Misadventures in Blue

by Sierra Simone

  I smell something familiar. A delicate, French perfume, and the smell conjures a face in my mind.

  Cat…

  But before I can manage to speak her name, heavy, drugged unconsciousness pulls at me, the sounds receding as I disappear back into the spinning dark.

  When I wake again, the dizziness isn’t so bad, but Cat’s scent has disappeared into a miasma of cleaning chemicals and fast food. I manage to pry open my bleary eyes to find my parents sitting next to me, McDonald’s cups in hands, talking in low tones about replacing the fence in their backyard.

  “Mom?” I rasp.

  “Oh!” she says, setting her cup down and rushing to lean over me. “Oh God, Jace, you’re awake!”

  She sounds happy and sad all at once, and even in my groggy state of mind, I can see the drawn lines around her mouth and eyes, the ashen cast to her face. Whatever I’ve been through, she’s suffered more watching me go through it. My dad joins her on the other side of the bed, taking my hand.

  I’m so glad to see them, although the reasons why are hazy…

  “Where’s Cat?” I whisper. “She was here, I know she was…”

  Mom and Dad exchange a look over me. Mom’s look distinctly says I told you so.

  “She’s been here constantly,” Mom says as she looks back at me. “We sent her home today to get a change of clothes and a nap. She hasn’t been taking care of herself since you came in.”

  I close my eyes, pained that Cat has been suffering but hopeful too—hopeful that if she’s been here and had to be forced to leave that it means something for us. For our future.

  “How long?” I ask. My voice is dry and raspy. “How long have I been here?”

  “Three days,” Dad says. “The first day was the hardest—”

  His voice cracks, and he clears his throat in a manly sort of way. “You got moved down from the ICU yesterday. They say you’re in good shape—no sign of infection so far. They’ll be in to assess potential nerve damage later.”

  Infection.

  Damage.

  The haze clears a bit around what I’m feeling in my body—like my right arm is on fire—and why I’m feeling it. Gia’s face, florid and angry, her hand shaking around the gun so hard that she could barely keep it still.

  Cat, slender and cool, eyebrow arched as she stared down the barrel without so much as flinching.

  The barb of real, primal terror that lodged in my heart when I realized Cat was about to die. I’ve never felt fear like that. Not even in Afghanistan.

  Funnily enough, I was also never actually wounded in Afghanistan. It was here, on these mean suburban streets, by a Vassar grad with a flair for supplying terrorists with rare metals. Who would’ve guessed?

  With my parents’ help, I sit up and manage to chew some ice chips, and then I fall back asleep, the seductive pull of the pain medicine too strong to resist. I don’t dream much, but what I do dream is strange and warped and distressing. And always, always about Cat.

  When I wake up again, it’s dark outside the window and the nearby highway is mostly drained of traffic. The lights in the room are dimmed, and a television is playing a rerun of a sitcom I normally hate. But I’m too tired and out of it to bother trying to find a way to change the channel.

  Most importantly, there’s someone in bed with me. Someone warm and sweet-smelling. My arm wraps around her instinctively, pressing her tight against me as my heart squeezes in a familiar, achy way.

  The monitor next to me reflects that, and Cat shoots upright in alarm.

  “Jace,” she says urgently, searching my face. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I murmur. “Just awake. Just holding you.”

  The panic recedes from her expression slowly. “Does your arm hurt? Do you need the nurse?”

  “Cat,” I say, reaching for her again. “I only need you.”

  With a huff of disbelief, she nestles back into me, and I savor the feeling of her close to me. My body gives a faint pulse of aroused response—muffled by the pain meds—and I ignore it for now, simply enjoying the contact. Enjoying the weight of her against me and the spill of her hair, messy and tousled as it hardly ever is, cascading over my shoulder. She’s in something surprisingly casual too—jeans torn at the knees and cuffed at the ankles—and an old army shirt that I left at her house once.

  For some reason, seeing her in my shirt makes me want to cry. I fight off the urge by burying my face in her hair and breathing her in.

  She’s here.

  She’s safe.

  I kept her safe.

  A few more days pass like this. Russo comes by and tells me I’m on medical leave until I’m cleared by the doctor to come back to light duty. Cat comes in at night, after my parents leave and always wearing my shirts, and snuggles in the bed with me, much to the nurses’ amusement. She doesn’t say much, which begins to worry me, and every time I bring up the case or my injury, she shuts down completely.

  I’m not sure what to do about it. I want her to know how happy I am she’s safe. How few fucks I give about getting shot when it means that she’s here now, unharmed and whole. Even if I have lingering impairment in my arm that means I can’t wear the badge anymore…

  Worth. It.

  I’d do it again and again if it meant Cat left that staff room alive.

  But the more I try to tell her that, the more closed off she gets. I’m desperate to get out of this hospital bed and into a real bed with her so we can extinguish all this pent-up frustration and fear in a frenzy of touch and sweat. If I could just get her underneath me…

  She’s in bed with me now. The lights are dimmed and the nurse just checked on me, giving me a conspiratorial wink when she shut the door, and I know we have at least an hour or more before she returns. Without giving myself time to doubt the wisdom of this, I tuck Cat close to my side and roll us so that she’s underneath me and I’m covering my body with hers. I have to grit my teeth a bit as I settle my weight on my injured arm along with my good one, but the stitches hold and the Demerol blunts the worst of the bite.

  “Jace!” Cat says breathlessly, blinking over at the door and then to my injured arm. “You’ll hurt yourself. You’ll—”

  I cut her off with a fierce, hard kiss—the first real one I’ve been able to give her since the shooting. I silently thank God that I’ve been able to walk around the past two days and shower and brush my teeth and all that, because I don’t have to hold back. I lick at her lips until she parts them for me, and then I lick inside her mouth, tasting her and teasing her until her wary body begins to melt under mine. Until she’s moaning and her hands wander to the back of my hospital gown to clutch at my ass.

  “The only way I’ll hurt,” I breathe against her lips, “is if you don’t let me taste you right now.”

  “Taste me? But—”

  It’s too late. I’m already working my way down her body, careful of my IV and monitor wires, and rucking up her borrowed T-shirt to kiss around her navel as I unbutton her jeans.

  “You can’t,” she says, “you can’t, but oh God, you are, you are…”

  I yank the jeans down past her cunt, ignoring the sharp pain in my arm as I shove the denim to her knees and expose her silk-clad mound to my stare. The silk goes down to her knees too, and then I push her legs up to her chest so that she’s available to my mouth.

  I lick her slit, and the sweet, earthy flavor explodes on my tongue. She cries out at the same time my heart monitor pings its alarm.

  “Shh,” I pant, “or the nurse might come in.”

  She presses the back of her hand to her mouth and turns her head to the side, as if that’s going to make my onslaught any easier to bear. I highly doubt that, since it’s been nearly a week since I’ve eaten her pussy and I’m hungry as hell.

  It’s hard work to service her properly, with her legs bound together by her jeans and her knees shoved up to her chest, and with my body hanging off the bottom of the bed and my ass hanging out of my gown.

&nbs
p; But I don’t care—it’s like heaven to me. Burying my face, getting my lips and chin wet, seeking out her swollen little clit with my tongue and stroking it. Lapping at her entrance like it’s the only real medicine I need.

  I have to force myself to breathe, to be calm, because I know there’s only so much I can push that heart monitor before the nurse feels compelled to check on me, no matter how much she wants to be my wingwoman.

  But it’s nearly impossible to slow it down. I can’t keep my heart from pounding in anticipation. Can’t keep blood from going right to the throbbing weight between my legs.

  Although judging from the way my balls have drawn up tight to my body, I’m guessing I won’t be making the heart monitor go off for long. After so many days without her, her taste alone is enough to send me to the edge. And then she comes against my tongue with a muffled cry, her sweet little well contracting in rhythmic flutters, her hand reaching around and twisting in my hair to keep my mouth right where she needs it.

  I can’t last.

  With a quick move that has my arm screaming, I’m back on the bed and rolling her to her side as I get behind her. I manage to plunge in right at the end of her orgasm, and I have to clap my hand over her mouth as she starts coming all over again at the fresh invasion.

  It only takes three thrusts and the feeling of her moaning against my palm before I’m there, emptying everything I have inside her, pumping her full of a week’s worth of need, and all to the beeping consternation of the heart monitor. Its insistent tones underscore my final few thrusts as I give Cat every last drop of what I have, and then it finally begins to settle down as I slide out of her and pull her snug against me.

  We’re both wet and messy and her pants are still around her legs, but I don’t want to move. I just want to hold her tight and relish the sensation of having her here and close and safe.

  My woman.

  Mine.

  Cat wriggles free, though, not saying anything as she reaches for a tissue to clean up. Not meeting my eyes as she pulls up her panties and jeans.

  A slow curl of unease blooms in my chest. “Cat? Baby?”

  She doesn’t answer at first, still buttoning herself and smoothing back her hair, until finally and with a long swallow, she meets my stare.

  Oh God.

  I don’t know what’s happening or why, and I don’t know what she’s about to say—but I’m certain she’s about to leave me. There’s something about the hollow pain in her gaze and the unhappiness around the lines of her plush mouth…something about her posture that looks defensive and determined all at once.

  “Cat,” I say again, sitting up. The heart monitor, which was calming down, starts beeping faster. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.”

  She takes a breath, like she’s steeling herself. “Jace.”

  “No.” The beeping makes it hard to think, but the more frantic I feel, the faster it gets. “No, Cat. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but no.”

  “I held off doing this,” she whispers. “I thought I’d wait until you woke up…and then I thought I’d wait until you were discharged, but I was just fooling myself because I don’t want to leave…”

  “Then why do it?” I demand. “Why put us through this when I love you?”

  She lifts her eyes to the ceiling, ignoring my plea. “I thought you were going to die. I felt your blood on my hands, and there was so much, and I thought how can anyone lose this much blood and still—” She pauses, steadies her voice. “I can’t go through that again. I used to think I couldn’t go through it for anyone after Frazer, but it’s you… I can’t go through it with you. I love you too damn much.”

  I’m off the bed in an instant, but my IV and monitor wires mean I can’t get close to her. I want to rip them all off and go and gather her into my arms. Crush her against my chest and kiss her hair until she stops this madness.

  “If you love me,” I try to reason with her, “then everything else will work out.” I reach out my hand, knowing that I must look ridiculous in my bare feet and my hospital gown, but I don’t even care. I just want her to come closer. I just want her to stay.

  “No,” she says, and her chin is trembling. She still won’t look at me. “I wish that were true, I really do, but loving each other doesn’t erase who we are. You’ll always be in danger—”

  “I’ll stop,” I interrupt her. “I’ll quit. If quitting is what it takes, I’d do it in a heartbeat for you.”

  “No!” she cries. “That’s not what I want at all! I don’t want you to change who you are or what you love to do.”

  “It’s just a job, Cat. I can find another one.”

  “Can you?” she whispers. “Can you tell me you don’t miss the action from when you were deployed? Can you really tell me you won’t be bored doing something else, something safe?”

  I open my mouth.

  Close it.

  I can’t lie to her.

  “And you’re a hero, Jace,” she adds, blinking fast at the ceiling. “You’re a good cop. We need more of those. I need more of those, because I’m not planning on giving up this job either, and I want cops like you by my side. I just can’t love them.”

  “It’s too late for that,” I say roughly. “You already do.”

  She finally meets my eyes, and what I see there shreds me. Those aren’t the eyes of someone about to fall on a sword—they are the eyes of someone who’s already fallen.

  “I love you enough to know that I’ll ruin your life,” she says in a broken voice. “Thirteen years is too big of a hurdle. You might think it’s not now, but what about in twenty years? When I’m close to sixty and you’re still in your forties? When you’ve felt forced into deciding whether or not to have children because it’s not going to be possible for me to do it much longer? You deserve to spend your years free of all that. Free of responsibility until you choose it.”

  “I’m choosing it now,” I rumble, trying to pull closer and feeling the IV in my hand protest. “Why is that so hard to believe? I don’t want to spend those years being ‘free.’ I don’t want to spend any years without you at all.”

  “It’s been three weeks,” she says. “It all feels real now, but it’s not, Jace. It can’t be.”

  “It is.”

  Goddammit, it is.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you go sooner,” she whispers. “It was selfish of me to wait, to want to be with you one last time…”

  She takes a step back, and I know if she walks out that door, I’ll lose her forever. It really will be the end. I make to yank off the monitor wires, and her eyes flare in panic.

  “Stop it,” she pleads, and I don’t care. I’m not letting her leave. I’m not letting her finish us when I know she loves me, when I love her, when she’s mine.

  I tear them off my chest, not even feeling the sting, and then I start on my IV, trying to peel back the clear bandage they put on top.

  “Stop it,” she says more desperately now, and then, “I didn’t want to say the real reason I need to leave.” These last words come out in a rush.

  “And what’s that?” I say, looking up with a scowl.

  She bites her lip, blinks twice, and then says, “You’re not enough for me, Jace.”

  It takes a minute for her words to truly register, for their meaning to unfold in my mind. And when they do, I freeze. “I’m sorry?”

  “I meant what I said about everything else,” she explains, “but the real reason we can’t be together is that we just don’t fit. I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules about these things, but there it is. You’re too young, too coarse. Too reckless.”

  Her words hurt worse than that fucking bullet ever did, digging into the same fear that plagued me watching her question Gia through the window.

  She’s too good for me.

  “Reckless,” I echo. “I thought you said I was a hero.”

  “It’s a kind word for a stupid waste,” she snaps. “If you’re that careless with your own life, h
ow the hell can I trust you with my heart?”

  Behind me, the heart monitor is making all the noises I can’t seem to.

  “I could never spend the rest of my life with you,” she says coolly. “And now that you’re well, I can tell you.”

  “Cat…baby. Please.”

  She takes in a sharp breath at the endearment, and I’m not sure what I see on her face. Confusion? Cruelty? Regret?

  Pain?

  But it disappears in an instant, leaving only the familiar face of the Ice Queen behind.

  “Goodbye, Jace,” she says and starts for the door. “I’m looking forward to your return to duty.”

  I don’t rip out the IV after all.

  I watch her leave. I watch her leave in my army shirt with her hair still tangled from our impromptu fuck. I watch her leave, and I can still taste her on my lips.

  And for the first time since I was shot, I feel like I might die.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cat

  I have a meeting with the FBI, and it takes over nine hours.

  Nine hours to detail all the evidence against Pisani, sift through her statement, and apply it to what we know. She used her mother’s car as a way to deflect visibility, and she robbed all those other doctors’ offices as a way to keep suspicion on the stolen televisions and not on the decommissioned medical equipment in her own place of work. The FBI is tracking down a boyfriend they think helped her with the physical aspects of the burglary, and they’re also attempting to track down the cobalt itself.

  Why a Vassar grad became a criminal is still a question the FBI will have to answer, although I think I saw a hint of the reason in Pisani’s statement.

  I couldn’t find a job after graduation, not a single one. And then I finally found this office job, and it barely paid any of my bills, and it was so boring I wanted to die…

  Very smart and very bored. Add in some money problems and a healthy dose of anger, and that’s all it takes.

  By the time the meeting is over, I feel ready for an entire bottle of wine. Maybe even two.