Handled: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World)

by Heather Slade

  “I’m sorry about my mom.”

  “Don’t be. If I hadn’t slept so late, I would’ve been long gone by the time she got here.”

  “That’s my fault too. I didn’t let you get much sleep. Where are you now?”

  “Same place I was last night.”

  “I wish I was there,” he murmured so quietly I could barely hear him.

  “One of us has to get some work done.”

  “Speaking of work. I’m ready whenever you are.”

  I looked up at the ceiling, wondering if I should just tell Cope to forget it, but that might make him more suspicious than my lying to him had.

  “Ali?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Hammer is headed back into my office, so I better end this call. Will you still be there when I get home?” It sounded like Cope’s hand went over the phone’s mic. In the background, I could hear muffled voices. “I’ll see you later, baby.”

  His voice was so sexy, I wanted to crawl through the now-ended call and wrap my legs around his waist. I rolled over on my side and dropped my phone on the bed. What was wrong with me? Since when was I sex-starved-Suzy?

  I’d had boyfriends…and sex. It had been okay. I mean, sometimes it was better than okay, but it had never been great…until last night. Sex with Cope was off-the-fucking-charts great. And I couldn’t let it happen again.

  Again, what had I been thinking? I’d been hired to find out whether Sumner Copeland was as dirty of an agent as Paxon Warrick. I had no doubt many approached similar assignments by having sex with the person they were investigating, but that wasn’t who I was. At least not who I was before I met Cope.

  Rolling from the bed, I grabbed the clothes that would cover the bottom half of my body, pulled them on as best I could with the use of only one arm, and gathered my dignity.

  “How was your nap, dear?” asked Laurel when I walked down the hallway and found her sitting on the sofa, reading.

  “Great, thanks. I’m…um…I need my…uh…laptop.”

  She set her book down. “Before you go, I was wondering if you and I might have a chat?”

  “It isn’t the best time. I have—”

  She stood. “Ali, please?”

  I walked over and was about to sit in the chair when she sat back down and patted the sofa beside her. I swallowed my groan and did her bidding. “What do you want to chat about?”

  She weaved her fingers together and rested her hands on her knee. “I can’t help but notice that my son is quite taken with you.”

  “Your son doesn’t know me, Mrs. Copeland.”

  She raised a brow, and I didn’t care. Before she could say anything else, I stood. “Sumner and I met less than a week ago when I arrived in town to cover the trial of Paxon Warrick on behalf of the Express. After a handful of serendipitous encounters, during which your son portrayed a side of himself I have since learned isn’t typical of him, he felt obligated to look out for me. I am a journalist, your son is a handler for the CIA, and you are the wife of a senator who believes that people like me are his worst enemy, likely rightly so.

  “Please do not misunderstand me. I appreciate everything you and your son have done for me. However, we both know that it doesn’t matter whether Sumner is taken with me or not. Goodbye, Mrs. Copeland.”

  I squared my shoulders and walked to the door of the apartment.

  “You’re wrong,” I heard her say from behind me.

  I stopped and looked up at the ceiling, knowing my mother would be ashamed of me if I walked out without responding. I turned around, and she was within a foot of me. “Mrs. Copeland—”

  She held up a hand. “I, too, am quite taken with you, Ali. In many ways, you remind me of myself. What I was going to say, had you let me finish, is that I hope neither Sumner nor I have reason to regret it.”

  There was nothing more for me to add. She would. And so would her son.

  I was just inside my apartment when my cell rang with a call from Jessica.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. Cope—”

  “It’s okay, but listen. Something else has gone down, I’m not sure what or with whom, but Money is looking into it. He wants to hold off on meeting until next week, when he knows what it is.”

  I ended the call, silently praying that whatever had gone down wasn’t something that would further implicate Cope. I shook my head, knowing what I really should do was call Jessica back and tell her to assign someone else to this investigation. Instead, I opened a bottle of wine.

  Sixteen

  Cope

  When I got out of the elevator, Buck stood and walked toward me.

  “Ali asked me to give you this.” He handed me an envelope. I took a step forward, and he moved between me and Ali’s door and shook his head. “She doesn’t want to see you, Cope.”

  “Is that right?”

  Buck nodded. “Read it.”

  “You know what’s in it?” I asked, when what I really wanted to do was tell the asshole to fuck off.

  “You know better than that.”

  “What’s going on here, Buck?”

  He took off his cowboy hat and ran his hand through his long hair.

  “You need to see a barber.”

  His eyes opened wide, and he laughed. “Probably right.” The smile left his face. “I’m not exactly sure what set it off, but if I had to guess, I’d say your mother and Ali may have had words.”

  He had to be wrong. That didn’t sound like either of them. “What happened?”

  “About two hours after your mother showed up at your apartment with a month’s worth of groceries, Ali stormed out of it. She didn’t say anything until after we were off the elevator and headed over to her building.”

  “Who was?”

  “Ali and me.”

  “Go on.”

  “She’s usually pretty friendly, but not today. At least not then. She stopped at the entrance to the building and asked me not to come upstairs.”

  “You went anyway?”

  “Of course I did. As I told her, it was the job I was hired to do.”

  “Then what?”

  Buck laughed. “She tried mighty hard to slam the door. I think she might’ve hurt herself doin’ it.”

  Before I could react to Ali being hurt, her door swung open. She stood on the threshold with her right hand on her hip. “I can hear you talking about me.”

  “Have I told any lies?” Buck asked her in a tone that was far too flirtatious in my opinion. Where in the hell was Rock, anyway?

  “You’re here. You might as well come in.” She waved her hand at me and glared at Buck, who just kept laughing.

  I followed her into the kitchen.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  I nodded at the half-full bottle of wine on the counter. “Are you supposed to be drinking that while you’re on pain meds?”

  “Do you want a glass or not?”

  “Sure.” I pulled out a stool at the kitchen counter and sat. “What’s this all about, Ali?” I asked, waving the envelope.

  “It’s a thank you note.” She set a glass of wine in front of me and turned to look in the refrigerator. “I’d offer you something to eat, but I haven’t had a chance to go to the market.”

  “What happened between you and my mom?”

  “We had a friendly conversation, during which she warned me away from you, and I listened.”

  It was all I could do not to let my jaw drop. “You’re kidding.”

  She took a hefty swig of the wine in her glass and refilled it with what was left in the bottle. “That was the gist of it.”

  I stood, walked around the counter, took Ali’s glass from her hand, and set it down. She ran her hand through her hair, like Buck had, only she dragged it over her face. “How much of this have you had?” I asked when I opened the trash to throw the one away and saw a second empty bottle.

  “I didn’t drink all of that one.”

  I wanted to ask who had
and what she meant by “all,” but that wasn’t important—for now. She walked over to the sofa, plopped down on it in a way that led me to think she was feeling no pain, and rested her head against the back of it.

  “This was a mistake,” she said, staring up at the ceiling through the hair that covered most of her face.

  “What exactly?”

  “This. You. Especially you.” She sat up and tried to fold her arms, and then evidently remembered one was in a cast. “Buck wasn’t supposed to let you in.”

  I smiled and ran my finger down her cheek. “You let me in, Ali.”

  She flopped against the back of the couch again and closed her eyes. I moved the hair from her forehead.

  “It’s hopeless.”

  I shifted closer and put my arm around her. “Nothing’s hopeless.”

  “It is. No matter how many times you move it, my hair just goes right back.” She leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder.

  “What happened today, Ali?”

  She took a deep breath and blew it out, confirming she’d had at least some of the other bottle of wine. “She said you were taken with me, and she told me not to regret it. Wait. That isn’t right. She told me not to make you regret it.”

  This was sounding more like my mother, but not quite. Something else must’ve happened. Rather than question Ali further, I’d ask my mom tomorrow.

  “You will,” she whispered.

  “Not a chance.”

  “Why are you so nice to me?” She turned her body more and buried her head in my shoulder. Not five minutes later, when I heard her soft snores, I gathered her in my arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  Her bed was already unmade, so I set her down and covered her with the sheet and blanket before toeing off my shoes, removing my tie and shirt, and dropping my pants. Ali’s back was to me, so I curled myself around her body and draped my arm over her waist.

  “I really like you, Cope.”

  “I really like you too, Ali.”

  I don’t know how long it was before she got up and went into the bathroom. When she came back, she had taken off my sweatshirt and sat on the side of the bed. I got out on the other side, came around, and helped her remove her yoga pants.

  “What about these?” she asked when I left her panties on. I removed those as carefully as I had her pants.

  I was told what a good guy I was countless times in my life, to the point that I hated hearing it. Right now, I hated being it.

  By the time I walked around the end of the bed and crawled in beside her, Ali was snoring again. Like before, I curled my body into hers and fell asleep too.

  “Cope,” Ali said, shaking me.

  I opened my eyes. “What? Are you okay?”

  “You have to go.”

  It took me a minute to figure out where I was. “What time is it?”

  “Five. You have to go, or you’ll be late.”

  I rested my head against the pillow. “It’s Sunday, Ali, and even if it weren’t, there’d be no court today.”

  “Why not?”

  I hadn’t made up my mind whether I’d tell her what happened, and she obviously hadn’t heard. “Get back in bed.” When she did, I drew her close to me. “They found a bomb in the courthouse Friday afternoon.”

  “What?”

  When she tried to scoot away, I held her tighter.

  “No one was hurt, and the bomb was diffused, but it means a continuance.”

  She wiggled free enough to raise her head and look at me. “You could’ve been killed.”

  So could’ve she, had she been there. For the first time since it happened, I was thankful for Ali’s accident.

  “I’m taking a leave from the agency.”

  “Why? Because of the bomb?”

  “In part, but it isn’t that simple. It’s just a good idea until I get through this thing with Warrick. I’m distracted, and that isn’t fair to the other agents I handle.”

  “What happens now?”

  “We go back to sleep.” I moved the sheet so I could see her breast, reached forward, and cupped it. “Unless you have a better idea.”

  “I’m serious.”

  I looked into her ocean eyes. “So am I,” I said, moving my hand to cup her chin instead of her breast, and kissed her. I deepened it and moved my body over hers. When Ali reached for me, I covered her hand with mine. “Wait, baby.”

  Her eyes closed to slits and then reopened. “Why?”

  “I don’t have a condom.”

  She smiled and rolled away from me. “No promises.” She opened the drawer of the nightstand. “Who knows how long they’ve been in here.” She tossed a handful over her shoulder and turned on the light.

  “They have a couple good years left in them,” I told her, ripping a packet open with my teeth.

  “Do you need help?” I asked later when I saw Ali staring at the coffeemaker.

  “I know how to do it, it just takes more than one hand.”

  I came up behind her and reached under her arms. “Put them where you want them.” I laughed when Ali placed my left hand on one of the dials and my right on her breast.

  She adjusted something on the machine with her right hand, and steaming coffee flowed into the cup. She moved that one out of the way and grabbed another.

  “You can move it, you know.”

  “Move what?”

  “Your hand.”

  I let go of the knob.

  “Not that one,” she said, placing it back where it was.

  “This one?” I squeezed her tit.

  “Move it more.”

  I trailed it down her body and between her legs. “Is this better?”

  “Much,” she groaned, leaning against me while the machine filled the second cup of coffee.

  When I thrust two fingers inside her and rubbed her clit with the pad of my thumb, Ali cried out. “God, Cope.” She writhed, rubbing her ass against my cock until I thought I’d come too. She cried out once more and dropped her head. If my hand weren’t still between her legs, she might’ve sunk to the floor. I lifted her in my arms and carried her back to the bed.

  “But…coffee!” she cried.

  I leaned down and kissed her. “Be right back.”

  I’d just poured cream into Ali’s cup when I heard my phone ringing in the bedroom. Given the time, I had it set to do-not-disturb mode. There were only two types of calls that rang through. It was either one of my parents or a call being forwarded from my secure unit.

  I set Ali’s cup on the bedside stand beside her. “That’s hot,” I told her and laughed when she rolled her eyes.

  “You’re such a Boy Scout.”

  I grabbed my phone and went back to the kitchen to get my coffee, disturbed to see that the call I’d missed was from my dad.

  If I had a stitch of clothing on, I would’ve gone outside the apartment door to return his call, but given Rock was out there, I’d spare him.

  “Everything okay?” I asked when my father answered.

  “What happened Friday?”

  “Haven’t you received the brief?”

  “Sumner, I insist you tell me what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in. Whatever it is, I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  “Dad, I need you to trust that I know what I’m doing. If a time comes when I need your help, I’ll let you know.”

  “I love you, Son.”

  I ended the call and took a sip of my coffee. When I returned to the bedroom, Ali was staring into space.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “Are you?”

  “My dad,” I answered, shaking my head.

  “You shouldn’t talk to me about him.”

  I set my coffee down and got back into bed. “Because of what happened yesterday with my mom?”

  “Because I’m a journalist.”

  “You’re right.”

  “You shouldn’t talk to me at all.”

  I rolled to my side and studied her. “Ali?”
r />   She looked from the blank wall to me. “I’m serious, Cope.”

  “I’ve been down this road a time or two. I know what I can talk about and what I can’t.”

  “This is why we shouldn’t see each other anymore.” She waved her hand over the bed. “Like this.”

  “I didn’t handle our conversation very well that day when I drove you back from the courthouse and I said that because you were a reporter, we shouldn’t talk. I didn’t handle much of anything well that day but, Ali, I believe we’re both adult enough to know which lines not to cross.”

  “Are we? Because I’d say we crossed the biggest of them all.”

  I lay on my back and looked up at the ceiling. I understood what she was saying. She was right, and I didn’t want to accept it.

  “What about your job?”

  “I’m sure I’ll be assigned to something else.”

  “Ali?”

  “What?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What else will you be assigned to?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged and looked to her left.

  It was a slight tell, but I was trained to recognize it. Ali fucking lied to me—again. I felt the muscles in my shoulders tense, and I was about to get out of bed and storm back to my apartment. But was that who I was? I didn’t walk away when someone lied to me. I called them out on it.

  “Let’s try that again, but with the truth this time.”

  Instead of me getting out of bed and storming off, Ali did. She went into the bathroom and closed the door. Maybe she expected that when she came out, I’d be gone, but I wouldn’t be. As crazy as it was, I cared about Ali Graham. I wanted this thing between us to work, and that meant, instead of lying, we needed to handle what we could and couldn’t tell each other differently.

  When I heard water come on, I got out of bed and walked over to the bathroom door, relieved to find she hadn’t locked it. When I opened it, she was getting into the tub. Since I was already naked, I walked over and climbed in too. I didn’t sit behind her; we were going to face each other and have this conversation.

  Seventeen

  Ali