Unfiltered & Uncensored

by Payge Galvin

  “I don’t know what to think,” Claire snapped. Her hands were drifting lower, down his back, toward the waistband of his jeans. Apparently Max was the one with more self-control after all. Go him, he thought bitterly.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know what to think either,” Max said. Somehow they’d gotten to standing so close their bodies were nearly pressed against each other, their faces mere inches apart. Max felt Claire’s warm breath on his face, felt the heat between them—and within him—grow in response. God, he wanted her so much.

  Abruptly Claire grabbed him and pressed her lips to his.

  The heat in Max turned to an inferno. He threw Claire to the floor as her tongue thrust deep into his mouth. They kissed like that was an argument, too, hot and angry. Max barely had time to get his hands beneath Claire’s shirt before she rolled him beneath her. He barely had time to unclasp her bra as he got her back beneath him instead, and then they were rolling on the rug, rolling as they both fought for control—over each other, over themselves. Max’s shirt flew over his head, and the rug burned his bare skin. He didn’t care. He was too busy trying to get that bra off from beneath Claire’s shirt. Her skin burned beneath his hands, and her nipples hardened at his fumbling touch.

  Claire’s hands were fire as they made their way down Max’s chest and struggled to undo his pants. His hard-on leapt to attention, and when her hands plunged down into his boxers, he nearly exploded right there. He rolled her over again, wanting to press her down into the carpet, wanting every last inch of her. He got her shirt off at last, and his tongue made its way down the valley between her breasts as she rubbed his cock with both hands, struggling to get him beneath her again at the same time. Their legs tangled around each other as they rolled.

  It had never been like this between them before, so hot and rough. Max couldn’t tell if they were fighting or making love or both. He only knew he didn’t want either of them to stop, not ever. His teeth nipped at the skin where Claire’s neck and shoulder met. They’d been apart too fucking long.

  Max’s skull banged into something with a resounding crack, and he and Claire fell abruptly still.

  “Fucking table,” Claire muttered, and only then did Max realize he’d rolled right into the coffee table. “Umm, you okay?” She pulled back from him then, and Max saw a bruise flowering on her shoulder as he felt for the lump growing through his hair.

  “I’m fine.” The anger was gone from his voice, and he looked at her, feeling suddenly awkward, lying there with his pants down around his legs. He sat up.

  Claire rubbed at a spot where he’d bit too hard, leaving a rough red mark. She stared back at him, looking just as awkward. Only Max’s cock seemed entirely sure what it wanted, still throbbing and at attention. Claire sat too as she drew away from him, her breasts firm, her chest still bare. Who was Max fooling? Every inch of him knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was sitting right there.

  Claire drew a deep, ragged breath. “Max ...” She hesitated, sounding uncertain.

  Max stared at her. For the first time since they’d met, he had no clue what Claire really wanted. It was an unsettling feeling.

  Claire drew another breath, as if trying to find the right words. “Seriously, Max, I need to know. What’s going on? Why was that guy here?”

  What the fuck? Whatever the right words were, those weren’t it. “Is that all you care about? Your stupid coworker and his case?” Did what just happened mean nothing at all to her? Max got to his feet, pulling up his pants as he did, ignoring the protests of his aching hard-on. Aside from that, the heat he felt now was pure anger. “If you care so much about your coworker, why don’t you go screw him?”

  “Max!” Sitting half-naked on the floor, Claire looked strangely vulnerable, and vulnerable was a word that rarely applied to her. “It’s not like that!” For an instant she looked hurt, and then she pulled her bra and shirt on like armor.

  “So tell me what it is like!” Max said. “Tell me what’s going on!” Because something clearly was going on. Max had no doubts she was keeping secrets now.

  She got to her feet, and he saw her anger rise to match his. “At least I’m not screwing fucking Jasmine.”

  Max didn’t bother to tell her how wrong she was about that. “If you don’t want me screwing someone else, you might try not walking out. Crazy idea, I know,” he said, even as some part of him wished, even now, that she would tell him he was wrong, that she hadn’t meant to walk out and she wasn’t keeping any secrets, that she was back now to stay.

  Anger, sadness, and confusion all flashed across Claire’s face and were gone. “Fine Max. I think we’re done.” She turned and walked across the room, weariness in the hunch of her shoulders, in her slow steps.

  Max ran after her. “Claire!”

  She stopped. Turned back toward him. For a long moment they just stared at each other. Max felt as tired as she looked. He wanted to fix this, to wipe the weariness from her face, but he didn’t know where to begin.

  He held out his hand. “My keys,” he said, hating himself.

  Claire looked hurt again then. As if she weren’t the one who’d changed the locks without asking. She pulled the keys from her pocket and pressed them into Max’s hand. Her fingers lingered against his palm. “Be careful Max,” she said softly. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”

  “So tell me,” Max begged again, but she just turned away once more. She walked quietly out the door, pulling it shut behind her.

  “Fuck,” Max muttered as he sank onto the couch, rubbing his sore skull, knowing he’d blown it again but having no idea what he could have done to not blow it. He still smelled Claire on his skin, and his chest was streaked red with the memory of their tumble on the carpet.

  Screw this. Max would show her. He’d show them all. Claire thought he couldn’t handle the break-in or anything else, but she was wrong. He could handle it just fine. He was getting his fucking story, whether Claire thought he was capable of it or not.

  And no one, least of all Claire and her mysterious coworker and her more mysterious secrets, was going to stop him.

  Chapter 11

  Claire

  Back in her own apartment, Claire curled up on the couch and quietly cursed her way through an entire bottle of wine. When the bottle was empty she wearily fell back on the couch, nudging an irritated Kitty out of the way. The cat—who had been one of fucking Jasmine’s rescues—crawled loyally right back into her lap, and Claire scratched it behind the ears. Cats didn’t care what secret you kept. They only cared that the food and water bowls stayed full and that you paid attention to them every once in a while.

  Fucking secrets. You couldn’t come back from keeping your entire life hidden, not when it was an actual human you were hiding it from.

  Not when it was Max, who deserved better than she’d ever been able to give.

  The worst part was, Max probably would have been okay with knowing that she put her life in danger on a daily basis and didn’t want him jumping in to save her. He probably would have understood that just because she didn’t need him in that way didn’t change the fact that she needed him in every other way. But she hadn’t known he would have been okay with it when they’d first met, and the thing about secrets was, they didn’t get smaller the longer you kept them.

  Claire’s skin burned with the memory of Max’s touch, and the shoulder that had banged the table throbbed. Claire couldn’t help it, she smiled at the memory of rolling around on that wretchedly scratchy carpet with Max, but then she sighed. God, if they hadn’t banged into that stupid table they might have finished what they’d started. That wouldn’t have been fair to either of them, but she almost didn’t care. Why not get one more good screw in if he wouldn’t want to be with her now anyway? But then Claire had to blow it by asking about Jason Chamberlain again.

  Fucking Jason Chamberlain. The thought of Chamberlain rifling through Max’s place, of Max having no idea how much danger he was in, made her bl
ood go cold. Max can take care of himself, too, she thought, but she wasn’t so sure. He had no idea what he was dealing with.

  No way would he want her back, if he knew she didn’t trust him enough to even tell him what her damn day job was. Max, with his ever-changing parade of majors, was at least honest.

  Except she wasn’t even sure about that anymore.

  Kitty nudged at her elbow. Claire sighed and reached for the coffee table, picking up the note she’d found in Max’s room—the note Max hadn’t noticed missing yet, but that according to her video, fucking Jason Chamberlain had left in his room.

  You don’t know what you’re messing with. If you value your life, back the fuck off.

  That wasn’t the sort of note you left for someone who knew nothing. One way or another, Max was messed up in some serious shit, even though that made no sense at all. Max had never even smoked a joint before, let alone done anything harder.

  Maybe he still hadn’t. But somehow, he’d crossed paths with people who had. Between the footage—with Claire’s suspect in clear sight—and this note, there was no doubt. Could you get messed up with people like Jason Chamberlain by accident? It wasn’t impossible, but Claire had never seen it happen.

  Kitty was nudging her way under Claire’s armpit now. Claire moved the cat back to her stomach. Kitty obligingly began to purr, and Claire sighed.

  If Max had found his own way into this mess, he ought to have at least some idea how much danger he was in. But he hadn’t taken her very seriously when she’d tried to tell him.

  Of course, she hadn’t been any clearer than mud when she’d made the attempt. A coworker? Seriously? What was wrong with Claire? Why couldn’t she just tell Max the truth, if they were through anyway?

  She grabbed Kitty into a crushing hug. She knew why.

  It was because she didn’t want them to be through, even now. It was because once she told him, they really would be over and done, no chance of any takebacks.

  She’d tried texting him a few more times, but he still wasn’t returning her messages. Which was no more than she deserved, given all the weeks she hadn’t returned his messages.

  She could try tailing him until she knew the truth of what he was up to—but no. She’d already stalked him by video and broken into his apartment. She had to draw the line somewhere. She was a cop, for God’s sake.

  Besides, if Max really was messed up in this and Chamberlain saw Claire and Max anywhere near each other, that would put Max in more danger, and trash Claire’s chances of bringing in Chamberlain and his bosses besides.

  She tried to tell herself it was Max putting himself in danger, but she couldn’t make herself believe it. She knew Max, even if he didn’t know her. He might be frustrating as hell at times and a slacker besides, he might be getting by on that stupid, glorious smile of his, but he wasn’t a user.

  Smiles had a sucky record for stopping bullets. Claire sighed again, wishing she knew some way to protect him. She’d complained about the guys who thought they needed to protect her. For the first time she almost understood how they felt—now that Max was the one who needed protecting and Claire was the one who was helpless to do it.

  Just once, Claire thought wistfully, it’d be nice to meet someone who could actually be her partner. Protecting and protected, working together, two lives twining around one another.

  Yeah, and she’d never even managed that well on the job, let alone in a relationship. She sat up, gently setting Kitty on the armrest.

  “Be careful out there, Max,” she whispered.

  And then she did what she’d always done when she felt powerless to do anything else. Buried herself in her work, and reminded herself that there, at least, she could do some real good.

  Chapter 12

  Max

  It gave Max a certain satisfaction, to be the one ignoring Claire for a change. That was petty of him and he knew it, but dammit, there was only so much he could take. He didn’t know what was going on with her or what secrets she was keeping. He didn’t know what secret could be so awful that she thought she couldn’t trust him with it.

  She could trust him. But he didn’t know how to make her understand that, either. Max was a journalist, or hoped to be one. It was his job to unravel secrets. But with Claire, he didn’t know where to begin. He wanted to fix this, but he had no idea how.

  So instead he focused on the stories he actually understood. He wrote a short feel-good piece about Dillon and Savannah, the sort of thing you could get from a public records search, because even if he’d blown the actual interview with Dillon, it was awesome that two hometown kids had made American Voice, and Rio Verde deserved to know it, even if there was nothing particularly deep or investigative about the fact. Still, none of the Verde View’s paid staff had noticed Rio Verde’s own on the show, so that was something. And Jackie even took the time to tell Max that between that story and the Blake Malone piece—also not exactly a work of groundbreaking journalism—he was getting pretty good at human interest pieces.

  Otherwise, Max’s internship could mostly be described as another day, another obituary.

  That meant he knew when a third drug dealer in town bit the dust, following in the footprints of Douglas Coughlan and Tommy Holloway. Not that anyone knew Douglas Coughlan had bit the dust, as far as Max could tell—he was still officially listed as a missing person. Max’s Coffee Cave compatriots had done a thorough job. Who knew hiding a body and all the evidence that went with it was so easy?

  Dillon was still in Vegas, so it seemed unlikely he had anything to do with this new death. Dillon had problems of his own, anyway, seeing as the news had just broken that he’d been sleeping with one of the judges, Natalie Greer. The guy’s biggest problem was looking to be that he sucked at relationships. Max officially switched to rooting for Savannah, who even based on the ten minutes he’d spent with her, clearly deserved better. How Dillon could sleep with anyone else with Savannah right there was a mystery.

  Then again, it wasn’t like Max was any good at relationships himself these days. Still, at least he wasn’t sleeping around, whatever Claire might think.

  Yeah, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of secrets of his own. It wasn’t only Claire hiding things. The truth was, all of Claire’s questions about the break-in had hit a little too close to home for comfort, and served as a little-too-strong reminder of just how much Max hadn’t told her.

  It’s not like we’re together anymore, he reminded himself, but the thought brought no comfort. He’d never kept secrets from Claire before, and a dead body on the floor of a coffee shop was a damn big secret to keep, even before you added in the dirty money.

  He should call Claire back. He knew he should.

  He shouldn’t be that stupid guy who let pride get in his way and screwed everything up.

  He would call her. Once he’d solved this case. Once he had something to show for himself, a way of proving to her that he wasn’t the worthless loser she thought he was after all.

  Would Claire even care by then? Did he want her to?

  Yes. Yes, he did. He could lie to himself—and Claire too—about everything else, but not about that. He wanted her back so badly it hurt. If that made him a loser after all, well, then he was a loser. Fine.

  Max used a small portion of the cash burning a hole in his safe deposit box to rent a car with dark-tinted windows so that he could keep swinging by The Coffee Cave in relative obscurity. The place seemed to finally be decently staffed again, but no one he saw inside matched the Mysterious Stranger on the webcam video.

  He kept searching for info on the names of his eleven co-conspirators, too, not just through Google but through public records databases he managed to get passwords for through work, but more and more, all eleven were looking like dead ends. He called Senator Cunningham’s office some more too, but campaign-manager Renee was an immovable rock when it came to anything to do with the precious senator’s son. Even Allie Daniels seemed to be practicing safe I
nternet surfing these days.

  There were times when it seemed like all the others who’d been part of that night at The Coffee Cave—okay, all the others except for Blake and Dillon—had disappeared entirely.

  So Max was pretty startled when one of his co-conspirators found him, instead.

  ‡

  She didn’t even find Max at the Cave, which he wasn’t stupid enough to set foot in directly, but in a campus bar where he was drowning his dead-end sorrows. Not that his journalistic dead ends were the only thing leaving him feeling frustrated, of course. Every text from Claire made Max wish all the more that he could bring himself to just knock on her door, pull her into bed with him, and see if they could tangle up the sheets together—and, okay, talk this mess through, too.

  The woman in the bar—not Claire, sadly—slid onto the stool next to Max, drink in hand. She seemed faintly familiar, small and blonde, but with a core of something stronger beneath her cute-girl exterior, just like there was something more beneath Max’s nice-boy one. Takes one to know one.

  “Hey,” she said. “I don’t know if you remember me ...”

  For a moment Max wondered whether he’d been too obvious swinging by The Coffee Cave—whether she wasn’t after the money too, just like the guy who’d broken into his place—but then he realized where he’d seen her. The night of the shooting—she was the one who’d pulled the trigger.

  Which maybe should have made Max even more nervous, except she was the one person he knew beyond any doubt hadn’t killed Douglas Coughlan. Why pull the trigger if you knew the guy was about to die anyway?

  Besides, she’d clearly been freaked out at the time, freaked out and falling apart—but now, she was practically glowing, the way someone did when they’ve finally gotten their shit together. That was why Max hadn’t recognized her at first. In many ways, she was an entirely different person from the frightened girl he’d seen that night.