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Chapter seven

W e step into his apartment.

What time we've had has both stalled and raced to this, a finish line of sorts. We’re as prepared as we can be for what needs to be done. And whether that’s enough, we’re yet to see.

Dirk and I are only stopping in briefly, long enough for Dirk to get his gun and badge, before we go to the station. And then… onwards.

The date has closed in on us. Tomorrow will be Cassandra’s next kill. She’ll do it, we know she will.

So, our plan has to be carried out tonight, and she knows it. She’ll be expecting us. The aim is not to surprise her, but still, knowing she’ll be waiting, whatever goes on in that twisted brain of hers fermenting as we near, sets my teeth on edge. I long for an evening spent on the couch, cooking, cuddling.

Anything but what we have to do.

I need to say the words. "I don't think you should come."

He turns around, at first confused.

"When we take Needler, I don’t think you should come."

Brow drawing down, Dirk asks, "What?"

I step up to him, gripping his arm, but his expression doesn't change. "She's playing games with you. The trauma you have from…"

"Don't tell me about my trauma," he snaps, pulling away, turning his back on me.

I take a breath. I was hoping he'd react better, but… "Dirk, please just listen. If you’re there, there's a chance that she'll target you."

Swinging back around, he says, "Of course she will. You know who else she’ll target? You.”

My jaw clenches. “Possibly, but…”

“And so what if she will? I should let you and the others go into danger while I hang back and think about my feelings?"

"That’s not what I'm saying…"

"Then what are you saying?" His voice rises. "Because that’s sure as hell what it sounds like you're suggesting."

"I'm worried about you! Can't you understand that?" His jaw works, but he stays silent. "If you were hurt… I don't think I could take it again."

Dirk shakes his head once, as though dislodging the idea, the emotion. "I'm not leaving you with Needler."

"You think this is about Needler?" I ask, mouth falling open. "It's not about him!"

"Isn't it?" Dirk's eyes narrow. "You're so concerned with keeping him from Cocooner's 'mercy', when you know full well he can take care of himself."

"This is different…"

"But you also," he cuts me off, "don't want to see him shipped away to White Rock or even the prison. You don't know what you want to happen to him because you don't know how you feel about him."

Stunned, I stare back at him. "That’s really what you think? That I'm confused about my feelings?"

"Yes! It is."

"And what are you in this scenario?"

Dirk spreads his hands. "Filler?"

"Ugh! I'll tell you what you are." I step closer and jab my finger against his chest. "An idiot. And still an asshole." I move to swing away, to leave and let him live out his fantasies on his own. Whatever, so long as he’s in here and not out there when we deliver Tristan.

I'm spun back around, brought up hard chest-to-chest before I make it one step.

Dirk's voice rumbles against me. "You think I'm an asshole?"

I tug back, but his grip only tightens. "And an idiot," I say sweetly.

"Really?" Pressed together still, he turns, bringing the backs of my thighs up against the dining table.

"Yes!"

He kisses me suddenly, tongue invading, demanding, mouth hungry. I respond before I remember that he's infuriating, and make up for it by biting his bottom lip. Breath already quickened, I hiss, "You make me so mad."

"Good," he grates, hand fisting in my hair, pulling my chin up so that he can claim my mouth again, tongue trailing molten heat, his body a hard wall against me, hips meeting, pressing. Finding him through his jeans, I grip him hard, too hard. Rewarded by a short grunt against my mouth, I tear open his buttons, not sure what I intend to do when I have him in my hand—whether it’s pleasure or pain on the agenda—but I don't get to decide.

Breaking our mouths apart, he orders, "Take off your pants."

For a beat, I don't, looking defiantly up into his eyes, but he doesn't relent, hand tightening in my hair, hazel eyes boring down into me. Who am I kidding? When Dirk tells me to take off an item of clothing, I do it.

Hands shifting to my own buttons, I undo them, and he lets my head move more freely as I push them down, underwear included, stepping out of them. Then I'm pulling further down, coming to my knees in front of him, rewarded by his harsh intake of breath as I cover his tip with my mouth. His hand is still in my hair, but softer, uncertain, as I taste him, take him further until he hits the back of my throat, and his groan reverberates through me.

When he pulls me up, away from my desire, I nearly protest before he turns me around, pressing the front of my hips against the edge of the table. I expect him to enter me like that, from behind, rough how we both need it, taking out our fear in the form of sexual frustration. Instead, I jolt, gasping in surprise and something more visceral as he kneels behind me and drags his tongue between my legs. He elbows my thighs a little wider, tongue curling over me from behind, then dragging back and up. I brace on the table, the pleasure so wicked and so heady at once. My knees are already weak. I'm not sure I’ve ever had sex this visceral, this… intoxicating.

"Dirk, please," I gasp as he keeps going, and for once, he doesn't make me beg all the more.

Fitting along my back, he leans forward, making me bend over as his voice growls into my mussed hair, "You're so ready for me."

I tremble as his slick head finds my wetness. As he penetrates and slides, I almost feel like I'm entering a new level of consciousness.

"That's better," he grates out, thrusting hard but slow. I want to move with him, and I'm sure I do, but it seems all I'm conscious of doing is pushing up on my toes, pushing my ass back and bracing as the waves of pleasure take me. His arm slides around my hip and ignites another fire. "I've missed angry-fucking you."

"Fuck, fuck," I gasp. "Yes." The last word groans out as my climax, dragged out by his fingers and the angle of his rough thrusts, hits, and my head dips down, body swaying with him. While I'm still gasping for air, having emerged from the other side, he pulls out, finishing into a napkin.

Wobbly, I turn to face him, using the table for support of a different kind now, and he stays close, both of us panting, but both of us less angry than we've been all day. My hand hooks around his neck, pulling his face down to mine. "I'm not playing games," he speaks softly, between reclaimed breaths.

"Neither am I," I say.

"You know how I feel…”

"I don't."

His eyes pop open. This close, I can see the golden flecks in the amber sunburst around his pupil, before the colour turns earthy green. “What?"

"Tell me how you feel," I say softly.

A small line forms between his brows, but he says it. "I love you. I have for longer than I'm going to say."

I close my eyes, lips curving into a smile.

Dirk lifts his head slightly, meeting my eye, "If it’s him you want, fine, but then it ain't me."

Repressing the urge to laugh from the swell of joy in my chest, I pull him back. "It's you, Dirk, it’s always been you." My mouth opens, but the nerves rise to the surface. I want to say the words back. But the last time I said that to someone… how wrong they turned out to be.

Dirk lifts his head, saying nothing of the words stuck in my throat, the ones I can’t return. "Good. Because there's no fucking way I'm letting you walk into danger without me at your side."

***

I'm quiet, my mind wandering too far from this cell, from Tristan staring at me from the other side of the glass. Blinking, I try to remember what we were talking about.

"Eleanor? You were telling me what’s to happen…" he prompts.

"Right." I clear my throat. "You’re going to take us to where you think—"

"Know," he interjects.

I sigh through my nose. "Where Cassandra is hiding out. And then… we arrest her. Dirk has had a meeting with Syr. Not on TV this time. Syr Evan has got most of the news media in his pocket. None of them want to cross him. If they do see anything—which the hope is they won’t since we’ll be in and out—they should delay the story by a day or two. Long enough for it to be resolved and hopefully avoid the National Guard deciding it’s time to step in."

"That simple."

I hold his eye. "As long as you stick to our plan. No surprises."

Raising his hands as though in surrender, Needler promises, "I'm on your side."

The curve of his lips isn’t super reassuring. Is it mere mischief? Or something more deviant?

I should go. There are other things I need to be doing, preparing. Even with Tawill turning a blind eye, the debriefs on a move like this are endless. The possibilities all need to be considered. It’s dangerous. Possibly fatal.

"Something else, detective?" Tristan asks when I hesitate.

My jaw works. “Will you hurt Dirk?”

He huffs a laugh. “Eleanor, come on.”

“I need to ask.”

“I’m not going to attack your new boyfriend, no.” When I only stare back at him, Tristan spreads his hands, pointing out, “I saved the guy's life!”

“Yes, before he and I…”

"Have you ever known me to kill someone who didn't deserve it?" he cuts me off.

"The fact remains you are a killer." I bite my lip. Maybe he's telling the truth. What choice do I have but to believe it? Perhaps he doesn't care enough. I shouldn’t ask this, but I do anyway. "What was I, to you?"

Tristan tilts his head, seeming to see the deeper meaning of the question. "You were someone held back by a false past. A past I had no small part in.” Meeting my eye, he answers, “For me, you were meaning. Something soft in a hard world."

"But not something to love," I say. Not bitterly, just factually.

He blinks, and I wonder if he's capable of love, with everything he's done, everything he's been through. I no longer think he’s a psychopath. He just happens to be someone good at killing. "Something healing. Something temporary. I think you knew that, too."

Perhaps I did. Perhaps I hadn’t let myself think for long enough about it. In the end, finding out what my husband was hurt just that bit less for my own betrayal of his memory. Maybe I couldn’t have taken it otherwise, and finding out would have been a hole I never crawled out of.

In the end, being with Needler allowed me to heal, to feel again. Nonetheless, I'm not sure whether his words hurt or reassure me. My nod is almost imperceptible, accepting.

Tristan gives me a wan smile. “I never expected to have you forever, Eleanor. It was enough just to have you.”

***