Page 18

It took two months for me to learn that not everything could be destroyed, crushed and subdued. Two bloody months to learn that love was one of those things that did not fizzle out with time.

Two months of turning up to the office, sitting at my desk, waiting for Rain to walk past or call me in to a briefing. Watching him stride past with barely a glance my way, cool, polite, showing no reaction or emotion or betraying any feelings, feelings such as those churning in my chest. Then again, neither did I.

Our team were working on another case. Secureforce were given the five-year government contract for security of their city. Despite their ploy, the president played into the mood of the public and bowed to popular opinion. Jamie Carlson was on our watch list, along with Lane Parson.

Fanigan and the dead detectives had all received hero’s funerals and gun salutes. Jamie Carlson promoted one of the senior detectives to Fangan’s position. We knew from Pa’s profiling that the new chief inspector was as crooked as Fanigan, and just as flexible when it came to reaching for extra cash. We knew it, and Wild forbade me to do anything about it. His view was that it made no difference, as long as we knew the chief inspector was crooked and where they stood when it came to corruption.

Soon after that, Jamie Carlson themself had disappeared to one of their many mansions. Rumour was, they were once again hosting outrageous parties only a few privileged were invited to, which included the president.

Kyle Snow was securely hidden away in a prison labour camp in the northernmost outpost of our country. The papers reported that Snow had retired to a quiet life overseas for health reasons.

Serpent has been following Lane Parson, the CEO of the beleaguered Stateguard. Photographs of Parson’s meetings with the man whom we suspected was one of the heads of GLF syndicate were added to their file.

My job was to find out the identity of the man, and what links he had to GLF. The first one was easy. I simply followed him to his favourite coffee shop and pickpocketed his wallet, checked his ID and returned the wallet before he noticed, under Rain’s and Sarah’s watchful gaze. It was another test for me, for Sarah had been training me in stealth. So when I told them his name, they simply looked at me, before Rain drawled. ‘Any other gifts we should know about, Rockhall.’

I frowned. ‘What, don’t they teach you pickpocketing in spy school.’ I shook my head in bewilderment and when Rain smiled my stomach did a sickening flip. It’s been a long time since he smiled at me.

I was writing my latest set of notes into the GLF suspect when Sarah plopped her arse on my table.

With a scowl, I looked up. She had continued to be belligerent with me, though I noted a lot more weariness and respect from all on my team since I shot her. ‘You know, you two are not fooling anyone.’

‘I’m truly at a loss as to what the hell you are talking about, Serpent. I have about ten minutes to get this done before Wild comes down to demand the report.’

‘Oh come, every time the two of you are in the room together, the tension is positively steaming in the air. There is a wager going around as to which of the two of you will crack first.’

‘There is nothing between us, Mrs Wild,’ I said grimly and returned to writing my report. ‘Maybe this is just your own attraction to Rain you are sensing.’

‘Darling, though I love to taunt Rain, I’m a happily divorced woman. Our marriage was a disaster from the start.’ Sadness and grief briefly twisted her features.

A part of me, too, mourned the loss of Rain’s babe. I knew it was a scar he and Serpent would carry forever.

‘I used to hate you, you know,’ she continued. ‘Rain was so obsessed with you. Oh, he thought he was so clever hiding it from me. But I am the best operative he’s got, and I followed him following you a time or two. Watched him as he watched you, looking at you the way he had never looked at me. The same way he still looks at you. If you want my advice …’

‘I don’t.’ My pen moved as I name additional notes.

‘… in this job, our lives are balanced on a single bullet.’ Her smile was wry. ‘I guess you taught me that better than anyone else. As a spy, you must always remember that this may be your last day. There are no second chances at life, Rockhall. Live whilst you can.’ With those oddly jarring words she rose and left me.

I stared at the page in front of me, unseeing anything I had written. Inexplicable panic slowly building in my chest. Then I pushed back my chair, and strode out of the office, out of the building, struggling to breathe. I turned a corner, darted for the bin and threw up. I straightened and sank down against the wall.

I could not go on like this. I could not face him each day and pretend it did not tear me inside piece by piece. I could not go on pretending that one day I will get over him, because there was no future for me without Rain in it, without wanting his heat and passion and his hands on me. Pretending that he had not infiltrated every cell of my body, my very soul. I wanted to wake up next to him, to sit across from him during our meals, to laugh with him.

I ran my hand through my hair. I was a coward, and it was time I faced what I feared most. Except I feared it was too late.

Determined, I rose to my feet, and walked and walked and walked until I came to a place where I would make my last stand.

Months of training with Tick in breaking and entering had now paid off, as I avoided the porters and guards of Rain’s apartment building, casually stealing the key from the porter and taking the elevator to Rain’s apartment. Picking the lock was the easiest part. Once inside, I merely stood there and breathed his scent, his presence. It was everywhere, and I allowed myself the luxury to shamelessly peruse the many corners of his life. Had he not done the same to me? I thought with a small smile. I opened draws, looked through the wardrobe, touched his underwear, his socks, his neatly-made bed. The sight of it brought back memories of our night together, the night I had betrayed him.

I breathed in his discarded shirt, the scent so imprinted onto my body it was as familiar as a lover’s kiss. Then I settled into a sofa from where I could see the elevator. It grew dark, and I sat there still, thinking on what I would say, what he might reply.

Soon I heard the groan of the lift as it rose up towards the apartment. My heart gave a thud of anticipation. In the dark I saw the doors open. Rain turned on the light and froze staring at me.

‘You left the office early,’ he said after a while in his official tone, striding inside and throwing aside his leather coat. ‘You told no one where you went and missed our briefing.’

I did not reply.

He leant on the wall watching me. ‘Care to tell me why you decided to break into my apartment.’

‘Thought it only fair seeing as you used to break into mine.’

He looked aside. ‘Why are you here, Ari?’ His tone was harsh, and for a moment I thought I miscalculated him badly, awfully. But the course had been set, and I needed this resolved.

It was hard to speak, however, to force the words out of my throat. ‘I’ve not been with anyone else since I’ve been with you.’ Even to my own ears it sounded obscene to even say it. To his it probably sounded like a complaint. ‘I don’t want to be with anyone else, Rain. I can’t be with anyone else. I thought I could, but I can’t. You destroyed me for everyone else. You took me apart but you never put me back together again.’

His expression did not change, did not give any indication he even cared. I hated that he could hide behind such indifference when I knew my own face hid nothing in this moment.

‘This is me cutting out my own heart and handing it to you for the butchering, Rain. Feel free to cut into it,’ I said dryly into his silence.

His lips quirked in amusement, and there was a flash of something more there before he shuttered it again. I hurt him, far more than I had imagined, and he had wrapped his heart in armour to shield himself from me. ‘What is it you want exactly, Ari?’

‘You,’ I said simply. ‘I just want you, Rain.’

He stood there for another long moment, then moved abruptly, walking towards me, taking a seat on the settee across from me. He lent forward, and rested his elbows on his knees, whilst looking at the floor, considering my words, or perhaps his. Painfully, my heart sank and shattered in anticipation. He did not exactly look pleased.

Then he looked up, matter of fact, his face betraying nothing, and I was certain dismissal was coming and braced myself against the pain of it.

‘I’m not a young man, Ari. I’m thirty-five. I don’t have time or will anymore to chase dreams that will never come to pass. I’m too jaded for that. I’ll not be your toy, something for you to relieve yourself against …’

‘You’ve never been that, Rain,’ I said gruffly. ‘I lied to you when I said those things in the hospital. I was trying to push you away. I know I hurt you … If you want me to leave …’ My voice cracked embarrassingly, as my heart felt like it was being shredded.

‘I want you to be certain, Ari, that this is what you want. If it is, I want you to move in with me tomorrow. I’ve wasted years chasing you. I need to move past that.’ His words were weary, resigned, as if there was never any real choice for him but to take me back.

I nodded, suddenly unable to speak past the lump in my throat. Slowly, I breathed out with relief and rising anticipation. ‘I love you, Rain,’ I whispered like a veritable fool of a romantic. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll bring my things.’

‘You’ll sleep in my bed tonight and every night, Ari. Do not betray me. Leave me but do to betray me with another. I do not share. You need to understand that.’

I laughed through the choking lump in my throat. ‘I’m yours, Rain. It seems I always have been. I don’t want anyone else.’

He rose then, took a step towards me, and cupping my cheek, kissed me tenderly, before drawing me up and embracing me in his arms.

I gripped him tightly, aching relief near crippling me. Unable to stop myself, I whispered foolish words of love against his lips.

His kiss grew more ferocious, more demanding, before he pulled away and leant his head on my forehead.

He closed his eyes. ‘Dear god, Ari, I’ve missed you.’ And with those words, he pulled me against him, tearing at my clothes and I at his.

His groan filled my mouth before his lips moved to my throat, his stubble rough against my skin, his breathing ragged. He kissed my neck, my throat, my chest, suckling my nipples, before falling backwards to sit of the settee. I frantically undone his trousers, then pulled off my own, and lowered myself onto his erection. His hand was already on my cock, stroking and pumping as I rode him, wildly, kissing him, tangling our tongues.

‘Rain …’’ I moaned again and again, before spilling my seed onto his hand, throwing back my head with a wordless cry. He increased his pace, until I felt another climax building, and then I was trembling as he grabbed me tightly to him, shuddering with me, groaning my name.

For a long moment we just sat that way, my head on his shoulder, as he stroked my back. Then I felt him seeping out of me and an obscene amount of joy and happiness flooded me.

I ran my hands through his hair, as his cock went flaccid and slip out of me.

‘I am famished,’ I said breathlessly, and was rewarded with a rumbling laugh.

That night I had the best sleep in moths. Rain held me to his body, whispering endearments as he took me again before we fell asleep. I woke up with a raging erection digging into Rain’s back. Hell. I needed release, so I moved, and moved, and pushed my cock lower, between his legs, to find no quim. Exhaling, I put my head between his shoulder blades, breathing hard, needy. His large arm came around and gripped my head.

‘Ari …’ he breathed, and I released he too was tense with need. ‘I need you inside me.’

I moaned, uncertain, and slowly raised my cock to the entrance of his anus. ‘Rain …’ I didn’t know what I was asking. Permission perhaps.

‘His arm around my neck tightened, as his head turned towards me. ‘I want you Ari, every way I can have you.’

Slowly I pushed, and pushed, and Rain’s moan was the most erotic sound I have ever heard, ever felt. It left his chest, and travelled into me through his back as he arched towards me.

And I was inside him, delirious and blind with pleasure. I moved, and dear god I gasped loudly. ‘Fuck, Rain, you feel so good.’

I gripped his cock in my hand and thrust into him. His hand was suddenly over mine as both of us worked him together whilst I thrust harder and harder. I felt his ridged length grow harder, tauter then finally pulse in my grip and that sent me over the edge and I bit Rain’s shoulder as I climaxed into him.

I fell away from him, spent and gazing blindly up at the ceiling. He lay beside me equally dazes, before turning over and propping his head on his arm. He stared down into my face, his hand playing idly with my breast.

‘Just one more rule, Rockhall,’ he said in that official tone of his, as if we were back in the office. When we are alone, I’m yours in any way you’ll have me. But in the office, I’m still your superior officer. Understood?’

I smiled slowly, wickedly. ‘What about when we are alone in your office, Sir?’

He chuckled as his gaze heated with promises I could not wait for him to keep.

‘Hmm. You know, Rain, I have grown rather fond of you on your knees in front of me. I think we need to revisit that party. I expect you kept the mask.’

‘Oh, yes, my love. I think it is long overdue that we finish what we started there. You see when you left, I made some promises I meant to keep.’

My smile fell away. ‘What do you mean?’

He leant into my ear. ‘I mean, that you left me so fucking hard and sore, I swore that the next time I saw you I would bend you over the bed and fuck you senseless, until you forgot your own name.’

My cock stirred. Then I jumped out of bed, laughing. ‘You’ll have to catch me first, Drizzle.’

Slowly he rose, and as I ran from his bedroom. He marched after me like a man bent on murder. He caught me in the kitchen, grabbed me and pulled me against him.

I arched into him, unable to resist his caress, as he whispered into my ear. ‘The kitchen table will also do, my love,’ and slowly, gently, be bent me over the table, nipped my neck and drove into me.

‘Rain …’ I moaned in mindless ecstasy. ‘Harder …’

Then I lost all ability to speak.

THE END