“Hi,” he said, forgoing his usual brusque Hawthorn for a civilian’s greeting.
“Can you talk?”
“Thanks for calling back. I can’t talk in depth right now, but I took a look at that variance analysis, and I think you’ve got a problem with the data,” he replied. “Tell me again what your subset parameters were?”
“Geek,” Jo said with feeling. “Dorchester says everyone he’s talked to thinks you’re at Mayo, getting some kind of specialized testing done. I buzzed McCormick. He confirmed what Dorchester’s hearing, and says nothing’s shaking the web right now. If rumors were flying he might not know what they are, but he’d definitely see signs.”
Ian turned the corner. “I’ve got maybe a minute,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“How’s it going?”
“Fine. It’s fine. I’m running a route with Henneman right now. Sewell was there. I’m guessing CPD’s setting up a long-haul sting, trying to get Henneman for money laundering.”
“Not good. Too many cooks in the kitchen,” Jo mused. “That’s not our turf. You should back off.”
No way was that happening, because Riva answered to no one’s jurisdiction, and she wasn’t leaving this undone. Which meant he wasn’t leaving her. “I can’t,” he said. “I told Riva we’d get him.”
“She can take her deal to the local cops.”
“A deal with them doesn’t help Isaiah or her mother.”
“What’s her mother got to do with this? Don’t answer that. Riva can do whatever she wants,” Jo said, with what Ian knew was admirable patience for her, “but that doesn’t affect how we police Lancaster. Rory Henneman is Chicago’s problem, not ours.”
“Jo, her father’s a vicious sociopath. As nearly as I can tell he’s manipulated her and her mother for years, playing them off each other.”
“That’s her excuse for what she did?” Jo asked. Probing idly, testing for weakness almost second nature.
“Not hers. She’s never made an excuse.”
“Hmm.” Jo hated excuses, so this was a point in Riva’s favor.
“Riva wants this done, now, to help Isaiah and her mother, and who knows if any arrests Chicago makes will trickle down to Lancaster? I’ve got a plan,” he said. “The plan is to make Henneman think I’m the perfect inside guy with the city.”
“I thought Riva was going to get what we needed.”
“That’s plan B.”
“Why isn’t it plan A?”
“Because this is the better option.”
“No,” Jo said, like she was talking to a five-year-old trying to put a square peg in a round hole, “it’s not a better option. You’ve got to build trust. She’s already inside.”
He didn’t say anything, because from a protocol standpoint, Jo was right. But Ian couldn’t bring himself to send Riva into danger again, not now that he knew her father was of the sociopath flavor of humanity.
“Any other shitty, career-killing decisions you want to talk over?” she asked.
“I’ve been to more urban gardens in the last two days than I have in my entire life up to now.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“What’s going on with Riva?”
This was Jo. He wouldn’t lie to her, but he also wouldn’t tell her something she’d have to answer questions about under oath. His silence was enough.
“Dammit, Ian. You’re going to lose that promotion, and possibly your badge.”
What was he supposed to say to that? She was right. He was going to let down his family and the department. But when he gut-checked the situation, the person he wasn’t letting down was himself. “No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will,” she countered. Jo wasn’t gentle. She had, on occasion, slapped him on the back of the head hard enough to rattle his teeth, and the teasing Ian endured after Riva spent an evening buying drugs while wearing the very jacket he’d worn to the club last night ranked right up there with the worst of his plebe year at the Naval Academy. “Isn’t there another way for you to get her out of your system? Someone who looks like her?”
“I don’t want a substitute for her.”
“Have you seen her since the trial?”
She’d switched into automatic interrogation mode. “No.”
“Talked to her.”
“No.”
“Called her? Driven by her house? Searched her in a database?”
“No, no, and no. I just … never forgot her.” He heard fabric rustle as Jo switched positions. “What the hell? Are you still in bed?”
“I took a surveillance shift for McCormick last night. What is it about her?”
How did he explain the electric spark of recognition happening on a cellular level? Best not to try with Jo, who was even less romantic and sentimental than he was. “Back then, she was mad at me, but she was even more mad at herself. She was ashamed of what she’d done. Now, I’m seeing behind the scenes. She’s trying to be a good person. A citizen. A contributing member of the community.” Speaking the words out loud made him stop and think. Riva’s job wasn’t just a job, and she wasn’t doing this just for Isaiah. There was so much more than that. Riva wasn’t just trying to make amends for not telling him about her father seven years ago. She was trying to atone.
“Well, fuck,” Jo said. “You aren’t just trying to sleep with her. You like her.”
He froze for a split second. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I do.”
Jo’s snort was eloquent. “What is it with this unit? Matt falls for an informant, McCormick’s quitting to do security for a pop star, and you’re … I don’t even know what you’re doing. Do you?”
“No.”
“As long as we’re clear on that. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
There was an odd note to her voice. Before Ian could ask about it, she hung up.
* * *
Ian walked back to the truck and got in. Time to up the ante on getting a look at that laptop. “Hey, I was thinking. You want me to take a look at your data and see if there’s anything you could optimize to increase your profit? That’s my job. You’re helping me out, maybe I could help you out too.”
It was a risk, questioning Rory’s competence like that.
“It’s not rocket science,” Rory said. “I know my profit margins. But why the hell not? Come to the gym with me tonight. Let’s see what you’re made of. We’ll take it from there.”
“Sounds great,” Ian said easily. He spotted a coffee shop on the corner. “Hey, can you drop me here? That call was for a work thing I need to look into. I’ll get a cab back.”
“No problem. Call Riva. She can come get you.”
Ian walked into the coffee shop and dialed Micah’s number. “It’s Hawthorn.”
“Fuck, you almost gave me a heart attack when you walked through the door with Henneman,” Micah said.
“A little warning would have been nice,” Ian shot back.”There’s too many cooks in this kitchen, and somebody’s going to get burned.”
“We threw it together at the last minute. My captain’s into this now. He hates the idea of some small-town PD getting a bust this big.”
“He can have the bust,” Ian said, mentally adding as long as he doesn’t fuck it up. “I’m here to make sure my own house gets clean. What’s the story?”
“A friend of mine owns the staffing agency. She agreed to let me mock up business cards and conduct some meetings there. He’s got the contract; there aren’t any other bidders. We’re building a case, company by company, to get evidence for money laundering. We’ve also started surveillance on his warehouse and house, to see who comes and goes from those locations after hours. Maybe he’s letting the cartels use the warehouse to store shipments. Any other places we should keep an eye on?”
“He goes to a gym,” Ian said.
“Name?”
“Sweet Science.”
Ian heard clicking and tapping. “Shit. I’m already getting blowback about the OT.”
“I’ll keep an eye on that for you,” Ian said. “I’m going with him tonight. You won’t get information from most of the guys in a boxing club. They’re tight.”
“Damn, this looks pretty serious. You a fighter?”
“On occasion,” Ian said.
“It doesn’t seem like your thing.”
Ian thought about Matt Dorchester’s battered knuckles, about the upper body strength and speed you developed from working the speed bag, about the long hours training for three-minute rounds. He thought about the sheer terror he felt every time he stepped in the ring. “I’m full of surprises,” he said.
* * *
He didn’t call Riva to come get him. Instead, he used Uber to get a ride back to the house. Her truck was parked on the street, so he felt pretty confident she was home, even though she’d ignored his texts. Midafternoon sunshine poured through the trees and dappled the foyer when he let himself through the back door. The kitchen counters were immaculate; the only sign Riva had been at work was the fridge, jammed with storage containers filled with food he couldn’t identify.
The rest of the house was eerily quiet. He stepped softly through the dining room, then across the foyer to the front parlor. Empty. He climbed the stairs and stopped in front of her closed door. He lifted his hand to the knob, then set his shoulders and turned for his own bedroom door.
Inside, he toed out of his boots and looked at the bathroom door. It was open, and so was the door to Riva’s adjoining room. She was curled up on her side, sound asleep, a soft throw covering her bare legs, a book tipped over onto its spine. One finger held her page. Jo’s questions flashed him back to the second time he’d met Riva.
Six years earlier …
Ian was waiting in a pretrial room at the courthouse when Riva opened the door and walked in, attention focused on the county attorney. “You’ll be giving your testimony from another room, to protect your anonymity,” the attorney was saying.
“I understand.” Her voice was quiet, even as she resolutely didn’t look at him. “Thanks for explaining everything.”
“Wait here until the bailiff comes to get you.”
Riva sat on one of the wooden benches running the length of the wall. Ian didn’t miss the fact that she’d seated herself as far away from him as she could. She wore a simple skirt and blouse and low heels, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that spread between her shoulder blades like the variegated wingspan of a bird of prey.
The terms of her agreement stipulated that until the trial was over, she had to tell the department and the county attorney any time she moved or changed jobs. So Ian knew she’d left the university’s housing for an apartment in the student district and that she was no longer employed as a work-study student with the business department but at a natural foods co-op downtown. But that was all.
“Hi, Riva.”
She glanced at him. Impossible that such a short look could hold so much anger and self-loathing. “Officer Hawthorn.”
He didn’t correct her. Most civilians wouldn’t know that three chevrons on his upper arm meant he’d been promoted to sergeant. Riva wouldn’t care.
“How’ve you been?”
“Fine.”
She was prettier than she’d been at eighteen, her face more angular, more reserved. She’d gained weight, too, lost the coltish look and some of the makeup. But it didn’t look like life had been kind to her. There was a new reserve in her face, a new wisdom, paid for, as it always was, with pain.
Pain he’d caused her. His heart ached a little.
“Why aren’t you in a suit?”
Maybe she’d thought through the impossibility of their situation, come to terms with it. Forgiven him. He seized the chance to come and sit near her, leaving a respectable amount of distance between them. “I work in a uniform, so that’s what I wear to court.”
“You weren’t in a uniform back then.”
“I was undercover. We have a hard time finding cops who look young enough to pass for college kids.”
“You fooled me.” She stroked the side of her mouth, indicating the place where Ian knew pain had creased his skin. He knew his face was forbidding, almost hard. “These made me think you were a grad student, though.”
She was different inside too. Willing to meet his gaze, even if the challenge still lurked behind her eyes. “Another fifteen or twenty minutes you would have figured out something was going on. And then you would have told me to fuck off.”
“Not exactly. Another fifteen or twenty minutes and I would have told you my roommate wasn’t home.” Her words were flat, unemotional, like she’d made peace with them but didn’t like the terms. “I would have taken you back to my room. Asked you about all that philosophy hoping you’d think I was smart enough for you, hoping you’d kiss me. Or more. Because that’s the kind of girl I was then.”
His heart stopped beating and his brain jerked into overdrive. There was a new darkness to Riva, not just a soberness, a teenage girl all grown up, but a true darkness. She’d figured something out, all right. She’d figured out that he was a jerk and an asshole and had no business letting things go as far as they had. Even as the thoughts formed in his mind, he knew he was missing something important, but before he could ask, she spoke.
“Was it just a cover?”
Did she mean the philosophy textbooks or the tension simmering between them? Wrong question. Don’t go there. “Which part?”
She gazed at him, unflinching, and he got a glimpse of the woman she’d become in a few more years. A woman he’d like to know. A woman who, because of their past, would have nothing to do with him. “The books you carried.”
“Those were my textbooks from college. I majored in philosophy.”
She raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
The cancer diagnosis had made him very philosophical. “I don’t seem like the kind of guy who’s concerned with life’s big questions?”
That got him a very small smile, barely a curve of her lips. He’d seen so few on her face. This one went straight to his heart like a fist to the chest. “I don’t know what kind of guy you are.”
Do you want to?
The words trembled on the tip of his tongue. She was twenty. Well past the age of consent, able to vote, not able to drink legally. He was twenty-seven, with a promising career ahead of him, and the case wasn’t over. She would always be a former CI. It wasn’t illegal. Stupid, absolutely. Immoral, possibly. Wrong. It might never be right.
“Look, Riva, you have to forgive yourself for the mistakes in your past.”
“I do. I’ve paid the price for my mistake, if not my debt to society, and am now so squeaky clean now unicorns could eat off my reputation.”
It was his turn to huff out a laugh. Two minutes of conversation and already things felt different. His brain jumped ahead to a year from now, maybe two, when the dust had settled, and she’d had a little more time.
“I just can’t forgive myself for wanting you.”
His breath stopped. Maybe it was a good thing she’d dropped off his radar the day after he’d loaned her his coat, because he only wanted her more.
And she wanted nothing to do with him.
“Riva Henneman?” The bailiff’s bulky body filled up most of the doorway. “Sorry, Sergeant. They’re ready for her.”
He cleared his throat. “Ms. Henneman.”
She leaned forward to collect her purse from the floor. On the way back up, she whispered, “We both know that part wasn’t a cover either.”
His heart stopped in his chest. “Good-bye, Sergeant,” she said, distantly polite.
Then she walked through the door and out of his life again.
* * *
He watched her sleep, knowing he’d do everything in his power to make himself the target, to steal Rory’s attention and interest, so Riva could get free. It was the only chance she’d have to move on from her past.
Would she ever be able to forgive herself for giving in to her father’s manipulative demands? She was obviously carrying around guilt over her parents’ relationship, which wasn’t her burden to bear. She was obviously ashamed of what she’d done and trying to set that right. And tangled up in all of that was the thrumming, dangerous desire they never seemed to set aside.
He padded silently into the room and closed the bathroom door, then stretched out on the bed beside her, tucking his arm under his ear as he did. She made a little grumbling noise, turned her head to look over her shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered open. He saw the exact moment she remembered who she was, who he was, why they were in bed together.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. Her voice was sleep rough, and lacked the vibrating tension brought on by fear and suspicion.
“I tried to be quiet,” he said.
“I didn’t wake up when you got on the bed, either.”
Her gaze was soft, not vulnerable or defenseless, not quiet. But not guarded, or worse, sharpening in attack. Given their history and her responses to him, this was important and made him go all soft inside. A different kind of protective, like curl-up-and-purr protective. “Why did you wake up?”
“I smelled chocolate,” she said.
A grin spread across his face. “That truck is full of chocolate.”
She made a small noise, acknowledging his statement, then shifted so she was facing him. His heart started to pound. He hadn’t felt like this since he was a kid, when lying down with a girl was new, fresh, thrilling. They weren’t quite touching, but the possibility was there, hanging in the air like the scent of candy in the warehouse and truck. Soft, sweet, so potent he could taste it.
They should talk about the morning, his conversation with her father, seeing Micah at the sales call, his conversation with Jo. They should talk about the night. But he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to slice this moment out of time and soak in the image of Riva’s face, her thick eyelashes, her dreamy gaze, her sleep-swollen lips, the crease from the pillowcase on one cheek.
“You’re getting a little scruffy,” she said. She reached up and gently brushed her fingertips over his stubble.
It was the first time Riva had touched him out of the simple desire to do so, a desire not driven by fear or sex, but simply because she wanted to feel the texture of his body against hers. Not wanting to break the spell, he didn’t respond. He lay there, breathing shallowly and evenly as she trailed her fingertips over his jaw to the spot on his throat where his beard gave way to skin. Her touch was still light, exploratory, as it lingered on his pulse. Her gaze went abstract for a second, then focused on his eyes.
“Fast,” she noted.
Because he was lit up like a concert stage, lights and smoke and thrumming electricity. Still, he kept quiet. Letting her set the pace.
Turns out, letting Riva have her way with him was incredibly sexy. He’d never been so aware of his heartbeat sending blood south to pool in his cock, and then of his erection, thickening and lifting to throb against his zipper. His legs felt heavy, his fingers and palms tingling with the urge to touch her, stroke her hair, brush his thumb over her cheek. They were close enough for her breath to drift over his jaw. Each newly sensitized place was connected to the other, making him aware of his body in a new way, a vessel alive with pleasure, possibility, not a dumb, brute beast to alternately ignore or push to new limits of endurance.
In some dim corner of his mind he realized he was enjoying his body. Nothing more, nothing less. Experiencing sensations, not cataloging them against a list of symptoms, hating his body for its betrayal, or treating it like a patrol car the department would drive into the ground.
Maybe Riva wasn’t the only one getting used to his body.
Her index finger dipped into the hollow between his collarbones, then snagged in his shirt placket, not quite pulling, not quite tugging, just holding curled into the fabric while she looked into his eyes. He didn’t move to close the distance between them, just waited, forcing his breath to even, forcing his body to relax.
She lifted her chin and kissed him, a brush of lips, warm, smooth, a hint of some spice she’d used in the recipes and sampled. Glancing, just enough contact to set off the nerves under the skin, make them tingle for more. But he didn’t move, didn’t even follow her to return the kiss. He simply watched her explore him, herself, what they could make together.
Outside the window, birds chirped and sang. The breeze sent the shadows of leaves dancing across the floor. Riva drew her leg up, bumping her knee into his thigh, then stopping. The moment was too charmed to risk. It wouldn’t shatter into pieces; it was too tenuous for that. It would drift away like the song heard faintly through the windows from a passing car, gone before they could finish it, much less name it. So he left his forearm on his hip, his hand resting on his thigh, and let Riva unfasten the first button on his shirt, then the next, then the next, her gaze never leaving his.
He was, he realized, achingly hard and bent at a painful angle in his shorts. No moving, no adjusting; his only option was to lie there and wait for whatever was coming. Maybe sex, maybe another kiss, maybe just this, but for the first time he was okay with taking it. There was a certain recklessness to holding back, to taking what came rather than trying to control the outcome. When Riva was calling the shots, this was beyond reckless.
She unbuttoned his shirt to his navel, then pulled his shirt free from his pants, tucking the top layer between his elbow and his hip. Moving a little to let her do that eased some of the pressure on his cock, which was a good thing, because she set her fingertips to the muscles between his ribs. She rubbed her thumb over his abdominal wall, the pressure firm enough to remind him that she worked with her hands and also to remind him exactly how close her hand was to his cock.
A delicate pink flush bloomed on her cheeks. She angled herself forward and kissed him again, this time with pressure to urge his lips open so her tongue could dart in and touch his.
A low rough sound. Him, giving voice to the longing he’d held back for so long it almost hurt. Then she kissed him again, hot and slick alternating with a hint of sharp teeth. Then he lost track of time again, dropping deep and dark into sensation. Mourning doves cooing. The slick sound of their mouths. Riva’s tongue tracing his lower lip, then her open mouth against the corner of his, as if she were rubbing her lips against the stubble. He couldn’t think. Her hand tightened on his hipbone, holding him steady while she scooted forward. Her knee nudged against his until he got the message and made room for her leg between his. Her skirt rode up to the top of her leg, allowing her thigh and hip bone to press solidly against his erection; through the gauzy cotton dress her tight little nipples brushed his chest with each inhale. It was maddening to be half-dressed, Riva’s fingers against his jaw, her index finger dipping into his mouth to touch his tongue between kisses.
He nipped the tip of her finger, a suggestion she remove it. Words trembled on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to check in with her, make sure she was okay with what was happening. He was learning, slowly, too slowly for the situation they were in, but he’d do what he could with what he had. He’d keep his mouth shut.
She traced his lower lip, wet with saliva. “You’re still holding back.” She lifted his hand from his thigh and dropped it on her hip. “That goes there.” Her fingers flexed over his, forcing pressure. “Don’t hold back.”
Tempting. So tempting, spurring him to curve his fingers into the sweet swell of her hip and shimmy just enough to seat his cock against her mound. With his other hand he locked his forearm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Lip to lip, hip to hip, and the temperature in the room shot up until the breeze no longer felt cold but necessary to keep them from spontaneously combusting.
Her arm wrapped around his waist and pulled, rolling them so he was on top. He had to be crushing her into the soft duvet but couldn’t stop himself from tightening his grip and flat-out grinding against her body. In a flurry of hands and hips she urged him to his elbows, then reached down to wriggle her skirt up and her panties down to midthigh.
“Touch me.”
He collapsed forward, burying his face in her hair as he took his weight on his left elbow, notched his cock against her hipbone in the hope that the pressure would take the edge off, and slid his fingers over her mound.
She was slick. Hot. Swollen. One of her hands fisted in the back of his shirt; the other gripped his nape. Her body stiffened as he explored, drawing up to part her folds, ghosting over her clit, then dipping back down to circle the opening to her body. Fine tremors ran through her body, the muscles of her inner thighs quivering until he circled her clit once, watching, paying attention to her responses, then settling into a slow rhythm, fingertip to one side of her clit, stroking, stroking.
The bud swelled under his touch. She arched under him, a movement he ruthlessly controlled through simple physics: he rolled more of his weight onto her, pressing her into the bed.
“More,” she whimpered. “Faster.”
“No,” he growled back. He was so close to her ear he barely had to use his voice. “Like this.”
She went inward, eyelids drooping, then closing under the onslaught of sensation. It was unfathomable, miraculous, that such a tiny area could devastate a woman so thoroughly. A deep flush bloomed on her cheekbones. Ian fisted his hand in her hair, hovered his mouth over hers, pushed his pelvis against her hip, and didn’t vary his touch by so much as a millimeter.
Flush on her collarbone. Her entire body went rigid. He sealed his mouth over hers, inhaling her sharp cries as she came until his entire body was reverberating with her release. Slowly, as slowly as he’d brought her to the peak, the tension ebbed from her body until she was soft and lax under him.
Her eyes opened. The expression in there—soft, dreamy, satisfied woman—nearly stopped his heart. Without breaking eye contact she reached for his hand, drew it up her body to her lips, and licked her moisture from his fingertips.
Lightning bolt directly to his cock. He bent his head and helped her, until all that was left was his tongue rubbing against hers, hot and demanding, as her fingers trailed down his chest to his belt. He reached down and helped her kick her panties to the side of the bed, then trailed his fingers back up her leg to the sweet heat at the top of her thighs. This was real, every dream he’d never allowed to the surface of his mind. His cock ached, each brush of her fingers through his jeans intensifying the desire. He wouldn’t last two minutes like this.
No matter. This wasn’t the end.
The garage door thunked into motion. Riva’s hand stopped in the act of plucking his belt free from the buckle. “That’s Dad,” she murmured.
For a brief, incredulous moment he stared down into her face, trying to make sense of the words. Then he rested his forehead on hers. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn.”
“We can,” she started.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
It was hard to put into words, so he settled for blunt. “Because I want you to know this isn’t just about sex. It’s about pleasure. And patience.” He took a deep breath. “Because I want to look forward to this, think about it, anticipate how you’ll feel when I slide into you.”
One corner of her mouth lifted, and her eyes gleamed. Her gaze locked with his as she fastened his belt. A minute. All he needed was a minute, her slender fingers wrapped around his cock, her tongue teasing his, and he’d go off.
“What was your story?” She plucked her panties from the duvet, slid them up her legs, then lifted her hips to pull them on.
“What?” he asked, distracted by the flex of the muscles in her legs, the neatly trimmed curls disappearing behind cotton bikinis.
She clambered off the bed and stood by the bathroom door. “Better?”
“Yeah.” He pushed back to his knees, rubbed his palms over his face, and tried to string together a coherent thought.
“I meant, why are you home without Dad?”
“I got a call from work. I’m working.”
“Got it.” She nodded at his zipper, straining from the pressure of his cock behind it. “Is there any chance you’ll come home from boxing with that?”
He looked at her. “Do you want me to come home from boxing with this?”
Her gaze widened ever so slightly, a secondary flush blooming on her cheeks again. Then she lifted her chin. “Bring it on, Ian.”