Page 21 of Taken from Her (Phoenix Ridge Police Department #4)

Diana moved carefully across the uneven cave floor as she used her flashlight to illuminate the space ahead.

The cave stretched deeper than she'd expected, rising into shadows above their heads.

Behind her, Lavender navigated the slippery rocks with natural grace, her presence both calming and distracting in the confined space.

"This is incredible," Diana said, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "How did you know about this place?"

"Tara mentioned it during one of our coffee conversations. She was so proud when her dog finally trusted her enough to explore it together." Lavender paused near a natural ledge where smooth stones had been arranged in a pattern too deliberate to be accidental. "Diana, look at this."

Diana joined her, examining the stones with growing excitement. Someone had definitely been here recently. The arrangement was fresh, undisturbed by tides that would have scattered random debris.

"This could be a marker," Diana said, photographing the stones from multiple angles. "Someone using this space for storage or as a staging area."

"Or as a place to bring people who couldn't call for help," Lavender said quietly.

The implication hung between them as Diana continued documenting the cave's interior.

The space was larger than it appeared from outside, with multiple alcoves and passages that could hide evidence or provide concealment.

More importantly, it was completely isolated during high tide, accessible only to someone who understood the coastal timing.

"There," Lavender pointed toward a narrow passage that led deeper into the cliff. "More light coming from back there."

Diana followed Lavender, both of them moving carefully over wet rocks that could turn treacherous without warning. The passage opened into a second chamber, this one with a natural skylight where erosion had created an opening to the surface above.

And scattered across the sand floor were personal items that made Diana's heart race.

Diana pulled supplies from her kit while trying to keep her voice steady. "Don't touch anything, but help me document what we're seeing."

A waterproof watch that could belong to anyone, but positioned deliberately on a flat rock. Scattered hair ties in a variety of colors. A small notebook with pages that had been torn out, leaving only blank sheets behind.

"Someone was definitely using this space," Lavender said, studying the arrangement without disturbing anything. "But for what?"

Diana photographed everything systematically, her training taking over despite the emotional impact of potentially finding evidence that connected to three missing women. "Storage, maybe. Or a place to keep people before transporting them elsewhere."

The cave's isolation would muffle sound and hide activity from casual observation, and the tide schedule would limit access.

"Diana," Lavender's voice carried a new tension. "Over here."

Diana joined her near the far wall where more items were partially buried in sand that looked deliberately disturbed. More personal effects, carefully arranged rather than randomly scattered.

"This is a staging area," Diana said, her professional analysis warring with personal horror at what they'd discovered. "Someone's been bringing people here, keeping them here, using this space for..." She couldn't finish the sentence.

Lavender moved closer, not to the evidence but to Diana, sensing her emotional reaction to discovering something that could finally break the case open while confirming their worst fears about what had happened to three women they both cared about.

"You found them," Lavender said softly. "Not the women themselves, but proof of what happened to them. This is the breakthrough the investigation needed."

Diana nodded, continuing to photograph evidence while her mind processed implications. This cave connected all three disappearances, provided the staging area that had been missing from their analysis, and offered forensic evidence that could lead to prosecution.

But standing in the space where Tara, Isabel, and Joanna had potentially been held against their will, Diana felt the case's emotional weight in ways that professional distance usually protected her from.

"I need to call this in," Diana said, reaching for her radio before remembering that the cave's location would block most signals. "We need to get a full forensics team out here before the tide changes."

"In a minute," Lavender said, moving closer. "First, just take a breath. You found them. You solved this."

Diana looked around the cave that had become a crime scene. Professional satisfaction mixed with personal relief and a deeper recognition that she couldn't have discovered this without Lavender's community knowledge.

"We solved this," Diana corrected. "I never would have found this cave without you."

The words hung between them in the filtered light, evidence of serious crimes scattered around them while waves echoed off stone walls. But underneath the professional success, Diana felt something else building.

The cave had become more than a crime scene. It was where they finally found answers and where the emotional stakes of protecting people they cared about had crystallized into something neither could ignore.

"We should secure the scene," Diana said, but made no move toward her equipment.

"We should," Lavender agreed, moving closer instead.

Outside, waves continued their rhythm against stone, marking time in a place that felt removed from everything except the two women who'd found each other while searching for others who'd been lost.

"There's another passage," Lavender said, pointing toward a narrow opening that led away from the evidence chamber. "It connects to a different part of the cave system."

Diana hesitated, torn between her duty to secure the crime scene and the growing awareness that she needed space to process what they'd discovered. The evidence wasn't going anywhere, and the tide schedule gave them time before anyone else could access this location.

"Show me," Diana said finally.

The passage wound through the cliff face before opening into a smaller, pristine chamber untouched by criminal activity. Here, filtered sunlight created patterns on clean sand, and the sound of waves provided a gentler ambiance.

Diana set down her equipment bag, suddenly aware of how the discovery had left her hands shaking. Three weeks of investigation, and they'd finally found proof of what had happened to women whose faces had haunted her dreams.

Diana looked at Lavender's hand on her arm, at the concern in her eyes, at the way filtered sunlight caught the silver in her hair.

"I couldn't have done this without you," Diana said. "Any of it. The investigation, understanding the community, finding this place."

"Diana—"

"You've changed everything about how I work, how I see people, even how I see myself." The words came out in a rush. "You're nothing like anyone I've ever been with. You're all warmth and intuition and emotional intelligence, and I'm all control and professional distance."

"And yet we work perfectly together," Lavender said, stepping closer.

"We do." Diana's voice carried wonder and something deeper. "I've spent years keeping people at arm's length, convinced that caring too much would compromise my judgment. But caring about you makes me better at everything."

Lavender's free hand found Diana's cheek, thumb brushing across her jawline with tender precision. "You don't have to choose between being strong and being human."

Here was permission Diana had never given herself, offered by someone who saw her completely.

When their lips met, it was with the desperate urgency of people who'd been fighting attraction while pretending that professional boundaries could contain what was growing between them. Diana's hands found Lavender's waist, pulling her closer, needing more contact, more proof that this was real.

The kiss deepened, three weeks of tension and connection and careful distance dissolving. Diana had forgotten what it felt like to want someone this completely, to crave not just physical contact but emotional integration.

"Are you sure?" Lavender asked against her lips, hands already working at the buttons of Diana's uniform shirt.

Diana’s answer was another kiss, deeper this time, her own hands finding the hem of Lavender’s shirt.

She pulled it up and over Lavender’s head, revealing skin kissed by the sun and time, breasts full and natural, and soft curves. Lavender’s was the kind of beauty that didn’t beg for approval but commanded it. Diana’s breath caught in her throat.

Lavender reached for Diana’s shirt again, unbuttoning it with aching slowness.

The brush of fingers against her chest made Diana’s breath hitch, not just from arousal but from the intimacy of it—how deliberate and loving it felt.

When Lavender pushed the crisp uniform shirt off Diana’s shoulders, her hands lingered over the badge and holster, the weight Diana wore like armor.

Piece by piece, Lavender helped her shed it all.

“You don’t have to hold the world up right now,” she murmured, eyes locked on hers. “Just let me hold you.”

Diana’s throat tightened. No one had ever said that to her. Not once in twenty years. She nodded once, tightly, and then kissed Lavender again, fiercely trying to pour everything she couldn’t say into her mouth.

Their bodies collided like magnets. Lavender’s hips pressed against hers; her hands gripped Diana’s waist, pulling her in close as they stumbled down onto the sand together.

The heat between them bloomed fast and full.

Diana could feel every point of contact—breasts brushing against each other, thighs tangling, and the press of Lavender’s knee between her legs—igniting sparks along nerves Diana had nearly forgotten how to listen to.

She let herself be guided as Lavender coaxed her onto her back. The sand was warm, and Diana’s skin prickled with anticipation as lips began trailing down her neck.

Each kiss was a small undoing. Down her throat, across her collarbone, then between the swells of her breasts.

When Lavender finally closed her mouth around one nipple, Diana gasped aloud.

The heat of her mouth, the slow flick of her tongue, the suction—god, it sent pleasure surging straight between her legs.

She arched into the touch, helpless to do anything but feel.

Lavender alternated nipples, her tongue teasing, then sucking—first gently, then harder as Diana moaned and buried her hands in her silver hair. Each drag of Lavender’s tongue across her nipple sent pulses of arousal spiraling lower, coiling hot and tight in her core.

And then Lavender moved lower, kissing across Diana’s belly, lingering at the softness just above her waistband.

Diana propped herself on her elbows, her voice rough. “Don’t stop.”

Lavender looked up at her, her smile playful and sensual. “I wasn’t planning to.”

She unfastened Diana’s pants, sliding them down along with her panties. The ocean breeze hit wet heat as Diana lay fully exposed beneath the shifting light. She should have felt vulnerable. Instead, she felt...powerful, desired, even craved in a way no other woman had made her feel.

Lavender’s eyes roamed over her body like she was taking in a painting she’d always wanted to touch, then she leaned in and pressed a kiss to Diana’s hipbone, another to the crease of her thigh, then lower.

Diana’s breath hitched as Lavender’s mouth hovered— there —the heat of her breath sending a tremor straight through her.

When Lavender’s tongue finally found her clitoris, Diana’s whole body jolted.

It was almost too much for Diana to handle, the wet slide of Lavender’s tongue over her slick, swollen flesh, Lavender’s pressure perfect and unhurried. She circled Diana’s clit slowly, deliberately, then flattened her tongue and dragged it broad and slow, tasting every inch.

Diana moaned, deep and guttural. Her thighs fell open wider, hips rising instinctively to meet the rhythm Lavender was building.

But Lavender didn’t rush. She took her time savoring Diana, drawing her tongue in slow, steady circles, then changing tempo—flicking faster, then pausing to suck gently, then returning to long, firm strokes that made Diana writhe.

She was being devoured . Not just eaten out but worshipped.

Diana had been with women before and had had good sex…but this was something else entirely. Lavender didn’t just want to make her come; she wanted to draw out every ounce of pleasure from her body until Diana didn’t have the strength to stand.

Diana’s legs began to tremble from the deep pleasure. Lavender’s hands gripped her thighs firmly, keeping them open as her mouth moved with devastating precision.

Diana’s orgasm rose up from her pussy like a storm at sea—unstoppable, wild, and so much bigger than she was ready for.

Her back arched, a cry ripped from her throat, and her fingers fisted in Lavender’s soft hair. She came hard, and it kept coming. Her hips rolled against Lavender’s mouth, thighs clamping tight around her face, and the sensation crashed over her like a wave breaking again and again.

Lavender didn’t stop. She kept licking gently through the aftershocks, coaxing every last tremor out of Diana’s body until she was limp and gasping, her skin flushed and soaked with sweat.

Lavender moved up her body, slow and warm, trailing kisses along her belly, her ribs, the space between her breasts. She reached Diana’s mouth and kissed her tenderly.

Diana didn’t hesitate.

She kissed her back, tasting herself on Lavender’s tongue and not caring. She pulled her close, wrapping arms around her, holding her like she was drowning and Lavender was the only thing keeping her afloat.

And maybe she was.

Diana rested her forehead against Lavender’s, their breathing ragged in the quiet cove.

For the first time in years, she hadn’t thought about the job, the victims, the case, or the guilt.

Only this.

Only Lavender.