by Laura Day
Caroline felt a bit like she was sitting in the eye of a tornado. All around her, emotions were surging and raging, but where she sat— there was a numbness. After everything else, it was rather nice. Relaxing. “I don’t know why,” she said. “It just— he’s— I don’t know.”
Missy wrapped her arm around Caroline’s shoulder and pulled her close. “Okay, honey. Don’t worry about it. Tell us what you need.”
“The guy,” she said. “Jack’s friend. He’s dirty. I’m sure of it.”
Jack shook his head, then winced at the motion. The cold had settled firmly in his head, and he was dizzy sitting up. “Mike Randall isn’t my guy. I don’t— he asked me a long time ago not to give out his name, but that’s not him. I promise you, Caro. But he’s nothing to do with me. I don’t know how he got the information, how he knew to come after you and Mason, but he’s not mine.”
“Then I think what we do is tell your friend,” Missy said. “Let him know. Let the department handle it.”
“But how do we do that without telling them about Declan?” Caroline asked, and the other two fell silent.
“I need to call my friend,” Jack said, after a bit. “Tell him what’s going on. He’ll know the best thing to do. If he thinks it's safest for us to just fly under the radar until this stops, he’ll say, but if there’s more he can do, he’ll do it. I know—” he said, before Caroline could protest. “I know it seems like a terrifying idea, but I need you to trust me on this one, okay? This is the right thing for us to do.”
Caroline took a deep breath and tried to survey her options. There were frighteningly few of them. The police held all the cards because they were supposed to be constrained by the law and what was right. If Detective Randall had abandoned those principles, then he would be very difficult to stop without— Well, without lethal force. And that was a road she didn’t want to go down. “You think Randall is the dirty cop?” Caroline said. “You think he’s the one Declan was working with?”
Jack nodded. “It’s a real possibility.”
Missy tapped her lips with her forefinger. “He might be afraid that Declan left something that would tie him to the case. He might be coming after you two to try and resolve that loose end, cover his own ass. If he can frame Mason for everything—let’s face it, Declan did half that work for him, and it would be easy to write the story from there—he covers his own involvement, or even spins a story where he was working undercover to make it all happen. It’s a little Hollywood, but it’s far from impossible.”
“I need to call my guy,” Jack said. “And Caroline, it’s beyond time for you to tell Mason what’s going on. Honestly, I think you should have told him as soon as you found the file.”
“I needed to take care of it myself,” she said, finding that the eye of the tempest had passed over her, and she was right smack in the middle of all the emotion all over again. Missy’s arm tightened around her shoulder, and she heard the soothing sounds the other woman was trying to make, but they just pissed her off more. “I’m not some weak little girl who has to rely on the men in her life to take care of her.”
“You’re not,” Jack agreed. “You handled yourself well. This isn’t about being a woman. This is about being in way over your head. This is a cop, Caroline. You think he couldn’t hide a body if he wanted to? You think he might not have done it already?”
That was a shock of cold water over her head, and she stopped fighting. She could feel Missy giving him a filthy look, but Jack didn’t stop. “I get it,” he said. “I get the need to take care of yourself. Especially after what you went through. But you’re not alone. And there’s a different between independent and stupid.”
“I’ll call Mason,” she said, her voice choked. “You call your friend.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mason was eerily quiet on the phone as she went over everything that had happened since that morning. It was weird, that it was only three in the afternoon. Too much had been squeezed into just those few hours.
“I need to see you,” he said, finally. “Can I meet you back at the apartment, or do you want me to come to Jack and Missy’s place to get you?”
“I can drive,” she said, and she fought to keep her tone neutral. “I’m okay.”
“Your voice is shaking, but your tone is flat. You’re still in shock. I need to know your reactions are okay.”
She wanted to punch the soldier, but that would be bad for all sorts of reasons. She closed her eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and found something that approached the center of her heart. “Is that better?”
“A little bit. Promise to pull over and call me if you start spacing out again?”
Punching him would definitely be inappropriate, not the least because he was all the way across town, and it would hurt her hand to punch the wall. “Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes, I just want to find out what Jack knows.”
“Sure,” he said. “Drop me a text when you leave, and I’ll meet you in the apartment.”
“Sure.” She thought about telling him that she loved him— but it would ring false right now, and she didn’t want that. Not for either one of them. “Thanks, Mason.”
Funny. That seemed to mean even more, at least based on the warmth in his voice. “Of course, baby. I told you. I’m here for you.” But then he disconnected before she could say anything else in response.
She rubbed her hand over her eyes and tried to keep that feeling of centered calm close. It kept flitting away when she was least expecting it to disappear, leaving her on the edge of tears, or rage, or both at once. Her skin felt tight and sore where Randall had touched her, but there was no sign of redness or bruising.
She kept wandering back to what Jack had said. If he was the dirty cop, the one Declan had been working with...he might not be any stranger to murder at all. She knew she’d been walking a fine line back in her house but this was ridiculous.
She was never going back there, not ever again. She’d hire movers to pack up all her stuff and put it in storage until she found a permanent place to live. But her feet would never cross the threshold of that cursed place in this lifetime. Simple as that.
She changed her clothes and felt a bit better in clean jeans, clean underwear, and a clean bra. She even changed out of the shirt she’d bought that morning. She’d wash it, and see if she could bring herself to wear it again without thinking, “This is the shirt I wore the day I could have died.”
When she opened the door, Missy was standing there, her hand poised to knock. “Oh!” She jumped just a little, and Caroline would have been lying if she’d said she didn’t move a little too fast as well. “I’m sorry. You were— I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Caroline stepped aside, letting Missy come in and sit down on the bed. Caroline leaned against the bureau. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold still if she sat down. “Can we talk?” Missy asked.
“If it’s about Mason, and how I should stay away from him, I’ve— Missy, I’ve heard you say it all already, and it’s not changing things for me. I know it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I am still doing it.” She found herself saying the words she hadn’t said to anyone but Mason, at least not like this. “I care about him. I love him. I can’t just walk away, and I can’t just pretend that he’s not in my life. He is, and he matters.”
Missy was shaking her head already. “Sweetie, I know that. And Mason… I worry about you two, but he’s one of the good ones. He’s been here for you every step of the way, keeping an eye on you and making sure that you’re as safe as he can make you. I get that. But I need to know you’re being careful.”
Caroline couldn’t help the head tilt and her confused expression. “Careful? How? You mean, like condoms? Because I had that conversation with my doctor when I was sixteen—“
Missy laughed, still shaking her head. “No, obviously. I mean… It’s easy to get blinded, Caro. It’s easy to not see the dangerous parts because we want to see just the g
ood. He’s on his best behavior when he’s here, and I need to know that he’s treating you well when you’re not here.”
Something inside of herself sagged just a little, and Caroline settled down on the bed, letting her shoulder brush against Missy’s. The other woman’s arm came around her, squeezing her gently, and then fingers started to trace a delicate, soothing pattern on the skin of her shoulder. It was soft enough that it didn’t bother her or feel intrusive, but firm enough that it could be more if she wanted it to be.
“It’s so hard to explain,” Caroline said, letting her eyes close as she drifted with the touch.
She let herself fall backwards, draping herself across the bed like a girl confessing secrets to her best friend. Missy followed her, lying on her side and propping her head up on her hand.
“He’s good to me, but it’s in a different way than I’ve ever seen before? He’s kind and considerate, but it’s… He doesn’t ask about my day, but he’ll look me up and down and hand me a beer. He doesn’t go all gushy about his feelings, but we’ve never once had sex without him making sure I’m having a good time. Multiple times, if I can arrange it.” She laughed, burying her face in her hands, and Missy laughed too, poking her with a finger.
“If he ever once makes you cry,” Missy said, “You tell me, and I will rip his cock off and fry it on the grill. Yes?”
“Yes,” Caroline said. She reached over and ran her fingers down Missy’s arm, watching the woman shiver gently. “Could you cuddle with me a bit? I feel all— out of sorts. Shaky.”
“That’s no good at all,” Missy said, and she snuggled down, cuddling into Caroline’s arms. Her warmth was amazing. There was so little that was soft about Missy, but in moments like this, Caroline never felt anything less than utterly cared for.
When she felt a little less like crying, they went back out to the living room.
Jack was saying “thank you” and hanging up the phone as they walked out. “We were right,” Jack said as she sat back down on the couch. “At least, as far as my guy can tell. Randall is under investigation by IA, which explains why he’s so eager to get you to fold.”
The quiver started up in Caroline’s stomach again, and she fought to keep that centered feeling.
“If he can lay the blame on Mase and Caro, all his problems go away,” Missy said.
“So what do we do?”
Jack thought for a moment. Caroline felt horrible for laying all of this on his doorstep; his eyes were swollen and red, he looked exhausted, and he gave a half-hearted sniff every other breath or so. But this had the potential to affect them as well, and deeply. They had to know what was going on.
“I don’t know, entirely. You said your cousin is looking into the guy, and my friend is going to approach IA, see if he might be able to get some sort of a deal for Mason. Testify against the cop for immunity against trafficking charges, something like that. Do you think he’d go for that, if it were an option?”
She thought of her boyfriend, the man she loved, and the way he never fully relaxed. Tried to imagine him playing ball with the cops, trusting that they weren’t going to dig any further into anything that the information that they were given. Imagined him trusting anyone at all. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
“It may be the easiest way to make this all go away,” Missy interjected. “Especially if there’s a way to make it look like the cop found Declan that night, instead of Mason. What?” She reacted sharply to the looks that Jack and Caroline turned on her. “He’s trying to use us. Please explain to me why we can’t turn that back around on him.”
“My wife is smart,” Jack said. “Morally gray sometimes, but smart. And, I think, right.”
“I need to go see him,” Caroline said. “I need to go and talk to him.”
“Keep us updated,” Missy said, and hugged her firmly.
CHAPTER TWELVE
This time, she threw a couple changes of clothes into the car, just in case she ended up spending the night again. She had no idea what was going to happen when she walked in the door. She wouldn’t blame him for shouting, and she wouldn’t mind if he hugged her so tight that it was hard to breathe.
He’d responded quickly to her text saying that she was on her way, saying he’d meet her at the apartment. The door was locked when she got there, though. She pulled out the key Mason had given her and turned it, but before she could even twist the handle, it turned and opened. She felt Mason’s hand close on her wrist, was yanked into the apartment, and the door slammed behind her. Her back was up against the door, and he was kissing her, grinding his mouth against her, his hands coursing over her body, one hand tight on her breast, the other squeezing at her ass, pulling her tight against him.
For one split second, she panicked, and her hands went to his chest, ready to shove at him, ready to scream. And then he was away, his hands running through his hair. His curly red hair, loose around his shoulders for once.
“Sorry,” he said. “Inappropriate. Not everyone reacts to stress like me. Working on it. Are you okay?”
“Yes. He didn’t hurt me, anyway.”
His words were as much growl as they were human sound. “He put his hands on you. He would have hurt you if he could have.”
She looked into his eyes, and she understood the desire, the swelling need to be safe with someone. “So get over here and make it better,” she said.
His eyes were dark and animal. “Are you very sure?”
She nodded. “I need— I need to know I’m still powerful. I need to know that I’m still in control.”
The darkness shifted, and he grinned. “Then tell me what you want, baby.”
Darkness found a mirror in her, and shifted, and she was panting, wet, eager. “You,” she said. “I want you.”
He leaned in closer, his hands behind his back like a little boy at a museum. His erection was clear, even in his jeans, and it brushed over her belly, trailing heat behind it. She wanted him to touch her, to burn her up, and he was taunting her with his refusal. “Tell me,” he said, separating the words carefully. “What you want.”
“On your knees,” she said, because it was the only thing she could think of. He dropped like a stone, with a thump that made her own legs ache, but he went without question, his hands still carefully behind his back. That, and his hair falling in strawberry curls around his shoulders, framing his face, softened everything about him, made him seem younger, gentler. And the way he was watching her, the delicate light in his eyes, dancing through the darkness. “Kiss me,” she said.
He leaned forward, his balance delicate, and with his teeth, he tugged her shirt out of the way, then licked and teased at the skin of her navel. Her jeans sat low on her hips, and were a bit on the loose side; his tongue slid under the fabric, teasing at the delicate skin between her navel and her mound. She couldn’t stop the delicate cry that choked out of her at his caress. “More,” she whispered.
“May I used my hands?” he asked.
“Yes. Please, yes.”
She’d expected him to move quickly, eagerly, but instead, his fingers trailed up the inside of her thighs, torturing her even through the denim, wandering up to hook into her belt loops and tug her against his mouth for a moment.
He breathed heat against her mound, and she heard a whisper of air escape her mouth at the sensation. He kept his mouth there for a moment, inhaling her scent and exhaling his heat, and she writhed against him, whimpering, wanting. He unbuttoned her jeans, slid them down her hips; they were tight enough that she had to help him wriggle them off, and then she balanced on his shoulders as she stepped out of them.
He pushed her back against the door, and his mouth went back to her body, this time teasing over her inner thighs, tickling her skin with his teeth and his tongue. She buried her hands in his hair and lifted his mouth to where she wanted it, settling her weight against the door so that she could spread her thighs and give him access. He smiled a thank you, and sent his hot breath over her again.
>
“You smell gorgeous,” he told her, nuzzling her with his nose, and breathing her in again. “Like an exotic musk, delicate but overwhelming to the senses. Addictive. When I’m away from you, I just want more of you. More and more of you.”
He eased her panties down her hips, then settled her back against the door, his hands on her ass, kneading her flesh as his tongue licked forward, separating her folds and making her groan, eager and excited.
Once his tongue was on her, all teasing was done. He found her clit and suckled it deeply, his fingers sliding easily into her wet and clenching body. Her knees went weak, and he caught her, tipping her hips forward, balancing her against the door. Her hands, seeking some sort of balance, found the doorknob on one side of her, a bookshelf on the other; she clung to them to ground her while he fucked her with his mouth and hand.