Page 8

Chapter five

I n the end, the decision isn't up to me.

We're standing beyond the line of crime scene tape, and I already know it’s her. The real her. The day is deceptively still, last week’s snow a memory and the ice melting off the crooked rooves of Crennick with the clear morning.

I glance at Dirk beside me. "Are you ready for this?"

He feels it too. The familiarity. This street is run-down, on the edge of Crennick, the building an old auto warehouse, now used exclusively by squatters. Well, not exclusively , not since sometime last night. Now it’s filled with the usual forensics team and the small squad of detectives now on these cases. Face tilting up towards the blue sky, which even on a cloudless morning like this one, still retains a pallor that washes out most of the blue, Dirk inhales, his breath misting out on the exhale. "I'm ready."

The body is suspended, fully cocooned, resembling an Egyptian mummy as they may have looked before hundreds of years passed. If they’d been wrapped in neat, bleached cloth and pristine plaster.

There's nothing on the ground below, no clumsiness, no smears. Howie and Dean are already here, and I start to wonder if they somehow sleep less than we do. I walk up beside Howie. Forensics are working out the least destructive way to get the body down, and he’s looking grimly on.

“Waiting on a forklift,” he says, not looking away.

Glancing around at the cement floor, cracked in places, dirty with debris and bright points of discarded wrappers and bottles, I ask, “The floor has been checked?”

“Nothing so far.” I wait. He sighs, giving his neck a break and turning away. "Just what we needed.” He knows it’s the real thing this time, too.

"We need to keep this away from the media, at least until next week when we can announce the official arrest of the laundromat man. The public needs something to hang onto." Even if it is only threads.

Howie nods and opens his mouth, but a loud clang has us both looking up, to the right where the frosted glass windows high on the side of the warehouse are broken, looking out to that white-blue sky. But it’s not the sky that we all see. It’s a man teetering somehow outside the window, a long-lensed camera pointing directly at the body. Someone shouts, and he turns the camera, takes a quick snap of the forensics and us, then leans, like he’s started climbing down a ladder on the outside.

"Shit, get him!" I shout as the man disappears. Spreading those photos will only lead to one thing—panic. And a bunch of things that come after panic. Conrad has been quiet on the streets lately; we don’t need him rearing up again.

"Fuck me, they're getting creative," Dirk groans, turning to jog back outside. I follow, but as we step out, the rest of the media has already arrived. Turning his face away, Dirk ignores their calls, running around the side of the building. They’re asking about this crime scene, but also about him. They’re desperate now, begging for his story, details, what it was like.

There's an extended wooden ladder propped against the side of the auto warehouse. We stop at its base, being photographed and called out to all the while. But there's no one nearby, no man with a huge camera. The roof of an old complex slopes to about the halfway point of the ladder, an easy jump-off point.

"Shit."

"Set up a perimeter," I order one of the officers who's followed us. But the odds are low of catching him now. He can go to ground in any of the dilapidated buildings in Crennick, then wait until we tire of looking. His pictures will get out, and we'll have to deal with the fallout all the while drowning in killers.

Dirk touches my arm, glancing at the media horde and their forever flashing cameras. “Come on, let’s head back inside.”

"Detective Lancaster!" One of the people in the group of reporters stumbles, pushing through to the front as they block our way back in. The woman doesn’t have a camera or a microphone—that’s the first thing I notice. All she has is a small square of paper, a business card, and she holds it out to Dirk. "He's willing to pay."

Dean comes to our rescue at that moment, with three other officers to make a path back inside.

The doors close, and I take a breath, turning to Dirk as he looks down at the card in his hand. "What is it?" I ask.

He hands it to me, and I let out a laugh as I look down at the name. "Syr Evans? He must really want an interview." Most people pay to be interviewed by Tregam’s favourite investigative news host.

Dirk grins. "What can I say? I'm in high demand." He crumples the card, but with no bin around, drops it into his pocket.

"Well, we've got bigger problems."

Tawill, ahead of a mass of shouts and demands for a statement, walks in. She eyes the body, then comes back to me. She's not happy. "Get us something , detective. I don't care what you have to do. We need progress."

Before I can answer her, or God forbid, question her, she storms off, and Dirk is back at my side. “What’s all that about?”

I frown after Tawill. She’s always been hard, results-focussed, but this latest case appears to be pushing her to new levels of impatience. Shaking my head, I say, “She wants results on the Cocooner case. Sooner rather than later.”

Dirk scoffs. “Don’t we all.”

***

The picture from inside the warehouse has already hit the television breaking news by the time I make it back to the station. Asshole must have had a contact or headed straight for one of the news studios.

I don't stay to talk to Needler, not even meeting his eye as he looks up from where he's lying on the bed, staring idly at the ceiling. With a loud clang, I shove the case file into his food hatch, then slam it closed. "I'll be back tomorrow. You need to have something of use."

***

Dirk is picking me up from the front of my building. We're finally getting that real date. I pulled a black miniskirt from somewhere in the pile of clothes fallen to the bottom of my cupboard, and threw on a semi-see-through top with a heavy fur jacket over it all. Looking in the mirror as I brush the ponytail kink out of my hair, I have to question if Dirk will even recognise me since I don't really recognise myself. But I suppose this is what effort looks like. I put on a pair of skin-coloured stockings, then warm ankle boots, and it’s time to go.

He surprises me by meeting me on foot.

"Oh my god," he says, stepping up to me. He looks good, like always. His hair is brushed, sweeping back in natural waves, his tan jacket open. He looks considerably warmer than I feel. "Are you wearing makeup ?" he squints at my face.

I roll my eyes. "Is this not what people do for dates?"

Laughing, he takes back the hand I've snatched away. "I'm not criticizing. I'm just surprised. You look great."

I purse my lips. "Fine. Where are we going?"

Raising an eyebrow, he pulls me against him. "Dinner is about two blocks from here, but we could go back upstairs instead."

Pushing back on his chest, I smile. "You owe me a proper date, mister. Now deliver."

"I do, don’t I." His hands are warm inside my jacket, against my waist. With a sigh, he lets me go, taking my hand instead. And just in time too, since I was pretty close to caving and taking him upstairs. Reservations be damned.

Around one corner, we walk down an entire shopping street of smashed windows. I stop, staring into the defunct shopfronts. "Jesus, is this from the riots today?"

“Yeah, that picture pretty much had the effect we thought it would.” Dirk tugs me on, but something catches my eye, drawing back around to look at the next glass shopfront.

The street is empty now, dead, and will probably stay that way until someone is brave enough to start doing business again. But for now, graffiti and spray paint mars the walls, obscuring the glass and even the posters stuck there by the rioters. And one of them, with a big red cross over it, is me, a blurry enlargement of my face, slightly turned away. Taken at a crime scene when I wasn’t paying attention, evidently.

I don’t want to care, much like the first time I saw this new take on my role in all of this. But I do.

“Don’t look at it, El.”

Dipping my gaze, I do as he says. “They’re not going to relent,” I predict.

“Not until we give them her.”

Squeezing my hand, he swings my arm. “Come on, no work talk.” And he pulls me against his side. “I’m wining and dining tonight.”

“Nice,” I poke his chest, the smile that comes to my face chasing away the lurch of seeing another poster of my face and my wrongs. “I’m almost convinced you’re actually a gentleman.”

He gives me a roguish grin. “Wait till we get home. I’ll fix that.”

Somehow, I don’t doubt it.

We make it to my bed this time, and even fully naked. As he poises over me, all hardness under soft skin in the orange light sifting through from the open door, I bite my lip, running my hands down his body. When I wriggle further back onto the bed, he follows, chasing me to the other side and then letting his weight down on me.

Mouth opening in a soft breath, I lift my hips, inviting. I expect to feel him slide inside me then, as I so desperately need. Our bodies promised that in the elevator ride up, wrapped around each other, barely patient enough to hold out until my floor.

Keeping his weight up, an inch between us, Dirk leans down and claims my mouth again, and my hand snakes around the back of his neck, lifting to deepen. I feel him position himself, gasping against his mouth as the head of him pushes my slick opening.

But he stops there, barely giving me an inch, pulling back in response to my hips lifting to try to take more. When I try again, he clearly denies me.

My eyes pop open, meeting his in their smoky intensity, but there's a smirk there too as he watches me wriggle in longing and need. He inches forward again, sliding past the initial tightness and that slight resistance, and stops. My head falls back against the pillow, neck bared as he lingers there, never giving me even half of himself. I feel my muscles squeeze in anticipation, only to be denied. "Dirk," I bite out in a gasp, my nails scraping his shoulders. "What are you…?"

"I'm watching you writhe," he murmurs, head dipping so that his lips brush wetness against my earlobe. "I do love seeing it."

And he pulls back again, barely still inside me. "Please," I groan, hand sliding down to his hip, urging him closer again.

His lips tickle the skin in front of my ear. "Please what?"

Asshole. I'm panting, writhing. Just like he wants. The urge, the utter need to be filled is all-consuming. I try to lift my hips, but he pulls back, ever refusing. The idea that he might never give it all is torturous.

I edge further down the bed, following him. Chuckling a low, dark sound, Dirk plants one hand on my hip, holding me down. Shifting his hips, the head of his cock leaves me, sliding up hard between my labia, making me jolt when the pressure rolls over my clit. "Dirk, I need it," I whimper, trying to roll my hips to feel even just that contact again.

"Now, don't be greedy," he murmurs, hair hanging down towards me as he rests one forearm beside my head, lips tickling mine. "This is enough."

It absolutely is not . I moan, half pained, half ecstasy, and I can't brace for it as his head dips lower, back bowing to flick his tongue over my hardened nipple. My chest slickens with sweat, and I pant like I've just run several blocks.

"Tell me what you need," he whispers, between swirling his tongue.

My back arches, burning, aching where he's inside me again, two inches, a pressure my whole world feels centred around until he flicks his tongue once more. "You, I need all of you." My hips try to buck, but the weight of his hand on my hip turns it into more of a flinch.

"All of me?"

I nod, maddened, willing to do or say anything at this point.

"How about… this much?" And he presses, harder and thicker than I've ever felt him before, but still not flush. Somehow, getting more makes me need more. I whimper as his weight comes over me, belly flush to mine, but still holding his cock back. I wriggle, to no avail. That noise I've come to associate with such torture comes from deep in his throat again. "I could keep you like this," he whispers.

I whimper, louder, my hand gripping his hip, his firm ass, trying to urge him deeper. But of course, his opposing strength has me helpless. "There's so many ways I want you…" Kissing me, tongue finding mine, he claims my mouth like I want him to my body. "Beg me one more time,” he rasps.

I don't hesitate, pride be damned. "Please, give me all of your cock. I need it."

And, finally, dizzyingly, he does. I cry out as he slides, not a sudden thrust but an excruciatingly slow invasion, pressing deep and then crushing down against the apex of my thighs, pushing them wider and himself deeper. I'm lost to it, gripping him as though I'm in danger of sliding away if I don't, holding on as he thrusts hard and slow, a longing so strong each time he recedes that I feel I may go mad. My body grips around him, my clit throbbing when he presses close and swelling when he leaves, then hypersensitive again when the pressure comes back.

If he stops now, I'll cry, or throw a tantrum.

Luckily, he doesn't. "Don't stop," I breathe, as much as I'm able to form any words. "I'm going to come. Don't…"

"I'm not going to stop," he promises, the words coming out like a threat. Keeping that slow, languorous rhythm, Dirk's hand grips my hair, keeping my face turned to his, watching my eyes, my open mouth, as I lose the ability to move in any kind of rhythm with him, as language and thought falls away and all I am is a primal woman beneath a strong man and release is finally coming to stop me from going any more mad.

I cry out through the apex, sounding as pained as I am pleasured, unable to stop the torrent even if I wanted to. Dirk’s breath rasps against my ear, and just as the hypersensitivity is replacing the need, as clarity of any kind returns to my mind, Dirk's breath quickens and he pulls out, spilling hot on my stomach with a guttural groan.

Taking the moment to grab a tissue from the bedside table, he swipes it away, then falls to the mattress beside me, spent.

"You're cruel," I say playfully once my breath comes back. My chest is slicked with sweat.

Nonplussed, Dirk asks, "Did you expect me to be sweet?"

"No," I admit with a laugh.

He tilts his head against the pillow, eyes on me. "Did you expect me to be anything ?" Lips twitching, he adds, " Before you thought you were already fucking me?"

I consider. "It crossed my mind."

"And? What did you picture?"

Smiling, I tell him, "I was pretty accurate, to be honest. Knew you'd be a kinky bastard."

Huffing a laugh, Dirk turns his gaze back to the ceiling. I frown at him. "Did you ever picture… you know, this? When we were just partners?"

The noise he makes, almost a laugh, almost a groan, tells me he might have done more than picture it. "I tried not to."

Up on my elbow, I look down on him, gratified. "Do tell."

Eyeing me, Dirk says, "I'm not proud of it. It’s not nice to think of a co-worker like that."

I shrug. "It’s a bit late for you to be proper now. Tell." When he still doesn't divulge, I can think of it myself. "That time we were paired for self-defence?" It’s his style, the choking, pinning down, the domination.

"God! What a cocktease," Dirk sighs, running his hand back through his hair, and I get to admire his bicep as his arm bends up beside his head. The line of a scar traces up towards his armpit, dim, the colour fading away.

"I felt it, actually."

"I know you did." Nose wrinkling, he tells me, "I went home, to this bed, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, about you. It was one of only three times I let myself masturbate thinking of you. And I think I blacked out a little."

I bite my lip. I picture him doing that, thinking of me, and feel a little heat rekindle in my belly.

Blinking, Dirk’s voice softens as he admits, "I broke up with Yolena that same day. I knew I couldn't keep pretending with her, after that."

I hadn't known that. Grinning, I poke him. "All from a little training you purported to hate, huh?"

"Oh yeah, totally useless aside from that. In fact," he says, turning towards me, leaning into me, he raises an eyebrow. "I think it’s about time you brush up on those skills…"

***