“Who sent you the photos from Bogotá?” Beth demanded.
She had finally made her way into her office. Alejandra, the sweetest natured child in the world, had chosen today of all days to develop separation anxiety. She screamed when Beth tried to leave her in day care. The irony was that Hannah, the day-care provider, actually knew what she was doing, but Alejandra didn’t seem to care, it was one change too many for her. She clung to Beth, her tiny hands fisted in Beth’s hair, ready to pull out every last strand if she dared to try to put her down again. Beth sat with her for over an hour reading books and showing Alejandra all the toys to play with.
Finally Hannah told Beth she was actually making it worse by giving in to Alejandra. Hannah was very nice about it and the way she explained it made perfect sense, Beth was reinforcing Alejandra’s tantrum by staying with her. But still it ripped Beth’s heart out to leave her. The poor child had just lost her family and Beth was the only familiar face she had. In the end she only left once Hannah promised to call her if Alejandra hadn’t stopped crying in ten minutes.
And so far, so good.
Beth crossed Patterson’s office and sat down in the leather captain’s chair across from him. Above his head, on the wall, was the bust of a giant stag, one of five mountings in his office. It had taken Beth a few months to get used to the very Texan practice of hanging carcasses on every wall. At first it reminded her of the roadkill she saw as a kid when she looked out her bedroom window, one of the many perks of having an apartment that overlooked I80. She also got to breathe toxic emissions and watch the occasional high-speed chase.
Patterson looked up from his paper work. “Morning, California. Get the tamale settled?”
Beth sighed. “Alejandra, her name is Alejandra and no she isn’t settled but I dropped her off. Now answer my question.”
“I can’t even remember your question.”
“Who sent you the pictures from Colombia?” she asked again.
Patterson sat back in his chair. “Why?”
Beth was temporarily back-footed. “Because it is an important detail. I need to know who found his body.”
“Why?” Patterson asked again.
Beth sighed. “Stop being a dick and just tell me.”
“I’ll stop being a dick when you stop being stupid. I know you’re boning him. Everyone in the office knows. You’re smarter than that.” Patterson shook his head. “Look, I like you, Thomson. I don’t like most people but you’re a good egg. Stop thinking with your dick or whatever the female equivalent is.”
Beth’s back straightened. Jessop knew as did Cynthia and the agents assigned to her at the safe house but she didn’t realise it was public knowledge. She didn’t care; she had nothing to be ashamed of. “What is it to you who I sleep with? I have seen you go through dozens of women since we were partnered. I never would dream about commenting on who you are screwing so please extend the same courtesy to me.”
“You’re better than that, Beth.”
Beth bit her lip. She hated when he called her by her first name; it just didn’t sound right, but nor did getting advice from the resident man whore. “What does that even mean, I’m better than what exactly? Better than him? I don’t think so because he is the one out risking his life while we’re sitting here behind desks drinking coffee.”
“He is a thug. Shit, you know you could do better. Even that accountant douche is better than Torres.”
Beth’s eyes widened. “He is an actuary and his name is Neil. How do you even know about him?” Beth never talked about her private life with Patterson. She couldn’t remember telling anyone in the office. She might have told Rebekah in human resources. Occasionally they went out for drinks and it could have come up.
Patterson shifted in his seat. “Look, Thomson, you’re my partner. Part of my job is looking out for you.”
Beth put her hand up. “Trust me, your job description doesn’t include keeping track of who I sleep with.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Ha,” she scoffed. “Where was this need to protect me when the shit hit the fan in Culiacan? You were the first to tell me I messed up. You didn’t have my back then. Torres did. When Jessop cut me out, Torres got me back in. So save your faux concern.”
“Is that why you’re sucking his dick, because he stood up for you to Jessop?”
Beth’s mouth dropped. Patterson was uncouth at the best of times but he was never this angry or disrespectful. “Screw you! How dare you speak to me like that! It is none of your business whose dick I suck. If I want to screw every agent in the DEA, I will do it. Don’t you ever speak to me like that again.”
Patterson dropped his head. For a long time he didn’t say anything. Eventually he looked back up at her. There was pain written clearly on his face. “I’m sorry, Beth. I fucked up. I should have had your back. Look…” He tapped his long fingers on the mahogany desk. He let out a stream of air. “I – I care about you OK? You’re my partner. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Beth sighed. She understood better than anyone how much it pained Patterson to admit he cared. She had known him long enough to know that compassion didn’t feature heavily in his emotional repertoire. He had mastered anger and indifference, but this was new for him. She cared for him too. He was a misogynist and borderline racist but under all the crap was someone she genuinely liked.
Realisation washed over Beth. Patterson had intentionally withheld the information about Torres because he wanted her to think Torres had murdered Martinez.
And it worked.
“Patterson, I appreciate your concern, I really do, but what is going on with Torres has nothing to do with us, OK? We’re good, right?”
Patterson nodded begrudgingly. “Yeah, we’re good.”
Beth sighed in relief. “So tell me what happened in Colombia.”
“Torres was on his tail. He made Jessop promise not to tell you. No idea how he manages to give Jessop orders, but that he does.”
“I do,” Beth said. Anyone who had ever laid eyes on Torres would understand why people complied with his demands.
Patterson shook his head. “He has massive balls, I’ll give him that.”
Beth shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “The balls are pretty normal but there are other massive parts to him.”
Patterson held up his hand. “Jesus, Thomson. I don’t want to imagine Torres boning my partner with his massive dick.”
“Well stop imagine him boning me all together. I think that would be the way forward.”
“Jesus, now I can’t stop thinking about it.” Patterson grimaced.
“I don’t care if you think about it, but if you jerk off to the image, I don’t want to hear about it.”
Patterson laughed. “That’s my dirty girl. Now you know I’m going to have to jerk off to the image of you getting boned.”
“Yes, well best not to imagine Torres. The feeling of inadequacy would kill your hard on.”
“Don’t worry about me, California. I do just fine in that department. Want to see?” He pretended to reach for his zipper.
Beth rolled her eyes. “No thanks. I’ve heard all about it.” Patterson had slept with the majority of women in the office. There were no complaints about him between the sheets. In the cold light of day, he was a real jackass, but apparently he got the job done in the bedroom.
“Suit yourself.”
Beth stood up. “I’m leaving before you show me your dick. I don’t want to try to get rid of that image.”
“Trust me, California. Don’t waste your time trying to forget. Never going to happen.”
Beth shook her head. “I am going to pretend this conversation never happened.”
“Suit yourself,” he said again.
***
Beth scooped peanut butter out of the jar with her index finger. Thank God for the emergency supply of Skippy she kept in her top drawer. Some days were eat-peanut-butter-directly from the jar days. Today was one of them. She had left her sack lunch at Alejandra’s day care and there was no way she was going down to get it. She knew if the baby cried, she would end up just picking her up and taking her home to eat popsicles and dig for worms in the back yard. She was far too soft. She was going to have to sort that out before she had her own children. If she had her own children…
Beth licked her finger and then stuck it back in the jar. Normally she would be appalled at the thought of double-dipping, especially with fingers, but she needed the hit of salty fatty goodness. M&M therapy would have been better but she didn’t have the energy to take the elevator to the vending machine on the ground floor.
She sighed. What she really needed was to speak to Torres. Nobody could talk her off a ledge like he could. She shook her head. She had well and truly burned that bridge. And the irony, she needed to talk to Torres about ruining things with him. She was a special kind of pathetic.
Oh well… Peanut butter was the way forward. She took another scoop. She looked at the calorie content and winced. Oh who was she kidding, no one was likely to see her naked in the near future, she may as well finish the jar.
“I hear that is good on pancakes.”
Beth’s head shot up. Her breath caught when she saw him.
Torres was standing in the doorway. He had never been to the building; it was far too dangerous for an undercover agent to be anywhere near a DEA office.
“Hi.” She put down the jar, and tried to hide the enormous glob of peanut butter on her finger behind the stapler on her desk. “I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk.”
Torres closed the door behind him and locked it before drawing the shade on the glass panel. “You have done enough talking.” He was looking at her like he was trying to decide the best way to murder her.
Beth glanced at the door. There were at least a dozen people less than thirty feet away. If she screamed, Patterson would have the door down in thirty seconds. He may be an ass hat, but he was a strong ass hat who wouldn’t let anything happen to her. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
“That’s the problem isn’t it? You have always expected me to fuck off as soon as I got what I wanted.”
Torres crossed the room in three long strides. “Trouble is, I didn’t get what I wanted.”
His low voice sent a bolt of desire to her core. She licked her dry lips. “Torres,” she started to speak but he cut her off by taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. He licked her finger, first the tip and then he turned her hand over and kissed her palm, licking the cleft between her finger and thumb.
She sucked in a ragged breath. “Torres.” She couldn’t think. All the blood drained from her head and pooled at her centre.
“Callate, mujer.” Shut up, woman.
Beth blinked. If he said it in English she would have been tempted to smack him in the mouth but in Spanish she was too focused on the way his mouth caressed the words when he spoke to consider the actual words.
Beth stood up. “Look, Torres—”
Torres held his hand up to stop her. Anger radiated off of him. “Don’t make me gag you, we both know I am not above it.”
Beth nodded. Torres was capable of lots of things. Half of them scared the hell out of her and the other half turned her on, unfortunately, his threat to gag her fell into both categories.
“Do you know how angry you make me?” Torres asked. He ran a hand over his short beard.
Beth guessed it was a rhetorical question but she was fairly sure she knew the answer.
“I meant it this morning when I told you to fuck off. I have never been angrier than when I left your house this morning but then I started driving to Mexico and with every mile that passed I got angrier. By the time I got to Nuevo Laredo, I was ready to kill someone.”
Beth glanced at the door. If he did kill her, she just hoped he would send her off with a good hard seeing to first. She couldn’t think of a better way to die. Beth shook her head to dislodge the thought. What was she thinking? Or more to the point, why couldn’t she think about anything beyond sex when Torres was so close? There was a safe zone: as long as he was more than four feet away, she was fine, but the moment he entered her space, it was all systems go. There must be something short-circuiting in her brain, there was something chemical going on because she had developed a full-blown addiction to him. She didn’t even want to think of the withdrawal symptoms.
“Because I am trying to minimise the number of people I shoot in the face, I decided to take a page from your book and make a list of everything I hate about you.”
Beth’s shoulders slumped. That would be a very long list.
“And God Bless you, Beth, you make it too easy for me. There is so much to pick from. You’re uptight and you’re messy. You can’t manage to get wrappers all the way into the garbage. You put them on the counter next to it because clearly the extra two feet is too much. While we are on the subject, shoving your clothes in a suitcase is not packing, but I digress. You’re both impulsive and gun shy. When you’re not drooling in your sleep, you are snoring.”
Beth held up her hand. “I get the point.”
Torres shook his head. “No I don’t think you do. You may as well sit down because I’m just getting started. It took me forty miles to finish the list. Where was I? Oh yes, you’re not all that pretty. I don’t hate that about you, it’s just a fact.”
Beth’s eyes narrowed. Her hands scrunched into tight fists. She might just hit him. Hell if she had the shank Flores used, she might give him a matching scar on the other side. “Did you come to my work to tell me that? You really shouldn’t have bothered.”
“There you go interrupting me again, and always before I get to the important part.”
Her fingers itched to wrap around his throat. The only thing that stopped her was that she deserved it. She had assumed the worst about him the way she did about everyone else. He was angry and hurt and lashing out. She would take it…but she wouldn’t like it. “I think the not thinking I’m pretty is a fairly important point. That might just be me being a girl. You know we tend to care about these things. Asshole,” she muttered under her breath.
Torres’ lips curled into half a smile. “Jumping to conclusions again, Gatita. I hate that about you too. The list just keeps getting bigger.”
Beth threw her hands in the air. She tried taking the high road but it really wasn’t her. “Patterson is thirty feet away. If I scream, he will be here in twenty seconds, just something to consider before you keep going.”
Torres smirked. “Really, Beth? We both know Patterson wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Beth considered for a second. Torres and Patterson were fairly evenly matched physically. But, yes, Torres would destroy him. “Fine. Get to your point.”
“It is really hard to get to my point when I keep remembering reasons why you drive me crazy. You are completely oblivious to the fact that Patterson would do anything to get into your pants. I don’t blame him, having been there, I can highly recommend it.”
His anger wasn’t shifting, if anything it had taken root. There was no warmth in the room, just a solid wall of ice formed by her doubt and his bitterness.
Beth shook her head. “Don’t be stupid. Patterson doesn’t want me.”
“Trust me. He looks at you like he wants to bend you over the desk and fuck you. And if he doesn’t stop looking at you like that, I am going to rip his throat out. If there is anyone fucking you over the desk, it will be me.”
The admission sent a hot wave of pleasure through her. She sucked in a sharp breath. She wouldn’t let herself believe it, his words were just another way to hurt her, draw her in just to push her away. “And why exactly would you want to do that? I’m not pretty, remember?”
“Objectively, you’re not, you’re as average as they come. But fuck if I can be objective about you. To me, you are beautiful. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met and it pisses me off because I have no idea when or why it happened, but here we are.” The frustration was clear in his voice. Torres sat down and pulled her down on his lap. “Can you feel that?” His erection was pressed against her bottom. “Reason number 895 why you piss me off. I can’t stand next to you without getting an erection. All I have to do is hear your name and I’m hard. Even when I’m fucking you, I am thinking about when I will get to do it again. And it really pisses me off that I will never get enough of you. I could fuck you every night for the rest of my life and I would still want more.”
Her body tingled. She pushed her butt over the hard length of his erection. His anger only served to excite her.
“That reminds me of another reason I hate you: you touch me and I come. I have never had that problem before. The first time, I thought it was just because it had been so long but then I realised it is just you.”
Torres reached under her shirt and caressed her nipple through the satin fabric of her bra. The sensitive flesh hardened under his expert touch. Her back arched, her head rested against his broad chest. “You’ve not heard me complain about it.” She wanted to turn around and kiss him, but having her back to him meant he had the perfect angle to stroke her breasts. And she wasn’t sure he would kiss her back. He didn’t want her for that. What he wanted from her wasn’t sweet or romantic or tender.
She shifted her body back and forth, rubbing herself against him.
“Stop.” His voice sounded strangled. “If you keep doing that, I really will be fucking you over your desk.”
He meant it as a warning, but all her mind heard was an invitation. She ground herself against him.
“Bad at taking orders. Yet another thing to add to the list.” In an instant he had lifted her off of him. He pulled her skirt up to her waist and then pulled down her panties to her knees. “You really need to be more obedient.” He pushed her over on the desk. Her hands tried to hold her up but he pushed her down. There was nothing sweet or gentle about it. This wasn’t about making love; this was fucking pure and simple. And she loved it. She needed it. He needed it. His anger and frustration were still present, hanging between them like an unwelcome guest. His hand ran over her naked skin. “Do you know how angry you make me?” he asked.
She didn’t turn around. Her skin tingled like small electric pins pricking her. “Show me,” she breathed against the solid oak surface of her desk. “Let me feel how angry you are.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Torres said.
“Show me,” she said again. “Show me how angry I make you. I want to feel it.”
Wordlessly he leaned over and undid her bra. His large hand stroked her nipple until it hardened in his hand and then he squeezed, soft at first and then hard. The pain was searing, sending tendrils of molten heat through her. She wanted to cry out but she knew if she did he would stop. “Show me how angry I make you,” she said again.
He squeezed on her nipple again. This time her senses had been dulled enough not to register the full extent of the pain and all she felt was the rush of pleasure when he eased the pressure. He rubbed his hand over her ass. “Perfect,” he moaned as he rubbed her. His head lowered to the spot he had been rubbing. He kissed her gently.
He was holding back, she could feel it. She always felt it. She let go completely but Torres kept something of himself back. Not today. Beth turned her head so she could see him. “Make me feel how angry you are.”
Torres shook his head. “I’ll hurt you.”
A rush of desire coursed through her. “I know. Hurt me, Torres, I won’t break.”
He pushed her head down into the desk. His hands fisted in her hair. And then he leaned down again. “Do you want to know how much it hurt that you didn’t believe me?” he asked against the small of her back. His voice was hoarse as he fought to keep control.
She tried to swallow but her throat was too dry. If she wanted to turn back, now was the time. She wanted him to let go but that meant being prepared to take whatever he gave her. “Yes.”
His head lowered to her ass. He licked the soft curve of the cheek. Beth shivered at the sensation of his hot breath cooling on her skin. His teeth grazed her skin, soft, his tongue delicately marking her. She moaned softly. “Like that?” he asked and then he sank his teeth into her, biting her hard. Her head shot up at the shock of his incisors cutting into her flesh. He pushed her head down to the desk again. The pain brought tears to her eyes. He bit her lip to keep from crying out. She wanted to tell him to stop but she wanted more. She needed more.
“Still want to see how angry I am?” His voice was dark. There was warning in his words but she wouldn’t let her mind register it.
“Yes,” she said again. She couldn’t say more because her voice would betray her by cracking. She was scared but she wanted him to keep going.
His finger ran down the seam between her legs. He dipped his finger into her. Her body clenched around his finger. “So wet,” he murmured as he withdrew his finger and traced a path up her. Her eyes flew open when his finger reached its final destination. No one had ever touched her there. Her body tensed. He rubbed her slowly until her muscles relaxed. He circled her slowly, with each sweep of his finger he got closer to the centre. And then his hand was there at the tight entrance of her body. She took in a sharp breath of air when he entered her. It didn’t hurt but she felt uncomfortably full. She pulled away, trying to escape the pressure but he held her in place. Slowly his finger pushed deeper into her. “Still want to know, Gatita?” He was asking, but there wasn’t really a question to be answered. He was going to do whatever he wanted with her body. The thought sent another surge of wetness between her legs.
“Show me.”
Torres grunted as he thrust into her. He pushed into her so deeply her cervix ached. Her body tensed, which only intensified the stabbing pain. Beth brought her hand to her mouth and bit into her index finger hoping that her brain could only register the searing pain in one location. But her attempts were in vain. He thrust into her again, his finger still fucking her ass as he rode her hard against the desk. The pain didn’t stop, if anything it grew stronger. Her eyes watered, it was too much: she couldn’t take it.
But she wanted it.
It took all her power not to scream out. Torres would stop, or maybe he wouldn’t. She didn’t want to find out either way. She needed this.
Her mind was blank: no thoughts, no feelings, only sensations. Everything was heightened, the feel of the cool wood on her cheek, the burning between thighs.
Torres’ hand stroked her clit. She knew from before what a gentle lover he could be, the way his tongue stroked her and his mouth made love to her. But this wasn’t like that. This wasn’t sweet or tender this was hard and fast. Before he had coaxed an orgasm from her, this time he was ripping it from her.
Pain and pleasure collided in her, confused her senses, she didn’t know where one started and the other ended, but she didn’t care. She closed her eyes and allowed her body to be claimed, her reason to be overwhelmed. She didn’t need control; she needed him.
Bright colours flashed behind her closed lids. Her thighs shook, she couldn’t stop the involuntary action or the way her hips bucked against him. An exquisite pressure built inside her, pushed higher by every thrust. Her breaths came in pants.
Somehow she was present enough not to moan or cry out as her climax built. Every time she needed to thrash and call his name, she concentrated on focusing the energy down but that made it feel even better and made her need to scream even greater. It was a vicious cycle, like a holding pattern of pleasure, taking her higher and higher. It was torture: a sweet unyielding torture.
And then she couldn’t keep it in any longer, a moan tore through her as her body shook and contracted around him.
With a final thrust, Torres climaxed, hot against her inner walls.
Beth’s hands were slick, her face burned, her body ached but she was completely satisfied. She was only vaguely aware of her panties being pulled up or her skirt being brought down. She wasn’t ready to move.
Torres pulled her down on his lap. He kissed her forehead. “Next time I’ll be gentle,” he promised, and no doubt he would be. She smiled at the thought of another time. Her sweet Torres was back, reappearing as quickly as he disappeared. She loved her sweet Torres; he was the one she ran to when the chips were down. He was the one who knew how she took her coffee and left her notes. But the other Torres made her lose herself, he challenged her and pushed her and fucked her until she screamed.
Lucky for her, she had had them both.
“You never let me get to the important part,” Torres said.
She shook her head. “If you add one more thing to the list of reasons I annoy you, I will crush your larynx like a Dixie cup. Black belt, remember?” To prove her point she laid both of her hands on his clavicles ready to strike.
Torres chucked. “How did I end up with such a feisty Gringa?”
“Its Karma for shooting people in the face.”
“That’s my kind of Karma.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Do you want to know the most annoying thing about you, the thing I really hate, the thing that made me drive hundreds of miles both directions?”
“Nope.” Beth shook her head.
“I knew you would.” He kissed her again. She loved the feel of his coarse beard against her face. “Ask me.”
“No, I’m not going to ask you. I can live my whole life quite happily not knowing what else bothers you about me. Trust me, the not pretty was enough.”
He held her face in his hand. “Beautiful. Don’t forget that part. You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever met and I will break the legs of anyone who says differently.”
Beth smiled. She knew she wasn’t beautiful but she felt beautiful when she was with him. She felt it in the way he looked at her and how he touched her. There was no doubt she was beautiful to him.
“Fine,” she sighed in exasperation. “Tell me.”
“Te amo, Gatita.” I love you. Torres kissed her cheek again.
Beth pushed away from him. She shook her head. “No. You don’t need to say that.”
Torres shrugged his shoulders. “Suit yourself. But I do. You are a complete pain in the ass but I love you.”
“Really?” She couldn’t even let herself begin to hope it.
“Yes really. You’re a big pain in the ass. Huge.” Torres stretched out his arms to demonstrate his point.
Beth slapped his chest with the back of her hand. “You know what I’m talking about.”
He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of her knuckles. “I love you. Let’s not mention it too much because it’s still kind of a sore point. It still pisses me off. Life would be so much simpler if I didn’t. But I love you, Beth, completely.”
“Really?” Beth asked again.
“Woman, which part aren’t you getting?”
She raised her shoulders. “The whole thing is too much to process. It’s been a hard day.” God it had been a hard day. And then a weird day. And then an incredibly erotic day. No wonder she was struggling…
“Take your time to figure it out. I’ll be here, just loving you and being annoyed about it.”
She shook her head. “What is there to be annoyed about? I love you, and I have for a while and I am not annoyed about it. I’m a little scared,” she admitted. “No, I’m a lot scared, but I’m not annoyed.”
Torres gathered her against his chest. His strong heartbeat tapped against her. “Let’s not fight it. You be scared and I will be annoyed, as long as we still have great sex, I can work with that.”
Beth sighed. “OK.” She tried to relax but doubt niggled at her. “What are you saying, Torres? Are we dating now like officially? I should tell Patterson; he is my partner and in his mind that means getting to know who I’m sleeping with. And—”
Torres cut her off with a searing kiss. “I love your lists. So neurotic, my crazy, messy, scared woman.”
“Yes, yes, we have established that I annoy you.”
“Again with you missing the important point. I love your crazy. I missed your crazy. It is the reason I turned back today.”
“And here I was thinking, it was because I am amazing in bed.”
Torres smiled. “Oh you are, but that would only bring me back temporarily. Your crazy is what is keeping me here.”
Beth’s stomach did a flip. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “Are you staying in Texas?”
Torres nodded. “Or, I might try California. That is where my very neurotic woman comes from. I’m thinking we should try that for a while.”
Beth smiled her heart was so full it ached. “Really, Torres? You want to go to Sacramento? Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not a pretty place. It is flat and smoggy.”
“I don’t care. If that’s where you are, that is where I am going to be. I love you, Beth. But it’s more than that. I don’t want to live without you. I can’t. I’m happy when I’m with you. I didn’t even realise how angry and bitter I was until I met you and I remembered how to feel again. I need you.”
Hot pressure built between her eyes. “I love you, Torres.”
He laughed. “I hope you learn to call me by my first name before we have kids, because that would just be weird. For them, not me, I love your crazy.”
Beth’s nose scrunched at the thought. “You want kids?”
“Turns out I do. What about you?”
Beth shifted so she could face him properly. He already knew she was crazy so she may as well lay it all out there. “Yes and no. In theory I would love a baby or four, but reality is a different beast. I don’t want to do it on my own. Not that I couldn’t. My mom did it and she was amazing. But that’s not what I want. I don’t want my kids to miss having a dad. I don’t want some guy making promises to them and then leaving.” She stopped. She felt so close to Torres now and she didn’t want to ruin it by showing the depths of her crazy.
Torres nodded. “I see. You don’t know if you can ever trust anyone enough to have children. You don’t trust me.”
Beth tensed, that is exactly what she was saying. She wished she wasn’t, but that was exactly what she was saying. “I’m sorry.”
Torres kissed the top of her head. “Don’t be sorry. Trust is earned. I’m here for the long hall, Gatita. I hope that one day you can trust me enough to know I am not going to leave or screw up like your dad, but if you don’t, that’s OK too, I will just keep loving you and being slightly annoyed about it.”
“Only slightly?” she asked optimistically. She could work with slightly annoyed.
“Great sex really takes the edge off it, good thing you’re good in bed.”
Beth smiled. “And on desks apparently.”
“I look forward to discovering all the other places you’re good. How much time do we have until Patterson gets worried and breaks down the door?”
She sighed as he kissed her neck. “That reminds me. What time is it? I need to go pick up my family from the airport. Do you want to meet them?” she asked without thinking. Maybe it was too soon for a family meet and greet. Torres had only just decided that he wanted to be part of her life.
“Of course I want to meet your family.”
Beth smiled. She wanted her family to meet Torres and she wanted him to be able to get to know her mom before she was completely destroyed by Alzheimer’s. She pushed the thought away. There would be a time to be sad about her mom’s future later. Today she was just going to be happy and loved. “I have to warn you my mom isn’t great at night. That is when her symptoms get worse. I wish you could see her in the morning.”
“Beth, I am going to wake up by your side every day for the rest of my life. I am sure I will get the opportunity to see your mom when she is on top form.”
“Really?” she asked just to be sure.
“You’re really going to have to stop checking I really mean everything I say. We got a lot of years ahead of us and that will get old quick.”
Beth took a deep cleansing breath. “You’re right. OK, this is me dialling back the crazy.”
“Don’t dial it back too far. I love your crazy.”
Beth smiled. “That’s good. ’Cause I’m having a hard time keeping the crazy in.”
“Just let it out,” he laughed.