No Ocean Deep

by Cate Swannell

  Ken Harding had wanted her to have dinner with him after they were done in court for the day, but Jo had declined, the pounding headache behind her eyes claiming all her focus.

  I’ll make it up to him over the weekend, she had reasoned on her way back to the hotel. I just can’t face company tonight.

  The day had ended on another downer, with Jo informed by the prosecution that she could be called again on Monday and to make herself available, condemning her to a whole weekend in the city she loathed. She had spent the early part of the evening half-heartedly picking at her room-service meal and making her way down a bottle of red wine. It hadn’t done her headache much good, but it had at least taken the edge off the churning in her guts.

  Her mind was another thing, of course. The moment Jo had climbed in to bed and closed her eyes, she had known it was going to be futile. Her brain was running at a million miles an hour, with the picture of the dead and mutilated girl swirling around like some kind of sick, perverted slide show.

  Jo sighed, the condensation from her breath forming a misty cloud on the cool glass. She knew Sydney was one of the world’s great cities, but right now all she could see were the bad memories. She swore the damp stench of that alley was still in her nostrils.

  Of course, I could just be losing my mind. Jo slid a fingertip through the condensation, idly drawing a meandering line, her eyes focused on the running lights of a boat out on the harbor. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  The phone rang, its modulated tone harsh against the quiet in the room. Jo knew it could only be one person at this hour and she slid off the window ledge with an enormous sense of relief. Her blood pressure dropped 20 points even as she reached for the phone.

  Cadie curled onto her side and snuggled deep into the bedclothes as she tucked the phone under her chin and listened to the ring tone. It was still early in Wisconsin but Cadie knew it was past midnight in Sydney and she was probably waking her lover up. Something told her Jo wouldn’t mind even if she did, though. Finally, it was picked up.

  “Hello.”

  One word told Cadie so much. She’s really down, the American realized. Must have been a bad day in court.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” she replied, matching the soft tones of her partner. She heard Jo exhale slowly, followed by a low groan, as if the tall woman had just relaxed totally. “Did I wake you?”

  Jo laughed with gentle irony. “I wish,” she answered. “No. I couldn’t sleep and was sitting by the window. Guess I got a little stiff.”

  Hmmm. “Where are you now?”

  “On the bed. How about you?”

  “In the bed. Care to join me?” Cadie smiled to herself, knowing Jo would find that hard to resist. She was rewarded by another soft chuckle from the Australian.

  “Sure.” Cadie could hear Jo rearranging herself and the bedclothes. “Okay, I’m in bed,” Jo said redundantly. Her voice now sounded much closer, and a whole bunch more intimate.

  Like she’s right here with her mouth close to my ear, Cadie thought, noticing the tingle that image produced. Nice. She forced her mind back to her lover’s mental state. She’s not saying a lot, which says a lot, she thought.

  “What are you wearing?” Jo said, out of the blue.

  Then again I could be completely wrong, Cadie thought with surprise. “Um, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she answered quietly, glancing down at the pajamas she was wearing.

  “Tell me,” Jo’s voice quietly urged.

  Cadie laughed softly. “Okay. An old pair of pajamas I haven’t worn since I was sixteen,” she replied.

  “And what impossibly cute motif do they have?”

  Cadie felt herself blushing. “Um, would you believe lots of little pink panthers?” Jo’s answering laugh rumbled seductively in her ear and Cadie shivered despite the warmth of both the blankets and from the sun peeking through the half-drawn curtains of her childhood bedroom. Mmm, I’m sure seduction is the last thing on her mind, though, the blonde reasoned. “Tell me about your day?”

  Jo sighed. Cadie waited as the silence lengthened until she thought her partner wasn’t going to answer at all. But then a very quiet, small voice piped up.

  “It sucked.”

  No kidding, my love. “I thought so,” Cadie said aloud. “What happened?”

  “Some of my history came back to bite me in the arse,” Jo replied.

  “But weren’t you expecting that? I mean, the whole reason di Santo came after you in the first place was because of your history with him.”

  “Yes, but …” Jo hesitated. “I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as hard as it was,” she said eventually. “They … um …” She sighed again. “Do you remember me telling you about the girl in the alley? The last person I was sent to …” Cadie heard the words stop dead in Jo’s throat.

  “Yes, of course,” she murmured.

  “That came up,” Jo said hoarsely, and Cadie could hear the tears much closer to the surface now. “Complete with full color pictures of the …”

  “Oh, Jo-Jo, I’m sorry.” Cadie wished more than anything in the world that she could wrap her arms around her lover. But all she could do was listen to Jo sniffling.

  “S’okay. It just was a bit of a surprise. I guess I should have known all that stuff would come up, especially given the briefing the prosecutor gave me, but …” Jo sniffed again. “But I guess I’ve just been avoiding thinking about it at all. My own stupid fault, really.”

  “Shhh. Don’t do that to yourself, Jo. I wish I could have been there for you.” Cadie ran her hand through her hair, frustrated at feeling so helpless and far away. “God, my timing really sucked on this, didn’t it?”

  “Not your fault, love,” Jo murmured. “S’just the way things worked out. And you couldn’t have done anything to change things today, even if you had been here.” Her voice sounded grim and weary. “I would still have had to have been that … that … person that I was back then, and I still would have had to look at that picture and remember the way she felt in my hands … and the end of my gun barrel.”

  Cadie swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat.

  “You’re not that person any more, love,” she said quietly.

  “No?” Jo replied, a trace of bitterness in her tone. “It sure felt like it today. All the old cronies were there. And the reporters. I was good copy.”

  Cadie knew, suddenly, exactly why Jo sounded so exhausted.

  “Jo, don’t you see that it’s all an act these days? That’s why it takes so much out of you and leaves you feeling like a limp dishrag. You have to put on that persona to survive in that environment. But it’s an act, darling. And it takes a lot of effort. That’s not who you really are inside.”

  There was a long pause while Jo digested her words.

  “I… I used to be able to push aside everything else I was feeling,” she said finally.

  “And now you can’t.”

  “And now I can’t.”

  “I’m glad,” Cadie whispered.

  “I miss you … wish you were here.”

  “I’m right here, angel.” Now it’s time to distract her, Cadie decided. “So, what are you wearing?” she asked, dropping her own voice down to a more intimate level. There was a pause as she suspected Jo was absorbing the abrupt change in subject, not to mention tone. Cadie held her breath, wondering if she had completely misjudged the situation. It wasn’t long before she got her answer.

  “Naked as the day I was born, darling,” Jo burred in the low register that was guaranteed to send tingles up and down the length of Cadie’s spine.

  “Mmmm. So I guess if I turned around so I was facing you …” Cadie paused as she did turn over onto her opposite side, even though she had no way of knowing, really, which way Jo was positioned. “I guess if I did that, then I could just slide my hand up your side until I can cup your breast in the palm of my hand.” The catch in Jo’s breath was audible and deeply arousing to Cadie. “And of course, once I’m t
here I might as well explore a little bit.”

  “E-explore?”

  Cadie smiled, hearing the beginnings of desire and intrigue in Jo’s tiny hesitation.

  “Mhmm. I can just brush my thumb across your nipple, for example.” A low groan curled through the phone line, so close, Cadie almost felt Jo’s breath on her skin.

  “Arcadia?”

  “Mmmmm?”

  “Are you trying to seduce me, over the phone?”

  “That’s the general idea, yes. Is that okay?” There was another pause, and for a moment Cadie thought perhaps she’d hit upon a sensitive spot in her lover’s otherwise robust sexual psyche.

  “Um, very much okay, I think,” Jo finally replied. “I’m not really sure … I don’t think I’ve ever … um …”

  “Had phone sex before?” Life is full of surprises, Cadie thought.

  “Um, no.” Jo cleared her throat. “What do we… I mean, how do we…?

  Cadie chuckled lightly. “Well, for a start, get comfortable.” She heard Jo sigh again and tried to imagine the long, naked form of her lover, sprawled across the bed.

  “Isn’t this going to cost you a fortune?” Jo murmured.

  “Nope. It’s Mom and Dad’s phone,” Cadie reminded her. “And trust me, they won’t notice, and if they do, they won’t mind.”

  “Oh, god, don’t mention parents,” Jo groaned, provoking a laugh from Cadie.

  “Don’t worry, my love, I’m going to distract you with far more interesting thoughts,” she said wickedly.

  Jo gulped. “Um, okay. So, what do we do?”

  “Close your eyes.” Cadie shifted slightly so she could tuck the phone between her cheek and the pillow. She closed her own eyes, blocking out the view of her childhood bedroom and toys, not to mention the presence of her parents on the other side of the wall. Instead she focused on the picture of Jo in her head. “Now really concentrate on my voice,” she said, almost whispering. “Jo-Jo, I want you to do something for me.” There was another sharp intake of breath from her partner.

  “Anything, you know that,” Jo murmured.

  “Let your hands be my hands.”

  “Oh, myyy.”

  Jo’s orgasm, when it hit, was not only an intense physical release but an emotional explosion. As her body shuddered and shivered in response to Cadie’s touch and words, all the tensions and worries of the day erupted in a disconcerting flood of feeling. She sobbed, tears flowing freely even as the last throes of the achingly deep climax ebbed away. Jo could hear soothing, calming words from Cadie, but her heart was beating so fast and hard that she thought it was going to burst out of her chest.

  “Shhh, sweetheart, it’s all right,” Cadie murmured, close and tender. “Feel my arms wrapped around you?”

  “Y-yes,” Jo stammered, and she was almost certain she could feel the American’s reassuring presence. Well, damn, that was certainly unique. So intense. She let out a long, ragged breath as she finally got to the point where she could formulate a rational sentence. “Y... you kn... know that I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, r... right?”

  Cadie laughed gently. “Yes, I think I know that, love.”

  “And you’ve made me so happy, Cadie. I’ve never been so happy, ever, in my life.” Jo sniffled again and wiped her nose with the back of her free hand. “So, c-can you explain why it is that I’ve done more crying since I met you than in my entire decade of being a hard case. Not to mention the five years since then. How is that possible?” She could hear Cadie shifting position, sighing as she found a new, comfortable way of lying.

  “I think it goes back to what we were talking about before,” Cadie said finally. “You built up a lot of layers of self-defense. You needed every damn one of them from what I can work out.”

  “S’true,” Jo acknowledged. “And I guess I don’t need them around you, right?”

  “Mhmm. Actually, I think there’s a bunch of people you don’t need them with, but I’m the first one you’ve felt safe enough to let your guard down with, so far. And at the moment I think you’re rubbed raw by everything.”

  Jo nodded silently, realizing belatedly that Cadie couldn’t see her response. “You’re right. I am a bit.”

  “And I’ve been a bit of a … um …” Jo heard Cadie struggling for the right words.

  “Lightning rod,” Jo murmured.

  “Well, that’s probably as close as anything, yes,” Cadie acknowledged. “Sorry, sweet pea.”

  Jo laughed softly. “Don’t be sorry. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” She grunted slightly as a small aftershock reminded her of their love’s more physical manifestations. “And if the last half-hour is any indication, I may never let you out of the bedroom.” She sighed dreamily. “That was awesome.”

  “It sounded wonderful, darling,” the American said, her own voice still a little rough with barely-suppressed desire. “You are the sexiest woman on the planet. You know that, right?”

  Somehow Jo found the breath to laugh. “All your doing, my love,” she replied. “My hands were your hands, remember?”

  “Not to mention my tongue,” Cadie drawled.

  “Mmm, quite,” Jo breathed. “God, woman, I don’t think I can move. You’ve paralyzed me.”

  “Well, the lovely thing about phone sex is that as long as your voice is audible, you can still work miracles,” Cadie replied.

  Jo chuckled, relishing the fact that she felt more relaxed and stress-free than she had in days. “Is that a gentle hint, sweetheart?”

  “Mmm, I want your hands all over my body, Jossandra,” was Cadie’s answer, and Jo could hear every ounce of desire in her tone.

  “Then close your eyes, and let your hands be my hands.”

  “Ohhh.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Stephen Jones asked his daughter as he watched her loading empty, folded packing cases into the trunk of the rental car. He knew better than most that Cadie was more than capable of handling things, but something about her being alone in the Chicago house bothered him. Maybe it was because he had spent the last two days hearing about the dissolution of Cadie’s relationship with the senator and Naomi’s subsequent descent into instability.

  Cadie looked up at her father where he stood on the bottom step of winding pathway up to the front door. In the four months since she had last seen him, he seemed to have aged. His tall, thin frame was more stooped than she remembered, she was sure. He also looked worried.

  Probably with good reason, she thought grimly, though the last thing she wanted to do was to admit that there might be a real cause for her parents’ concern. “No thanks, Dad,” she said aloud, smiling up at him. “Naomi’s not going to be there, so there won’t be any distractions. I’m just going to pack up my stuff and get the heck out of there.”

  “Are you sure she’s not going to be there?” Stephen asked.

  Cadie thought about that. She knew the US Senate schedule, and she was certain it was in session. Besides, she hadn’t told Naomi she was coming. But if Toby and Jason were right, she probably does know, she realized. If I tell him that, though, I’ll be hard-pressed to stop him coming, with his hunting rifle in tow, if I know him. She had called the boys once she had recovered from the jetlag, but they were away on their Caribbean cruise and not due back until the following weekend. Cadie had also called the Chicago house with no result, not even from the housekeeper – a sure sign that Naomi had closed up the house for the duration of the Senate session and headed back to DC.

  “I’m sure, Dad. Senate’s in session and she can’t afford to be missing any votes. Not with the way she damaged her reputation while we were in Australia,” she said as she dropped her overnight bag on top of the packing cases and closed the trunk. Besides coming to Chicago would entail a little effort on her part, and God knows, that’s just not Naomi.

  “All right then,” her father conceded. “You know where we are if you need us.”

  Cadie stepp
ed up to him and placed her hands on his shoulders, reaching up on tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the cheek. “Thanks Dad.”

  “Drive safely,” he reminded her. “Have you got enough change for the tolls? Have you got your cell phone?”

  Cadie laughed and patted him on the chest. “Yes, I have enough change. No, I don’t have my cell phone. That’s at the house where I left it before we went to Australia.”

  “Then take mine,” he persisted.

  “Dad,” she answered, mock sternly, hands on hips. “Don’t worry so much, okay? It’s not that long since I did the drive to Chicago.” She walked back to the car and opened the driver’s side door. “I’ll give you a call once I’ve reached the house, okay? Besides, you need your cell phone tomorrow.”

  “All right, but make sure you call,” Stephen said gruffly, sticking his hands in his pockets. Cadie waved as she drove away, the sight of him in her rearview mirror a comforting and familiar one.

  It was about 4pm on Sunday and Madison was at its springtime best. The sky was clear and blue and there was a touch of warmth about the sun even though it was making its way down to the horizon. Before long Cadie had wound her way through the flowering suburbs and onto the beltline skirting the southern side of the city. Traffic was light, thankfully, and soon she swung the car onto I-90 heading south. As she settled in for the drive Cadie started to plan just how she would get things done.

  She would have preferred to have left that morning and spent only one night at the house, but her parents had organized a family barbeque at lunchtime and Cadie hadn’t had the heart to make them change their plans. Anyway, it had been fun catching up with all the cousins and aunts and uncles. And by mid-afternoon she had been too antsy to hang around until the next morning to leave.

  Looks like I’m going to make good time, she thought as she looked around at the traffic, or lack of it. I should make it to the house by 7pm or so. I can probably get a bit done tonight, and then I’ll have the whole day tomorrow to do the rest. One more night in the house should do it and I can be back in Madison before lunch on Tuesday. Perfect.