Misadventures in Blue

by Sierra Simone

  It’s the first time since I transferred into investigations in the weeks after Frazer’s death that I’ve missed being a patrol officer. Missed being spared the interminable meetings, missed the clean-burning energy of working hard and then burning off steam at a bar or in someone’s bed after.

  Of course, right now there’s only one bed I want to be in, and I made damn sure I’d never be invited back.

  It was for his own good, I tell myself for the millionth time since I broke Jace’s heart a week ago. He wasn’t listening to reason, he wasn’t letting me do this for him, so I had to make him let me go. I had to find the things I knew would make him flinch and make him doubt. I had to hurt him so he’d accept that we had to end.

  One day he’ll thank me. One day he’ll realize that I was the one mature and sacrificing enough to protect his chance at having a full life.

  That it killed me in the process is inconsequential. What’s important is that he has his future back, full of all the opportunities and new women he deserves. Full of time for him to meet his real soul mate and do things at the pace they’re supposed to be done.

  What’s important is that I won’t have to wait up at night for him anymore. I won’t ever have to watch someone hand a folded flag to his mother. I won’t have to miss him so much it feels like the muscles of my heart are tearing themselves in half.

  Except.

  That’s exactly how I feel right now.

  And when the FBI finally has everything they need from me to formally assume responsibility for the case, I go home so my heart can tear itself open in peace. I curl up in one of Jace’s shirts, smelling the achingly familiar scent of tea tree oil and leather.

  It was for his own good.

  But I think I may have shattered any hope of good being a part of my own life now, and even though it was worth it, I still have to mourn the cost.

  I gave him his future…

  And now mine is empty without him.

  Captain Kim calls me a few days later to tell me that both Jace and I will receive commendations from the chief at a special ceremony next week. He also tells me that since the case is no longer ours, Jace will return to Russo’s squad whenever he gets off medical leave.

  I should be happy about this—I know I should—but I hang up the phone and stare at my suddenly-too-big desk and feel like I’ve been hit in the chest.

  He’ll probably be relieved that we’ll be back to never seeing each other at work, but I’m not. I can’t be. I’ve only just now realized it, but I was counting on having at least this with him. At least the perfunctory hellos and goodbyes and accidental brushes of elbows and feet as we jostled for space at the same desk.

  It’s selfish to want it. I broke a good man’s heart, and I don’t get to have him close to me anymore. The sooner he moves on, the better it is for him, but I can’t stop the ache of grief that comes with it all. The gnaw of bitter loss. I just want him near me, even if I can’t have him, even if it’s better for him to meet other women and go live his life… The idea of not seeing those flashing gray eyes and that stern mouth, of not hearing that deep, rough voice…

  Ah, fuck, it hurts.

  It hurts so much I don’t know how I’ll survive it.

  But survive it I must, and survive it I do for the next week. I bury my pain in work, coming in early and staying up late in an attempt to exhaust my body and my mind. In an attempt to keep the sadness at bay and make myself too tired to miss Jace at night. It doesn’t work on either count, so I only succeed in making myself tired and miserable, which I feel like I deserve.

  I resist the urge to call.

  I resist the urge to visit, even after I hear he’s been released from the hospital.

  I resist the urge to throw myself at his feet and beg, beg, beg his forgiveness.

  It’s for his own good.

  It’s unfair that I have to be the strong one right now—the wise one—when all I want to do is curl up in his lap and have him play with my hair. When all I want to do is marry him and have lots of gray-eyed babies and spend the rest of our lives making each other breakfast and sharing the job we love.

  Because, yes, I see that now. I thought I hated that he was a cop as well. I thought I could never live with it, but now that we’re apart…I miss it. I miss having someone to talk over a case with, someone who understands the uniquely exhausting and exhilarating parts of the job. I miss having someone to share it with.

  All this tired unhappiness makes me jittery and anxious on the evening of the commendation ceremony. I pull on my dress uniform and pin on my brass with trembling fingers, and I don’t bother to apply lipstick because I know I’ll make a mess of it. And all because the man I love and had to push away will be there too.

  Get it together, Cat.

  But I can’t. My stomach is hollowed out and my pulse is pounding when I get to the central station and walk inside. It’s like every beat of my heart is saying Jace, Jace, Jace.

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

  I detest these ceremonies anyway. They’re anemic and bureaucratic and pointless. I already have several commendations on my wall. I’ve already gone to this same small reception room six times in my career and shaken the chief’s hand and received a signed piece of paper I’ll never look at again.

  And now I’ll have to go and do all this for the case that both brought me to Jace and also nearly got him killed?

  It’s very tempting to take this heavy dress hat off and go back to my car. Tempting just to walk away from it all—the ceremony and the memories and the inevitable agony I’ll feel when I finally lay eyes on the man I love.

  The man I hurt.

  But it’s not in my nature to shirk my duties, even if I think the duty pointless, so I keep the hat on and enter the reception hall, not surprised to see that it’s only half full, and that half is all Jace’s family.

  His mom looks over her shoulder at me as I walk in, and a flush rises to my cheeks, wondering if she hates me now that I’ve hurt Jace. Wondering if she now sees me as the predator I initially feared she would.

  Her face opens in a smile, and she gives me a small wave, her husband doing the same, and I manage a nod back as my heart squeezes. Even still, I want his family to like me. How foolish is that?

  There is, of course, nobody here for me. It’s much too trivial to ask my parents to come over from France, and I don’t have anyone else. No siblings. No close friends.

  A bolt of loneliness hits me so hard that I can barely keep my back straight…and that’s before I see him standing in front of me. Because when I see him, I think I might drop to my knees.

  He’s shaved for the ceremony, exposing fully that bladed jaw and that solemn, sensual mouth, but his hair is longer than he normally keeps it, dark and just a little messy, practically begging for my fingers to sift through it. The long-sleeved dress shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, testing the seams, and then the fitted fabric hugs the lean lines of his torso and waist. The tailored pants fit him almost indecently well, showing off narrow hips and long, powerful thighs, and even with his wounded arm up in a sling, he’s still all potent, dominant male.

  And when his fierce gray eyes lock on me, I know exactly whom he wants to dominate.

  My body answers immediately, obedient to his silent command, and my nipples harden against the silk of my bra. I hope the thick fabric of the uniform is enough to conceal my response, but I know there’s no hope for the blush on my cheekbones or the dilation of my pupils. He owns even the automatic responses of my body. He owns everything. So much so that even in front of this small crowd, I want to drag him off by his uniform tie and mount him in the first empty room we find.

  No, Cat.

  For his own good, remember?

  And anyway, his desire is fueled by his palpable anger with me. I can feel it radiating off him, seething, lustful hurt, and God help me, it makes me want him more than ever. I want all of that possessive, revengeful man over me and underneath
me. Claiming me. Destroying all my fears that he’ll one day want a younger woman, obliterating my fear for his safety with the primal, urgent proof of his life.

  I want to surrender the responsibility of doing the right thing. I want him to be the one to make all the hard choices now, and I want him to choose me.

  I want to tell him I love him and that I’m sorry.

  It hurts to tear my eyes from his, but I manage, approaching my chair and sitting without acknowledging him, which he scowls at. He also takes his seat, his long legs making it so our thighs brush briefly as he sits, and I can feel the shudder run through him as we touch. See his entire body quiver in ferocious restraint as the chief begins talking to the crowd.

  Minute by minute, my resolve lessens and my famous ice thaws. I can smell that masculine scent of clean leather and tea tree oil. I can see his clenched thigh next to my own and those huge hands white-knuckled where they rest in his lap.

  I’m weak, I’m so weak, because I want to beg his forgiveness and beg him to make me atone with my body, but I can’t. I can’t.

  Dammit, Cat, you can’t.

  “…and that’s why we’re proud to present Officer Jace Sutton and Detective Catherine Day with these commendations. Let’s give them a round of applause, shall we?”

  We stand up, and then there’s handshakes and pictures with the chief formally presenting us our commendation, and then finally, thankfully, it’s over.

  I bolt out of the reception room as fast as I can because I don’t trust myself around Jace a moment longer. If I so much as look at him, speak to him, I’m going to crumble. I’m going to beg him to make me crumble, and if I’m going to survive losing him, I have to hold on to my pride somehow.

  So I leave while he’s talking to his family and take a shortcut through the employee-only hallway back to the parking lot, breathing a sigh of relief when the door closes behind me. This is the hallway where most of the civilian employees and administrative personnel work, and since it’s evening, they’ve all left and I’m alone.

  I need to get home. I need to get home where I’m safe from my own weaknesses, where I can burn off this need for Jace Sutton with a long run and a good toy and not by finding him and fucking myself on his angry erection until we’re both too exhausted to move.

  A door creaks; I stop and turn.

  Jace is framed in the doorway like a wrathful god, striding toward me with a look on his face that would signal to any other woman to take cover.

  It only makes me ready for him, so ready that I ache. I’d do anything right now to ease that ache, any undignified thing, oh God oh God—

  “We’re going to talk now,” Jace says, reaching me and yanking me into him with his good arm. Every curve of mine presses against his hard body, and the unmistakable proof of his wanting to “talk” digs into my belly. “We’re going to talk until I fucking understand why you said the things you said that night.”

  I close my eyes in regret, in uncertainty. If I tell him I hated the things I said, that they were lies I chose for the plain fact that I needed to hurt him, then everything else will tumble out after it. How much I love him, how much I want him and want him to be mine.

  And if he knew that? If he knew he had permission to claim me forever?

  Then all of this would have been for nothing, and I wouldn’t have saved him or myself from all the pain waiting for us in the future.

  It’s remembering the awaiting pain—inevitable, unavoidable—that gives me strength. I open my eyes and gaze up at his face.

  “I said them because I had to,” I say, which is not a lie.

  Jace’s eyes narrow. “You said them to hurt me. Every day, I thought you’d call to explain more, to tell me you were lying. To tell me I wasn’t just…”

  “Just what?” I whisper.

  He exhales forcefully. “Just a young, dumb fuck. Just a good body for you to ride until you got bored.”

  I want to close my eyes again. I hate myself for giving him this doubt, this wound, but what else could I have done?

  His face changes when I don’t deny it right away, his defensive expression pulling into a dark scowl. “If that’s all you want,” he says roughly, “I can give it to you. You want me to fuck you like I did that first night, hmm? Bend you over the table and take what I need? Or what about the night I found you with Kenneth? What about the night I tore up your pretty silk blouse and tied you up with it so I could fuck your virgin ass?”

  Despite all my regret and torment, his words stir up my already primed body, and I can’t help the little moan that leaves my lips. His eyes flare, and suddenly I’m spun around, my hands pinned to the wall and my ass yanked back to his lap.

  “I knew it,” he breathes in my ear as his hand works at the belt to my dress pants. “Knew you wanted me.”

  I recognize distantly that I need to stop this, that I need to tell him my decision still stands no matter what, but dammit, I don’t want my decision to stand! And how can I deny my neglected body what it’s been keening for since I left him in that hospital room?

  Instead, I grind back against his cock and whimper the moment his hand slides into my panties, his middle finger finding my clit with unerring accuracy and rubbing me so perfectly that I feel the climax already pulling tight in my belly.

  “Yeah,” he grunts behind me, rocking his clothed erection against me as he fingers me with that blunt male prerogative that gets me so hot. “That’s it. Remind me how wet and tight that pussy gets for me. Remind me how hard I make it come.”

  I’ve been too long denied, too desperate, and his words eradicate any barrier between me and what he demands of my body. In a sharp, vicious instant, I come so hard my knees buckle and it’s his hand on my cunt keeping me upright.

  “Need to fuck you,” he mumbles into my hair. “Need it.”

  “Yes,” I breathe, still riding it out on his hand. “Yes, please, yes.”

  He pulls his hand free, and then I hear the unmistakable noise of him sucking his finger clean. It’s so carnal and raw that I think I might pass out from craving alone, from needing that massive cock stroking inside me—and then he uses his damp fingers to gently brush my hair away from my neck so he can kiss the sensitive skin there. That combination of dirty and tender that undoes me, every single time.

  I can feel him reaching for his belt, unfastening it one-handed and then tugging at his zipper. I arch my back, thinking I’ll yank my own pants down around my hips just so I’ll be ready when he is—and then he stops. Hand on his zipper, his lips against my nape, he goes completely still.

  “Please,” I whimper. I’ll die if he doesn’t give it to me. “Jace.”

  He shivers at my plea, but then the ragged inhale he sucks in tells me his shiver wasn’t one of pleasure.

  “I can’t,” he says after a moment. “I won’t.”

  He’s there behind me, erect and unzipped, and I’m wet from the frantic, heated orgasm he just gave me in the hallway of a police station…

  …and it’s not going to happen.

  He’s not going to fuck me. There’s not going to be some kind of electric connection that fixes everything between us. No frenzy of sweat and need that absolves us of past sins and leaves us clean and ready for a new future on the other side.

  I’m frozen in place, my hands still spread against the wall like I’m being frisked, and I don’t know what to say or what to do. I don’t know what he needs or what I need. I don’t know how to make this okay between us, how to get back to where we were before I defaced it with my fears.

  Oh God. I want things to go back to the way they were?

  What does that even mean?

  His hand fists at my shirt near my shoulder, keeping me close to him. “I want to,” he murmurs against my neck. “Fuck, I want to. And I thought maybe…maybe if this was the only way you’d take me, then I’d give it to you, because that’s how much I want you in my arms. But I—” He takes a determined breath, his chest swelling against my back. �
��But I can’t do that to us, and I won’t cheapen what I feel for you.”

  God, how is he so good? So good even now, after I’ve hurt him? After I’ve shut him out? Maybe I’ve been wrong about which one of us is the mature one, the wise one. Maybe I should have trusted Jace’s faith in us from the beginning…

  He lets me go with a finality that makes me wince, zipping up and buckling his belt all before I can manage to turn to face him.

  Fix this! my heart demands, but I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can.

  And it doesn’t matter because Jace is right in front of me, but he may as well already be out the door. His silver gaze is filled with pained resignation.

  “It was never something tawdry or transactional on my end,” he says quietly. “In fact, I always believed you were the best thing to have ever happened to me.”

  A choked noise echoes in the hallway, and I only realize it came from me when I feel a hot tear trace down my cheek to my jaw.

  “And now I know,” he continues, just as quietly, “that you never believed the reverse.”

  “Jace,” I say, more tears coming now. “Stop. Please, that’s not—”

  “It’s okay,” he says, running his hand over his face. “It’s okay. I can’t make you love me like I love you, and you know what? I don’t want to make you. I thought I could prove to you that you were mine. I thought I could possess you with my body, and that would be enough—but I don’t want to possess you if you don’t want to be possessed, you know? It’s only worth calling you mine if you say it right back to me. And I know what happened with Frazer was fucked up, I know me getting shot was terrifying, but there’s got to be a time when you choose to move forward, no matter how scary it is.”

  He leans forward and kisses my forehead, and my mind—normally the sharp, focused tool I prize—fails me. I’m searching through his words for an answer, searching through my own thoughts, and it’s so hard because I’m crying and I can’t see, and all I can do is slump back against the wall and try to breathe. Try to live.