by Radclyffe
“Oh,” Rebecca shouted, shocked into orgasm. “Oh yeah…oh.”
As they clung to one another in the final moments of release, their cries mingled and eventually dwindled to faint moans and soft whimpers. Rebecca carried Catherine with her down onto the bed, cradling her against her chest. Catherine groped for the sheet and pulled it over them.
“I don’t know how you do that,” Catherine murmured, her voice thick with the vestiges of passion. “Know just what I need, just when I need it.”
“Just lucky, I guess,” Rebecca said seriously. She stroked Catherine’s hair. “I feel so damn lucky to have you.”
“What we have,” Catherine said. “It’s precious.”
“I know.” Rebecca sighed. “I’m trying to deserve it. I know I probably don—”
Catherine pressed her fingers to Rebecca’s mouth. “Shh. That’s not what I meant.” She pressed a kiss to the scar that marked Rebecca’s heart. “I want you more than anything else in my life—more than safety, more than certainty, more than promises. Just you, here with me like this, every night. When you can, give me that.”
“I will,” Rebecca whispered. When I’m sure I won’t disappoint you, I will.
Chapter Seven
Tuesday
“Hey, it’s about time you showed up.” Jason greeted Mitchell with an affectionate smile and rolled an office chair in her direction. “Park it there, and let’s get to work.”
Gingerly, Mitchell leaned her crutches against a bench, eased into the chair, and propelled herself across the hardwood floor with her good leg to Jason’s side. “Man, it feels good to get down here.”
“How’d you escape?”
“Sandy got in late. She’s still asleep. I think Michael’s napping too.”
“Well, let’s just see how much we can get done before Sandy hauls your ass back upstairs.”
“I’m a lot better,” Mitchell protested.
“Don’t tell me—tell her. She’s the one riding herd on you.”
Mitchell grinned. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Rebecca called earlier. She and Watts have to be in court for some other case and will be by later. Sloan is at Police Plaza with the detectives she’s training for the new Electronic Surveillance Unit.” He shook his head. “They have no clue what they’re in for.”
“You know, six weeks ago I would’ve done anything to get assigned to that unit.”
“So what changed your mind?” Jason pushed a stack of computer printouts toward her. “I bet Rebecca could get you assigned if you wanted. It wouldn’t hurt for us to have another inside computer technician.”
“Uh-uh. I’ve got other things to do now.” Mitchell shuffled the papers. “Are these the hits on the porn subscribers?”
“Yep. We need to start putting names to accounts.” Jason brought up a spreadsheet on the monitor. “This is how I’ve broken down the data so far.”
“Okay. Split it up and I’ll get going.”
“So,” Jason said, transferring files, “you like the undercover thing, huh?”
“Yeah,” Mitchell said absently as she scanned the figures scrolling on her screen.
“And Mitch. You like Mitch too.”
Slowly, Mitchell swiveled to face Jason. “You know I do.”
“And you’re still okay with it?”
If it had been anyone other than Jason, she might not have answered. But Jason was the one person, other than Sandy, whom she trusted to understand. “It feels good. Like, just another part of me.”
Jason nodded, his eyes on her face. Waiting.
“And, well, Sandy likes it too.”
“That’s handy.”
Mitchell grinned. “And I like that she likes it.”
“Even better.” Jason appeared to be weighing his words. “Sometimes it can get confusing.”
“Are you ever confused?” Mitchell asked softly.
“No,” Jason replied just as softly. “Never about what I feel, only about what others might think.”
“I already know what the only people who matter to me think.”
Jason looked as if he wanted to ask more, but he merely nodded. “The boys were asking after Mitch last night. I told them he was laid up for a few days because of the motorcycle accident. They want to visit.”
Mitchell blinked. “Here?”
“I told them he was staying with some friends. It would probably be good for your cover if they saw you and Sandy together.”
“What about all the security and stuff in the building? Don’t you think that’ll make them curious?”
“They won’t ever see this floor, because we’ll program the elevator to go right to the loft. All they’re going to see is the garage and Sloan and Michael’s apartment.”
“What about the camera over the door? Most people don’t have one of those.”
Jason grinned. “We have a custom light fixture that screws over it for just such times as these.”
“Okay then. When?”
“Jasmine has a show tonight. The kings will probably be there. You up for it afterward?”
“Sure.” Mitchell wondered, however, if Sandy would be ready for Mitch to get back to work.
*
Watts, carrying a Styrofoam cup brimming with mud-colored coffee, ambled down the hall leaving a trail of splashes on the scuffed tile floor in his wake. He leaned against the door frame of a large room that resembled the vice squad room with its haphazard arrangement of desks and mismatched chairs—but there were ten times as many computers here. Sipping his coffee absently, he regarded the two men in shirtsleeves and baggy chinos—the kind of nerdy guys who got their asses kicked in high school—as they listened with rapt attention to Sloan. She was half turned away from him, one hip hiked up on a desk, as she pointed to something on a monitor that Watts couldn’t see. He had assumed that she’d be bored to tears setting up whatever it was the city wanted her to do, but to his surprise, she seemed to be into whatever she was saying. Even from where he was standing, he could sense her energy. He pushed away from the doorway and strolled in to join the group.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Just getting organized,” Sloan replied, easing off the desk. “You guys go ahead and get the network hardwired. I’ll be back.”
When she indicated the hallway with a tilt of her head, Watts nodded and preceded her out. Once there, he said, “I’d have brought you coffee, but this stuff doesn’t qualify.”
“Thanks anyway. I know better than to ingest anything around here.”
“I see you got stuck with the pocket-protector twins.” Watts snorted. “Hard to believe they’re detectives.”
Sloan suppressed a smile. “They’re eager.”
“So you’re really going to set up this electronic spy thing?”
“That’s what they’re paying me to do.” Sloan grinned. “Although if I only gave them what they’re actually paying me for, they might be able to manage interdepartmental data retrieval in a decade or so.”
“Nothing but the best when you work for the city.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.” Sloan glanced into the room where the two detectives were absorbed in sorting out a tangle of cables. She lowered her voice. “But once I get the various networks connected, I’ll be able to browse any database I choose. I already know someone on the inside has been hacking data from the crime lab and the detective bureau’s files. With unlimited access, I can trace him back to the source computer, not just the department.”
“How long?” Watts asked eagerly.
“If I had Jason and Mitchell here, maybe a week, but there’s no way to do that without someone getting suspicious.” Sloan lifted a shoulder. “Working by myself—I don’t know. I could get lucky, or it could take me a few weeks.”
“How long if you sleep once in a while?”
Sloan’s mouth tightened. “I have a wife, Watts. I don’t need another one.”
Watts smirked. “How about a boyfriend?”
“How about you finish your coffee break somewhere else and let me get to work.”
“I was hoping you could do me a favor.”
“What?”
“I need to look at some files that don’t exist.”
“Yeah?” Sloan’s eyes brightened. “And where might these nonexistent files be located?”
“Well—I figure one of three places. Captain Henry, Avery Clark, or buried in the narco records.”
“You want to know what Jimmy Hogan was doing for the Justice Department that got him killed.”
Watts nodded.
“It’s not Henry,” Sloan said with certainty. “When the initial evidence pointed to him as being the mole, I went through every byte of data in his system. He never had anything to do with Hogan’s undercover assignment and never got a single report from him. That all went to narco, because Hogan was presumably their boy.” Her expression hardened. “Of course, no one knew he was really Justice’s plant and working for Clark. So it’s possible he never filed any kind of substantive report with the PPD but just passed everything he got on to the feds.”
“Maybe. But Hogan must’ve been feeding some tidbits to Jeff Cruz, or else why would Jeff have been with him down on the docks the day they were shot?” Watts slid a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and shook one out. He lit it with a scratched and dented Zippo and took a deep drag. “Hogan either thought Jeff knew something, or he decided to cut Jeff and the Loo in on his investigation.”
“Hogan was supposed to be undercover investigating the drug arm of Zamora’s operation. Frye and Cruz didn’t have anything to do with drugs.” Sloan followed the trail of smoke from Watts’s cigarette as it curled indolently toward the ceiling. “You’re gonna set off the smoke alarms.”
“Nah. None of them work.”
“No,” Sloan mused, her mind still occupied with the elusive connection between Jimmy Hogan, a federal agent working undercover as a narcotics detective working undercover as a small-time drug dealer, and Jeff Cruz, a detective in the Special Crimes Unit who dealt primarily with sex crimes. The obvious tie-in was that all of those criminal endeavors were part of the organized crime network. “Too loose.”
“Huh? What? The smoke detectors?”
“The association.”
Watts squinted through the fumes. “You wanna give me a hint here?”
“It has to be something more specific than just the fact that the Zamora organization was behind the crimes that both Hogan and Cruz were investigating. Something links the drugs and the sex.”
“It always comes down to the same thing,” Watts noted sourly. “Puss—uh, girls. It’s gotta be the prostitution.”
“That makes sense, since Clark showed up and put us all on the trail of the Internet pornographers.” She jammed her hands in her pockets and started pacing. “There have to be reports from Hogan to Clark. If he wrote them on a computer or e-mailed them, I can find them.”
“You work on that,” Watts dropped the butt and crushed it under the toe of his scuffed wingtip, “and I’ll drop around to narco and see if I can get anything out of the guys Hogan was supposedly reporting to. If I can get you a name, you’ll have another thread to pull.”
“Fine. I’ll be here turning the Wonder Boys into cybersleuths for a while yet.”
“Yeah. Don’t forget their red capes. Meanwhile, I’ll do some real detecting.” Laughing to himself, Watts sauntered off, a happy man with a mission.
*
“Mmm.” Sandy purred and stretched as a warm mouth slowly deposited gentle kisses down the back of her neck and between her shoulder blades. Without opening her eyes, face still buried in the pillow, she reached behind her and felt for the familiar form. Finding it, she smoothed a hand over the subtle curve of hip. “I’m sleeping, Dell.”
“Go ahead,” Mitchell whispered, continuing her tactile journey down the center of her lover’s back. She swirled the tip of her tongue in the hollow at the base of Sandy’s spine as she caressed her fingers up the inside of Sandy’s leg, stopping to stroke the buttery-soft skin high on the inside of her thighs. “I’m fine here by myself.”
Sandy shifted, drawing up one knee, opening herself to her lover’s quest. “Yeah? Then how come you’re touching me instead of yourself?”
“’Cause you’re sexier.” Emphasizing her words, Mitchell traced a fingertip ever so lightly along the lacy border of Sandy’s labia, coating the delicate tissue with the moisture that rose beneath her touch. Her voice was husky when she murmured, “See?”
“I’m too tired for sex,” Sandy groused, but her hips lifted in silent invitation.
“I’m just petting you. You don’t need to wake up.” Mitchell eased onto her right side, taking care not to put any weight on her injured leg, and cupped Sandy’s sex in her palm. Still squeezing gently, she followed the curve of Sandy’s ear with her lips until she reached the fleshy lobe. Sucking the plump flesh in and out between her lips, she pressed the pad of her finger to the tip of Sandy’s clitoris.
“Too late,” Sandy gasped. “Everything just woke up.”
Mitchell chuckled. “I noticed.” She rocked the stiff prominence of Sandy’s decidedly aroused clitoris, her stomach tightening as Sandy whimpered. “Oh man, me too.”
“What?” Sandy pushed back into Mitchell’s hand, rotating her hips, working herself against the teasing fingers. “What, baby?”
“Wide awake.”
“Too bad.” Sandy’s breath came in short, shallow bursts. “You started it. You finish me first.”
“Say please,” Mitchell taunted, pulling her fingers away from the spot where she knew Sandy wanted her, at the same time dragging her teeth down the side of Sandy’s neck. Sandy shivered and moaned.
“If you fuck with me now you’ll pay, rookie,” Sandy warned, pushing her hips into Mitchell’s crotch. “I swear…you’ll be sorry.”
“I’ll risk it.”
“Come on, baby. Don’t tease. I wanna come.”
“Bad?”
“Touch me and see.” Sandy’s breath caught as Mitchell dipped inside her, then out again. “Do that…again…I’ll come for you.”
Mitchell’s stomach tightened, her clitoris twitching, but she ignored the painful pleasure. She pressed her thumb firmly to the tight circle of muscle between Sandy’s buttocks while sliding her fingers over the slick, swollen labia. Sandy bucked as if jolted with an electric current.
“Dell…” Sandy’s voice shook. “I don’t know…if…”
“It’s okay,” Mitchell soothed. “I won’t if you don’t want me to.”
“I…just…easy.” Sandy fisted the sheets, her legs tensing. “Talk to me…talk to me while you make me come.”
“That’s it, honey,” Mitchell whispered, her mouth against Sandy’s ear as she carefully massaged the sensitive ring. “That’s all I’m going to do this time, just make you feel good.” When Sandy began to push back against her, Mitchell held pressure with her thumb while sliding her fingers in and out of her lover’s warm depths. “That’s right. Take me all the way in, honey.”
“More,” Sandy gasped.
Despite the urgent thrust of Sandy’s hips, Mitchell held back, fearful of going too far too fast. Instead, she worked her free hand beneath Sandy’s body and caught her clitoris in her fingers.
Sandy made a faint, high keening sound, and Mitchell squeezed harder.
“Coming. Dell… Dell…”
Eyes closed, Mitchell pressed her forehead to Sandy’s back and worked her lover with both hands, squeezing and stroking and filling her to overflowing. Mitchell’s arms trembled and her hips thrust erratically in time to her lover’s as Sandy climaxed with a choked cry. Releasing a pent-up breath, Mitchell smiled and relaxed against Sandy’s side.
Long moments later, Sandy muttered, “You fall asleep?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Did you come?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Wanna?”
Carefully
, Mitchell rolled over onto her back and Sandy followed, curling up in the curve of her body. “I think I’m pretty good. Sometimes when you come, it feels like I did too.”
“You think you’ll get tired of it?”
“Tired of what?” Mitchell snugged her cheek against the top of Sandy’s head while making aimless patterns over Sandy’s shoulder with her fingertips. She’d never felt so peaceful in her life.
“You know…the sex thing.”
When Mitchell didn’t reply, Sandy stiffened. “Never mind. It’s dumb.”
“Sandy,” Mitchell murmured, tightening her hold before Sandy could move away. “I want to make love with you for the rest of my life.”
“Jeez, rookie.” Sandy forced a laugh, struggling to hide her shock. “I just meant… that’s not why I… you don’t have to say—”
“I know,” Mitchell interrupted. “I’m just telling you the way I feel.”
“I don’t think we oughtta talk about this. Because it’s just too crazy.”
“Okay,” Mitchell replied easily. “We don’t have to talk about it now.” She lifted her head and kissed Sandy soundly on the mouth. “But I meant it.”
“You just don’t quit, do you,” Sandy complained. But her eyes were soft with longing and desire.
“Not where you’re concerned,” Mitchell whispered. She caught Sandy’s hand and drew the small fingers down the center of her abdomen and between her legs, where she held them cupped against her. “And I’m wide awake now, honey.”
Chapter Eight
Rebecca piloted the Corvette through the narrow one-way streets of South Philadelphia. Watts, hunched in the passenger seat beside her, was for once mercifully silent. Turning left onto Delaware Avenue, the wide four-lane highway that ran along the waterfront, she drove north until she reached the parking lot adjacent to the Maritime Museum. She parked alongside the huge wooden pilings, interconnected by rusted links of chain, that formed the only barrier between someone standing on the blacktop and the roiling brown water of the Delaware River twenty feet below.