how much that costs you. And I want that for you too.”
They sat that way for a long time, until the bell over the door rang.
Jordan walked in and stopped in the doorway. She looked at her then at Shade. Sunny didn’t have to read her to know how she was feeling. The anger was written clearly in her expression. She opened her mouth but walked right back out the door before she said anything, slamming it behind her.
*
Jordan got back in her truck and left, disappointment crushing her. She’d been excited to see Sunny’s number on her phone earlier, but she’d been in the middle of a briefing and unable to answer.
When she walked in to see her wrapped around Shade’s legs, all she could remember was how Shade tried to warn her off the night before. Anger and jealousy warred for space in her soul. So, was Sunny’s panic attack the previous night real? Or did she have it because she’d been caught with Jordan and wanted to deflect Shade’s anger? The memory she’d efficiently kept behind a closed door and dubbed The Last Great Betrayal escaped and began to play. She’d answered the summons to Vice, racking her brain on why they’d be calling her in. Like a movie where she was the main character, she saw herself walking down the ugly green hallway in full uniform.
She knocked, then entered the small conference room where Detective Lynn Cody motioned for her to sit. Though she preferred to stand, Jordan took a seat at the long table.
“Officer Lawson, thank you for coming.”
“Ma’am.” Jordan watched her shut the door, and it was hard not to stare. The trim black suit hugged every curve of her body, her jacket casually unbuttoned to show a pretty chemise under it.
“It’s been brought to our attention that you’ve been hanging around Pike Place Market and asking a lot of questions.” She smiled pleasantly at Jordan.
“I’ve been working on a missing runaway’s case.”
The detective glanced at the file in front of her and tapped it with a long, painted fingernail. “In civilian clothes.”
What was this really about? Jordan wondered. “On my own time, yes.” She kept her voice even.
“I commend your dedication, Lawson, and it will be so noted in your file. However, we currently have undercover officers working on a case in that particular area that doesn’t concern your department. You understand, then, that it could create problems in our investigation?”
Jordan was sitting forward to argue when Lynn licked her lips slowly, a blatant invitation.
At least, Jordan had thought it was. In retrospect, she tried to cut herself a break. She had never been so thoroughly manipulated or seduced by a woman before. Up until then, her relationships were pretty straightforward pickups. Women who hadn’t known she was a cop, and if they had would have run the other way. Women who lived on the edge of society, the kind who kept dark secrets and wanted a real relationship about as much as she did. She remembered always living in a half world. Work was clear. She was sure of herself and what she stood for there. She was strong and quick-witted, and could handle herself on the street, but emotionally and on her own time, she went back again and again to the type of people she’d grown up with. To that gray, in-between place where you never knew what a person would do or what direction they would turn, and most of them were only one stupid decision away from prison time.
By the time she’d met Lynn, Jordan hadn’t been with anyone in a couple of months, and the attention had been flattering. She pretended to agree with the necessity of being careful never to be seen in public, keeping her relationship with a superior officer a secret. That part was easy since Jordan was used to keeping things to herself. She had no friends or family to talk to, and her solitary life made living in the shadows easy.
Eventually, she began to trust Lynn, and if pressed, might have even said she loved her.
Right up until the night she’d left her for dead in a downtown alley, shot with her own firearm.
Jordan was saved from having to remember her wound and grueling recovery by pulling into her parking lot. Back to the present. Christ, she couldn’t recall the drive home. Where had she been again?
Sunny’s house. Where she’d found her wrapped around Shade, kneeling at her feet like a supplicant. And why did that seem to hurt more than being shot and left for dead? She slammed her front door open and the cold slapped at her. She punched the thermostat and snarled at it before entering her living room and stopping in her tracks.
It was trashed.
*
Sunny had jumped to her feet to chase after Jordan, but she was too late. Her truck had already pulled away and turned the corner. She grabbed her keys and yelled for Shade to reschedule her appointment.
She pulled into the guest spot next to Jordan’s and got out. Her stomach was in knots. She hated it when people thought badly of her, and the last person she wanted to hurt was Jordan. She knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, but felt guilty anyway, knowing how it must have looked. Sunny took off her heels so she could climb the stairs quickly and knocked on the door.
“Jordan?” She knocked again. “Please let me explain.”
The lock clicked and Jordan appeared with a faraway look in her eyes that worried Sunny. “Jordan?” She laid a hand on her arm and felt a jolt of dark energy, but she was prepared for it this time, and pushed her way into the room.
Masculine laughter sounded from the bedroom “Not this time, asshole,” Sunny said before surrounding herself with blue light. “Leave now. Go away.” The heaviness in the air subsided a little and Jordan shook her head, looking confused.
“Sunny?”
“Look out!” Sunny pushed her out of the way when a glass flew out of the kitchen doorway and shattered against the wall next to her head.
“Hey, I heard the commotion,” Steve said from the open doorway. He stopped and the smile fell from his face. “Whoa. What happened in here?”
Sunny rummaged in her purse. “Take her next door to your place.” She handed him her cell phone. “Call Shade and tell her I need her immediately. She’ll know why.”
“Fuck that,” Jordan said. “I don’t need her here.” Despite the refusal, she didn’t resist when Steve backed out of the room, pulling her with him.
Sunny sighed, hearing the petulance in her voice. “I know, darling. You don’t need anyone, do you?” After they left, she opened a small jar and poured salt along her path to the door and in front of the entrance before crossing the threshold. She was also careful to sprinkle some in front of Steve’s apartment. There was no way in hell she was getting sucker-punched again. When she was done, she sat next to Jordan on the couch.
She looked around the room. Steve had listened when she told him the other night that negative energy thrived on dirt and chaos. Other than random stacks of books, his apartment was spotless. Good.
“Honey, talk to me. What happened?”
Jordan was pale and didn’t respond.
“Here’s some water.” Steve handed Sunny a glass. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Some kind of oppression.” She answered automatically, forgetting he wasn’t a member of her team. She swore when she felt his fear spike in the room. “Stop it! That’s not helping. They feed on fear. Let’s just call it shock, okay? Better yet, why don’t you go to your grandmother’s?”
Steve shook his head. “No, I want to help her.”
Sunny was just about to compliment his bravery when there was pounding at the front door and he screamed like a girl. “It’s Shade.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Could you
let her in?”
“Right.” His face turned bright red and he coughed. “Sorry.”
Shade appeared with a black bag and Steve cleared the table by sweeping his arm across it, knocking books to the floor.
“Right on. That’s how I clean too,” Shade said before she knelt in front of Sunny and Jordan. “Wow, I can feel her buzzing from two feet away.”
Jordan’s face was blank and she didn’t twitch when Shade snapped her fingers in front of her face. She slowly turned her head to look at her with a sinister smile, one that Sunny was sure belonged to the dark entity attached to her. “Jordan!” Sunny shouted at her. “Come back.”
“Fuck this.” Shade took the water glass Steve held and threw the contents in Jordan’s face.
“What the—” Jordan blinked, sputtered, and then lunged at Shade.
Sunny shot between them before Jordan’s body made contact and wrestled her back on the couch.
“Hey, now,” Steve said. “Is that necessary?”
“Shade, back away.” Sunny lay on top of Jordan, pinning her in place. “Shh. I got you,” she whispered to her an inch from her face. “Look at me. That’s it, right here. Look in my eyes. It’s okay now.”
Jordan slowly stopped struggling. A few moments later, Sunny saw her eyes focus on her and she smiled gently. “All right now?”
“Fine.” Her voice was tight and clipped, and the look in her eyes told Sunny she still wasn’t fully present. But at least she didn’t look ready to kill.
“I’m going to get up now, okay?”
Jordan nodded curtly.
Sunny lifted herself in increments, ready to pounce again if Jordan showed any additional signs of violence. Though she had to admit, the water in the face routine would have pissed her off as well.
Jordan’s attention shifted to Shade, who stood with her hands on her hips, almost daring her to say something. They stared at each other, neither one backing down, and the atmosphere became electric with their fight for dominance.
“Shade? Could you please go and clear Jordan’s apartment?” Sunny held her breath until she finally huffed and left, taking her black bag with her.
“What’s she going to do?” Steve asked.
Sunny noted his pale face. “She’s going to kick some ass, hopefully.” She turned to Jordan, whose body language still radiated with rage. How would she get through to her? Really get through to Jordan’s true self, the part that lived inside her wounded soul? Should she even try? Her heart immediately answered that question. Something in Jordan called to her, reaching places deeper than she’d ever known existed. She wasn’t going to give up on her.
She wished she could touch Jordan’s emotions, but she had so many blocks and walls. Sunny was frustrated she couldn’t see what the clear and best responses were to make it easier to get past them. “Hi,” she finally said. “Remember me?”
“Mine.”
“Steve, could you excuse us, please? Lock the door on your way out.”
He stammered and grabbed his jacket “Well, I’m going to Grandma’s if you need me.”
Steve left and Sunny’s pulse raced and raw lust speared her, shoving her caution aside in a swift attack.
Jordan flipped her onto the couch and covered her with her own body. At Sunny’s cry of surprise over the lightning-quick move, Jordan smiled.
“I want you,” she said, grinding her hips against her.
Sunny’s body responded to the aggressiveness, surprising her with her own animalistic response, and she stopped thinking altogether and went into a sexual haze, a place where only sensation mattered, a place where her body knew what it needed and wanted and had no inhibitions about how it accepted what felt good. Tiny warning bells rang in the back of her mind, but her body refused to let her heed them. Instead, she parted her knees to give Jordan more room. Sunny felt cold air against her breasts when Jordan pulled her shirt up and unhooked her bra.
“You are so damn soft,” Jordan whispered against her skin. “So beautiful. So mine.”
The words shot to Sunny’s center. The need to have Jordan possess and be inside her was a fierce one. Sunny almost felt she might faint from it. She stood on the razor’s edge of fear and excitement and reveled in it.
Jordan moaned and Sunny’s back arched in response. She couldn’t get close enough to her. Sunny’s lust was red in her mind, wrapping her in ribbons of purple energy that popped along her nerve endings, electrifying her skin.
A tiny voice inside her cried out. What if she lost herself this time and couldn’t come back?
The sensation of Jordan ripping her panties and smoothly entering her left her with no doubts, no inhibitions, and no reservations. Sunny gave herself to the sensation, bucking against Jordan’s long fingers, drawing them deeper and harder into herself. She had no words, just sighs and cries of pleasure.
Jordan growled low in her throat and it set Sunny on fire. She twisted and arched through her orgasm until her body shuddered with the effort and Sunny had to remind herself how to breathe. She felt raw and new at the same time.
The feeling was so intense, she almost couldn’t contain it. Sunny felt tears slip from her eyes, and she shuddered. The only sound in the room was their own heavy breathing.
Jordan came out of it first. What had she been thinking? She vaguely recalled the overwhelming need to fuck her, to mark her as belonging to her. To punish her for finding her in Shade’s lap. She was mortified at what she’d done, and even more so at how much she liked it.
Sunny’s shirt was under her arms, her bra pulled down to show red teeth marks where Jordan had nipped at tender skin. Her skirt crumpled at her waist, her little white panties shoved to the side, baring her pink, swollen flesh. Purple bruises were beginning to form on her white thighs. Jordan covered her face with her hands, hiding her shame.
“Don’t you dare apologize again.”
“What?” Jordan looked up, waiting for something scathing, something hard and hurtful.
“I see what you’re doing to yourself.” Sunny fixed her clothes and sat cross-legged in front of her.
Jordan wondered if confusion was just a part of being around Sunny. She obviously had no control when she was near. She covered her face again, unable to face Sunny’s sweet nature in the face of her own demented behavior.
Sunny tugged on her hands, forcing Jordan to drop them from her face. “I have never had an experience like this.”
“Of course not! You should be in a canopied bed with rose petals scattered around your precious body, not attacked and taken like an animal on the couch.” Where had those words come from? The flowers and four-poster bed image? I have finally lost my fucking mind.
Sunny glanced over Jordan’s shoulder at the front door. “Shade’s in the hallway. I have to talk with her. Then, if all is well at your place, we’ll finish this.”
Finish it? Jordan’s head raced with possible scenarios, visions of spells, hexes, or worse, Sunny never letting her near her again. She rose to her feet and guiltily helped Sunny stand. She didn’t understand why she’d had the uncontrollable urge to take her like she did, but even if Sunny hated her for it, Jordan felt the need to stand behind Sunny at the door and give Shade a very clear signal as to whom she belonged.
The rage came rolling back up her spine the second she saw Shade, who returned her glare unflinchingly. Jordan knew Shade wasn’t scared of her, and the fierce, unspoken challenge in Shade’s eyes thrilled her in a primal place.
Shade looked away and focused on Sunny. When her features softened, Jordan wanted to punch her. She felt an invisible hand grab her by the back of the neck and squeeze. Incredibly, at the spectral contact, Jordan’s temper began to cool. When she got hold of her emotions and felt calmer, the hand released her.
Now, that was spooky. Jordan forced herself to concentrate on what they were saying. Spooky or not, she was glad she no longer felt like throttling Shade.
“So it’s all clear now?” Sunny asked.
; “For the most part.”
“What the fuck does that mean, exactly?” Jordan’s voice was as cold as she could manage.
Sunny’s back went stiff. Uh-oh. Jordan hadn’t meant to piss Sunny off with her remark. She’d thrown it at Shade without thinking about the fact that Sunny would take it personally too.
“You’d do better to be thanking Shade right now.”
“For what?”
“Never mind. I’m going to walk her to the van.”
“Are you coming back?” Jordan hoped the desperation in her gut didn’t come through in her voice.
“Yes. Wait here.”
Jordan stood at the top of the landing, straining to hear what they were saying, but couldn’t make anything out. She ran to Steve’s living room, cleaned up the spilled water, and picked up Sunny’s purse.
Jordan held it to her chest, giving herself hope. She would come back for that at least.
What could she do to fix the chaos her behavior caused? Where had this quicksand come from that she constantly found herself stuck in? Nothing was familiar; she was insecure and lost in an alternate world where she knew nothing of the native customs.
She locked Steve’s door, entered her apartment, and set Sunny’s purse down before grabbing the broom to sweep up the broken glass. The windows were open, allowing a small breeze to feather in, and just under it, Jordan smelled smoke. It must be part of Shade’s witch ritual.
What’s taking her so long? Jordan went into her bedroom to look out over the parking lot. From her high vantage point, she saw the van and Sunny still talking with Shade through the driver’s side window. She laid her forehead against the cool glass. Sunny’s hair was a mass of tangles, reminding Jordan how she’d just treated her as if she were a twenty-dollar whore. There was no seduction involved, no candlelight and dinner, no soft words or gentle kisses.
How could she expect Sunny to want her after treating her like that? Jordan began to wonder if she were capable of love. Maybe her mother’s lack of it and her indifference had poisoned her ability to hold on to something pure and good.