‘Rushe.’
‘Who makes you feel like this? Makes you feel good?’
‘Rushe.’
‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Who’s your man?’
‘Rushe.’
And with a pause, his knuckle pressed into her clit hard, then he began to massage that button, and Flick cried out. Rushe’s form shifted, but Flick couldn’t push up into that sheer indulgence he bestowed on her because he held her down.
When his hand left her on the brink of gratification, Flick’s compulsion was to move but Rushe took hold of her and parted her legs, and then the tickle of his hair on her thighs betrayed what would come next. He kissed her clit, sucking it in between his lips. Flick yelped at the plunge into orgasm, but Rushe wasn’t done yet.
Probing her entrance with his tongue, he tickled it up one side of her, then down the other, bypassing the clit. Again, he tasted her intimately, and on her gratuitous whimper, he flicked her swollen bud. Once and again, working until he got her into another lather. Her feet met his shoulders and slid up until his hair tickled between her toes.
Removing her feet from his head he pressed them into the carpet, his tongue still working her clit. He let his hands glide up her shins and snatched hold of her thighs, pinning her pelvis in place for him to sample her deeper, pushing his tongue into her aching passage.
‘Rushe.’
The word dissolved on her lips so she said it again, and again. Saying his name anchored her, all that was in her mind was him, he was the only thing that existed, and they had each other. Every second they had together was precious, and Flick didn’t want to forget that for a single heartbeat.
On the cusp of another climax, Rushe’s mouth left and he came up upon her, smudging their mouths, treating her to the taste of herself on his lips. Linking her ankles high on his back, Rushe sheathed himself in her at a gradual, luscious pace, designed to remind them both of what was happening. Getting caught in the moment, the drive for completion, for consummation, often left the process lost. But the process was what mattered.
The orgasm might be the end goal, but that was easy; they’d proved their ability to pleasure the other. But this tender action reminded them that getting here wasn’t easy, and they could still lose each other again. They could be ripped apart, and if they were then all they’d have were the memories.
Flick opened her eyes to see Rushe there above her, watching the nuance of her expression. Somehow without saying the words she knew he’d shared her thoughts.
‘I love you,’ she whispered when he slid out and in again, taking his sumptuous time.
His smile was elusive but he lowered some of his weight to her, rasping the stubble on his jaw into her hair. ‘I love you.’
Flick slipped her hands up his back to take hold of his head and lift it to again meet his eyes. This union was as important as the one of their bodies. For a brief second there they’d almost lost each other, they’d almost forgotten the trust they’d forged. But now they were on the same page again. So bringing his mouth down to hers, Flick delighted in the flavour of them. Keeping their tongues woven, Rushe controlled the pace. Flick brought her hips up to meet every one of his plunges. He kicked it up when she moaned out while coiling her arms around his neck.
Rushe knew her body better than she did, and he knew exactly what he was doing to her. Their bodies had become attuned to what the other needed. Rushe always delivered right on time.
Chapter Twenty-One
The curtains in the suite were not as effective as the curtains they’d had in their previous home, meaning they awoke earlier. Rushe insisted on having lots of sex before they got out of bed, and Flick wouldn’t disappoint him. Although she had to admit to being the guilty initiator, she had pleasured him awake, and she had been the one who joined him during what turned out to be aborted shower number one.
To entertain her while he went to the gym, Rushe had given her his laptop. After promising him faithfully that she would not leave this suite, Flick had worked on trying to delve into the information that had so far alluded her. Success alluded her too.
So abandoning her work on the laptop, Flick crawled across the suite floor, which she’d been sitting on until now. She grabbed the hotel phone and requested the operator, because she needed to call in reinforcements.
‘You on the run?’ Liam said, when she got through to him.
‘On the run?’ Flick asked. ‘Why would I be on the run?’
‘There were some guys here asking about you today, suits, so I figured you’d used your covert information-gathering skills for evil.’
‘No,’ Flick said. ‘When was that? When did they come over?’
‘This morning.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing,’ Liam said. ‘I didn’t know any of the answers to their questions.’
‘Ok, good,’ Flick said.
This was another problem to get to the bottom of, in addition to the still unanswered question of who had broken into the apartment. If someone was looking for something, they hadn’t found it during the burglary last Tuesday, and now they’d moved on to questioning Liam at the library.
‘What can I do for you? I assume it’s not a social call. You’re still with the big scary boyfriend?’
‘Yeah,’ Flick said. ‘Look, I was wondering, is there any way to... if I wanted to find out about records, criminal records, which might be sealed. Can I do that?’
‘You want to look at... why?’
‘I can’t say,’ Flick said, squeezing her eyes closed. ‘If I did tell you then you’d only end up being in trouble.’
‘I could be in trouble either way,’ Liam said. ‘That kind of hacking isn’t exactly legal.’
Most of what Flick asked Liam about wasn’t legal, it certainly wasn’t regular, but the stakes hadn’t been this high before.
‘It’s important,’ Flick said. ‘But if you don’t want to help me, I understand.’
‘You can’t tell me what it’s about?’
‘I’m trying to help people. I’m trying to help women... have you noticed anything in the newspapers about women turning up dead?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But I might have...’
‘What?’
‘Been keeping an eye on the daily crime logs.’
‘What about them?’ Flick asked, knowing that wasn’t in the scope of his job description.
But part of the reason they’d become such fast, easy friends was because of their matching inquisitive natures.
‘Lisa Lewis, you were looking up stuff on that chick, weren’t you?’
‘What about her?’
Flick hadn’t told Liam anything, but finding out what she’d been researching on a terminal only a few feet from his office wouldn’t be difficult for a man of his skills. If suits had showed up at the library to question him about her, it probably would have prompted him to try and find out what she was involved with.
‘OD’d, Thursday night. They found her on Friday, in an alley a few blocks from the college.’
Thursday night, Flick’s mouth parched. Whyte hadn’t come to her on the Thursday, despite what had happened in the X-Lounge, when she fell on Rushe the previous night. He came to her frantic on the Friday morning, only a few hours after Lisa must have died. That had to be the reason for his uncharacteristic behaviour.
The sting in her eyes matched that in her nostrils, but the tightness of her throat hindered her breathing. Flick fell back onto her haunches and focused on the table. Michael Lewis had come to her. Flick had made Rushe take the case. Lisa had been Joey’s sexual plaything. She had accused Flick of trying to steal him. Lisa had love, and had fear, and passion in her heart, and now she was dead.
‘Flick,’ Liam said. ‘Flick, are you there?’
‘She’s dead?’
‘Yeah. Whatever it is you’re doing, I’d advise you to stop. You should get the hell away from whatever you’re mixed up in. If your boyfriend—‘
‘He told me to stay away from it, but I got both of us mixed up.’
‘Then you should both get out of here,’ Liam said. ‘This girl is dead and now people are asking questions about you – you’re not safe.’
‘I can’t leave now,’ Flick said. ‘It’s exactly what they want me to do. If I run scared, more women will die.’
‘How will you help them if you’re the one who’s dead?’
‘Rushe won’t let that happen.’
‘He’s the boyfriend?’ Liam asked. ‘He doesn’t have his head on straight if he’s let you get into this.’
‘How do I access sealed police records?’ Flick asked, shaking off the despair of the moment because those feelings wouldn’t help anyone.
‘Flick—‘
‘Help me or don’t,’ Flick said. ‘But I don’t need you to give me safety advice.’
Liam sighed out, and Flick was sure he was about to tell her to get lost. ‘Tell me what you need and I’ll find it.’
‘What? No, I couldn’t ask you to... it’s not safe.’
‘I don’t need safety advice either,’ he said. ‘If you want the information, I’ll find it.’
Flick gave Liam the details before they ended the call. She didn’t know what to do now. Rushe needed to know. Michael needed to know too. His family would be devastated by this loss. But as the swamp of reality almost swallowed her down, Flick recalled what Rushe had said about caring, about getting too close. On that reminder, she crawled back to her computer and kept on going. Grieving wouldn’t do anyone any good right now, the family would have that covered. Flick needed to do her job.
A couple of hours later there was a knock on the door. Flick scrambled away from her notes to answer it, remembering to peek at who it was first. Identifying Liam, she opened the door and snatched his jacket to pull him inside.
‘What the—‘
‘Sorry,’ Flick said, patting his jacket back down when the door closed at his back.
Allowing Liam to come here was an easy decision for her. He’d answered her questions, without pushing for more information. The fact that he’d been visited by suits and hadn’t revealed what he did know scored him more points on the trust scale. The library visit also proved that if anyone had wanted to hurt the engineer they’d had ample opportunity to do it while he wandered the streets and had failed to do so. She felt safe inviting him here into what was now their home. Flick didn’t have Rushe’s aversion to asking for help.
‘Do you want a drink?’ she asked, as they moved into the room.
‘I want to know what you’re mixed up in,’ Liam said, marching over to where she had been working to dump down the files he’d brought in with him. Flick went to the bar to pour out a couple of mineral waters.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Flick said.
‘Why the hell are you staying here?’ Liam asked. ‘In a hotel? What’s wrong with your apartment?’
‘It was robbed.’
His usual easy manner was a far-flung memory, because right now his frown was rigid. ‘Robbed? I didn’t see that on the police logs.’
Liam wouldn’t have her address, unless he’d looked her up on the library computer, which she supposed was likely. ‘I didn’t report it to the police. I got the locks changed. We’re moving out of there anyway.’
‘Which is why you’re in a hotel?’
‘Sort of,’ Flick said, bringing him his drink. ‘Sit down.’
Flick sat on the couch, but Liam remained on his feet. She picked up the folders he’d brought.
‘What do you need info on those guys for?’
‘Background,’ Flick said.
‘Joey Galante has a solicitation rap.’
‘I knew about that,’ she said. Liam chose to sit now, in the chair at the top of the table. He shrugged off his jacket and drank from the glass she’d given him. ‘I need to know what isn’t a matter of public record.’
‘Kids’ stuff.’
‘Whyte?’ she asked, lifting her attention to Liam.
‘There’s a couple of things on there, but the guy is a saint now. This is his hotel you’re sitting in. If you think he’s that dangerous—‘
‘I don’t think he’s dangerous,’ Flick said, scanning over the papers.
‘You should.’
Flick turned at the sound of Rushe’s voice to see him throw the door back into its frame. Liam twisted to look over the back of his seat.
‘Lover...’
Rushe wore his permanent scowl, and Flick wondered how he seemed to physically grow while he intimidated people. He was always big, but when he was like this, he truly was the immovable object.
‘Up,’ Rushe said, when he reached Liam’s chair.
Liam stood up, but his height of five eleven didn’t come close to matching Rushe’s superior vantage point. ‘Am I in your seat?’ Liam asked.
‘You’re in my room, with my woman.’
Liam glanced at Flick. ‘You weren’t kidding about him, were you?’
‘You can pee on me later, this is important,’ Flick said. ‘Rushe this is Liam, Liam meet Rushe.’
‘Bedroom,’ Rushe commanded, without taking that fixed glare away from Liam.
‘No,’ Flick said. ‘You do not need to protect me from him. Liam is here to help. He got us information on Whyte from before... he has been in trouble with the law...’ Still Rushe glowered. ‘Look at the information, Rushe, please, if you still want to beat Liam to a bloody pulp later you can... we know where he lives.’
‘For crissakes, how did you...’ Liam started, but Rushe turned and snatched the folder from Flick, skulking away to take the time to absorb the material that Flick hadn’t completely read yet.
Liam sat down again, or rather his legs gave from under him. Flick sat too giving the computer geek some cover for his anxiety and adrenaline fuelled action.
‘He’s going to beat me up?’ Liam whispered. ‘You said big and scary, you didn’t say...’
‘What?’ Flick snapped. ‘He’s not going to beat you up unless you upset me. If you plan to be derogatory about the man I love, that might happen.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything derogatory, I was going to say intense. He’s intense.’
‘Yeah,’ Flick said, half a smile curled her lips as her eyes drifted to Rushe who stood against the wall, reading. ‘He is, isn’t he?’
‘This cop—’ Rushe lifted his head but stopped talking when he saw Flick looking at him. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Flick said.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘No reason.’
‘We’re working,’ Rushe chided.
‘I wasn’t thinking about sex,’ Flick said, though being the first one to use the word sort of disproved her claim.
‘I feel awkward,’ Liam said.
Flick shook her head. ‘What about the cop?’
‘In this report,’ Rushe said, glancing back at the page as he moved in toward the back of the couch Flick sat on. ‘The cop said they found him in this person’s house. That’s risky.’
‘Whyte?’ Flick asked. ‘Maybe he was robbing the place.’
‘No,’ Rushe said, shaking his head and scraping through the pages to find something else. ‘Joey’s got charges for shoplifting, for stealing, they caught him trying to boost a car.’
‘Kids’ stuff,’ Liam said.
‘Right,’ Rushe agreed, and went back to the original sheet he’d been looking at.
‘Joey’s father, and the Galante family, had plenty of money,’ Flick said. ‘Why would Joey need to—‘
‘For fun,’ Rushe said. ‘He did it for attention, from his folks, or his peers. I don’t give a fuck.’
‘Why is that report significant?’ Flick asked, noting that Rushe was reading it again.
‘There are a few other incidents, Whyte creeping around in yards, snooping around in the places teens went to make-out and whatever. He doesn’t get involved in the regular kids’ stuff. No vandali
sm, no noise violations, no drunkeness...’
‘But we knew he liked...’ Flick trailed off and went back to her original question. ‘Why is that report significant?’
‘Escalation,’ Liam said, drawing the attention of both Rushe and Flick. ‘I don’t know what you guys are talking about. But a kid caught snooping in yards, or on kids in cars, that’s one thing. Getting into a person’s house, while they’re in it, that’s an escalation.’
‘Right,’ Rushe said, though Flick knew it cost him to agree with Liam, but that only widened her smile.
‘So he was in the house, and they caught him? What was his excuse?’
‘Panty raid dare,’ Rushe said, closing the folder and tossing it down on the couch beside her. ‘But it’s significant...’
‘Because it’s an escalation?’ Liam asked.
‘Because the parents weren’t home,’ Rushe said to Flick. ‘The kid called the cops, the cops found Whyte. The kid had an empty house and he’d snuck his girlfriend in. They planned to have the house to themselves.’
Flick opened the folder to seek the report, and she began to skim read it.
‘Surprised they called the cops then,’ Liam said. ‘The kid would have been afraid to get caught.’
‘Not afraid enough to confront a burglar, or to explain to his parents why their house was stripped.’
‘Oh my god,’ Flick breathed and looked up to Rushe, his eyebrow relaxed a fraction. ‘The girl.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What?’ Liam asked.
Rushe locked his eyes on Flick, and for half a beat their conversation was psychic. That one piece of information was so crucial and they would have to revisit it together. But, with their audience, now wasn’t the time. Gathering up the file, Flick put it back on the table, and Rushe turned to stride to the door.
‘You’ve been a great help,’ Flick said to Liam, leaving the couch to take Liam’s hand and pull him up from his seat.
‘You’re kicking me out?’
‘I thank you so much.’
‘Flick, you have to think about—‘
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