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

by Heather Slade

  Cope wrapped his hand around my ankle and brought my foot to the middle of his chest. I loved seeing his hands on me. Feeling them too. I didn’t like him crawling inside of my head, though. I closed my eyes and focused on his fingers digging into the arch of my foot.

  The worst part was, if I told Jessica I felt like I was in over my head with him, she’d encourage me to keep going.

  “Ali,” I heard him murmur.

  I tried to wrench my foot away, but he held on. “I’m not letting go.”

  “Even if I drown?”

  “Especially if you do.”

  I opened my eyes and studied him. “I can’t talk to you about my work, Cope.”

  “There will be times I can’t talk to you about mine either, but it isn’t necessary to lie about it.”

  His fingertips trailed up the inside of my leg. “We can do this, Ali.”

  I closed my eyes and slid farther down into the tub, gasping when he thrust his fingers inside of me. I could hear him moving in the water, his other hand on my knee then on my hip. He grabbed my waist with both hands, set me on the edge of the tub, and spread my legs.

  “Open your eyes and look at me.”

  I shook my head, refusing.

  He brought his mouth to mine and kissed me. I wrapped my arm around his neck and, when he tried to pull back, held him tighter.

  “You feel it too,” he murmured.

  I wanted to deny it. I couldn’t. The attraction between us was more intense than anything I’d felt before. My eyes were still closed when he set me on my feet inside the tub, sat where I’d been sitting, and pulled my thighs so I straddled him.

  “Come on, Ali,” he growled. “Fuck me.” I opened my eyes and saw he’d rolled on a condom. Positioning himself at my entrance, he eased me onto him. When I started to move, he wrapped his arms around my waist and held me still. Bending down, he sucked my nipple into his mouth.

  “I need to move,” I groaned.

  “No.”

  I smiled. It wasn’t just the sex. I really liked this guy. Too much. Way too much. Not just his mouth. Or his hands. Or the way his cock stretched and filled me. Him.

  “Cope—”

  He turned our bodies and stood. He was still inside me as he carried me to the bed. Our eyes met and I felt it. I was fucked, and not because he’d started moving inside me.

  When I tried to get out of bed later, Cope snaked his arm around my waist and kissed my spine. I looked over my shoulder. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Always.” He nibbled the soft skin of my waist, and I giggled. He let me go, rolled off the other side of the bed, and I watched him pick up his phone.

  “Are you calling someone?”

  “My mother.”

  I rolled my eyes and padded out to the kitchen. I was staring at my empty refrigerator when he joined me. “Get dressed, and we’ll go over to my place.”

  I spun around. “Why?”

  “Because I have food.”

  “I should stay here.”

  “Why?” He looked like a little boy who wasn’t used to hearing no.

  “I have work to do.”

  His nostrils flared, and he rubbed his hand through his hair. He turned and looked away from me. “I’ll bring it back, then.”

  “What, food?” I laughed.

  “You need to eat.”

  “I’ll order something.” Better yet, maybe once Cope left, I’d attempt going to the grocery.

  He pulled out a stool and sat at the kitchen counter. I studied him. Something was on his mind.

  “I feel like there’s a lot you’re not telling me, Ali.”

  I took a deep breath and turned away from him. “You’re right. And there’s a lot you’re not telling me, Cope.”

  I heard the scrape of the stool on the tile floor and felt him walk closer. I closed my eyes, waiting for his touch.

  “There’s a difference between me not telling you something and you lying to me.”

  “That isn’t fair.”

  “Isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Are you saying you haven’t lied to me?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I knew when he walked away; I felt cold. I stayed where I was, looking at the windows I was too afraid to get closer to, until I heard him leave.

  Once he was gone, I called Jessica, who told me the meeting with Money was still on hold. I assumed it was because of the bomb at the courthouse, and I was fine with that. I had nothing to tell him, and with Buck or Rock on constant vigil, I didn’t know how I’d get away without one of them alerting Cope.

  The division of the CIA I worked for was similar to the internal affairs department of other law enforcement agencies. When someone on the inside was suspected of operating outside their limits of power, agents like me were brought in. The nature of the investigations our department handled precluded other agents being alerted of our coming in, in fact, we reported to the Office of the Inspector General rather than the Director of the CIA. Keeping my identity a secret was also the reason I wasn’t based in DC.

  While I was good at my job, I wondered if the accident and the pain meds I was on because of it, were clouding my judgment.

  I hadn’t been on the case that long, but my gut was telling me Cope was clean. Like Money, the man who’d originally requested an internal affairs agent be assigned, I felt there was something about Cope’s association with Irish that didn’t make sense.

  Money was looking for more than my gut instinct, though, which meant I had to figure out a way to get closer to Cope, and not just between the sheets.

  Allowing him to leave earlier was a mistake that needed to be fixed.

  Eighteen

  Cope

  A smart man would’ve walked out and kept going. Instead, I made it as far as the lobby of my building, turned around, and walked back across the street.

  Rock was still on duty at Ali’s apartment this morning, which meant he’d witnessed my indecision. As did the other two operatives Decker had brought in after her place was broken into.

  “You okay, Cope?” Rock asked when I exited the elevator.

  “No.”

  He smiled, but didn’t comment further. With the mood I was in, if he had, he might’ve lost a few teeth.

  I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. When Ali didn’t answer after a couple of minutes, I took out my cell and called her. No answer to that either.

  It was possible she was in the shower; it was also possible she had fallen or hurt herself or had a reaction to her medicine. I scrubbed my face with my hand. “I’m goin’ in, Rock.”

  He handed me his key card, and I eased the door open. “Ali?” No answer. I let the door close behind me. “Ali, it’s Cope. Where are you?” Still no answer. I rounded the corner into her bedroom and could hear her singing.

  I smiled and opened the door to the bathroom. I didn’t want to startle her. She was in the tub, eyes closed, with buds in her ears. I stood there for a minute, waiting for her to sense my presence, and began removing my clothes.

  Once naked, I walked over to the tub, sat on the edge, leaned over, and kissed her shoulder. She opened her eyes and smiled but didn’t give any indication that I’d surprised her.

  “You knew I was here,” I said when she removed one of the buds.

  Her cheeks turned pink. “I wanted to see what you’d do.”

  “What if I’d left?”

  “I would’ve called after you.”

  “Scoot forward.” When she did, I climbed in behind her.

  “I’m sorry about earlier, Cope.”

  “I am too.”

  “I understand there are things you can’t discuss with me.”

  “I think we can make this work, Ali.”

  She sighed.

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”

  “Why not? I would think the Express could keep you busy, especially with an election coming up.”
She was holding something back, but she’d been right earlier; I was holding something back too. In fact, the ramifications of what I couldn’t tell her, had put her life in jeopardy.

  “Can we agree, for now, not to talk about it?” she murmured.

  I wrapped my arms around her waist. “Of course we can.” I bent my neck and kissed the soft skin under her ear. She shuddered. “Ali…”

  “What?”

  “Is that short for anything?”

  “No. My mother…her favorite movie was ‘Love Story.’”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  She laughed. “Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw fall in love, and she dies.”

  “Ah, so you were named after the character.”

  “No. The actress. The character’s name was Jennifer, and my mom said there were a million girls my age with that name.”

  “Tell me more about them falling in love.” I moved her hair and ran the tip of my tongue down her neck.

  “It wasn’t meant to be.” She groaned when I reached up and pinched her nipple with my fingertips.

  “Why not?”

  “He was rich. She was poor.”

  “Was that all?” I cupped her mound with my other hand and slid one finger inside her.

  “His family was powerful. They tried to break them up.” Ali writhed against me.

  “But he wouldn’t stand for it.”

  She shook her head.

  “How did she die?”

  “Cancer.”

  “Tragic.”

  “It was a movie.” She moved my hands and stood, holding hers out to me. I took it and stood too.

  “I’m insatiable when it comes to you.” I picked her up and climbed out of the tub, carrying her into the bedroom. I set her on the bed.

  She wrapped both arms around me, resting her cast on my shoulder as I plowed into her warm wetness. I had to pull out, put on a condom, but wanted to feel her pussy clench my cock without any kind of barrier.

  “Squeeze me.” She did and I almost came. When I tried to pull out, Ali wrapped her legs around my waist. “I don’t have a condom on, baby.”

  “I know.”

  Ali slept after I wrung her dry with pleasure. I stared up at the ceiling, stroking her hair with my fingers.

  The last time Decker and I spoke, he asked if I wanted him to run a check on the reporter. I told him I already had. We both knew he could go deeper, and I didn’t want him to. It was careless, but I wasn’t ready to let her go. I might never be ready.

  For the first time in many years, I’d started to see life beyond the mission Irish and I had taken on. Never had I dreamed it would go on as long as it had. Worse, the longer it did, the more agents we lost.

  During the hotwash of one of our Chinese missions, Irish informed me his gut was telling him the targets knew their attackers were coming. While he’d made it out alive, three other agents hadn’t. When it happened again a few months later, we both began paying closer attention.

  The once-robust espionage network the agency had worked so hard to put in place in China, began falling apart. In the last five years alone, the loss of agents escalated at an alarming rate. Dozens of CIA informants had also disappeared—either jailed or killed.

  When Irish came within an inch of losing his life a third time, we sat down in my apartment and, over a fifth of whiskey, reached an agreement.

  “There’s a mole,” he’d said.

  “Someone inside,” I’d agreed.

  “It’s high up, Cope.”

  “I believe it is.”

  Even knowing it could end not only our careers but our lives, we made a pact to create a mission of our own. We took every Chinese op that presented itself, and began our investigation. In each one, Irish put himself at risk of death for the sole purpose of finding who was betraying our country, while I sat behind a desk. It ate at me to the point I’d suggested we give it up.

  Irish had been livid with me and demanded I reconsider. It wasn’t a week later that we were contacted by someone offering the information we were seeking.

  The man, Dr. Benjamin, was a British diplomat and one of the world’s leading experts on Chinese policy. Irish had been the one to appear on his radar, but he had enough evidence that we were on the right track, that we agreed to keep moving forward.

  Within a week of our meeting, Benjamin, who had last been seen in Hong Kong, disappeared. Finding him became a mission we took on jointly with MI6.

  Enter Decker Ashford and the Invincibles. MI6 had hired them to assist with the mission. It didn’t take long before Deck came to me with the same suspicions Benjamin had about Irish. I’d had no choice at the time but to read him in.

  The rest of the mission did not go in our favor. Irish became the lead suspect as the mole who was feeding information to Chinese intelligence officers.

  We were at another crossroads when Decker suggested Irish take the fall, knowing we were close enough to finding the real mole that he’d be exonerated before he went to trial.

  The result, though, was that when the wire services picked up the news that Warrick’s case wouldn’t be settled, reporters like Stella and Ali were assigned to cover it.

  Stella had said there was something about Ali that didn’t add up. I had to admit she didn’t add up to me either. But I didn’t care.

  “What are you thinking about?” she murmured.

  I turned my head and looked into her eyes. “You.”

  “Cope, I think we should—”

  “No.” I rolled to my side and grasped the back of her neck, pulling her close enough that I could capture her mouth with mine. This wasn’t a kiss. I was claiming her.

  Nineteen

  Ali

  “I got an email from my boss. She wants me to continue reporting on the trial,” I told him the next morning.

  “Okay,” Cope said, looking up from where he stood in his kitchen, making scrambled eggs.

  After another hours-long round of sex, we’d both agreed we needed to eat. Since I had no food and neither of us felt like going out, we went back to his apartment, ate, and then had more sex.

  “What do you need from me?”

  I wanted to say “nothing,” but I still had a job to do. Even if I believed Cope was clean, I had to come up with enough evidence to prove it in order to complete my assignment.

  It wouldn’t be hard for me to attack it in the same way I would as an actual reporter; I did have a degree in journalism like the background check I was sure Cope had run, indicated. I’d double-majored with a degree in international studies, which is why the agency recruiter who’d visited Northwestern, approached me.

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “I think I can come up with something to make that easier.” Cope pointed to my left hand when he noticed I was pecking at the keyboard with my index finger. He set a plate of eggs next to my laptop and then left the kitchen.

  “You can eat first.”

  “Be right back,” he hollered from the hallway.

  Feeling as though I could think clearly for the first time since I got out of the hospital, I started an outline of the things that had happened since the trial began.

  I thought back to the first day when Stella and I saw Cope storm out of the courtroom after only a little over an hour. That afternoon, someone had leaked a story about a deal. If that were a possibility, I would’ve received a brief about it from Money.

  Next, was my accident, which had resulted in a continuance. The following night, my apartment had been broken into. I still hadn’t come up with a reason for it. Cope had suggested that someone saw me with him, but the only thing that made sense was if someone was investigating me like I was him. Otherwise, there hadn’t been enough time for my presence to raise any suspicion.

  Cope didn’t say anything about what had happened at the courthouse in the days between then and now, but I’d been checking the wires, and there were no reports on it, even from Stella.

  Friday, someone had planted
a bomb.

  Cope walked up beside me and placed a rolled-up hand towel on the corner of my laptop, next to my keyboard. “See if this is the right height.”

  I rested my wrist on it.

  “Can your fingers reach the keys?”

  “Perfectly. Thank you, Cope.”

  He nodded and walked around the counter to get his plate. He came back and sat beside me. “Come up with anything yet?”

  “Can you tell me more about the bomb?” I took a bite of my eggs.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before taking another bite of his food. This was something he didn’t want to talk about.

  “Where was it?”

  “In the hallway behind the courtroom,” he answered without looking at me.

  “Behind the courtroom? Is that what you said?”

  Cope nodded.

  “There’s no question, then, that the bomb was meant to go off during Warrick’s trial?”

  “That’s right.”

  I rested against the back of the stool. “Cope?”

  He set his fork down and turned his head slowly to look at me. “Yeah?”

  “I was driving your car.”

  His eyes bored into mine as he watched me process through what he already knew. Someone was trying to kill him. Maybe Irish too, but definitely him.

  I got up from the stool and paced.

  “Ali?”

  “Why you?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

  His forehead was creased when he turned his head away.

  “Cope? Why you?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “But you know the answer?”

  “Ali, please.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. I needed to get out of here and think this through. I couldn’t do it in front of him. I closed my laptop, unplugged it, and tucked it under my arm.

  Maybe knowing there was nothing he could say to reassure me, Cope remained silent. Neither of us said another word when I walked out of his apartment.

  “Want me to carry that for you?” Buck asked, pointing to my laptop.

  I handed it to him without responding. My phone was in my pocket, but I’d left my bag and my key card behind.