by Eden Butler
“Alex… shit. Oh thank God.” He squeezed me tight, like he couldn’t stop himself and I decided right then and there that being wrapped in Ryan’s arms was the best place on earth ever. “Let me look at you,” he said, pulling only far enough away from me that would allow him to touch my face and run his free hand over my body. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you? I’ll fucking kill him.”
“It’s Davidson,” I said, stopping Ryan’s incessant examination of my arms and shoulder with my fingers on his cheek. “I’m not hurt. Yes, he touched me, but I touched him back and I made that fucker bleed.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, bringing me back to his chest. “We finally figured out it was him. Frank…”
“Is Frank okay?” I asked, pushing back to look at Ryan’s face. Frank had looked so helpless on that office floor with his body twitching from the aftereffects of the taser and his head bleeding from where it had whacked the desk. “I was worried.”
“He’ll do. He felt shitty about not protecting you.”
I cocked an eyebrow at Ryan and shook my head. “You gave him shit? Because Davidson tased him? Hell, he tased me too and I might not be a Marine, but I can hold my own. That asshole was fast.”
“That fucker tased you?” He said it more like a statement, something that had his jaw working and a slow, menacing grit forcing the words out. “I’ll be right back.” Then he snapped his finger, calling over three of his men—all massive and loaded down with weapons. “Do not fucking take one eyeball off her.”
“Ryan, wait.” I followed behind him, tugging on his arm. “Don’t be stupid and don’t you dare think about going in there.”
“He put hands on you, Alex. No way he gets to live and that fucker sent me and my men on a wild fucking goose chase.”
“And I knocked him out.” He moved again, as if he was going to ignore me and I stepped in front of him. “Don’t you dare go in there, Ryan or I swear to God…”
I didn’t get to finish my threat or yell at him for the frustrated glare he gave me. Behind us there was a shout, the low whine of pain and we both looked toward the house as Sammy and Dean led a handcuffed Davidson out of the house. The man’s face was swollen and bloody and his nose was crooked with a twist right in the center bone.
“Shit, Alex, what’d you hit him with?” Ryan asked as we walked toward them.
“My shoe. Never mind that. Where will they take him?” I didn’t care what happened to Davidson, but I worried that he wouldn’t stop trying to contact me. Prisoners can still send letters and I knew that Davidson was well connected.
“Our buddy Davidson will have some explaining to do,” Ryan said, stepping in front of me so I couldn’t see that prick. “Frank has spoken to several interested parties that would like to know a little more about how he was able to put Wanda away so easily.”
“And then there’s his boss’s involvement in a certain former governor going down for racketeering,” Sammy said. “He’s definitely interested in hearing what Davidson has to say.”
Davidson’s laugh was grating, a high pitched sound that had my fingers itching to give him another smack. That bastard wouldn’t stop staring between Ryan and me and the hard look of hatred, disgust twisted his features tight. “The two of you. How ironic.”
“Mind your manners,” Sammy told him, slapping the back of his head.
But Davidson wouldn’t be silenced and he twisted against the handcuffs, managing to pull out of Sammy’s hold to stand right in front of us. “The stupid cop and the girl not even the state wanted and what do they have in common? What strings were pulled that had the two you moving closer and closer together? Two dead women, a sister, a poor, bitchy mama and the man who saw to it all…”
But who that man was, Davidson would never say. At first, I wasn’t sure what had happened. I heard the zip of air whipping through the night. I saw the stunned silence on Davidson’s face, how he looked like he couldn’t believe someone had shut him up or how. And then the small circle of blood formed on his temple, some of it splattering across my face, across Ryan’s and then I went down, that large, beautiful body on top of me, covering me, Ryan’s heavy, hot breath on the top of my hair and his arms curled on my head.
“What happened?” I asked, not able to breathe with his heavy weight on top of me. I pushed on his shoulder, trying to nudge him, but Ryan just gripped my hand, squeezing it once.
“Lie still,” he whispered, barely moving off me with his eyes narrowed, gaze catching Sammy’s as he lay on the gravel ten feet away. “Someone took him out.”
Around the perimeter of the grounds I heard Dean barking orders and the static from radios as the men searched for the sniper. I didn’t move a muscle, hung on to Ryan with my fingers pulling at his shirt. From the gap between Ryan’s body and the ground I could just make out Davidson as I lay there, crumpled on the ground, eyes vacant, jaw slack. I knew I should have been horrified, but all I felt was a remnant of fear, even now, even with my assailant dead a few feet away, and a growing anger. This did not feel anything like a resolution.
Sammy and Ryan moved slowly, heads nodding, directions being given until Dean jogged toward us. “He split. No sign anywhere.”
And then Ryan pulled me off the ground. Both he and Sammy frowned, looked out around the grounds, clearly pissed that someone, even a psychopath, had gone down on their watch.
“Motherfucker,” I said, not caring that Sammy laughed at my curse or that Ryan looked down, frowning. “He was about to tell us everything.”
Ryan shook his head. “No, darlin’, he was about to waste our time with bullshit that shouldn’t matter anymore.” He ignored my eye roll and touched my face, gaze moving down my body as he rolled to the side. “You okay?”
“I’m not hit.”
“But are you okay?”
“I…” Was I? I know he wanted me to say that I was resilient and strong and I’d always be able to bounce back with no problems. But the man who murdered my sister, for whatever reason he had, had stalked me, touched me, tasted me. There came a small bustle behind us from the trees and Ryan stood in front of me, then I pushed him aside when I heard the croaky meow from the mangy, orange cat who sat staring at me. “Minion!”
“Oh shit,” I heard Ryan mumble, but I didn’t care if he was a dog person, or if his building allowed pets.
The smelly animal came in my arm easily and I nestled his head, not caring about the brambles stuck in his fur or the clumps knotted beneath it. This damn cat was a survivor. And he was strong, like I had to be, but I wasn’t so sure how easily you can forget when the shit gets its heaviest. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Davidson’s attack, the small details he’d let slip rekindled a fire in me. It was barely a spark, but the inferno hinted behind the smoke smoldering in my chest. I wanted the truth about Stevie. I needed it. I only hoped Ryan understood that, that he wouldn’t get in my way. He came to my side, attempting to stroke Minion’s chin but the animal hissed at him, snuggled against my neck. “I’m tired, Ryan,” I told him, meaning it. “I’m just so tired.”
Alex had been in the tub for over an hour. She didn’t want me to help her. She didn’t want me touching her as she undressed. She damn well wouldn’t tell me what Davidson had done to her. My chest felt tight, like something heavy, like a fucking truck had landed on top of me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to get it off.
Useless. That would describe what I felt. How the hell are you supposed to help someone who takes all the bullshit, all the shitty circumstances and twisted situations life dumps in their lap and buries it deep? She’d never let me get away with that bullshit, but I let her be for now as I sat on my living room floor staring at my mom’s jewelry box like it had any answers for me.
I flipped open the top and wound the wheel watching the hidden compartments spring open, thinking about how much of a distraction Alex Black was. She took away my focus from the job I’d signed on to do. She kept me thinking about her skin, her mouth
, her fucking laugh while I bumbled my way through cases with no concentration, zero attention. She had me thinking about the future and where I wanted us to land, here in the city or back home in Cavanagh. And we were connected, by death, by the unknowable, by the lies we’d been told and the bastards who withheld the truth like a cure-all from a dying, unworthy man.
But no one made me laugh like she did. No one had ever touched me like she had, or made me feel as if my body, my mouth could work some great fucking magic. Only Alex did that. Only Alex had crawled into my chest and left behind the memory of her touch, the taste of her skin, the sound of her laughter.
Still fiddling with the jewelry box, I noticed that the velvet on the left side compartment of the box was a bit loose. Frowning, I lifted the spot of fabric from the wood, squinting to see that nothing had worked the glue free, yet when I pressed it flat against the base, there was an imprint, some miniscule indentation that should not have been there. It was shaped like a rectangle, only about two inches in length, too big to be a brooch or any other type of jewelry. I couldn’t remember all my mother’s stuff, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything that size or shape before. Still, it reminded me of something…
An intriguing possibility came to me. I stood, and slipped into the dining room, to the cabinet that covered my wall board. Alex and I had filled in a few details, some facts and theories about her sister, about who’d she run across that might have gotten her pregnant and would have had motive to kill her. Flippantly, I made a note to myself about Davidson. He’d get a link and the files that Frank had on him would be added. But that wasn’t why I’d opened the board. I felt along the side and grabbed the flash drive we used to archive the information from the board. It was orange and white with a clear plastic case covering the metal USB port on one end and it was precisely the size and shape of the intention left behind in my mom’s jewelry box.
I looked hard at the shape as I walked back to the living room, wondering if it was possible. Were flash drives even around back when my mom was killed? Then I picked up the box, and laid my flash drive against that faint indentation. It was a perfect match. But who would have put a flash drive behind the lining and why?
I had no way of knowing. Just like everything else concerning my mother’s case and why Dot didn’t want me selling the box, I came away with a discovery that lent itself to far more questions than answers.
Behind me I heard Alex splashing in the tub. The water had to be cold by now. It seemed like she’d been in there forever, and the longer she stayed hidden under that water, the larger the tightness in my chest had grown.
Damn that.
She could be mad at me for intruding all she wanted. It was always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? So I walked to the bathroom door, listening as the water barely moved and the low, quiet sniffle that came from her nose. I opened the door before I could talk myself out of it to find Alex in the tub, huddled over her legs, arms around her knees and her right cheek resting on top of them, turned away from the door like she’d known I’d barge in and she didn’t want me seeing her crying.
God, she was beautiful. That back curved and muscular, that long, impossibly black hair shielding her body from me. I wanted to take her just then. I wanted to bury myself inside of her so she didn’t remember anything but the way I feel on top of her and how often my tongue met hers.
I didn’t say anything as I walked across the bathroom, hushing that ugly orange cat when it hissed at me and knelt beside the tub, frowning when I dipped my fingers into the cold water. Alex only looked at me when I unstoppered the tub and ran the hot water.
“I wasn’t done.”
“I know that,” I told her, swishing the cold water toward the drain and the hot water toward her legs. “I don’t want you to freeze.” I glanced at her face, spotted the red streaks and puffy swell of her eyes before I placed the plug back in and adjusted the temperature on the faucet. She kept her gaze on my profile, looking for what I don’t know what. “You get it all out?” I didn’t look at her, not wanting to her to think I needed to monitor her expression.
One small sniffle and Alex shrugged. “Most of it.” I nodded, cupping the hot water in my hands so I could pour it over her chilled legs.
“Scoot forward, I’ll do your back,” I told her, needing some other reason to stay. I didn’t think she was going to give me an invite so I had to come up with my own rationale. Alex listened, inching closer to the pouring faucet as I took off my shirt to keep it from getting wet. The cat hissed again and I flicked water at its face, making it scramble out of the bathroom. Then I gathered Alex’s long, thick hair and pulled it over her shoulder before I soaped up the loofa and made circles of suds against her back. She instantly responded, closing her eyes and releasing a slow, happy moan.
We went on that way for a while, me bathing her back, her shoulders, scrubbing her hair until it was clean, and other than the few satisfied sighs she released she didn’t speak, didn’t ask why I was babying her. I didn’t think pushing her to talk about Davidson would help get her relaxed and out of that tub.
When I was done, I handed her the loofa and made to get up, but Alex grabbed my arm, still silent, looking up at me with her big black eyes shining. I didn’t ask her what she wanted. I didn’t question why she tugged me closer, why she pulled me right into that tub, jeans and all. I just followed her lead and slid in behind her, pulling her against my bare chest when her tears started up again.
People like Alex don’t cry. Not generally. There’s this unwritten code that they follow, the same one that tells them not to get friendly, not to love anything too much because life could be counted on to knock you on your ass and when you fall, it’s best not to have any attachments weighing you down. That code is something Alex had told me she depended on. She’d never had the luxury of loving anything because that, too, could be taken from her. So having her up against my chest, with her tears coursing hot and heavy, heavier than when she cried as I kissed her scars, was something new, something I knew that felt odd and foreign to her.
I let her cry, jeans sticking to me like a second skin and that beautiful, naked woman grabbing tight to me.
“Ryan,” she finally said, minutes later with her voice sounding clogged and thick.
“Yeah, baby?” I loved her snuggling against me, clinging. For once in my life I didn’t mind someone hanging on to me.
“Thank you for coming to get me.”
I rubbed her back, pulling her wet hair away from her neck. “Never any question, darlin’. How many times I gotta tell you?” I pulled on her chin so I could look at her. “I got your back.”
“For how long?”
“Oh, baby, as long as it needs getting.” I kissed her then, soft, brief and rested my chin on the top of her head, pulling Alex back with me when I leaned against the tub.
“Hey, Ryan?”
I smiled, wondering if she’d ever work up the nerve to say what was on her mind. “Yeah?”
“Don’t… I mean.” Alex sighed, started to rub her fingertips against my chest hair as though she needed a second to sort her thoughts. “I meant… I mean…” She sat up then and stared right at me with this determined, focused expression. “I’ve never wanted anything for myself. Not ever. That’s not how I survived.” I nodded, letting her have the time she needed to get out what she needed to say. “And Stevie, she told me not sell myself short, that she would always be there.” Alex rubbed her face when fresh tears surfaced. “Tonight, Davidson, he admitted he killed her.” I sat up, holding her arm to steady her, needing to steady myself and when I opened my mouth to ask all those questions, Alex shook her head. “We’ll figure it all out, but he reminded me of something. You and me, Ryan, we both lost someone because they got in someone’s way. That someone is pulling the strings. Davidson might have killed Stevie, but I know it wasn’t his choice. He wasn’t acting alone.”
I had seen Alex determined. I’d seen her pissed off, but the l
ook on her face now was different. She had a resolve to her now, and it was made of steel and reinforced with promises that she had made to herself, to the memory of her sister. I recognized it. It was the same resolve that had gripped me every day since I’d learned the truth about Simmons. He was a liar and I fucking hated liars. But like Davidson, someone else was making him dance. “And you wanna find out whose pulling those damn strings?”
“Don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
I couldn’t help pulling her close, needing to have my hands on her. She let me, held my arms when I rested them against her waist. “I mean, if we knew, when it’s over… I’d get it if you didn’t want… you know, you and me…”
I took her then, pulling her onto my lap, stopping the worry before it came. This wasn’t typical Alex. This was her scared, worn out from the day and the shock of being taken. “You and me, darlin’, will still be you and me. Finding the damn puppet master won’t change that.”
“Because…” she looked down, then quickly back up again. “Because we… love each other?”
My chest tightened, heart racing as the shy smile and the meaning behind what she’d admitted. She hadn’t said the words, but those softened features, the slow grin told me she would. “That’s it exactly, lady.”
“Then,” she said, wiping the smile from her face. Alex draped her arms around my neck and her eyes fucking smoldered. “Can we go to bed?”
She didn’t have to ask twice.
I dried her off, had her under me, then on me before the tub had drained completely.
Alex’s skin was luminous, the soft, sweet feel of silk, tempered only by the moisture from her bath and the thin beads of sweat that dotted along her collarbone. I’ve often thought skin, naked skin, was an art form into itself. The cascade of light against the dip of muscle and the ridges of breasts, the dark, bumpy texture of a nipple. That visual of beauty, skin and the feel of a body in movement, in the slick slide of activity of two bodies working together, has always felt like poetry, some wild art that only fucking makes.