by Ranae Rose
A shiver zipped up and down her spine as she stared around the room, her mind awhirl with half-formed thoughts and nameless emotions.
She’d slept with Elijah, a man she barely knew. She could still feel a faint ache below her belly, just above where he’d been the night before.
Remembering what they’d done made heat blossom there, and her nipples hardened. As she swung her feet over the edge of his bed, a thought struck her: maybe he wasn’t gone. Maybe he was just an early riser and had left her to sleep undisturbed.
Another shiver skipped over her vertebrae and spread out into the rest of her body, setting her nerves on edge.
Had she really spent the whole night with a man she’d just met a couple weeks ago?
Yes, she had. And her sleep had been deep and dreamless, sweet. Even now, she only felt amazed, not guilty.
Last night had been a small slice of heaven, one she hadn’t anticipated and hadn’t experienced the likes of in a long time.
Maybe too long.
Standing and stretching, she scanned the room for her clothing before remembering that she’d left them in a heap on the living room floor.
A bolt of apprehension hit her. Even after last night, the idea of strutting out of the room stark naked in broad daylight seemed a little … bold.
It was one thing to strip down in the heat of the moment, and another to saunter around in the nude with severe cases of bedhead and morning breath.
As she summoned the courage to approach the door, something caught her eye – a familiar flash of lavender on top of the dresser.
It was her dress, neatly folded on top of her bra and panties.
Her eyes widened involuntarily as she lifted her outfit from the dresser. It’d been left where Elijah’s duty belt had been the night before, and beside it was a clean cotton t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts.
Huge gym shorts that would fit her more like capris, but still. He must’ve left them there for her – something comfortable for her to wear.
She pulled the t-shirt over her head. The hem fell to her upper thighs, just covering her ass. The shorts were too loose around the waist to stay up, so she went without. Lastly, she ran her hands through her hair, trying to smooth it by feel.
There was no mirror in the room, but that was probably a good thing.
Drawing a deep breath, she opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hall.
The bathroom door across from the bedroom was cracked, its interior dim. The extra bedroom at the end of the hall was shut, its door steeped in shadow.
Bright light shone from the kitchen, though, and a coffee aroma drifted to Peyton like a particularly sweet dream.
She inhaled again, this time for the pure pleasure of it. She loved a good cup of coffee, and the scent reminded her of the night before.
She tread silently against the carpet in her bare feet, tipping her head to scan the kitchen for Elijah.
He wasn’t there.
Ignoring the siren’s call of the coffee maker, she sidestepped into the living room, where he’d stripped her bare the night before.
He wasn’t there, either.
A sinking feeling settled into her belly, crushing the butterflies that’d been stirring restlessly there. Had he really left?
Maybe he had work. She hadn’t asked.
She returned to the kitchen, where the coffeemaker had been left on, its carafe half full. A white ceramic cup sat beside it, along with a small spoon and a sugar dish. There was a blue sticky note stuck to the side of the crystal, inked with squared handwriting.
She pinched one corner between her fingers and peeled it from the patterned glass.
Good morning, Beautiful. Cream’s in the fridge. Breakfast is in the microwave. Hope you like eggs. Got called in to work. Wish I could’ve said no, but today’s day shift has three officers out sick. Elijah
P.S. There’s cash in the cupboard right above you. Take some for cab fare.
She stared at the note for a second, and then her gaze drifted to the coffee cup and other things he’d laid out for her, taking time to think of her even as he got ready for an unexpected early morning shift.
Steam billowed from the night-black surface of her coffee as she poured, leaving a quarter of the cup empty for cream and sugar. The brew looked and smelled delicious, but strong enough to raise the dead.
What time had he gotten up for work?
She had no memory of a ringtone, or of feeling the bed shift. Not even of a single sound.
There was a carton of half and half in the fridge, and a plate of scrambled eggs with melted cheddar cheese in the microwave. She reheated the eggs, sat down at the small table and took a sip of her coffee.
It tasted like rich, earthy rocket fuel, with notes of cream and sugar. Pretty good, even if her eyes did widen reflexively as it heated the back of her tongue.
It was no wonder he’d made it so strong; he couldn’t have gotten much sleep.
A pang of sympathy hit her as she sat alone in his apartment.
Alone, in the home he shared with no one. He was a pretty trusting guy.
Especially for a cop. Weren’t they supposed to be jaded and suspicious?
Her stomach flip-flopped. Elijah wasn’t the typical cop – if he had been, she would never have let herself wind up in his apartment, let alone his bed.
As she washed her breakfast dishes in the kitchen sink, wiping them dry with a striped cloth, she felt strangely comfortable standing there in his t-shirt.
Comfortable or not, she returned the borrowed shirt to his dresser and put her outfit from the night before back on.
Minutes later, when she left, she found another note stuck to the door.
Please lock up before leaving and call me when you’re up and get a chance.
She peeled the note from the door, so he’d know she’d seen it.
Then she paused and turned back to the kitchen. After digging a pen from her purse, she flipped over the sugar jar note and wrote on the back.
Thanks for this morning, and last night. Peyton
She didn’t take any of his money for cab fare. She’d pay for that herself – it wasn’t a long trip from here to Charmed, where she’d left her car, anyway.
When she walked out of the apartment, she felt strangely light. If her heels hadn’t clicked against the ground, she wouldn’t have known her feet were even touching it.
What did they call this feeling?
Contentment. That was it – this was what it felt like to feel happy and at peace with the world, at least for the moment.
She’d forgotten what it was like.
* * * * *
Elijah pulled away from the curb in front of a classic Charleston single house with peeling white paint. As he drove, he glanced at his rearview mirror and saw the elderly owner rocking in a chair on the piazza, her long floral dress swinging around her ankles.
He’d been sent for a wellness check, at the request of a daughter who’d gone on a work trip out of town. She’d become worried about her mother after she’d failed to answer the phone or return her daughter’s calls.
Elijah had found her to be perfectly fine. Her phone had simply fallen victim to her chew-happy golden retriever.
He’d helped her set up a new one that’d been gathering dust in a box in the hallway closet.
All in all, it’d been a good call. Years ago, one of his first ever wellness checks had resulted in him finding a man dead at his kitchen table, the spilled milk from his cereal bowl curdling on the floor.
It was always a welcome relief to discover that nothing was wrong.
And so, as he drove down Sparrow Avenue, he was in a pretty good mood.
In fact, he was in some of the highest spirits he’d ever been in while at work. Not only had his shift been easy so far, but the memory of the night before rode with him like a high.
The only thing that could’ve made it better would’ve been if he hadn’t had to leave Peyton.
Did she thi
nk he was an ass for leaving her alone without saying anything?
He’d wanted like hell to tell the sergeant that no, he couldn’t come in – he’d caught the stomach bug too.
But he wasn’t a liar – not that he could lie worth a damn, anyway.
So he’d left the most gorgeous woman he’d ever laid hands on alone in his apartment with no forewarning – just a couple sticky notes.
Lame. But maybe she wouldn’t be too pissed.
It wasn’t like he’d wanted to leave her.
Not even close.
* * * * *
It wasn’t even eight AM yet when Peyton parked at the curb in front of her house. Hopefully, Jace would be sleeping in, oblivious to the fact that she’d been gone overnight.
Hopefully, Madison would be asleep too – Peyton didn’t want to talk about last night, not even with her sister. It still seemed almost too good to be true, and contemplating it in stunned, contented silence was enough.
And yeah, if she was honest with herself, there was another reason she didn’t want to tell Madison about Elijah. Not yet, anyway.
A ripple of anxiety swept through her, making her stomach knot up.
But really, Madison didn’t need to know about last night. This was still new. She couldn’t even put a label on it, yet.
She used her key to let herself in quietly.
The house was silent, peaceful in a Sunday morning way that told her Madison and Jace were both fast asleep. After setting her purse down on the counter, she slipped off her heels and tiptoed down the hall to her room, where she stripped off her dress and pulled on a robe.
On her way to the bathroom for a shower, she paused at Jace’s bedroom door. It was open, but just barely – a sliver of light shone between the edge of the door and the frame.
She couldn’t resist checking on him. Quietly, she pushed the door open another few inches and peered into the room.
Her heart skipped a beat as her gaze swept over the space-themed comforter and matching pillowcase.
The comforter was thrown back, the sheets beneath twisted. A hollow in the center of the pillow marked where Jace had been, but he was no longer there.
He wasn’t anywhere in his room.
The bathroom. He had to be there. Peyton would’ve seen him if he’d been in the living room.
But no – the bathroom door was open, and a quick check proved that he wasn’t there, either.
Her heart kicked into high gear. As she hurried toward Madison’s bedroom door, she could feel it fluttering in her throat, occluding her vocal chords and making speech impossible.
She opened the door without taking care to be quiet.
The sight within practically stopped her speeding heart.
“Oh my God.” Suddenly, she could speak again.
And then, she couldn’t stop.
“Shit. Madison!” Turning on her heel, she hurried back to the kitchen and seized her purse, dumping its contents on the counter.
Grabbing her phone, she dialed Madison. “Come on…”
She and Jace were both gone – where the hell could they be?
Madison couldn’t drive in her current condition, and had only left the house with Peyton for doctor’s appointments since the accident.
Besides which, her car was sitting out front, by the curb. It hadn’t been driven since they’d gotten it back from the repair shop after the accident, which had very nearly totaled it.
She hadn’t driven herself and Jace anywhere, and she sure as hell hadn’t walked.
Peyton’s hands began to shake.
She called Madison again. Still no answer.
The metallic taste of adrenaline crept into her drying mouth.
She started to dial again. What else could she do?
And that was when she noticed it: a trail of blood droplets on the white linoleum, just feet from where she stood.
* * * * *
Elijah’s shift passed in a haze of memory and expectation. He had to consciously will himself to be mentally present on every call, but when things got slow, it was a struggle.
Which was weird for him, because he loved his job.
Today, though, six o’clock couldn’t come soon enough. Peyton hadn’t called him, but it wasn’t even nine AM yet.
She might still be asleep.
The thought of her dreaming in his bed, where they’d fucked the night before, made his cock harden to half-mast.
His MDT chimed, and he willed his dick to go back down.
The call was for a wreck. It didn’t sound bad – probably a fender-bender – but there was no way to know until he actually got there.
He arrived shortly before rescue to find a middle-aged woman and man standing by their vehicles, yelling at each other.
“I have my grandchild in the car, you son of a bitch!” The woman’s face was bright red beneath her fringe of blonde hair, and the shrill pitch of her voice told Elijah it wasn’t sunburn.
The man was darker – tanned – but looked just as angry. He sucked in a hard breath, and when he exhaled, droplets of spit flew through the air, catching the sunlight.
“Then maybe you should’ve been watching where the hell you were going, you dumb—”
It looked like the man had rear-ended the woman’s SUV with his sedan.
Elijah repressed a groan and hurried away from his parked cruiser, toward the screaming drivers. He pretended not to notice a teenager gawking from the passenger seat of a minivan, recording the showdown with his cell phone.
Elijah switched his body cam on. Hopefully the situation could be diffused, but it was the sort of thing he was supposed to have on record in case things went even further south.
The man and woman acted like they didn’t even notice him approaching, until he was almost close enough to reach out and touch them.
“Ma’am, Sir—”
“You’re here. Good.” The woman’s hair was sticking to her sweaty cheeks. “This idiot rear-ended me while I was—”
“Only because she hit the brakes for no damn reason! Not my fault she—”
Another cruiser pulled up to the scene, giving an ambulance a wide berth before pulling over in front of Elijah’s vehicle.
Jackson.
“Sir, I need you to return to your vehicle. Another officer will be with you shortly.”
“Why me? Why don’t you tell her to go back to her car?”
Elijah repeated himself. Jackson was approaching and could get a statement from the guy.
The man glanced at Jackson, then back to Elijah, and huffed before turning on his heel and striding back to his vehicle. The driver’s side door was hanging open, and he sat down on the seat.
Elijah turned to the woman as Jackson shot him a quick nod and approached the other vehicle.
“You said there’s a child inside?”
“Yes. My granddaughter.”
Elijah peered in through the open driver’s door. A little girl sat in a car seat, her face red and tear-streaked. When she saw Elijah, she covered her face with a ratty teddy bear and started sobbing.
There was no telling whether she was hurt or just scared by the wreck and the argument.
A pair of EMTs were approaching, and Elijah stepped back so that they could approach the vehicle.
“I was afraid to take her out of her car seat,” the woman said. “They say you shouldn’t move someone after an accident.”
“You did the right thing.”
The car door was open, and the air conditioning was running – the child was in no danger of overheating.
One of the EMTs opened the door adjacent to the car seat. The little girl stopped crying when a female EMT stooped to her level, smiled and showed her a stuffed doll she must’ve brought off the ambulance.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Elijah asked the grandmother.
She nodded. Her color was starting to return to normal.
“I was driving about thirty-five when the car in front of me hit its brakes pr
etty hard. I was following from a safe distance, so I was able to slow down, but the guy behind me had been riding my bumper for several blocks. He rear-ended me, and now he’s trying to act like it’s my fault. I can’t help that he was following so closely.”
“Were you injured?”
“No. I’m fine. I’m worried about my granddaughter, though.”
“Well, we have EMTs here who can check you both out. I recommend it, even if you feel fine now. Adrenaline is powerful, especially after an accident like this.”
Her argument with the other driver surely hadn’t done her any favors on that front, either.
“I need to know my granddaughter is okay first.”
The female EMT had apparently curried enough favor with the little girl to begin an examination. The toddler clutched the doll in one arm and her bear in the other while allowing the EMT to palpate the back of her neck.
“Does that hurt, Grace?”
“Nuh-uh.” The girl clutched the doll closer.
“Not even a little bit?”
“No.”
“Great.”
“I understand,” Elijah said. “Afterward, you should get checked out yourself. Even if you decide not to go to the hospital, a few minutes of time now might save you a lot of trouble later.”
The woman nodded and sidestepped away from Elijah, catching the male EMT by the elbow. “Is she okay?”
Elijah let rescue talk to her for a minute, calm her down. The male EMT fired off several questions, opened his Toughbook and recorded what she said.
Elijah took a step back. This could take a while, but that was all right. Traffic accidents were rarely quick calls. While the EMTs examined the woman and her granddaughter, Jackson caught Elijah’s eye and stepped aside.
“Woman says the guy was riding her bumper and rear-ended her when the vehicle in front of her hit its breaks and she had to do the same,” Elijah said.
Jackson nodded. “He rear-ended her, all right. Give you one guess as to whose fault he thinks it is.”
“Yeah, I got the gist of it when I arrived on scene. He and the other driver were just about at each other’s throats.”
Elijah glanced at the man, who was glowering at them from the driver’s seat of his vehicle. Its headlights were busted, and the grille was crumpled. It might not be totaled, but it’d cost a pretty penny to repair.