by Julie Kriss
Or I just really, really wanted to fuck Jace Riggs.
I shut the water off and ran a hand over my face. “Shit,” I said out loud to no one in my small, lonely apartment. “Just get through this session, Tara. It’s an hour of your life. Act like the intelligent woman you are, write your report, and get rid of him. Then you never have to see him again.”
That sounded good, so I got dressed, put some makeup on, and went to work. The morning orgasm had made me feel pretty good, actually—thanks, Jace Riggs. Though I wasn’t supposed to think about that.
I did two morning sessions. I talked to John, whose daughter had now recovered from the flu. I did paperwork. I ate lunch, a grilled eggplant sandwich from the Italian deli down the street. I sat at my desk and answered emails and drank a bottle of water and did everything a normal person would do. And when the door opened and Jace Riggs walked in again, I was just about ready. Just about.
But damn it, he had a huge presence. He was wearing much the same outfit as three days ago—jeans, motorcycle boots, T-shirt—except that it was cool out today, so he had added a hoodie beneath the black leather jacket. The hoodie was unzipped, so I could glimpse his chest and his stomach beneath the tee, and he was wearing those rings. This time I noticed that he had two rings on his left hand, too, as well as a thin leather bracelet on the wrist.
Kryptonite. Fucking kryptonite.
He sat in the chair across from me like he’d done the other day, and I could see from his face that he had the same resolve I did. He was going to be polite today. He was going to be businesslike. This was going to be a textbook session.
“Hello, Jace,” I said. “How are you?”
He nodded. I was wearing dark jeans topped with a loose-necked thin summer sweater with a cotton camisole beneath it. His gaze did not travel below my chin.
“I’m fine, thanks,” he said. “You?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“That’s good.” He drummed his fingers quickly on the arm of his chair—those long, gorgeous fingers that I was not staring at. “I’m sorry about last time. I was an asshole to you. It won’t happen again.”
It was honest, and it was surprising. And it was nice. “Thank you,” I said. “Apology accepted. And I apologize, too. I was unprofessional.”
He shrugged. “I made you mad. I get it.”
“Okay, then. So we’ll start over.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
This was going well. Really well. We could do this, him and me. I pulled out his file—I’d retrieved it from the cabinet where I’d slammed it last time—and said, “Let’s get started. We’ll steer away from personal topics for now. I’d like to talk about your time in prison and your arrest. What led up to you being arrested.”
“Sure,” Jace said. “I guess we can talk about that.”
It didn’t matter that the last session had ended terribly, that I’d fantasized about this man naked in my bed, fucking me until I came. I could have an hour-long session with Jace Riggs, and everything would be fine. I was sure of it.
I should have known better.
That was the last time we were civil. After that, it all went to hell.
Six
Jace
Jesus. How did this happen? How was I fighting with my court-appointed counselor? It was just a simple bullshit session. How did I keep fucking it up?
She was wearing a loose top today, some kind of light knit thing with a neck so wide it dropped almost to her shoulders. Beneath it she wore a navy blue tank top, the straps of which were clearly visible. I could see her collarbones, her clavicle. The line of her neck. Her dark brown hair was tied back again, but there were a few tendrils around her face, framing her cheekbones and her chin.
I drummed my fingers on the arms of my chair because I wanted to reach over and ease the straps of her tank top and the neck of her sweater down over her shoulders. Pull them down, down.
Keep it under control, Riggs.
“Let’s talk about your career stealing cars,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
She blinked, looked down at her file. “Well, to be honest, you don’t fit the profile. No drugs, no prior offenses, no acts of rage. You seem to have started breaking the law relatively late in life.”
“So I should have started sooner?” I asked her. “That would have made more sense to you?”
“Criminal behavior is a pattern,” Tara Montgomery said calmly. “It’s a learned method of dealing with things, and it most often starts early.”
She was going to be a professional today, like she’d promised. I’d promised her, too. But I looked at the curve of her bottom lip and I knew she was capable of something else. Of being someone else. I wondered if she had a man, if she liked to fuck him, if he made her come. Which was none of my fucking business.
“Well, I didn’t start early,” I told her. “I started late.”
“Why?” she asked me. “Why did you start? Did you need money?”
“I had a job and an apartment,” I said. “I was fine.” It was true. I’d been working as a mechanic, which was the only job I knew. Luckily it’s a job someone always needs, somewhere.
“Why, then?” Tara pressed. “Was someone threatening you?”
“Anyone who tries to threaten me can do it with their teeth down their throat.” Also true.
But she wasn’t done. “Was it the thrill of it, then?”
“If I wanted a thrill, I’d get on a damn roller coaster.”
“Why, then?” she said, the barest waver of frustration in her voice. Which said I was getting to her.
“I’ll tell you on one condition,” I said.
She looked exasperated. “What is it?”
“Tell me something true about yourself.”
Her eyes went wide and she stared at me.
“Anything,” I told her. “It doesn’t have to be embarrassing, or even secret. It just has to be true. You ask me all these questions, and you expect me to give you honesty. Well, I want it from you in return. Just once, before this session is over and we never see each other again.”
She seemed to think it over. “Okay,” she said. “I have something. I’ll tell you.”
My heart flipped in my chest. I hadn’t actually thought she’d say yes. “Go ahead.”
I could tell she was choosing her words, her beautiful brown eyes thoughtful, her soft mouth pressed briefly into a line. “I was engaged to be married eight months ago,” she said. “We’d been together for two years. We were planning the wedding when I broke it off.”
Now my blood was going crazy in my veins. Excitement that she’d done what I asked. Jealousy over whoever this fucking guy was. Fear that she’d change her mind and clam up. “Did he hurt you?” I asked her.
She looked surprised. “No, never. He was a nice guy.”
A nice guy who could go fuck himself. “Did he ignore you? Treat you bad in some way?”
“No, he was fine. I just… I wasn’t happy. I knew I couldn’t be happy with him. So I left.”
I was silent. All I could do was look at her. Picture her with a nice guy, a good-looking guy, going out for dinner, laughing at his jokes. Curling up on the couch with him, watching TV. Kissing him, fucking him, telling him she loved him. Meeting his parents. Putting his ring on her finger.
Nice things, normal things that normal people did. She’d done all of those things. Things I’d never done, and felt like I would never do.
I stared at her and she stared back, meeting my gaze. Her cheeks flushed slowly, hotter and then hotter again. There was everything in the air between us, heavy and burning and unsaid.
She parted her lips, made herself speak. “Your turn,” she said softly. “Tell me the truth, Jace. Why did you start stealing cars?”
I didn’t drop my gaze from hers. “Because I was good at it,” I said.
Her cheeks flushed redder, this time with anger. “That isn’t the truth,” she said. “It’s a lie. I tol
d you something true, and you are lying to me.”
“What does it matter?” I said, my voice rising just like hers was. “It makes no difference what the reason was. I stole cars because I’m a fucking criminal. You have to get used to that, Tara. That’s who I am.”
“That’s bullshit!” The words came out nearly in a shout. I’d never seen a woman so angry at me before, and it was so hot I could have slammed her on the desk and fucked her right there. “Don’t give me your bullshit line! Your woe-is-me, I’m-a-Riggs line! I am trying to figure out why a man who is intelligent and sensitive and kind would steal cars and fuck up his life!”
“You don’t know me,” I said to her. “I’m none of those things. You think you know me because your file says I read books? Well, I do. I fucking do. I read books, and I’m still a fuckup. That’s how it works with real people in the real world, not profiles. Real people don’t make any sense.”
She made a sound of frustration, nearly a growl, and slapped her palms down on her desk. “You are so fucking frustrating!” she shouted.
I pushed my chair back. “Write your report,” I said. “I came here because I need the court off my back, but you know what? I don’t care what you write in it. Write that I’m an asshole who can’t get through a simple session.”
“You think I won’t do it?” she said. “Just try me, Jace Riggs. I can make you do these stupid sessions that you hate so much until you’re ninety.”
“Do it,” I said, standing up. She didn’t like looking up at me, so she stood up too, and for the first time I saw all of her, the way her sweater draped over her slim hips, the long slender lines of her legs in their dark jeans. Which was fucking great, because now I could picture those legs wrapped around me. Which they would never be. “I paid my debt,” I told her. “I served my time. I lived in the halfway house. I report to my PO. I did every court appearance and every random drug test. There’s nothing you can do that will scare me. Have a nice life.”
“I will,” she said, “because I have plenty of clients who actually cooperate. I feel sorry for whoever gets you next.”
I left then. Just walked out. It was for the best.
Because she was right—I was lying. She’d given me honesty like I’d asked, and in return I’d lied to her face.
I was good at stealing cars—that part was true. But that wasn’t why I started doing it. I started doing it for revenge.
I should have just told her, but what the hell did it matter? Did I think that if I explained myself she’d see me as something different? As a nice guy? A guy she could actually like? That was never going to happen—we were never going to happen. And I couldn’t just sit across the desk from her, looking at her, knowing that. For once, I just couldn’t.
So I’d fucked it up.
But then again, that was all I knew how to really do.
Seven
Tara
I was a mess after that. I took a walk down the office hall and stood in the break room, staring at the wall for God knows how long until someone walked through the door behind me, jolting me out of my rage-and-lust stupor. Before whoever it was could ask me questions, I turned and left, walking swiftly to the ladies’ room this time and hiding in a stall. I was a professional counselor, and I spent thirty-six minutes—I counted—hiding in a goddamned toilet stall, trying not to cry.
Fucking Jace Riggs.
Fuck him and his chest and his stomach and his hands and his long legs in jeans. Fuck his nice hair and his gorgeous mouth and those fucking eyes that said there was so much more going on in his head than he let on. Fuck his I-give-up attitude and his don’t-mess-with-me defenses and his insanely fuckable smarts. Fuck all of it.
I closed my eyes and took deep breaths—really not advisable in a bathroom stall—and when I felt human again, I splashed water on my face and walked calmly back to my office. I didn’t have another appointment today; all I had to do was wrap up my paperwork and go home.
I sat at my computer and pulled up Jace’s electronic file. I pulled up the form the court was expecting me to fill out. I stared at it for a few minutes, and then I started typing.
I wrote that John Christian Riggs, known as Jace, was adjusting as well as could be expected to post-prison life. I wrote that he had a job, a stable place to live, skills that would keep him employed. I wrote that he was free from the addiction, mental illness, or anger problems that were the most frequent contributors to recidivism—that is, ex-cons ending up back in prison. I wrote that he presented himself in counseling as polite, well-mannered, cooperative, and generally willing to please. I wrote that he had stated no desire to return to his former job of stealing cars, that he seemed to have learned his lesson and paid his debt to society. I recommended that his follow-up be put on a reduction schedule and ended.
I need the court off my back, Jace had said. Maybe I couldn’t help him, but there was one thing I could do for him, anyway.
You should help him, you idiot, I told myself as I hit send. That’s supposed to be your fucking job.
I stood up and took my purse from my desk drawer. Heading out of the office, I popped my head in John’s door. “Going home,” I said. “Have a nice night.”
“Tara,” he said, putting a file in his filing cabinet and closing the drawer. “I need to talk to you about something. Close the door behind you.”
Surprised, I did.
“Jace Riggs,” John said. “You had an appointment today?”
Shit. Had Jace complained about my conduct? Well, if he had, I’d face it. To say I’d been unprofessional was an understatement. “Yes,” I said.
John shook his head. “I told them to tell you.”
“Told who what? To tell me what?”
“Reception. We weren’t supposed to take any more of his appointments. He’s off the roster.”
“He is?” I felt a beat of panic, not on my own behalf this time. “Is he in trouble again? Is he being sent somewhere else?”
“No, nothing like that.” John neatened his desk and powered off his computer, preparing to go home. “We weren’t supposed to have him in the first place. He wasn’t supposed to be on the list for counseling at all.”
That was baffling. “Why not?”
“Turns out he’s a CI,” John said. “An important one, in fact.”
I stared at him. A CI—a confidential informant. Jace had been an inside informer to the police.
Why did you start stealing cars?
Because I was good at it.
“He was informing on his father’s stolen car ring?” I asked John.
“Not just that,” he said. “The stolen cars were being run by some bigger criminals—drugs, weapons, that kind of thing. Apparently, Riggs’ information went straight up to the Detroit PD and the state investigation. It was instrumental to a few of their arrests.” He shrugged. “A Riggs, right? No one would have guessed. No one did guess.”
I could feel my stomach turning itself in knots. I’d raked Jace over the coals, trying to get him to tell me why he’d stolen cars. I’d given him the bullshit about how he didn’t fit the profile. And he hadn’t said a word. “Someone should have told me,” I said.
“It should have been in the file, I agree,” John said. He looked at my face, which was probably red. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “It’s just that I would have handled his counseling differently. I, um, spent time talking with him about why he picked a life of crime.”
“Ah,” John said. “Well, I saw your report in my inbox, so no harm done, right?”
“Can I ask you something?”
He was heading for the door. “Sure, I guess.”
“Why doesn’t a CI get counseling like every other ex-con?”
John sighed. “I don’t make the rules, Tara. I guess it’s assumed that CI’s aren’t real criminals, in the standard sense, so their treatment is different.”
“Jace Riggs might not be a real criminal, but he spent twenty months in prison,
” I argued. “He has to readjust exactly like every other con. He needs help just like anyone else. More, maybe. I mean, why did the system let him do time in the first place, when he was helping them get so many arrests?”
John was watching me talk, frowning. When he spoke, it was in the calm I’m-an-expert voice he no doubt used on his clients. “You seem rather upset about this.”
“Do I?” I shook my head. “Pardon me if it seems unfair that the system would use Jace Riggs to get arrests, then hang him out to dry when he got caught. Then try to deny him help after he did his time. Pardon me if I point out that Jace Riggs got a raw deal.”
“Tara,” John said calmly, definitely in counselor mode now, “Jace Riggs really did steal those cars. He’s a grown man who did illegal things and pleaded guilty to them in court. Maybe he would have had a tougher sentence if he wasn’t a CI. Have you thought of that?”
I stared at him, knowing I looked like a fool, unable to stop my hot cheeks or my passionate words. “Someone should have told me,” I insisted. Maybe it was the crazy day, but I couldn’t stop myself. “If I’d known, maybe I could have actually helped him instead of filling out a bullshit form. I got into this job to help people. That’s why I do it in the first place.”
“He’ll be fine.” Now John’s voice was firm. He hated emotion, and he certainly hated it when it was holding him up from going home for the day. “Jace Riggs is going to be just fine, whether he gets counseling or not. You can’t help every single one of them, Tara. It’s one of the facts of the job. The sooner you learn it, the longer you’ll last in this career. Am I making myself clear?”
I choked my words down, felt them in the back of my throat as I swallowed them. “Yes. You’re clear.”
“Good. Now go home and have a glass of wine, and start over tomorrow.” He turned and was gone, off to his family.
I did go home. And I intended to do as John said—have a glass of wine, maybe a bath, a nice dinner, watch some TV. My usual single girl’s night in.