Chapter Nine

Reed woke up with his body wrapped protectively around something too warm to be a pillow. Not to mention that he had too much space to stretch out—what was he doing not contorted on that uncomfortable couch?

He opened his eyes.

In a rush, it all came back. Talia. His bedroom. The sex.

Oh God. The sex.

He pulled his arm off from where it had been covering her and sat up slowly, as if testing his limbs to make sure they still belonged to him. He hadn’t been possessed last night by some demon that made him do impossible things, even if it felt like none of this was real.

He looked over, watching her sleep. She was splayed out on his bed, her long limbs tangled in the sheets. Early morning sunlight peeked through the blinds, lighting up her body.

Carefully, desperate not to wake her, he slid out of bed. He grabbed his clothes and tiptoed out of the room.

It wasn’t like leaving a woman’s place, knowing he could escape and get back to his own space, his own life, no questions asked.

It wasn’t like having someone spend the night, either, knowing they’d be gone as soon as they woke up.

Talia was in his bed. Her things were in his bedroom. Her toothbrush was next to his in the cup on the sink, and he stood staring at it, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. What the hell am I doing? But his eyes blinked back without any answers.

He took a shower, dressed, brewed a pot of strong coffee, and drank way too much until it buzzed right through him, pricking his senses.

He felt pleasantly sore, tired, content. The way he’d expect to feel after a night of fucking.

And not just fucking, quick and then done, but good fucking. Really good fucking. Long, hard, dirty, athletic fucking where he worked up a sweat, worked up a lather, and didn’t stop until both of them were breathless and spent.

Goddammit, he needed to stop thinking like that. He put the mug in the sink. Focus.

He wanted to go back into his bedroom and gather his things. But Talia was in there. Talia was everywhere. Her red dress was still on the floor where she’d stepped out of it last night. Their plates were on the table, the pans on the stove, the candles burned down to nubs.

He couldn’t handle any of it. The reminder of her, of what they’d done. The fact that she was so here.

He was washing last night’s dishes when he heard her come up behind him. He turned, the water still running.

She was wearing his button-down shirt from last night, with only two of the buttons actually closed. The shirt draped over her like a dress, a low V exposing the hint of her breasts, the bottom riding up her thighs. Fuck, she looked good in his shirt.

She’d look even better with it off. With the buttons open, the shirt falling over her shoulders, her legs spread around him. Her ass on the kitchen table, his cock jamming into her—

He turned the hot water hotter, until it burned.

“Hey,” she said, her voice sleepy.

“Hey.” He kept washing the dishes.

“There any more coffee for me?” she asked, reaching over and picking up the near-empty pot.

“I have to run,” he said, “but you can make more.”

He shut the water off.

He had to run? What was he thinking? Where did he have to be so urgently that he couldn’t spend his Sunday lounging around the apartment, going for a run, doing fuck-all with the time he could steal before work swept him up again tomorrow?

But as soon as he said it, he was committed. He had to get out of there.

He’d bet his badge she wasn’t wearing anything under that shirt of his, and if he lifted the hem he’d find nothing but her legs, her ass, and that sweet place he wanted to bury his tongue until he made her scream. But he couldn’t let himself find out for certain.

Talia put the coffee pot down. “Sorry, I didn’t realize this was make-your-own-coffee day,” she said, an edge of…something…in her voice.

It was true that he’d made plenty for both of them every other morning. Every other morning that they’d woken up separately, with their clothes on, tiptoeing around each other the way strangers should.

He made a noise that was maybe an acknowledgment but definitely not a response.

“Reed,” she said.

He turned the water back on and kept washing.

She said his name again.

Then she reached over him and turned off the faucet. The brush of her arm against him sent electricity zinging through him, too much at once.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “Just have a lot to do today.”

“On a Sunday?” She raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve got to go to the office. Work on this case.”

There was a pause. Then she said, “Oh.”

Softly, just like that. One little syllable. Oh.

“It’s an important case,” he said.

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“Then don’t—” he started.

And then he saw her face.

The sentence died somewhere inside him. He wasn’t even sure what he was about to say. Whatever it was, it was gone.

He stepped away from the sink, grabbing a towel to dry his hands. Talia kept standing there in the kitchen, in his shirt, her eyes liquid, her lips pressed tight.

He had a feeling that if she could make herself disappear on the spot, she would’ve done it in an instant, just to get away from him.

He reached for the coffee, a new filter, and started brewing another pot. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “I’ll be back in a minute. I think this is another one of those life events where one should be wearing pants.”

She went to the bedroom, closed the door, and came back a moment later transformed. Jeans, a black shirt, obviously a bra. Her hair pulled back neatly. Like armor. Like a stranger on the street, someone he’d never met and never would.

He was doing this to himself. Not just to her, he knew, but to himself.

But it had to be this way.

“Look,” he began. He didn’t want to say anything, or get into any of this. But he couldn’t stand to see the look on her face if he didn’t.

“You asked me that first night we met how long I’ve lived here, why I moved. Basic questions. I know you were just making conversation. But the answer is that I moved here eight months ago. Eight and a half, if you want to get technical. My girlfriend at the time—” He paused, inhaled. Backtracked. Said it right. “My fiancée, Lisa. We’d lived together in Brooklyn. We were supposed to get married this year.”

He watched Talia’s face for her reaction. Jealousy? Surprise? It was pretty bad form to talk about an ex the morning after. But he owed it to Talia to explain.

She only nodded, looking at him. Absorbing the information.

“I moved here after she left me. I had to get out, obviously. She kept the apartment, and I didn’t want to stay anywhere near there. I didn’t want to run into her. I didn’t want our lives to overlap.”

“That sucks,” Talia said, her face softening. “I’m really sorry. I get it if you’re not ready for something. I’m not looking for that, either.”

“It’s not about being ready,” he said. I’m ready.

He didn’t say that last part out loud, thank God, but the thought came to him whole and unbidden, a perfect kernel of capital-T Truth. Like one of the sparks that would light up in his mind in the middle of the office, staring at a web of evidence that didn’t make sense, until suddenly the lines connected and clicked into place, and the puzzle was clear.

He was ready. He’d been ready. But.

But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he couldn’t. Period.

“There was this guy,” he said. “My testimony locked him up. But he got out early on probation anyway. Lisa was a nurse. She was picking up lunch at the bodega across the street from the hospital where she worked and this guy came up to her. Said her name. Asked how I was doing.”

He watched Talia’s face. Information dawned in her eyes even before he said it.

That was the thing about her. He could see her whole thought process unfold. He could track how quickly she got there. How much she just…got it.

“Lisa asked the guy how she knew him. Thought maybe he was a patient. An old buddy of mine. You know how it is.” Talia nodded. “But then the guy said, ‘Tell Bishop I’m back.’ And Lisa—” He shook his head, remembering. “She told me he gave her this look. This smile, you know? But not a smile. The kind of smile that left her fucking terrified. I knew who it was. She came home and told me, and I immediately knew. Talia.” He tried to explain. He had to make her understand. “She was so scared.”

“I would have been, too,” Talia said. “Please tell me he didn’t do anything.”

Reed nodded. “It was okay. She didn’t go to work for a few days. We put out an extra security detail. He got picked up not long after that for violating his parole. He’s still locked away. There’s not much he can do. But the point is, Talia, I’m not a good guy to be around.”

She raised her eyebrow in a way that immediately made him feel stupid. It made sense in his head. This whole thing, if only she could understand it.

But that look she gave him. It was like for everything she got, for all the ways she was immediately with him, she didn’t get this. And she had to.

“Did Lisa want you to quit?” she asked.

“Yeah. Do something where I’m not out on the street.”

“I don’t see that being your thing,” she said.

He shrugged, palms up. Half apology. Half, well, fuck the world and the horse it rode in on. What else was he supposed to do?

“Last night was wonderful, Talia,” he said. And he meant it. “But it can’t happen again. Lisa was right. I can’t be with anyone. Not right now. I just can’t do that to them. Where I am in my life, what I do, the people I’m around. This case in particular. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk you.”

He wanted to draw her into his arms. Pull her hair out of that tidy bun and feel it cascade through his fingers. Take that shirt off, undo her jeans. Lie with their limbs tangled together in the early morning sun, nowhere to be but with each other.

But he meant what he said. She must have known it, too, because she took a step back, and then another. And then she was suddenly moving.

He followed her back to the bedroom. “What are you doing?”

She reached for her suitcase and started throwing things into it. Clothes, shoes, anything she could grab.

He said her name, but she didn’t stop. “Talia,” he said again. “Slow down.”

“I get that you need your space,” she said as she stepped past him and into the bathroom. “You don’t want to be living with someone, and definitely not me. It’s a really big ask, and I can’t keep having you do it. Just give me a second to pack and I’ll find a new place to stay.”

She went through like a tornado, picking up her things. Toothbrush, toothpaste, her creams and sprays from the sink. Her razor, deodorant, that thing that looked like a grilled cheese maker that she’d plugged in last night to make her hair curl that way.

He’d been annoyed by the creep of her stuff into his space. Messy was an understatement. Her shit got everywhere, and there was a lot of it.

But now, as she gathered it up and shoved it in her suitcase, he saw all the empty places she would leave behind.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’m not asking you to leave.”

“You don’t have to ask. I’m doing it anyway.”

He tried again. “I don’t want you to leave.”

That made her stop, socks in her hand, overstuffed suitcase at her feet.

He licked his lips. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that.

“You don’t have to leave,” he tried again, aiming for something more neutral. “It’s not a big deal. I just felt like I should tell you. About Lisa, about my job. What’s at stake. I know it’s not like you have all sorts of places where you can crash for this amount of time. So don’t worry about it. Please. I just have to go to the office today and get some work done. I promise, I’ll be back.”

She looked at her suitcase, then at him. For the first time since he’d known her, her face was unreadable. At least to him.

“Are you sure?” she said.

He nodded.

“It was wonderful,” he said again. He didn’t want her to think it had been bad. Oh God. It had not been bad. “But—”

“I get it.” She held up a hand to stop him. “It’s not going to happen again.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, looked at the socks balled in her fist, and threw them not into the suitcase but at him.

He caught them in one hand. Tossed them in the air. Tossed them back into the open drawer.

“Get out of here,” she said. “Go save the world, or whatever. I’ll see you later.”

He nodded. He didn’t want to leave.

But he’d started this mess. Now all he could do was grab his bag, his keys, and be gone.