Um.
Wow, again.
My arms went around his shoulders and immediately I started to move, my mouth at his, we were both breathing hard, not kissing, lips just touching. It didn’t take long before my Grade Nine and Three Quarters bypassed Grade Ten and went straight to Grade Thirteen and a Half.
* * * * *
I shivered.
“I’m cold,” I whispered, face in his neck, lips at his ear.
He reached across the bed and pulled the blanket over us. I was still on top, still astride him, my torso against his, my knees pressed against his sides.
I was trying to quiet my mind.
Once he covered us his arms went back around me and he held me pressed tight against him.
We hadn’t used protection again which was another thing I did not need. This time I understood that it was out of either of our control. But we were playing Russian roulette with my ovaries and eventually my ovaries were going to succumb to the bullet.
Gently he rolled me to the side, still under the blanket and he moved away.
“Furnace,” was all he said and he was gone.
I lay there alone, under the blanket while he went to turn on the furnace. I hadn’t realized how cold it was inside but then again it was colder outside and I’d been half frozen when I walked in.
At this though, my mind finally stilled and that side effect that I thought before was annoying now seemed charming because the ridiculous thoughts didn’t hit me. What just happened came over me in a humiliating rush.
Everyone told me he was a player. He’d get into my panties and even as pissed off as I was and he was, he did and I’d let him. I hadn’t begged him with words but my body had done it and I hated myself for it.
I got up, wrapped the blanket around me and was trying to pull my underwear on when he walked in.
He was naked, apparently oblivious to the cold, looking beautiful (as usual). His ponytail had come out somewhere along the way. There was a clean, white bandage wrapped around his thigh where he’d been shot and behind him the house was dark.
“Don’t do that,” he said to me.
“I’m going home,” I told him, still trying to get the panties up under the big blanket. I was no longer looking at him but anywhere else. “Can I borrow your truck? You can pick it up from the Shelter tomorrow. I’ll give May the keys.”
He came forward as I was still fighting with my panties and he hustled me, moving me gently but firmly back, around, over, his arm coming around my waist to hold me to him. He leaned down and flipped back the cover. I wasn’t much use fighting him and trying to keep the blanket around me and my panties in place at the same time. Then my hands gave up on my underwear and they dropped to the floor. I was trying instead to keep hold of the blanket at the same time I was slapping at his hands. I lost that battle too. He pulled the blanket away from me, tossed it on the bed, he leaned into me and we went down.
I tried to roll away while he pulled the comforter back but he caught me and rolled me to him face-to-face, his arms going around me.
I stilled and stopped fighting. I knew I wouldn’t win, no matter how many moves I knew.
“I’m going home,” I said, looking at him.
He didn’t say anything.
I closed my eyes tight and dipped my chin so I wouldn’t see his face. Then I opened them again and said what I had to say.
“Please, Vance. I can’t stay here now,” my voice was barely audible, “not after that.”
“What was wrong with that?” he asked.
“It was humiliating.”
It was his turn to still. “How was it humiliating?”
“Just let me get dressed and go home.”
His hand went into my hair and he tugged at it until my head came back. “Tell me what was humiliating about what we just did?” His voice was quiet, low and I knew he was pissed off again.
“I gave in. I barely fought. You just had to… I don’t know… kiss me and that was it. It’s humiliating.”
At my words, his body relaxed and his hand smoothed over my hip. I knew right off that he wasn’t pissed anymore but he wasn’t going to smooth away the Return of the Major Freak Out.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing here!” I cried suddenly. “I broke up with you this afternoon. Hell, I broke up with you last night!”
“Think hard, Princess, you might come up with an answer.”
“I don’t want an answer,” I said truthfully, shocking myself with my words.
Damn and double damn.
I didn’t need that either so I mentally pushed it to the side.
“I didn’t think so,” he murmured, making me think and making me freak out more that he had my number.
“I need to go home,” I said, pulling back but his arms got tight again.
“I know you need to go home, Jules, but you’re not gonna go home.”
I gave up pulling away. “Why are you doing this?” I asked, looking at him.
“You want to stop seeing me then you’ll stop seeing me, at least this way. I’m not gonna play that game.”
“I’m not playing games,” I snapped, interrupting him, now getting pissed off myself.
“Yeah. You are. You just don’t have enough experience to know you are.”
My mouth dropped open.
He did not just say that.
“I’m not playing games,” I repeated, a little more heatedly this time.
“What were you doin’ with Luke this afternoon?”
“I wasn’t playing a game.”
“Well Luke was and is and will continue to do it. And you didn’t get it and won’t get it until you get your head out of your ass.”
No…
Wait.
He did not just say that.
“I don’t have my head in my ass, he was kicking my ass!”
“He was fuckin’ with your head.”
I pulled free saying, “I’m going home.”
He caught me, rolled me to my back and rolled on me, full body, hand coming down, pulling out one of my legs until his hips were settled between both of them.
“Get off me, Crowe,” I demanded, squirming underneath him.
“Stop fightin’, Jules.”
“Get off me!”
“Stop fighting!” His voice had risen. I’d never heard his raised voice and my body froze at his tone.
“Don’t yell at me,” I whispered, feeling that weight in my chest again, knowing he was that angry with me and I hated that too.
It felt like these days I was always on the verge of crying and I couldn’t remember the last time I cried.
What was up with that?
He talked over my secondary freak out, further fuelling the fire of my first. “For Christ’s sake, I’m givin’ you what you want. I don’t know what’s in your fuckin’ head, you don’t even know what’s in your fuckin’ head. Until you’re ready to sort it out, it’s gonna stay fucked up and I know enough to know there isn’t a fuckin’ thing I can do about it. So you want this to end, it ends. But tonight is mine. You want to fuck it up further, keep fightin’ me but I’m gonna have you fightin’ or sweet. I don’t care. But Jules, I’m tellin’ you, I’d rather it be sweet.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so I didn’t say anything. I just stayed silent.
He watched me for awhile then he said, “I’d be happy with fightin’ too. If what happened ten minutes ago is any indication, maybe I’d rather it be fightin’.”
I didn’t know if he was joking or being serious.
I decided to go with joking. “Stop joking,” I said quietly.
“I wasn’t joking.”
Okay then, he wasn’t joking.
That got a belly flutter.
“Well, I’ve decided to be sweet,” I said, just to be contrary.
He grinned and his grin was so at the ready it made me wonder if he’d used reverse psychology on me. Then his face came down and disappeared in my neck and I felt his
lips there.
The belly flutter escalated to Grade Two.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I told the ceiling, “I’m going back to fighting.”
His hands went down my sides to my hips, he lifted them and then, I kid you not, he slid inside me slowly, gently but I could feel he was again rock hard.
My breath went out in a rush at the surprise of it and the fact that I moved from a Grade Two to a Grade Six in about three seconds.
“Vance,” I said softly and his lips moved from my neck to my mouth.
“That’s it, beautiful. Every time I slide inside you, I want you to say my name,” he muttered there.
He’d started moving and I started moving with him.
“I thought it was every time I came,” I whispered and his hands moved on me, a thumb sliding across my nipple as my hands roamed his back.
“I want you to say it then too.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I like it.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter why. I just do.”
That seemed plausible to me.
“Okay,” I said agreeably, my hands going over his ass and either my word or my hands (or both) made him grin again and he kissed me and started moving faster.
When he stopped kissing me and his mouth went to my ear I said in his, “You have to get a condom.”
“In a minute.”
“Vance.”
“In a minute.”
I rolled my eyes.
He drove in deep.
When he did it felt so good, I whispered his name low into his ear.
Then I slid my hands in his hair, pulling it back and I traced the outer edges of his ear with my tongue just like he’d done to me last night and I’d liked that too.
* * * * *
After the second time, when it was dark and I was curled into Vance’s side, his fingers drawing on my hip, the moonlight coming in from the two windows on either side of the fireplace and the one at the back of the room, I asked him in a whisper, “Were you mad at me when we got here?”
“I wasn’t happy to walk in the down room and see Luke on top of you. I wasn’t happy that you ignored me at the party. And I wasn’t happy you were breakin’ up with me. So yeah, I was mad at you when we got here.”
I went silent because I knew the answer already. I didn’t even know why I asked. I supposed if that was the way he took out his anger it wasn’t all that bad.
The minutes ticked away.
Then I asked, “Why do you have so many books in the living room?”
“I like to read when I’m here,” he answered.
“Why don’t you get a bookshelf?”
“Don’t need one.”
I supposed he didn’t. Still, he could use one.
For some reason I went on advising him about the décor of his cabin. “You should put new countertops in and refinish the cabinets in the kitchen,” I told him.
“Why?”
“It’ll look nicer.”
“It doesn’t have to look nice. It needs to keep me dry and warm.”
“But it’s your home,” I said.
“It’s just a cabin.”
Something about that hit me somewhere deep. If this wasn’t what he considered his home and he had no place in Denver, where was home?
I decided not to ask. He wouldn’t answer anyway and considering we were breaking up, I had no right to know.
Instead, I said, “I like my space to be special.”
His hand went still and he rolled into me. “Yeah,” he said, “I noticed.”
I stared at his face in the moonlight not sure if what he said was good or bad. Considering the way his space was, I decided it was bad.
“You don’t like it.”
He looked me in my eyes for a moment then he kissed my forehead. “I like it,” he said softly when he was looking at me again.
I stared at him, memorizing his face when it was like it was now, beautiful and gentle.
“The moon seems brighter here,” I whispered.
“It is.” His hand came up and he started to play with my hair and I pressed in closer to his warm body.
“It’s been a weird birthday,” I told him, my voice still quiet.
He didn’t answer.
I kept silent for a few minutes then, knowing I should tell him, needing to tell him and knowing I’d only have the courage in the dark, I said, “I don’t know if you saw the roses but they were beautiful.”
His arm came tighter around me and fitted me to his body but he didn’t say anything. He just looked at me in the moonlight.
“They were perfect, each one of them. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He still didn’t say anything.
“You should know that everyone was there when I saw them; Indy, Ally, Jet, Daisy, Roxie, even Tod and Stevie.”
He kept quiet.
“Daisy said you have class.”
He finally spoke. “I’m not certain how to take that, comin’ from Daisy.”
I smiled at him. “Believe me, she meant it as a compliment.”
The smile was still on my face when his hand came to my jaw and even though I couldn’t see it in the dark I just knew his eyes had changed. I felt them warm on my face.
Then he kissed me, it was long, slow and sweet. He carefully pulled the covers down our bodies, the air in the cabin was no longer bitter cold but it still hit me.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he rolled over me.
“I’m gonna fuck you in the moonlight.”
“It’s cold,” I told him.
“You’ll get warm.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Chapter Seventeen
Give It a Week, With Me
Luke and I walked up to my house after a night of patrol.
Patrol, I decided, was boring as hell.
I’d much rather be pouring canola oil on a Mercedes Benz or throwing smoke bombs than driving around town looking for trouble when there was none to be found.
It had been one of the worst days of my life (and I’d had a few) and truly the most boring night.
* * * * *
Vance had woken me up by making love to me, slow, sweet, taking his time. It was a new experience and one that I liked (a lot).
We’d taken a shower, got dressed and he drove me to my house.
Without a word he walked me to the back stoop, kissed me (also slow, sweet and taking his time) then he walked back to his bike and roared off.
Gone. Just like that. It was done.
I stared at the spot where I last saw him as my stomach twisted tight and my heart squeezed.
Then I went inside and listened to Boo telling me that Nick hadn’t broken up his wet food with a fork like I normally do.
I picked him up and gave him a cuddle. “Be quiet, Boo,” I whispered with my cheek pressed to his fur.
Boo was quiet.
* * * * *
I’d spent the day waiting for Vance to call, walk into King’s, do something Vance-like to invade my space and my life.
Nothing.
May was openly worried about me and talking constantly in her Mama’s-gonna-make-it-better voice. May was a love, a good friend and a kind heart but no Mama in the world would make me feel better.
All the gang phoned me. Roxie phoned twice. They were checking in and checking up and offering me everything to keep my mind off Vance: Yahtzee and sparkling wine (Tod and Stevie); a movie (Indy and Jet); a drunken night of debauchery (Ally); a day at the spa (Daisy); and a shopping spree (Roxie).
I’d turned them all down and mentally licked my wounds while my emotional Rottweiler sat next to me, tongue lolling, tail wagging, happy.
I was thinking I needed a new emotional guard dog. Something cute and cuddly with a smushy face that I could carry around in a purse and dress in ridiculous doggie clothes. Something like a pug.
The only bright spot had been when I’d called Nightingale
Investigations and asked to speak to Luke. Without hesitation the guy named Monty who answered gave me Luke’s cell number.
When I called Luke answered by saying, “You’re not gettin’ out of trainin’. I don’t care if he dumped you.”
“He didn’t dump me!” I (kind of) shouted. Then I realized he knew it was me who was calling. “How do you know my number?” I asked.
“Everybody’s got your number. You’re an unofficial member of the team.”
Oh. I didn’t know that. An unofficial member of the Nightingale Investigation Team. That was way cool.
I shrugged off the way coolness of being a member of the team even if it was unofficial. “I want to bring Roam and Sniff –” I started.
“Not gonna happen,” Luke interrupted me.
“Luke! I don’t want you to train them. I just want them to come and watch. Maybe they’ll learn something. And they’ll be impressed by the offices. And I want them to hang around good male role models.”
Silence.
“Luke?” I called when the silence stretched.
“Good male role models?” Luke asked. I could tell by his tone he thought that was funny.
“Can I bring them or what?” I snapped, losing patience.
“Don’t be late.”
I guessed that was a yes.
Roam and Sniff walked into the offices trying to be cool but I was right, they couldn’t hide it, I knew they were impressed.
I walked into the office scared to death I’d run into Vance.
Dawn smiled at me sweet-as-pie and informed me Vance was not in the building.
Bitch.
Then Roam and Sniff watched me get my ass kicked by Luke and they’d laughed themselves stupid. I told myself when their eyes weren’t closed with laughter they probably learned something so it was worth it.
After training, I took Roam and Sniff out for burgers then back to the Shelter then I went home to Boo and listened to him complain about my constant absence. Mostly I ignored him.
I took a shower, dressed in my take-on-the night uniform (my new burgundy cords; black belt; black cowboy boots; black, stretchy, tight, long-sleeved tee; and black leather blazer). I waited for Vance to break in, say he wasn’t going to let me go (like Eddie had done to Jet and apparently Hank had done to Roxie and also Lee had done to Indy).
No Vance.