Fries Before Guys

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “If I hadn’t been here,” I said. “If I’d been a few minutes earlier, you would’ve been here alone.”

  She bit me on the pec, causing me to jerk back.

  “Owww, what was that for?” I asked, smoothing my hand over the hurt.

  “That was for blaming yourself,” she said. “Everything is fine. Rachel is in custody. She’s finished.”

  “You don’t know it’s finished.”

  “I’m fairly sure her saying ‘What’s it going to take for you to die’ is all we need,” she drawled. “And you said that she confessed to doing the hit and run. So that’s it, case solved.”

  I agreed.

  Somewhat.

  Her hand moved down to rest on my hip and she dug her nails into my skin.

  “Derek,” she repeated.

  I looked down into her eyes and realized that she was right.

  Overthinking wasn’t going to help matters.

  What would help was to be reminded that she was indeed alive.

  I moved until she was underneath me.

  “You took your panties back off,” I said.

  She grinned, widening her legs for me to situate myself between hers more fully.

  “I was hopeful,” she interjected. “I was also being proactive.”

  I helped her take the sweatshirt back off.

  She’d cleaned herself up while I’d been finalizing shit outside with my father, Ashe, who was called in since she’d already had some dealings with Rachel, and Howell, Rachel’s father.

  I wasn’t altogether sure why he’d been there, but he had, so I’d ignored the fact that he shouldn’t be since my father hadn’t said anything.

  When I’d finally come back in, she’d been cleaned up and wearing only my sweatshirt.

  Which led to now, finding out that she was bare underneath of it.

  I growled and ran the length of my lips over the quickly bruising mark directly over her right breast.

  “This is going to hurt pretty bad in the morning,” I said, pressing my lips to the spot right beside it. Trying not to let it hurt. “Did you take some medicine?”

  She shifted restlessly underneath of me, letting me know without words that she was just as in need as I was.

  I moved, shoving my underwear down past my ass, and fisted my cock.

  “I was scared,” I said as I ran the tip of my cock over her wet slit. “I haven’t had you long, but Jesus Christ. It’s long enough to realize that I’d be a mess if you were gone.”

  She reached down and guided my cock to her entrance, then held my eyes as I slowly sank inside.

  I pushed forward until I couldn’t go any further, then backed up and repeated the process. Over and over again until she was filled with me and I was buried to the hilt.

  “I never realized how good this would feel,” she admitted. “And it’s amazing.”

  I grinned and leaned down, being careful to keep my weight on my arms, and peppered her mouth with kisses.

  “It only gets better,” I told her, rotating my hips. “When you have the right one, that is. I’ve never felt anything like this before, either.”

  She ran her hands up the length of my arms, pausing lightly to squeeze my biceps, then moved until her legs were hooked over my arms.

  “Take me, Derek,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to be careful right now. I want to feel.”

  So I made her feel.

  I made myself feel, too.

  In and out I moved, faster and faster, until we were both being pushed over the edge.

  All the while, all I could think about was how fucking amazing that it felt.

  How right.

  How… perfect.

  Once our hearts had settled down, and our breathing returned to normal, I moved us around until she was lying on top of me.

  Her head rested on the pillow beside my head, and I was still connected inside of her.

  She didn’t seem to care, though.

  And I sure the fuck didn’t.

  “There are times when I know that I’ll remember the moment forever,” she said. “And this day is one of them.”

  I had no doubt in my mind.

  “But not because of what Rachel did,” she said. “Because you told me you loved me.”

  I squeezed her to me a little tight, causing her to squeak in surprise.

  “I do love you,” I said simply.

  She leaned back and stared into my eyes.

  “Even with me being younger than you and in high school?” she asked.

  I pushed some of her hair back behind her ear.

  “Even then.”

  Chapter 19

  Bubbles aren’t the only things I blow.

  -Avery to Derek

  Derek

  “How’s Avery?” Ford asked as I parked the cruiser.

  “Good,” I answered. “She went to school today, and only has to be there for about a half hour. Then she has a college final that she has to drive to the college campus to take. And then we’re meeting for lunch. Do you want to join us?”

  Ford sighed. “I can’t. I’m meeting with Ashe to talk about Rachel. She has some thought that she can’t seem to work through. Something that’s there, yet she can’t quite put her finger on it. I told her I’d help her talk through it. See if I could jog the memory.”

  I looked over at Ford.

  “Tell her to join us for lunch. We can all discuss it,” I suggested.

  Ford nodded. “I’ll tell her. She’ll go for it.”

  His eyes went to the house where we would find Lindia Bales.

  “What are you going to ask?”

  I looked over to Ford who’d decided to make the trip over to Lindia Bales’ house with me.

  “Honestly?” I said. “I don’t know. I was just going to play it by ear.”

  Ford’s mouth quirked up at the corner.

  “That sounds helpful,” he muttered.

  I grinned and knocked on the door, frowning when I heard the piercing screams of an infant wailing somewhere in the house.

  The screaming didn’t stop, and nobody answered the door.

  I knocked again, this time much more loudly.

  Still no answer. Still wailing infant screams.

  I moved until I could see in the side window, frowning when I saw the baby in a swing in the corner of the room, and nobody coming to answer the door or the infant’s cries.

  I knocked again, a weird sort of gut feeling overtaking me, urging me to go inside.

  “Break it down,” Ford suggested.

  “I can’t just break it down,” I said. “There’s…”

  Ford broke it down.

  “I’m pretty sure that I heard a woman scream for help,” he lied.

  The door hit the wall behind it with a loud bang.

  I walked immediately into the front room and picked up the screaming baby, feeling like I had practice now with my niece..

  Ford walked through the kitchen, his eyes alert, and froze.

  “Shit,” he said.

  I curled the screaming girl to my chest and followed his path, halting just a few inches behind him.

  “Well shit.”

  I pulled out my phone and texted Avery that I wasn’t going to make it to lunch. Then I called my mother and asked for her help.

  Ford placed his own calls, calling in backup as well as asking for a justice of the peace.

  Then he went about clearing the rooms as I took the crying infant outside.

  The infant that was still inconsolable in my arms.

  Ford made his way outside, and I gestured at him with my chin.

  “I think the kid is hungry,” I said. “There any bottles or anything in the kitchen?”

  Ford disappeared and reappeared moments later with a bottle and a formula canister.

  Between the two of us, we were able to finagle a bottle up, and the poor kid wolfed it down as if she ha
dn’t eaten in way too long.

  I could tell the kid was wet, too, having spent enough time with Katy’s twins to know when it was apparent.

  But for now, I wasn’t going back inside that house until it was cleared by the crime scene techs.

  Even though I had a good idea who’d done it, this still had to be handled correctly. Because the girl needed every single strike that we could pin against her.

  ***

  “I asked her to help me, and she wouldn’t,” Rachel said, a smile on her face. “The bitch already had all that money. There was no reason that she couldn’t. We both hated Avery. We were bonding over that. But she said she had a baby to think about now, and that she couldn’t do anything now that her husband was in jail. When I told her I would help her with the baby, she laughed… and I just got so… mad.”

  I felt nausea churn in my belly at the smile still on Rachel’s face.

  “I have these voices.” She grinned. “They tell me to do it.”

  They tell me to do it.

  Bullshit.

  I narrowed my eyes, wondering if this was all an act so she could plead insanity.

  I would much rather be in a crazy house than a prison if I were that pretty.

  “Okay then,” I said to Rachel, turning to Ashe. “She’s all yours.”

  Ashe’s eyes were hard and focused.

  “Can I speak to you for a moment?” I asked Ashe just as I was exiting the room.

  She nodded once, standing up and walking to the room’s one and only door.

  After we both slipped out, I leaned against the wall beside the door that she was leaning on and said, “You don’t believe she’s crazy.”

  She shook her head, a sardonic look on her face.

  “Hell no,” she answered. “I think that daddy coached her on what to say, and now she’s playing us.”

  I looked over at Pierson Howell and narrowed my eyes.

  “He knows something,” I found myself saying.

  Ford, who was amongst a few of the officers watching the interrogation, came from the room beyond and said, “We can question him.”

  “He’s a veteran,” I said. “He’s not going to slip up.”

  We looked at each other, then I looked at Howell.

  “Rachel loves her dad,” I said. “Maybe if she realizes that he’ll go to jail…”

  Ashe grinned. “Let me handle it.”

  “The lawyer’s a shark,” I said. “If he thinks you’re going to lead her down the wrong path, he’s going to shut it down. You’re going to have to be quick about it.”

  Ashe’s smile was predatory.

  “I’ll be quick,” she said, once again going back into the interrogation room.

  I walked into the viewing room that overlooked both interrogation rooms and walked up to where Ford was holding the baby.

  Social workers had come and gone, and since Avery was officially listed as this baby’s sister, Avery was now the guardian.

  Avery, who hadn’t made it back from her exams at the college yet, but should be arriving at any moment, was in for a big surprise.

  Just like I’d been.

  I wasn’t really sure what I expected when I’d called my mother. But she’d smiled, left to go collect some things she’d been planning to take to Katy’s for the baby and her twins, and had put it all in my cruiser.

  She’d then taken out the car seat for the new grandbaby, too. Rigged it up in the back of the cruiser and had told me good luck before disappearing back to work.

  Which left me with a kid I had no clue how to handle.

  A kid that’d been seen by the social worker, had been given back to me, and that was that.

  I didn’t even know the baby’s name.

  Lynn came in the room then, carrying a piece of paper in his hands and looking perplexed.

  “I did all this work,” he said. “Did all this research. Ran a DNA test. Found out that she was, indeed, Avery’s sister. And then the woman up and dies?”

  “The woman up and got murdered,” I corrected.

  Lynn stopped and looked at the baby asleep in Ford’s arms.

  “You look good with a baby, kid,” Lynn teased.

  Ford rolled his eyes. “Hello, Mr. Mayor.”

  Lynn grimaced and held out the paper.

  “I’m not sure you’ll need this at all,” he said as I took it. “But it shows the DNA matching and that the kid is Avery’s sister.”

  I nodded once.

  “Thanks,” I said as I folded it up and put it into my pocket.

  The kid began to fuss and Ford immediately handed the baby back over to me.

  “Why do y’all keep giving this kid back to me?” I asked, fumbling slightly with the baby.

  The baby’s eyes opened, and she looked at me with Avery’s eyes, making my heart melt.

  “Well,” Ford said. “I guess technically, since Avery’s yours, so is this kid.”

  My mouth dried up as I realized the implications.

  I mean, honestly I’d thought about them and all, but I also hadn’t given them much thought at the same time.

  But this kid likely had nobody just like Avery did.

  The mom hadn’t even had anybody in her phone. Every number was just a number. Nobody had been named in the contacts.

  Hell, there hadn’t even been any photos of the baby on her phone.

  It was the weirdest thing ever.

  “Shhh,” Louis said from beside me. “She’s talking.”

  I turned my attention back to the interrogation room.

  “No, don’t.” Rachel held up both hands, reaching out as if to grab Ashe.

  Ford tensed beside me, as if he was going to barrel through the one-way glass and tear the girl away from Ashe.

  Ashe, seeing the move, stepped back so that she wouldn’t be touched by the little psycho.

  “Daddy only told me how to kill her.”

  That bomb dropped like a book in a quiet library.

  “Ms. Howell…” the lawyer tried.

  But Rachel turned to him with a glower. “Shut up!”

  “Shit,” Dad said from the other side of Louis. He looked over at Booth and jerked his head. “Go get him.”

  Booth left without another word.

  I heard the commotion that came from the lobby, but I didn’t stop staring at the interrogation of Rachel.

  “How about you tell me what really happened,” Ashe suggested.

  Rachel looked away.

  “He told me how to commit the perfect murder,” she said. “I don’t think he realized what he was doing at first. I think he thought I was just curious. But he followed me over to the woman’s place. After I shot her, he came in the door, looking stunned. Then he freaked out and told me it was all wrong. That I shouldn’t have done it. And then he helped me shoot her again. This time making it look like she shot herself. I was going to get rid of the baby, too, since that’s Avery’s sister. But Daddy said that I couldn’t because it wouldn’t look like a suicide then.”

  I felt sick to my stomach.

  If I hadn’t had this hunch that Rachel had been at the scene based solely off of one little comment of ‘it’s time to finish off the family’ and her ability to get into the locked police car as well as the locked gun vault between the seats, then she’d have gotten away with this shit. And so would Pierson Howell.

  ***

  Avery

  I was so late.

  I’d gotten talking to the counselor about my next year’s classes, then I began registering for a summer course, and things had just gotten out of hand.

  Now I was two hours later than I was supposed to be, and I was now meeting Derek at the police station instead of our lunch date.

  I hurried inside, smiling at the front attendant.

  “Hello again,” she smiled at me.

  I couldn’t remember her name, but that sweet face still had the same great smile.

/>   “Hi!” I chirped. “I’m here to meet with Derek Roberts.”

  She clicked something beside her desk, then gestured to the door. “It’s unlocked. You know where you’re going?”

  I nodded once, walking into the bullpen of the police department moments later.

  The first person that I saw happened to be Louis.

  “Hey, Louis!” I called out. “Do you know where Derek is?”

  Louis looked up from the coffee that he was pouring, then grinned. “Yeah. Follow the screams.”

  I frowned, but then realized that I could, indeed, hear screams.

  I followed them, finding Luke’s office fairly easily.

  I blinked when I saw both men standing over the table as they both changed an infant.

  “Ummm,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  Derek looked up.

  Luke had already spotted me and was grinning.

  Derek finished the diaper, picked the baby up, and presented her to me like an offering.

  “Avery, I’d like you to meet your sister.”

  Chapter 20

  Thanks for all the orgasms.

  -Coffee Cup

  Avery

  I took a baby to graduation.

  Derek was supposed to watch her, but of course right when I was about to leave, his pager went off.

  Meaning I had no other choice but to take her with me.

  The last four days leading up to graduation were definitely interesting.

  I’d never had to deal with a baby before. I didn’t know how to change diapers. I didn’t know how to feed or burp a baby. And I didn’t know how to wash them or put them to bed.

  After some digging in Lindia’s house after the crime scene had been released, we’d gotten the rest of her clothes.

  But, still, we hadn’t found out her name.

  Not until we’d asked Lynn what the birth certificate said.

  Which wasn’t going to fucking cut it. I couldn’t call this sweet little baby Rachel, so after a little contemplation, we decided to go by her middle name: Sonja.

  We called her Sunny.

  Katy, in her epic momness, had given me the down and dirty on how to take care of a baby.

  And now Derek and I were co-parenting at his house.

  It looked like a baby factory had puked all over his living room.

  When I’d suggested taking it all to my place, he’d given me a level look, told me I was moving in with him, and that was that.