by Ladew, Lisa
About two hours before the sun had set, a delicious aroma had drifted down the hallway and under the door. It was spaghetti and she didn't know how she had managed to resist it. But she had. She would not eat one more bite of Coleton's food. Part of her mind screamed at her that she was being completely ridiculous. He hadn't slept with Ava, and even if he wanted to- hell, even if he had, it was none of her business. She and Coleton hadn't known each other then. Even now, he owed her nothing. So she had thought he was attractive and interesting ... It didn't matter. As long as he was under her protection, it's not like she could pursue it anyway. Besides, he was a criminal's son, remember? It never would have worked anyway.
But still ... guilt and shame ran circles around her insides. She never used to fly off the handle at nothing. Before Jason left, she had been very level-headed. She never used to yell at people for tiny indiscretions, be the jealous type, or get angry over nothing. Jason had done that to her. Jason and Ava. The familiar siren song of blame began to circle in her head. They did it to her. They were wrong. They ruined her life. They destroyed her chances at happiness. They ...
Aria blanked for a moment, as a heavy truth settled over her, pinning her down to the mattress she was sitting on. Then she shot to her feet, sudden energy making her need to walk. She took three steps to the end of the room, then turned and took five back to the other end. She continued pacing like this and tried to make sense of what had just fallen in her lap.
Ava and Jason had done what they did, but she was in charge of her own happiness. As long as she focused on them, as long as she continued to live her life mired in thoughts of them and what they did to her, and what they might be doing now, she was ruining her own life. They were gone, and she couldn't change that. But she could move on. She could forgive, or at least forget, and be happy again. There were millions of men who had never, or would never, abandon their wives or girlfriends, no matter what the circumstances were. She only had the one sister, but who knew, maybe there was something that Aria didn't know. Some circumstance that had forced Ava to do what she did, and even if not, did Aria really want to spend the next fifty years of her life thinking these same thoughts? Feeling these same feelings? Circling these same destructive patterns?
No. She didn't. So now what? How did she forgive? How could she forget? What were the steps to moving on? Aria dropped back down on the bed and tried to think. She didn't know what the steps were. But she did know what they weren't. Maybe if she just tried to do things differently from now on? Just felt her natural impulse and then did the opposite? Aria closed her eyes and tried to imagine how that would go. Tried to see an opposite scenario that would lead her to happiness somehow.
A yell came from the living room. "Sergeant Gale! Get out here!"
Sergeant Gale?
Even as the thought went through her mind, Aria's hands dropped to her gun, unstrapping the holster unconsciously, and she charged out the door into the living room. Coleton was standing in the middle of the tiny space, staring at the TV, his eyes hard and set.
Aria took in the living room, and realizing there was no threat, restrapped her holster. Then she turned to the TV. A picture of ex-Chief Carval filled the screen. Carval was the police chief who had been removed by the prosecuting attorney when it was discovered he was taking bribes from Fiore Savoy and was feeding him information, and that he even advised Savoy to kill a police officer.
The ex-chief had been awaiting his own trial, but had been out on bail, something that was denied Fiore Savoy because of how dangerous he was. Aria listened hard to what the newscaster was saying. Within a few seconds she figured out that Carval was dead. The image on the screen changed to one of fire trucks in front of a suburban house. Aria caught the words explosion and dead on scene.
She wiped her suddenly cold and clammy hands on her pants. She hoped she had covered their back trail well enough. An explosion here would take several innocent lives. As if to underscore that fact, the noise of a baby crying in another apartment drifted through the walls to her.
Coleton muttered something under his breath. Aria wasn't certain, but it sounded like, "The peacock’s plumage is his enemy. The world is the mountain, and each action, the shout that echoes back."
Aria looked at him, surprised and confused, but even more taken aback when the look on his face said he was just as amazed by what he had said. She wished she dared to ask him to repeat it. It had sounded beautiful.
The newscaster's tone changed, and he moved on to the next piece of horrible news. Coleton cleared his throat and snapped the TV off.
"Sorry for yelling, I thought you needed to see that."
Aria shook her head, her eyes on the floor, her mind still reeling. "Don't be sorry, I did need to see that." She looked back down the hallway, not wanting to ever go back into the bedroom. The tiny, deserted alcove was worse than solitary confinement.
"There's leftover spaghetti," Coleton said in a hurry.
"Oh," Aria said, her stomach suddenly rumbling with vigor.
Coleton brushed past her and she tried not to notice how good he smelled. Then she remembered about the opposite thing and took a deep breath through her nose. He smelled wonderful. Like earthy spice and hard soap. Her mind pinged a warning at her. Was this really what she had planned when she had cooked up her opposite plan? Yes, she decided. From now on she was going to seek out the enjoyable things in life. And the scent of Coleton Savoy was very enjoyable. Yummy even.
He walked into the kitchen and then called out to her, "I'm going to warm you up a plate."
"Great," Aria said under her breath, still looking at the floor. She swallowed forcefully, her pride burning as it went down, then made her way into the kitchen and sat down.
Coleton placed a plate of food in front of her. "It's better fresh," he said apologetically.
Aria picked up the fork and took her first bite. Heavenly, just like the lasagna. "It's good this way too," she said, trying to remember to breathe before taking another bite.
She could feel the weight of Coleton's stare even with her eyes on her food. She knew something big was coming, and she began to eat faster, then caught herself and relaxed. She would let it come. She wasn't going to hide from it.
He spoke quickly, trying to push out all of his words before she fled the room again. "I didn't sleep with your sister. I didn't even kiss her. She tried to sleep with me and I said no. Not because she wasn't beautiful but because she was down on her luck and I was helping her and I didn't want to take advantage of her. I didn't want her to think that she had to out of payback for me. I wanted to sleep with her. I'll admit that. She's gorgeous and any man would, but I swear to you that I told her no. I swear to you that I set her up in my bed while I slept on the couch and when she came out to me and tried to slip under the covers with me I told her we shouldn't. I held her in my arms, and when she fell asleep on the couch, I tucked her in and went to sleep in my own bed. In the morning when I woke up, she was gone, and so was my car and my wallet."
Aria kept her gaze on the noodles in front of her. She tried to process everything he had just said. He thought her sister was gorgeous. He hadn't slept with her. Or kissed her. If she believed him. Did she? He had a thing for sleeping on couches.
And the list of what her sister was willing to steal was growing longer: husbands, wallets, cars. Oh Ava, what in the world happened to you?
Aria finished the last bite of spaghetti and chose her words carefully.
"I didn't flip the table on purpose. It got caught on the butt of my gun when I stood." Then she rose slowly and carefully and walked back to the bedroom, her mind in turmoil, not looking back once.
This opposite stuff was hard.
Chapter 14
Aria woke and padded silently down the hall in her white lace panties, grunts of exertion meeting her ears, exactly like they had the day before. When she saw Coleton, her breath caught in her throat but she didn't stop advancing on him. He was on the floor doing sit ups, hi
s muscles rippling and bulging. She walked straight up to him, stopping only when her feet straddled his legs, demanding with her eyes that he look at her. He dropped his hands behind his back to the floor, propping himself up and returning her lusty gaze with interest. Sweat glistened on his chest and she longed to touch the muscles that quivered there. She dropped slowly to her knees, the backs of her legs burning as they met his thighs. She pressed her barely-clad sex to the core of him and leaned forward, wanting only to finally taste his lips. A small smile crossed his features and he raised one eyebrow, as if to say, What took you so long?
What had taken her so long? She didn't know. This was what she wanted. And so much more. She placed her hands on his shoulders and drew herself to his waiting mouth, diving in with abandon to the sweet taste of him. He took her weight easily, lifting his hips slightly, trying to create more contact between them. His tongue darted into her mouth, teasing it open wider, asking her for more, more, more. He raised one hand and slid it up her waist, creating a delicious friction, then cupped her breast through her shirt, savoring the heavy flesh there. He thumbed one nipple and she groaned into his mouth. She had to get her shirt off, now.
Aria groaned lightly on the bed, caught in the hazy space between awake and asleep. She wanted desperately to stay sleeping and take the dream to its inevitable conclusion - her sweet release and utter debasement. But she needed to stop it. To wake up and not go one step down that forbidden road, even in a dream state.
Aria wrenched her eyes open, her breath tearing in and out of her throat. Her body throbbed in time with her heartbeat. She felt a wetness between her legs, even though she was still wearing her jeans.
"Oh God," she groaned out loud. She had a thing for him. She was dreaming about Coleton Savoy. What was wrong with her? This could only end badly. He had wanted her sister. The first man she was attracted to since Jason left her, and it had to be someone she couldn't have, shouldn't have, didn't want to have! Why was life always so complicated?
"You okay in there?" came his voice from down the hallway. Aria sat straight up, eyes wide, absolutely mortified. Had she been making noises?
"Fine! Just slept wrong. Stiff neck," she yelled back, wishing the ground would open and swallow her whole.
No such luck. Forty-five minutes later, she finally forced herself out into the apartment, willing her cheeks to stay cool. Coleton was in the kitchen, making breakfast.
Aria couldn't face him just yet. She headed to her backpack in the corner, retrieved a phone out of it, then sat down on the couch and eyed the phone. It was the one that assistant Chief Foley had given her.
"I'm going to call Assistant Chief Foley," she told Coleton through the open kitchen door.
He appeared immediately, with his shirt on, thank goodness. "Do you think that's a good idea?"
She picked up the phone and showed it to him. "He gave me this phone and said there was no trace on it. We're going to have to call in a few days anyway to make sure there's no change in the court schedule."
Coleton's eyebrows drew together, but he nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Aria dialed the number and waited. "Hello?" an eager male voice said.
"Who's this?" Aria said, immediately suspicious. It wasn't Assistant Chief Foley.
The voice boomed, and Aria's bullshit detector pinged wildly. "Sergeant Gale, this is Assistant Chief Harrison. How are things going? You guys are safe, yes?"
"Yes, we are safe. Where is Chief Foley?"
"He's out of town. He left his phone with me and gave me special instructions to take care of you. He said it was extremely important that he give me his phone, so that I could help you with anything you need. You are on our most important case right now. Where have you guys ended up?"
Aria shook her head to herself, not sure what was going on. "Chief Foley told me not to tell anyone."
"No, it's okay, this is a completely secure line. No one will know. He told me that he had told you that, but he said that was a poor decision. Once he thought about it, he realized that if no one knew where you were, you had absolutely no safety net. He didn't want that."
Suddenly, all Aria wanted was to get off the phone. She wanted time to think about this. Did she believe Harrison? And if she didn't, what did that mean?
She held the phone at arm's length. "Chief Harrison, hold on, you're breaking up. Let me just get past this big building ..." Before she could hang up, she heard him yell something. "Gale – wait, there's something you need to know about Chief Foley. I didn't want to worry you but you need to know -"
Aria pressed the end call button and quickly took the back off of the cell phone, pulling the battery from it. That way he couldn't call her back, or couldn't trace her if Chief Foley had been wrong about it being untraceable. Her heart pounded in her chest and she wondered if she had made the right call. He was about to tell her something about Chief Foley? But she trusted Foley implicitly, didn't she? What was going on?
She stared at the dismantled phone in her hand and tried to make sense of it. Coleton came in from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel.
"That didn't sound like it went well," he said.
She shook her head. "It didn't. Foley didn't answer. Instead I got Assistant Chief Harrison and he acted ... weird."
"Weird how?"
"He wanted to know where we were, but Foley told me not to tell anyone, even him. When I acted like it was going to get disconnected, he started yelling, he sounded desperate and he said I needed to know something about Foley, something bad. I hung up before I could hear any more."
Coleton shook his head and his face grew contemplative. "That is bad. If Harrison is the one we're worried about, then we're practically screwed. He's up there at the very tip top."
"I was afraid he was going to tell me that Assistant Chief Foley was the one on your dad's payroll."
Coleton looked at her sharply, his eyes boring holes in her. "Do you think that's true?"
Aria shook her head, but slowly. "He would be the last one I would suspect."
"How about Harrison?"
Aria dropped her head back to the couch. She threw her hands in the air. "I just don't know! If you would've asked me an hour ago I would've said no way, but after that phone call I feel very suspicious. But what can I do? The only one over his head is Chief Powell and I don't have his direct line. As far as I know, Harrison is in charge of everything right now. If we can't go to him, who can we go to?"
Coleton stared at her, not answering her question. Finally, he said softly, "I guess we're on our own."
***
Coleton gathered a plate of fresh fruit and placed it next to the French toast he had cooked. His thoughts spun. He had suffered from anxiety as a child, but hadn't felt the ravages of that in more than fifteen years. Now though, it was all coming back to him. It seemed like everything was against him, and now it wasn't only him in danger, but this brave and competent policewoman he had dragged into this with him was also in the line of fire.
Guilt ate at him from the inside out. What if they were found, and she were killed or injured because of him? He didn't know if he could stand it. Even if he were gunned down a second later, that second would be agony like none he had ever known before.
Coleton worked on his breathing and tried to figure out what to do. Maybe he should just take off. Just run and leave the state. He could take his chances on his own. But another part of him didn't want to do that. His best chance was with this smart and capable woman. She knew what she was doing, that much was obvious. If she could just keep him alive until the day court started, maybe he could request a different police officer then. When things got even more dangerous. He could request a whole battalion of them, and then maybe be shot in his bed as he slept, since he didn't know who he could trust and who he couldn't.
Aria walked into the kitchen and almost smiled at him, her eyes alive and bright. Another arrow of guilt shot through his system, and then he pushed it away. He would
think about this later. For now, he would eat.
Coleton took the two plates to the table and set them down. "French toast and fresh fruit," he told Aria, watching her face carefully.
"Mmmm," she moaned, closing her eyes in order to better take in the scent of the dish. His mind imagined her, with that same look of delight and enjoyment on her face, underneath him, her body moving in time with his, her soul and her will belonging to him for at least a short while.
She opened her eyes and gave him that small, partial smile again and he looked away quickly, afraid she would read his inappropriate thoughts in his gaze. Afraid the way he was beginning to feel about her was showing on his face.
He dropped his eyes to his plate and began to eat, almost choking on the first bite, especially when his thoughts continued to play their cruel tricks on him and showed him a picture of what her face would look like when he made her come. Eyes shut, mouth wide, hands fisted, body tight and tense, then softening with release. Coleton shook his head and barely restrained himself from hitting the heel of his hand on his forehead with every ounce of strength that he had in order to dislodge the thoughts. He needed to get ahold of himself!
They finished breakfast in silence and Coleton realized his anxiety had fled, for now.
Aria picked up their dishes and washed them in the sink, even cleaning his pots and pans. When she finally returned to the kitchen table he was able to look her in the eye again. "So what now?" he asked.
She smirked. "Now we wait. By the time Tuesday gets here, you will never want to see the inside of this apartment again."
Chapter 15
Coleton laughed at her statement and she gave him that tiny smile again. He wanted to see what she looked like when she smiled fully, when she really was happy and joyful. He wanted to make her laugh.
"We should play a game," he said.