Wish

by Deborah Bladon

  I’m wearing scrubs and flat white shoes, but the way Sebastian is looking at me is making me feel like I’m the most beautiful woman in the world.

  He stands as I approach.

  “Matilda.” His voice is rough. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you either.” My gaze turns to Carolyn. “In your text you said you had something you wanted to talk to me about.”

  “I did?” Carolyn blinks at me. “I can’t remember what it is right now.”

  “Hi, Tilly.” Cooper tugs on the leg of my scrubs, smearing blue ice cream over the fabric. “We saw where Detective Wolf works.”

  “I ran into them outside my station.” He gestures to an empty chair next to him. “Cooper invited me for ice cream and his smile is too hard to resist.”

  Cooper flashes us both a toothy grin.

  Sebastian waits to sit until I’m settled in the wooden chair. “Do you want some ice cream, Matilda?”

  “I’m good,” I murmur. “I just ate dinner.”

  “Dinner,” Carolyn repeats the word loudly. “Cooper we need to go home and have dinner.”

  He rolls his eyes as he takes another lick from the soft ice cream. “We had dinner, mom. We had hot dogs right before we saw Detective Wolf.”

  She tosses him a glance. “That was an after school snack. It’s time to go so I can cook a proper dinner for you.”

  His bottom lip juts out in a pout. “Mom. You said that the hot dogs were dinner. I heard you.”

  I bite back a laugh. She didn’t factor in Cooper’s reaction when she came up with this plan to get Sebastian and me in the same place at the same time.

  “I’ll make those chicken nuggets you love.”

  He swings his feet, as he remains glued to his chair, even though she’s already standing. “That’s okay, mom. I’m full.”

  Carolyn reaches down to scoop several colorful shopping bags into her palm. “We are leaving now, Cooper. Say goodbye to Tilly and Detective Wolf.”

  He finally gives in and slides to his feet. Ice cream drips from the cone onto his red hoodie. “Goodbye Tilly and Detective Wolf. I have to go eat chicken nuggets I don’t want.”

  Sebastian and I laugh in unison as Carolyn tugs her son toward the door leaving me alone with the man I’ve missed more than I realized.

  ***

  “Mint chocolate chip,” I whisper as I break our kiss. “That’s what you had, isn’t it?”

  He nods. “Tell me you can ditch work and go home to bed with me.”

  My body aches at the dark promise in his tone. His hands were on me the minute we saw Carolyn and Cooper leave the ice cream shop.

  He scooped my face into his hands and kissed me. It was tender at first, then more demanding. He took my breath away with just the touch of his lips against mine.

  “I can’t, Sebastian.” I rest my forehead against his. “I have to work for a few more hours.”

  “Me too.” He kisses me again, this time with a lash of his tongue over my bottom lip. “I slept in your bed earlier.”

  The admission draws me closer to him. I edge forward in my seat. My gaze drops to his lap and the noticeable bulge in his black pants. “Did you touch yourself?”

  That pushes him back far enough that he can stare into my eyes. “I should have. Shit, I could have with your smell all around me.”

  I lean forward, sweeping my breath over his ear as I whisper to him. “I did it in your bed last night. I came on your sheets thinking about how it feels when you fuck me.”

  His lips crash into mine for a wet, heated kiss.

  Our tongues collide, our moans get lost in each other’s throats and when we part, his eyes bore into me. “I need you. Fuck do I need to be inside of you, Matilda.”

  “I’ll be home at ten.” I ease my hands down his broad shoulders. “Be waiting for me in my bed and I promise you’ll fall asleep with a smile on your face.”

  Chapter 38

  Sebastian

  She meant ten last night, you fucked-up asshole.

  I berate myself yet again as I drag myself into our apartment at noon.

  It’s been hours since I tasted Matilda’s lips at the ice cream shop and almost as long since I’ve heard a word from her.

  My current case broke wide open last night after we arrested a man we believed was involved in the murder.

  He was ready, willing and incredibly eager to share what he knew because he was scared shitless of his friends who had taken out an innocent bystander in their anger-fueled rampage to get revenge for some guy hitting on one of their girlfriends a week ago.

  Once we had the names of everyone involved, we set out to track them down. It took all night, but by day’s break, we had two confessions and a third ready to talk in exchange for a reduced sentence.

  I handed the entire mess over to Darrell before I left the station.

  It’s his to sort through. I need to sleep.

  I toss my keys on the table as I look toward the open door of Matilda’s bedroom.

  I know she’s not here.

  When I sent her a text message last night to tell her that I wouldn’t be joining her in bed, she replied that she understood.

  She also said she would be meeting her sister for brunch to go over some preliminary wedding plans.

  I curse under my breath as I survey the empty apartment.

  The silence is deafening. The vase of pink roses sitting next to the white ones I bought a few days ago is a surprising sight.

  I stalk toward them, my gaze stuck on a small pink envelope on the table near the vase.

  I pick it up.

  Tilly Baker is written across the front of it in blue ink along with our address.

  It’s been opened, so I slide my hand in but come up empty.

  I push the roses apart, looking for any sign of a card. When I don’t find one, I drop the envelope at my feet and gaze at her open bedroom door.

  I want to know who the fuck the other flowers are from.

  My strides are long and brisk as I cross the apartment. I stop just outside her bedroom.

  I don’t have the right.

  I can get into her bed and fall asleep in her sheets, but I don’t have the right to go through her things searching for a card.

  I lean both hands against the wall on either side of the doorframe.

  I could do this the easy way and take the envelope to the flower shop that’s listed on the back of it. I’d flash my badge, tell them I needed to know who sent them and I’d have that name within ten seconds.

  It’s wrong on so many levels.

  I close my eyes against the urge.

  The chime of an incoming text message yanks me back to the moment. I look down at my phone.

  Hillary: Where are you?

  Sebastian: Why? You ok?

  Hillary: Can I see you?

  Another message comes in before I have a chance to reply that I’m dead tired and headed to bed.

  Hillary: I really need to talk to you. Please.

  We’ve talked and talked until she’s run out of words. I thumb out a quick response.

  Sebastian: This afternoon at 4.

  I shake my head when I see that she’s typing a response.

  Hillary: Can it be sooner?

  I scrub my hand over the back of my neck when I feel tension take hold of me.

  Sebastian: Now at the Roasting Point Café on Broadway and Seventy-Fourth?

  I start the walk toward my room for a quick change of clothes. I already know what her response will be.

  Giving up sleep is a sacrifice I have to make.

  I made a commitment to her and I’m a man of my word. I won’t let her down. I can’t.

  ***

  “You’re a million miles away again,” Matilda says as walks into our apartment.

  It’s late. The lights are off, darkness took over the city hours ago, but I haven’t been able to drag myself from this spot by the window.

  I’ve been
here since I got back from meeting Hillary.

  We talked about the same thing we always do. It’s the one thing that binds us together.

  Pain.

  “I’m right here,” I answer as I look over at her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here last night.”

  “It’s fine.” She flicks on a lamp near the sofa. The soft light is enough to illuminate her beautiful face. “Your work is important.”

  “You’re more important,” I say under my breath.

  She doesn’t hear me, or if she does, she ignores my words. “Have you eaten yet?”

  I look back at the lights of the city. “I met someone earlier. I had a coffee and a bagel.”

  “The same someone you met the other morning? It was a woman, yes?”

  “Yes,” I answer briskly.

  She closes the distance between us with short, sure steps. Her fingers land on one of the pink roses. She stares down at them. “I’m tired. I think I’ll call it a night.”

  I have no right to ask, but I’ve been staring at that bouquet for hours. “Where did those come from?”

  “Boyd.”

  What the fuck?

  “Your ex-boyfriend?” I don’t know why the hell I’m asking for clarification.

  She scratches the side of her nose. “He’s the only Boyd I know.”

  “Why is he sending you flowers, Matilda?”

  Her eyes search mine. “If you want an answer to that, I’ll want an answer to who the person is that you’ve been meeting.”

  Fair enough.

  I fist my hands to quell the need to reach out and grab her. I want to fuck her against this window until she screams my name. I want every person in this city, and one asshole back in San Francisco to know that she’s mine.

  I want her to be mine.

  The bastard sent her pink roses. Her favorite is white.

  I ask the question again. “Why did he send them?”

  “Because he’s lonely?” She shrugs. “He wants to come out here to visit me. I told him to save his money. I’m not interested.”

  She goes on as she leans down to inhale their fragrance, “I almost tossed the flowers in the trash when they were delivered this morning.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  She glances at me before her gaze falls on the pink roses. “It’s not their fault Boyd is a jerk.”

  I huff out a laugh. “I’m not fucking the woman I met earlier, Matilda. I’m not fucking anyone but you.”

  She looks to me, holding my gaze as her lips twitch with a smile. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

  She wears jealousy like a badge and I just got a flash of it.

  I fucking loved it.

  Chapter 39

  Tilly

  “Dance with me, Matilda.”

  “You want to dance with me now?” I tug the hem of the T-shirt I’m wearing down.

  After Sebastian and I talked about the flowers, I went to shower. He said he was going to do the same. I expected him to ask me to join him in the main bathroom, but he didn’t.

  I took my time under the warm running water, relishing in the feeling of the calm that washed over me.

  When I was done I towel dried my hair, smoothed lotion over my skin and slid on a new pair of red lace panties and this T-shirt.

  It’s the same T-shirt I was wearing the night we met.

  His hand skims the waistband of his pajama bottoms.

  I can see the outline of his erection from where I’m standing near the hallway that leads back to my bedroom.

  “On the floor.” He looks down as he reaches out a hand to me. “I’m not dancing on the table.”

  Soft music is filling the room. It’s coming from the mini speaker I left on the kitchen counter the other night. He must have synced his phone to it.

  I take his hand as I near him. “Is this what you were listening to the night we met?”

  He nods when he scoops me into his strong arms. “It’s relaxing. It soothes me.”

  He needs that. I see the pain that lives just behind his eyes. It’s always there, even if he thinks he can mask it with a smile.

  One of his hands slides down to the small of my back. The other grabs hold of my hand to hold it next to his chest.

  He smells incredible. Soap mixed with the unique scent that is only his.

  I could wrap myself in that forever.

  Forever.

  I shake my head to chase the thought away.

  We sway back and forth to the music, neither of us saying anything.

  He finally clears his throat when the song stops and another begins. “I was shot years ago.”

  I stop in place and look up. “What?”

  He reaches up to where my hand is resting on his left shoulder. He slides it down a few inches. “It’s a small wound. The bullet entered here and exited through my back.”

  I squint to have a better look and I see it. There’s a circular scar beneath the ink of his tattoo. At first glance you wouldn’t notice it, but it’s shockingly apparent to me now that I know it’s there.

  I instantly wonder why Maya never mentioned it to me.

  “When did that happen?” I inch my fingers over his skin to touch the scar.

  He sucks in a breath. “I was only on the force for a few months at the time.”

  I wasn’t living here then. I was still immersed in my life back in San Francisco. News of the shooting of a police officer clear across the country wouldn’t have caught my attention.

  That’s different now that I know a man who puts his life at risk every single day to protect others; to protect me.

  “How?” I inch back, feeling suddenly unsteady on my feet.

  “It was a domestic disturbance call.” He reaches for both of my hands. “I walked into the middle of a family argument. My partner wasn’t out of the car yet before the shots were fired.”

  “Shots?”

  “Two rounds.” He squeezes my hands. “The first hit me. Thankfully it was a lucky shot and his aim was shit with the next one. It went straight into the floor.”

  I hate that he’s joking about this.

  My heart is hammering inside my chest at the thought of blood gushing from his shoulder.

  I could barely handle it the other night when he was punched in the face. I don’t know what I would do if he were shot.

  “How bad was it?” I ask in a trembling voice.

  “If it would have been a few inches lower, it would have ripped through my aorta.” He lifts one of my hands to the left side of his chest and presses it against his skin. “I had surgery, went to physical therapy and was out on foot patrol within the month.”

  I try to find my composure, but my hand is shaking in his. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I told you so you’d know what this was…” He glides both of our hands over the scar. “Before you noticed it or before Julian mentioned it to you.”

  Of course Julian would know. They’ve been friends forever.

  “My sergeant at the time reprimanded me.” He looks at the floor. “I was eager. Way too fucking eager back then. I walked up to the door of that townhouse like I was indestructible.”

  Sometimes when I look at him, I feel like he is.

  “Kiss me, Sebastian.”

  His lips brush against mine in a soft kiss and I pray that he won’t taste the single tear that’s running down my cheek.

  Chapter 40

  Sebastian

  I inch her back toward the dining room table as I deepen the kiss. I know I upset her. I fucking told her I’d been shot.

  It was years ago, but the pained look on her face transported me back to that day.

  I was cocky, inexperienced and unaware of my surroundings. I thought the uniform on my back and the gun at my waist would intimidate anyone enough that they’d step the hell out of my way.

  The guy holding a handgun in my direction didn’t give a shit that I was a cop.

  He just wanted his wife to stay.

 
; She was standing ten feet behind him with a baby girl in her arms and a suitcase at her feet.

  I tried to de-escalate the situation, but it was useless.

  The bullet ripped through my shoulder and into the wall behind me. I heard another shot before it was over.

  He threw the gun on the floor, took a few steps back and dropped to his knees when my partner, at the time, drew his weapon.

  His wife shielded their baby in her arms in the corner away from the gunfire.

  It was over in seconds, but the impact has lasted for years.

  I pull back from the kiss to hold Matilda’s face in my hands. “Let me take care of you tonight.”

  She only nods in response, her eyes searching mine for some reassurance that I’m fine.

  The shooting feels like it was a lifetime ago to me, but to her, it’s fresh and vivid in her mind’s eye.

  I slide my hands down to her waist before I pick her up and place her on the table on her ass.

  She slithers forward. “Here? Like this?”

  I kiss her softly. “Right here.”

  Her eyes skim my face and body. “You don’t have a condom.”

  “I don’t need one.” I kiss her cheek before my lips graze a path down her neck. “I’m not fucking you right now. I’m going to use my hand to make you come.”

  She squirms in place. The red lace panties she’s wearing already wet from her need.

  I tug her shirt over head and goose bumps crawl up her silky skin.

  I lower my mouth to her left breast, plumping it with my hand before I take her nipple between my teeth and bite.

  She lets out a yelp. “That hurt.”

  “You liked it,” I say in a low tone. “It felt good.”

  “So good,” she affirms in a moan. “You’re so good to me.”

  I want to be. That’s all I fucking want right now is to be everything she needs me to be.

  I take her other nipple between my teeth and lash it with the tip of my tongue. Her hand dips to her navel but I still it with my moan.