by Amy Faye
"You must have seen. She let them take my dad. This bitch can't even—"
Josh's hand balls up in Mitchell's shirt. The shirt by itself probably costs more than the detective's suit. More than he makes in a month, probably.
"Do you know how to shut your mouth?"
His right hand is a tight fist. He keeps it at his side, but every sinew in the arm is ready to snap all at once to drive a punch into the younger Queen's face.
Mitch's face is twisted up in a mask of fury. There's not a single sign of fear on his face. The threat of violence might not have connected yet, and it probably won't until Josh follows through. He hasn't decided not to, yet.
"Get your filthy hands off me. What did she do to get you on her side? She fucking you? What's it like eating someone else's leftovers?"
Josh isn't aware of what happens until a moment later, when he wakes up to the sight of Mitch Queen on the ground, his own body pressing the boy into the dirt. His knuckles hurt where the skin's split on the boy's skull.
Mitch looks like someone's smashed his face in, but as Josh slows the pounding as his consciousness returns, the boy's face twists into a smile.
"Fuck you, you dumb sack of shit," he says. There's blood on his teeth when he smiles. "Get off me."
Josh gets off him and stands up. He ignores the stinging in his hands.
"You're not hurt, are you?"
Anna shakes her head, but she's got her eyes on Josh. She's got a strange look in her eyes. It might be fear, it might not.
"I'm going to get you back to the police."
"Are you—is that—are you going to be in trouble for that?"
Josh looks over his shoulder. Mitchell spits into the ground. It's hard to make out colors without much light, but the spit is dark-colored.
"Doesn't matter," he says. His voice is soft. Josh leans over and looks at the baby. She smiles up at him and he can't help smiling back. "Is this Ava?"
Anna doesn't look up at him when she answers. "Yeah, this is her. She's a sweet-heart, isn't she?"
"What a cutie," Josh says. He steps back. He shouldn't be getting this close. He can't deny how good it feels, though. In the morning, things can go sideways. He can get busted back down to patrol.
But for now, he's at least got something going right for him.
Chapter Nineteen
There's something very strange about the entire thing that transpired there in the darkness. No doubt, it was seen—when Josh walked back up to the van, nobody said much. He had an 'I don't want to talk about it' look on his face, and people seemed to notice it.
Anna, however, noticed just about everything else. But not that. She had been thinking on more than one occasion that Josh reminded her of Mitchell. The temper, the bull-headedness.
The way that he acted like he was in charge. Of course, it was worth noting that in both cases, they were right. It was easy to notice the way that she acted around both of them, too.
With Ava back in her arms, it was easier to see things clearly. Easier to think. It wasn't going to stay that way, but for the moment, her panic levels were through the floor. Practically zero. Anna hadn't felt this good since she was a little girl. And maybe not even then.
She did her breathing anyways. She felt deliriously happy—which, if Linda heard her say that, she'd just say that it was a little bit manic. She'd say that Anna needs to keep her head on her shoulders.
It's not over yet. She's going to have to figure everything out all over again. She's going to have to buckle down and get back into her life. The panic will come back. It's not gone forever, and it's probably not even gone for very long.
But it's gone for now.
She'd compared Mitchell and Josh many times. It was hard not to. They both acted similar. They both had been the only men she really knew, the only men that she'd ever been in a position to rely on.
The differences—if there were any, which for all she knew, there might not be—wouldn't show themselves right away. That, though, back there… that was a difference.
Mitchell had never stood up for her, not once. Once or twice, he'd gotten dangerously close to it. But he'd never gone through with it. She wondered, vaguely, if he ever would.
Not that she deserved it. She shouldn't get funny ideas in her head about things like that. It's too dangerous, too flighty.
She shook her head. No. Stop thinking that way. She can't afford to keep beating up on herself. No way. Can't afford it at all. She won't keep doing it. No chance.
Deep breath. In, one two three. Out, two three four.
She slips into the car beside Josh. They should have brought Ava's car-seat, but she just… it hadn't occurred to her. So Anna holds her in her arms and Josh drives slow back to the apartment.
They drive in silence. Even Ava is quiet. She's tired. She can barely keep her eyes open, even as her mother smiles down at her, playing with her eyes and making silly faces.
If she falls asleep before they get home, she'll wake up again as soon as she's set down. That's how it always goes. But if Anna can just keep her awake a little longer…
The car eases slowly to a stop outside the apartment. The engine stays running.
"Aren't you coming inside?"
Josh looks at her like the question doesn't make sense. "I just thought… let me get you something to drink. A coffee. Or a beer. Or something."
She can see him deciding. And she can see when he decides he will, an instant before his hand moves over and his wrist flicks the keys into the 'off' position and pulls them out.
Ava squirms, momentarily alerted by the jingle of keys. She doesn't have enough energy to really investigate, though, and a moment later she's drifting again. Anna opens the door and holds her daughter tight. She'll be hungry, no doubt.
Soon, she'll want to be fed, once she's slept a little. But until then, she's too tired to think much. She fusses a little as Anna reaches for her own keys, in her purse. The jingle draws less squirming and less attention this time. Sleep is right around the corner.
Anna fits the keys into the lock and opens the door. Detective Meadows catches it and holds it open as she steps inside. The lights of home are a comfort. Anna heads up to the second floor, and the detective isn't far behind.
She gets inside only a moment after Ava's eyes drift shut again, and this time they stay shut. Her mother makes a bee-line for the crib and sets her down, laying the blanket out over her and tucking it around the sides.
She doesn't hear the sound of Josh's footsteps coming up behind her, but she feels it when his arm encircles her waist as he leans over. It feels sexual, like he's claiming his territory. He probably isn't thinking of it that way, though.
"She's lovely," he says softly.
"Yeah, she is." Anna can't take her eyes off her daughter for a minute. Just the fact that she's right back where she belongs.
For a couple of hours, she's got peace. For a couple of hours, she doesn't have to worry any more about what's going to happen next. Ava's back, and there's nothing to worry about. Nothing at all, nothing in the whole wide world.
Anna doesn't know who moved first, but she knows that by the time her lips pressed against the detective's, they both knew what they wanted.
Hormones and emotions and everything be damned. There could be a thousand ways to explain why she's doing what she's doing. Linda might not approve, but it's not her decision, it's Anna's.
Her body fits into his comfortably when he wraps his arms around her. The softness of her body compliments his hard lines and muscles, even as his hands start to explore further across her skin.
His fingers find her aching nipples and trace a circle around them. It draws out a gasp. He doesn't pinch them. Instead, his hands dip lower, lower still, until his fingers trace the waist of her jeans.
"Are you sure about this," he says. His voice is low and soft, and he doesn't look like he's going to be upset if she says no. But that doesn't mean that she's going to change her mind.
&nb
sp; Anna nods and presses a kiss into his collar bone, where his shirt separates. He undoes a button on her jeans and the zip comes undone loudly beneath it. The jeans come off easily. They were tight a few months ago, and yet now they feel almost as if they're threatening to fall off. They do.
Josh pushes her back onto the bed, and she lets him. It's hard to know what to expect from the detective. He's unpredictable in all the best ways. When he lifts up her hips and dips to her knees, his mouth finds her folds…
Anna's head presses back into the heavy fabric of the comforter and her eyes roll a little in her head. Is this what it feels like when a guy goes down on you? She's been missing out.
His tongue dances a circle around her clit, each little movement sending a heavy jolt of pleasure right through her. Her vision's blanked out, her body turning off anything that's not essential to making sure that the pleasure continues unabated.
His fingers find the spot below and he probes there, as well, the feeling of fullness complimenting the pleasure that his tongue is giving her deliciously. Nothing else matters, not right now. Her muscles tighten up, more and more, as orgasm approaches.
And then, all at once, her body goes slack again. She lets out a long breath as his mouth continues to pleasure her as the orgasm rolls through her body in waves.
She hears Josh's zipper being undone, somewhere far away, and knows what's coming, and there's nothing that Anna wants more than to give it to him.
Chapter Twenty
Josh Meadows looks down at the girl beneath him, her shirt pushed up over her plump breasts and her eyes out-of-focus with pleasure. She smiles up at him.
He could fill a book with the number of rules he's breaking right now, but it doesn't matter one God damned bit. She turns her head to the side to take his cock between her pretty lips.
The searing heat that envelopes him threatens to send him over the edge right then and there, a pleasure that he can't possibly resist.
"Fuck," he growls, his hips moving on their own to try to get as much of that pleasure as he can take. Anna's mouth moves with him, taking that in stride.
Her breasts pool deliciously on her chest, her nipples swollen and dark and perfect. His thumb dances across one again and she pushes up into the contact without stopping her ministrations.
He moves his hands lower again, dancing past her waist and down to the place where her legs meet, his rough fingers teasing the tip of her clit. Her hips roll up to meet his movements, her mouth moving with renewed vigor.
"Jesus Christ, Anna—your mouth. Fuck."
She moans with him in her mouth. His cock stiffens more than he thought possible. The beautiful woman pulls off of his cock to take a breath for an instant. She leans back forward an instant later, but Josh has another plan in mind.
He moves between her hips, her legs propped up around his waist. She feels him lining his hardness up with her, feels him threatening to push inside.
"Are you sure about this?" He repeats it again, even though his entire body screams to just do what comes naturally. His mind is telling him that everything he's doing is wrong—that he shouldn't even be thinking about doing any of the things that he's doing.
He can stop, but he won't. Not unless he hears the words from her mouth. Not unless she tells him that she doesn't want it. She doesn't. She traces a hand down the lines of his chest and purrs to fuck her.
He pushes inside. The walls of her pussy already grip him tightly, as if they're trying to milk him for all he's worth. The heat sears into him. His cock twitches painfully, but he keeps himself buried hilt-deep inside her for a moment, to let her adjust.
The way that she rolls her hips tells him that he's waited long enough. He pulls out a little way and plows forward again, pushing deep inside. Her body reacts, a soft moan ripping from her lips even as she tries to stay quiet.
"Jesus, fuck, you're tight," Josh growls. It's hard to believe, the way that her body grips him and tries desperately not to let go.
He moves hard inside her, his entire body tense and taut like a spring that's been pressed as tight as it will go. Her heels press him into her, driving his cock deeper inside with each thrust.
Every time he pulls back out her body only knows enough to try to stop him, to grip him tight and pull him back inside. To take as much pleasure as she can possibly get.
Anna turns and twists beneath him as he slams home once more, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh ringing through the bedroom. Her body moves to meet him with each thrust until finally, with one last thrust, he pushes inside and spends himself.
His cock spasms hard as rope after rope of cum shoots into her. Anna's eyes flutter for a moment as she tightens around him, as if her body is trying to swallow his sperm, to bring it deeper inside her.
Finally she lays her head back, her breaths coming short and hard and ragged. Josh lowers himself down on top of her and presses a kiss into her lips.
"I think I love you," she says. Josh doesn't know how to respond. He thinks something similar, but it's not the sort of thing he should be admitting to.
"I love you too," he says. If it's the truth, then there's not much he can do about it. 'Should' doesn't play into it. Her arms reach up and he lowers his weight a little more until she can wrap her arms around his neck, the two of them still connected below.
She holds him tight, her body pressing in and molding itself to his. It's a comforting feeling, and one that makes Josh's cock stir again. His body feels warm and she feels good against him. He takes a breath and presses a kiss into her neck.
In the morning, maybe all of this will have been a mistake. He'll have taken advantage of her. He's been too attached to the case from the first minute, and now he's too attached to the woman involved in it.
She was emotional and she did some things that maybe she'll regret.
For right now, though, he's doing what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is be with her. He presses a kiss against her forehead. It's scalding against his skin, and she presses her head up to meet his lips.
His voice is low and hoarse. "You should get some sleep."
If he doesn't tell her to sleep, he knows, neither of them will get any. Not with the way that his cock twitches inside her again.
Chapter Twenty-One
Anna smiles for real, for only the fourth or fifth time in what feels like a couple of days. She's supposed to hear from Josh again some time later. He's promised to call. She believes him. But right now, it's time for life to go back to normal.
Mom and Dad invited her over for dinner, to celebrate Ava's safe return, and she couldn't possibly be happier. It's better than cooking herself, after all. Not having to clean up, not having to deal with going out to buy stuff and decide what to make—all of it makes it worthwhile.
Being with family, which might be enough reason all by itself, is almost just a bonus.
"So everything's alright now?" Mom's smile is hopeful, but not yet to the point that Anna would describe it as wide or confident.
Things could always get worse. That's the lesson that Anna's had to learn several times now. This time, maybe it'll stick. But then again, maybe it won't.
She straightens up and looks down at herself. She watches her elbows. They stay tucked in close to her body. Her back is straight. Head up, and she's got good posture. She looks good at the table. It should be second nature, but it isn't.
"Well, there's a lot going on. I'm sure that it was on the news, right?"
Mom shrugs. "I didn't see anything about anything, sweetheart. I just know what the Detective told us, and I know that our little sweetheart is back, and we couldn't ask more than that."
"They, ah… whoever took Ava. They took Mr. Queen."
"What? You're not serious, are you?"
"It was right in front of me. I guess I should've stopped them, huh?"
Mom's eyes are wide as saucers, and she looks back and forth from Anna to Dad so fast it looks like she's shaking her head.
&nbs
p; "Well, no! No way! Those people, they're dangerous! You're not supposed to get involved at all! The police should've handled it! I'm just glad you're safe!"
Dad's reaction is a little more measured. "Nobody would be upset with you for not stopping something like that, no, that's perfectly reasonable. Not with the baby in your arms. Especially considering—if they can take a man that size, well… you're a small girl."
Anna nods, not really looking up from her food. Filet, a bit of pasta on the side. Broccoli for a green. She should be happier. She shouldn't let this get to her. They're absolutely right that it's not her fault. Nobody would blame her for what happened.
That doesn't mean she doesn't blame herself.
"Thanks. You're probably right."
She takes in a breath and holds it, lets it out again. No problem. She's got complete control over the situation. She chooses to be upset, she chooses to be panicked. It may not seem like it, but that's absolutely what's happening.
And she can choose to calm down. It's hard to do, but it's not impossibly by any means. She can choose to be happy, and stress-free, and she can choose to do better. She does.
"So what's been going on with you guys?"
"Oh, nothing," Dad says. Mom keeps eating. It's typical from her—she gets to talking, and then decides she's talking too much so instead of dialing it back a little she just stops until it's her 'turn' to talk too much again.
"No good stories about the apartments? Nothing good on the news?"
"You know what your mother and I say," Dad says, leaning a little into her conspiratorially. "There's never anything good on the news. If it's on the news, it's not good."
Then he sits back and smiles, as if the joke's already landed perfectly. Anna smiles back. He's said it a thousand times if he's said it once, but it feels good to be back in her routine. Back in her real life again. Not having to constantly worry about what can possibly go wrong next.
It seems like every day or two lately, she's been getting another reminder, spaced out just long enough that she has time to forget again before she learns the lesson: things can always go wrong.