Authors: Ainslie Paton
Stud gave a rough laugh. “Things will get overly complicated, because he’s a protective bastard and he’ll make life difficult.”
“Can’t you order him to…I don’t know, behave?”
“Do you know why Sean works best undercover?”
She shook her head.
“Because he was a lousy beat cop. Not good with authority and he gets bored when life is too easy. I took him on when it was starting to become obvious he’d need a new profession. I took a risk on him and it paid off. He’s happiest when he can control his environment, no matter how warped that situation is. He’s a fucking nightmare when he can’t. So there’s not a lot I can do to make him behave.”
What Stud said rang the sound of true. She remembered how angry Sean was when he’d burned Fetch’s clothes. Getting sacked, not being knifed or set-up, or the threat of being chased, was the moment he’d lost control and had to fight himself to get it back. Thinking he’d lost her was another. “But isn’t that inconsistent with undercover work? He was a lowly messenger boy.”
“Ah, Cait. Don’t mistake control for having authority, or needing to be the big man. Don’t let his chatterbox shtick, or his genial nice guy act lead you astray. He’s not some stuffed teddy bear, but he doesn’t need to act the growling alpha dog either. If he was locked in a metal box, he would still be in control. Except.” Stud stopped and shook his head as though he need to hack his way through the rest of the thought with something sharper than another cup of tea.
“Except what?”
“Except where it comes to you. He’s a ten car smash-up where it comes to you.”
“Oh.” She flushed and it was embarrassing. But hearing she affected Sean like that was thrilling. It hit her with a deeper shock of pleasure than all Stud’s sharp-eyed assessment of her own tenacity did. She couldn’t look at him, least he suss out her stupid pride.
“Mostly it’s good. A guy can get too cocky without someone who can shake him up.”
“You think I shake him up?” She heard the greed in her voice to hear more about what she meant to Sean.
“Like a cyclone. But Sean in protective bastard mode over this will give us grief. So you need to work on being opaque if this is going to work the way we want it to.”
“Which is why you’re not going to give me any details.”
Stud pushed away from the table and stood. She wondered how much his knowledge of Sean was based on being a similar man. He picked up his phone and workbag and was halfway across the room when he said, “When this is over I’ll take you fishing.”
She turned in her chair to look at him. She couldn’t help herself. “Assuming you still have the use of your arms.”
His laughter ricocheted off walls all the way out the front door.
Sean stood in the backyard watching Blue gnaw on a dried pig’s ear. The dog was making high-pitched whines of contentment. Three things were clear. Blue was a great dog. The hieroglyphics in the ledger were linked to the notations in the instructions Fetch carried on his delivery runs, and Cait was keeping something from him.
He’d given Maria everything he had to help crack the code. Her forensic team would take it from here. Cait was another puzzle, but he had a plan to crack her too. It involved dinner, a warm bath, a head massage and making her forget her own name. If that didn’t work, he was going to explain in fine detail how messing with his woman would severely compromise Stud’s personal health and muck up Mrs Stud’s social life, because feeding Stud through a tube was going to get bloody wearing.
He left Blue to the pig’s ear and went inside to run the bath. He didn’t have any scented bubbly stuff but that was only a minor disadvantage. Cait was wiping down the sink. He’d retrieved her stuff from her old flat above the dry-cleaners and she wore a navy singlet dress, simple, short, fitted to her body. He leaned on the kitchen bench and watched her put their plates away.
“What are you doing?” she said, her back to him.
“Watching you.”
She fumbled with a cupboard handle.
“Oh come on, you love it.”
She turned, couldn’t hide her grin. She’d been on edge since he walked in the door, but nothing she said about her day had given him anything to work with. It was too easy to blame in on Stud. He needed to sure before he knocked the man’s teeth out.
She was on a different kind of edge now. She backed up against the sink, arms open, resting on the countertop either side of her. All her weight was on one leg, that hip and one shoulder hiked, her other knee bent. It made her body all curves and angles.
“Are you running a bath?”
He wanted to trace those curves and smooth those angles, but if he started there’d be a flood in the bathroom. “I am.”
“Who for?”
“Me.”
She laughed and abandoned the deliberately seductive stance. “Yell when you’ve finished soaking and I’ll make you coffee.”
“And you.”
She hiked the hip again, her eyes widening. “Oh.”
He took her hand, leading her to the bathroom. She eyed the tub. “Are you sure we’re both going to fit in there?”
It was an average-sized bath, not ideal for two adults, and getting nice and full. He tested the temperature and swapped to the cold tap. “You’re getting in. I’m sitting up there.” He pointed to the tiled ledge behind the curved backrest of the bath. “Strip.”
“I have no idea what we’re doing.”
“If I tell you it’ll spoil the surprise. If I put you in the bath it will get your dress all wet.”
“I see I’m getting plenty of choice about this.”
He flicked water on her then pointed at her hair, bundled up in a clip. “Take that thing out.”
“Yes sir.”
He grinned at her. There were certain times he could get away with dishing out instructions. “That’s more like it.”
She took out the clip and shook her hair out, then pulled the dress over her head. She got embarrassed when he watched her undress. He loved the way it coloured her face. She had mismatched underwear, cheap stuff. Maybe he should get her something pretty.
Hell no
. What did he know about women’s underwear and he liked her out of it better anyway. He flicked more water at her.
She turned her back to him and unhooked her bra, slid her pants off. “I have to be naked and you don’t.”
“I see your point.” He pulled his shirt off. He was already barefoot. She gave him a look and he laughed and shucked his jeans and underwear. Then he shifted to the tiled ledge, sat and put his legs in the water. He gestured to the space in the bath between his knees. “Come here.”
She climbed in, sighing as the effect of the warm water hit her. He’d cleaned out a mug they’d had their toothbrushes in. He filled in with water and poured it over her hair, being careful not to let it get in her face.
“What is this?”
“I used to do this for Mum.”
She turned to look at him. “You got in the bath naked with your mum?”
He pushed her back around so she was facing the same way he was. Mum wouldn’t recognise this head massage from the ones he gave her, kneeling behind her while she lay on the family sofa watching TV. He poured another cup of water over Cait’s hair. “Yeah, we were a very close family.”
She laughed. He flicked the cap off her shampoo bottle and poured a dollop in his palm. Jasmine; the smell of summer coming. “Close your eyes.”
“You’re going to wash my hair.”
“No, I’m going to mow the lawn.”
She half laughed, half sighed as his fingers made contact with her scalp. He soaped her head and the length of her hair vigorously, keeping her head tilted back so he didn’t get shampoo on her face. Then he rinsed it using the cup. Now for the masterstroke. He filled his palm with conditioner. She knew what was coming and relaxed against his legs. First he toyed with her. Smoothing the conditioner all through her hair, but touching her lightly, fleetingly, the best kind of tease. So good it was starting to get to him too.
“Oh my God, Sean.”
The husk in her voice put a hurry up on how bad it was getting to him. He leaned down over her, silky conditioner getting all over his chest. He whispered in her ear, “Wait, it’s better than God, I promise.”
She groaned and wrapped a hand around his ankle. “Blasphemy.”
He moved his hands so they cradled her head. “Foreplay. Get ready to see angels.”
She gasped as he pressed his fingers into her skull, tracing the suture lines. He made small, slow circles and sweeping loops, clockwise then counter clockwise. He pressed firmly against her temples and held still. He traced her hairline from her forehead around to her ears using his knee to support her neck, pressing, holding, pressing, till the points under his fingertip softened.
She groaned and wrapped her other arm around his leg. “Devil.”
“Hmm, but you like it.” Fuck, he liked it too. Seeing her this way, unwound; enrapt, so totally open to him.
“Oh Lord, yes. Don’t stop.”
He bent forward, lips on her forehead. “Not till you see heaven, baby.”
Her eyes fluttered closed and she arched, pushing her head further into his hands. He lightly pinched the rind of her ear, kneading it all the way around, then tugged gently on both earlobes. Then back against her skull, he used his thumbs to stroke and circle, press and hold, and felt her grip on his ankle tighten. His own grip on reality was getting increasingly ratty. Watching her react to him, hearing the sounds she was making had him stone hard and aching. He kept his thumbs and fingers moving and felt himself drowning in the sense of her pleasure. Her nipples were tight buds, her breath came with hitches and gasps and she alternately twitched and sagged against his legs.
The bath was too small for both of them, but not if they were standing. He could turn the shower on to rinse her off. It would be cruel to make her stand, but he could hold her up. She took the decision away from him by lifting her head and turning to face him, water sloshing back and forth. There was a glow in her heavy-lidded eyes he’d never seen before.
She got to her knees and a lap of water slapped the tiled floor. “You’re my heaven.”
So why did she look like she was going to damage him? She was an otherworldly creature. Her hair was slicked to her head, rippled from the pathways his fingers carved. Her flesh was rosy and shiny, her lips, red and plush and open, her face flushed. When she crawled toward him, sending more water over the edge, he knew what form that damage would take. In a battle between her mouth and his tattered restraint, he was going to thoroughly enjoy losing. When she closed her mouth around him, he rocked back and smacked his head on the wall. That was an asset under the circumstances. It gave him something else to think about while her lips assaulted his skin and battered his senses. This was her version of a head massage.
Fuck
—it topped anything he’d done for her.
“Jesus, Cait!” And bye-bye coherence. Every other thought was jerked out of him, half formed; every sound was a throat deep garble. His fingers were back in her hair.
Beautiful
. His eyes locked on what she was doing.
Hell
. When she used her hands as well, he nearly ripped the shower curtain, rail and all, down on them.
Holy fuck
. She wasn’t going to stop.
God
. She wasn’t giving him a choice. Water everywhere. He’d had a plan and this wasn’t it. “Cait!” This was more, better, so fucking, Cait, good,
fuck, fuck
. “Christ!” He saw heaven too. But it wasn’t fluffy clouds and peace shit, it was Caitlyn Mary Ann Murphy.
He took her to bed with squeaky clean wet hair and pruney skin. With a new plan. Make her climb the walls and scream for him. When she did and they were both spent, she told him Stud’s fishing story. He cursed. Not that something like this was a surprise. This was what offenders who had value in a police investigation got asked to do, and did it to the best of their ability if they wanted to walk away with a fresh start. He wanted that for her, he understood her desire to play the game, but not if the risks were too high, and until he knew the details he couldn’t assess that. Cait stayed calm and spread that cool reasonableness on him. Not that it set.
When she slept he got up and dressed. Faded, torn trackpants, too short. Cheap runners with the toe hacked out of one, no socks. A black hoodie with the sleeves cut off, and a broken zipper, over a thin stained singlet. He’d told Cait he had an early start, helping on a stake out. It was a half-truth. If she woke and saw him like this he’d need a better cover.
He hit the streets. His old haunts. The places drug mules and informers, messenger boys and wanna-be hard-arses lurked. He scored, he swigged from a bottle of cheap rum, for the show of it. He talked to whoever would look at him without pulling a knife. He avoided bikies and anyone in obvious colours. He bought two hookers muffins and coffee for breakfast. By 9am he had a fair idea what Stud was up to and it shit all over the definition of managed risk.
You’d need a white collar and rosary beads to get behind who felt the most guilt. The only one who showed it was Blue. Tail between her legs, she left the room the second Sean came in.
Cait’s eyes bugged out when she saw his get-up and yeah there’d be an explanation needed for that, later. She was sitting at the dining table with Stud. Sean brushed a hand over her hair, a vision of her in the bath, wet and abandoned to pleasure momentarily distracting him. He felt the scunge of the night all over his skin. He shouldn’t have touched her.
Christ
, he wanted a shower.
He looked at Stud, sprawled at the table. “It’s mean out there. I don’t want her doing this.”
“Dumpster dive fancy dress was an authorised piece of police business then was it, Sean?”
“I didn’t say anything about police business. I went for walk.”
Stud sat stoically still. “Not a fucking walk authorised by me.” He switched his attention to Cait, and Sean moved to catch it. “Don’t take it out on her.”
Cait’s eyes were at a tennis match, flicking between him and Stud. She settled on Stud. “I’m sorry. I told you I didn’t want to keep it from him.”
“I told you to try.”
“Back off, Stud. Let me make it real easy for you. It’s too hot. Cait’s out. We find another way.”