by Radclyffe
Carter keyed in Rica’s security code and ducked quickly underneath the garage door as soon as there was clearance. By the time the door was all the way up, she was inside the kitchen in the dark. She steadied her breathing and listened, hearing nothing but the sounds of an empty house. The refrigerator running, the wind rattling the windows, the tick of a clock. But then, anyone who was any good would not be making any noise. She moved methodically from room to room, checking closets, shower enclosures, and the dark recesses of the hallways. The house was empty.
She pushed her gun beneath the waistband of her trousers at the small of her back and turned on the outside lights. By the time she started down the driveway, Rica was almost to the porch.
“There’s no one here,” Carter said.
Rica regarded her contemplatively, then nodded. “Thank you.”
When Rica walked past her into the house, Carter followed. She wasn’t surprised that now that Rica was home, she was starting to withdraw. Carter had seen enough traumatized victims to know that most of them just wanted to be alone in safe surroundings. She had no intention of intruding, but she wasn’t leaving.
The kitchen was empty when Carter walked in. She stood still for a few minutes, listening, and when she heard the shower running upstairs, she went through the counter drawers until she found a plastic bag. She checked a few more cabinets, then filled the bag with ice and sat down at the kitchen table until she heard the shower go off. She waited a few more minutes and then went upstairs.
“Rica,” Carter said after tapping on the closed bathroom door, “I’m leaving some ice out here for your face. I didn’t see any aspirin in the kitchen, but if you’ve got some in there you should take—”
The door opened and Rica, wrapped in a towel, her hair wet and tangled about her shoulders, pointed down the hallway to the right. “The bedroom is at the end of the hall. I’ll be right there. Can you find a bottle of wine in the kitchen and bring it up?”
“Sure.” Carter made a concerted effort not to look anywhere except at Rica’s face, but she was painfully aware that the plush sea green towel knotted above Rica’s breasts slanted open a few inches as it fell, revealing a slice of tanned thigh. The swell of unbidden arousal was tempered by the sight of the bruise that marred Rica’s cheek. Rica didn’t need to be groped by any one else that night. Carter looked away. “I’ll give you a few minutes.”
“Just get the wine and come upstairs.” Rica skimmed her fingers over Carter’s shoulder as she passed. “Thanks for the ice.”
*
Rica stood in front of the open French doors, listening to the sound of Carter’s steady footsteps approaching down the hall. She’d toweled off her hair and pulled on a robe. She hoped the wine would warm her, because she seemed to be frozen all the way through. Where she pushed her hands inside the sleeves of her robe, her body felt warm under her fingertips, but just beneath her skin where she couldn’t touch, she was cold.
Carter stopped inside the door, a wine bottle in one hand and a glass held by its stem between the fingers of her other. “I could only find red. Is that all right?”
“Yes,” Rica said, turning. She’d switched on a reading light in the far corner of the room and Carter’s face looked softer than usual in the lamplight. When Carter’s eyes swept down her body and then quickly back to her face, the look left a thin trail of heat in its wake. Surprised by the odd burning sensation, Rica moved toward her, out of the cold.
“I’ll just leave it here.” Carter backed up a step and set the wineglass and bottle carefully on a bureau next to the door. “You really should get some res—”
“Look at me,” Rica said, opening her robe.
“Rica,” Carter whispered, glancing down despite herself. Rica’s breasts were flushed, as if from the warmth of the shower, and her nipples tight pink buds of invitation. Carter’s stomach clutched.
“I don’t feel anything.” Rica swept her fingers over her chest and cupped her breast. She strummed her thumb across her nipple. The pink turned to red. “Nothing. Except where you look at me.”
“You need to rest,” Carter said gently. She knew it was some kind of shock, some reaction to the assault. She knew that. She knew, but her body was doing crazy things as Rica moved to within inches of her, her long, slender fingers continuing to play over her breasts and down her abdomen. Carter took another step back and hit the door.
“Enzo said you were dying to fuck me,” Rica whispered, her naked thighs brushing Carter’s pants.
“Enzo is an animal.” Carter brushed her thumb tenderly over the bruised cheek. “Listen to me. You need to lie down. You’re in pain, and frightened—”
“I know what I’m doing, Carter,” Rica said. “My face hurts like hell or I’d kiss you right now. I’m not trying to block out what happened.” She grasped Carter’s wrist and guided Carter’s hand to her breast. She smiled when Carter groaned. “I’m cold because I’ve had to be for so long—to fight Enzo and the rest of them—and now I can’t get warm. I can’t feel anything. Except where you touch me. Touch me.”
“No,” Carter whispered. Everything in her screamed wrong time, wrong place, wrong reasons, while her hands shook and her stomach knotted with the delirious scorching need to feel her.
“Please.” Rica covered Carter’s hand and squeezed Carter’s fingers down around her nipple. She tilted her head back and moaned.
“Oh, Jesus.” Somehow Carter’s other hand found its way into Rica’s hair, and she held her head gently while she raked her teeth down the center of Rica’s exposed throat. The sound of Rica whimpering vibrated against her lips, and she couldn’t think of anything except hearing, touching, tasting more of Rica’s pleasure. She cupped Rica’s breast with her whole hand, continuing the rhythmic pinch of thumb and fingers on the swollen peak. Harder and harder, twisting and tugging, until Rica slumped against her.
“Oh, so good.” Rica clutched Carter’s shoulder to steady herself and pressed her sex against Carter’s thigh. Heat flooded through her even as it flooded from her, drenching Carter’s pants. “So good, Carter.”
Carter took a nipple in her mouth.
Rica gasped. “I’ve dreamed of you making me come.”
Carter lifted her head and looked into the depths of Rica’s wide, dark eyes. Then she was swirling and tumbling and about to drown in the vortex of pure and simple desire. Rica’s lips trembled as she pumped her hips in long, hard strokes over Carter’s thigh.
“I’m afraid I will,” Rica whispered, her eyes glazing. “I’m so close to coming already. Oh Carter, don’t let me come before you touch me.”
Carter’s heart squeezed painfully. Rica was so beautiful, so open, so…trusting.
“Rica, I can’t,” Carter groaned, and released Rica’s breast. But she was too late.
Rica caught Carter’s hand and thrust it between her legs, her breath hitching on a thin cry. “I’m going to…” She plunged Carter’s fingers into her aching sex, took her deep inside, and drove down against her palm in short, hard thrusts. She came on Carter’s hand with a broken wail.
Carter wrapped an arm around Rica’s waist and caught her as her legs gave way, lifting her into her arms. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” she murmured as Rica whimpered with the last ravages of her climax. “It’s okay.”
But just like so many times in her life when she’d held a woman in moments like this, she was lying. And this time, the lie was tearing her apart.
Chapter Nineteen
Rica awakened cold and naked. The room itself was warm, and she was covered by a light sheet, but Carter was gone and she’d taken the heat with her. Rica remembered sleeping in Carter’s arms. She remembered the faintly rough texture of Carter’s shirt beneath her cheek and the surprisingly erratic beat of Carter’s heart somewhere in her distant dreams. It had been months since she’d awakened with anyone in her bed, and longer than that since she’d allowed anyone to actually hold her while she slept. Dropping into an exhausted stupor
next to the woman who had just made her come was a far cry from what had happened with Carter.
And what had happened with Carter? Oh, she knew what had happened, at least the easy part. Rica skimmed her hand down the center of her chest. She could remember Carter’s mouth and hands on her breasts. Her nipples were still swollen and pleasantly sore. Her skin was nothing but raw nerve endings. She tensed, remembering how desperate she’d been to be filled, so wild to come with Carter inside her that she couldn’t think at all. Her whole body was still loose and languid after climaxing harder than she could ever recall. She slid her fingers along the inside of her thigh and over her sex. She was still wet. She wanted Carter again. Her body, no, not just her body, all of her, was out of control.
With a sigh, Rica rose and found her robe where it lay pooled in the sunlight by the bedroom door. She remembered the rest of it too. Carter had tried to stop her, but she’d been too far gone to hear. Carter had tried to stop her, and now Carter was gone. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. She shouldn’t have slept with her, but she hadn’t been able to get her out of her head all the time they had been separated. Three weeks had felt like three years. She should have been glad Carter was gone, because she didn’t need the complication now. Enzo’s demands, business and personal, were becoming harder and harder to turn aside. And now Carter was in the middle, and that was a very dangerous place for her to be.
“It’s just as well she’s gone.”
When Rica walked into the kitchen and saw Carter outside on the deck, talking on her cell phone, her heart leapt. A twist of desire nearly made her stumble and she stopped just inside the door to look at Carter. Just look. Carter still wore the clothes she’d had on the previous evening and her face was drawn and tired, as if she hadn’t slept. Even though she was rumpled and windblown, she looked beautiful. A wash of desire flooded Rica’s thighs.
“Oh God,” she whispered. This was far more than she had wanted to feel, and she feared there was no turning back.
When Carter turned sideways to lean her hip against the railing, still speaking urgently, Rica saw the Glock tucked into the small of her back. Rica flashed on Carter opening the cargo area the night before and then moving stealthily up the path to her house, her steps certain and sure. As if she’d done it before. A small note of warning sounded in Rica’s mind.
Carter glanced into the house and, meeting Rica’s gaze, quickly ended her call. She stepped back into the kitchen and kissed Rica softly, just a gentle brush of lips. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I owe you an apology,” Rica said, folding her arms over her breasts.
“No,” Carter said softly, “you don’t.”
“I don’t unusually throw myself at women.”
“Rica, last night was—”
“No.” Rica held up a hand, knowing Carter thought that the sex had been an attempt to block out the attack. “Last night was not about Enzo. It was about wanting you so much that I—”
“Last night was great.” Carter caressed Rica’s neck. “Last night was amazing.”
“Yes.” Rica smiled fleetingly. “I notice you didn’t stick around for seconds, though.” At Carter’s look of surprise, Rica grimaced. “God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe it has something to do with fighting alone all your life. Don’t apologize.”
Rica shrugged. “A bit late now. I should call my father and let him know where I am. At least he won’t send anyone out looking for me.”
“Good idea.”
“If you’ve got friends in my father’s favor, now would be the time to call on them. Before Enzo twists this around and makes you out to be a threat to someone besides him.”
There it was. The opening Carter needed to press for details about the organization. Who are the important people? Who should I call? Who are Enzo’s enemies? His friends? Carter said nothing.
Rica laughed bitterly and then winced at the sharp twinge in her jaw. Her face pulsed with pain. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how to handle these things. You’ve probably already called.”
“Yes,” Carter said, but it hadn’t been the call Rica imagined.
“Kevin? We’ve got problems.”
“That’s a fucking understatement. Where the hell are you?”
“Cape Cod. What have you heard?”
“That someone put Brassi on the floor at a family gathering last night and left him with his dick hanging out.”
“Who’d you hear it from?”
“A friend. You’re not the only one inside,” Kevin said. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Motherfu—Jesus. Allen is busting a nut over this. She’s been trying to call you all night. Where’s your phone?”
“I’m talking to you on it.”
Kevin laughed. “Funny. Why didn’t you answer?”
“I was sleeping.”
“Sleeping. With a certain dark-haired princess?”
Carter was silent.
“Fuck me.” Kevin sighed audibly. “Allen went over our heads. Says you’ve compromised the whole operation. Says your judgment’s impaired. You’re off the case, Carter, all the way off. You’ll be lucky if you don’t end up with a suspension.”
“He was going to rape her.”
“So you had to ride to the rescue?”
“You would’ve done the same thing.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Kevin muttered. “Allen thinks it was probably just a lover’s spat and you got in the middle of it. After she warned you away from Grechi.”
“It wasn’t a spat.”
“You gotta come in, partner. Allen’s after your head. She already put Rizzo in witness protection, just in case Brassi makes the connection when he starts gunning for you.”
“Rica is not involved, Kevin. She’s not part of the organization.”
“Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. And maybe your head’s not in the right place for this job right now.”
“I’m telling you, she’s clean,” Carter said. “I’m not leaving her alone for a few days. Brassi’s probably going to show up.”
“He’s probably going to be looking for your head on a platter, not hers. If he doesn’t get it, Allen will.”
“Brassi’s probably got people here in town already—watching Rica while they’re taking care of his other business. Allen can’t come in here and pull me out without raising suspicions. I’m safe here for a while.”
“You’re putting your job on the line for this woman, Carter.”
“I put her in a tough place, Kev. I’m not walking away from her.”
Kevin groaned. “Jesus, you’re stubborn. Maybe you’ve been doing this too long. Maybe you need a brea—”
Carter had disconnected when she’d realized Rica was awake and watching her from the kitchen. She would have hung up anyway; there was no way she could explain to Kevin why she wasn’t going to follow Allen’s directive. The kind of investigation Allen was running could go on for years without an arrest. Men like Pareto were rarely indicted even with testimony from insiders. Allegiances ran deep and betrayals were dealt with swiftly and mercilessly. In all the months she’d been working the case, she hadn’t uncovered one single bit of evidence to suggest Rica was involved even peripherally in her father’s organization or doing anything illegal. And now, with Rizzo out of the picture in WITSEC, her primary contact was gone. Her part in Allen’s operation was over. And even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter anymore. She was done betraying Rica’s trust.
“Enzo won’t do anything hasty, Rica.” Carter carefully touched her fingers to Rica’s cheek. “Hurt?”
“Some.” Rica covered Carter’s hand with hers. “Still, you need to be careful.”
“I will be.”
Rica circled Carter’s waist and felt the Glock tucked into her waistband. She’d made a lot of assumptions about Carter, assumptions that might be wrong. Suddenly that mattered. “Are you really an attorney?”
“And what else?”
“Rica, we agreed—”
“Things have changed now, haven’t they?” Rica slid back a few steps until they were no longer in contact. She had to know. She’d broken her own rule when she’d let Carter get close, and she needed to know just how badly she had overstepped her own boundaries. “Tell me.”
A dozen replies came to mind. Lies she’d told so often they felt like truths. What was truth? Maybe it was something as simple as a woman sleeping in her arms. Carter didn’t know. She didn’t need to. She only knew there was only one answer now.
“I’m a cop, Rica.”
Rica sucked in a breath, her eyes never leaving Carter’s face. She wavered for just a second and then straightened. “Well, that makes things easy. I can stop worrying about Enzo. He’ll kill you, and that will take care of my mistake.” She slid past Carter, being careful that their bodies did not touch. “Get out.”
“I need you to know something,” Carter said to Rica’s back. She held her breath, waiting.
Rica turned at the doorway, her face a careful mask. “I should call my father now and tell him who you are. I’m sure he could find out who brought you inside. Who has betrayed him.”
“There’s no one to find, Rica.”
“Did you really think you could fuck me and I’d betray my father?”
“I know you wouldn’t.” Carter wanted desperately to go to her. To touch her for just a second. The cold disdain in her eyes was worse than anything she’d ever imagined. Anything except losing her. “I also know—”
“You don’t know anything about me if you think there’s anything in the world that would make me turn against my family. Especially”—Rica shrugged—“not for something I could get anywhere, anytime I wanted it.”