Serial Escape

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

Lucien’s mouth tipped up a bit as he eyed her own running gear. “That’s true.” He held out the laptop, then gestured toward the couch. “Should we get started?”

  Raven hesitated. Part of her wanted to point out that the professional thing to do would be to set up at the kitchen table. Colleagues didn’t cozy up together on a couch while they combed through files. But a stronger part of her wanted the excuse to be a little closer to him, and it was a fight she didn’t think she could win.

  Taking a small breath, she set down the soapstone wolf and moved to the couch. Trying to at least err on the side of keeping a reasonable space between them, she settled onto one of the corner cushions. But the caution didn’t do much good. Once Lucien had plugged the cord into the wall, he dropped his large frame directly to the middle.

  It’s just practical, Raven told herself. We can’t look at the screen together if we’re sitting five feet apart.

  But reasoning it through in her head didn’t exactly transfer over to real life. When Lucien’s knee met up with hers so that he could balance the laptop between them, a jolt of electric attraction hit Raven hard enough to make her breath catch in her throat.

  Practical.

  She tried to think it even more sternly this time, but it was difficult to make the word stick. She was too aware of every little movement. And it got worse again, because Lucien spoke, and his voice was low and somehow managed to rumble through her whole body, setting each and every one of her pores onto high alert.

  “Sorry,” he said. “This’ll take a minute or two. System wants me to update a few things before it’ll let me in.”

  “It’s fine.” The statement was a half lie.

  Their current position was both pleasant and torturous at the same time. Lucien’s outer thigh was warm enough that Raven could feel it seeping into her, despite the two layers of pants. His tap on the keyboard as he did what needed to be done made his elbow bump up against her forearm. The little rubs sent a vibration up to her shoulder, which in turn bloomed out to her chest. Each touch only dragged out the torment, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the physical pull had always been so strong, or if the long absence had intensified it.

  She could recall moments of wanting him, and specific times when their casual intimacy made her warm all over. Lucien, slipping out of the bathroom in a towel because he forgot to grab something from the bedroom. A power outage that equaled an evening spent huddling together under a blanket on the couch, trying to keep warm. Numerous occasions where she’d fallen asleep beside him on that same couch, and once when she’d woken up to find that he’d carried her to her bed and tucked her in there instead.

  But it was different back then. Raven just wasn’t sure how.

  Those days together seemed endless. And even though the drag of time had been scary, it had also let her fall slowly.

  Fall slowly?

  She acknowledged that slightly sarcastic voice with an invisible nod. It was as far she was willing to go at the moment. Not because she was in denial. She knew exactly how she felt about Detective Lucien Match. How she’d felt about him every second since she met him, and how those feelings only deepened over time, and how they hadn’t faded away over their separation. But now the slow fall was over. And she was well acquainted with the pain of how it ended.

  Maybe that’s it, she thought. I know there’s an end in sight, and I’m subconsciously trying to grab on to as much as I can while I have the time.

  It made just enough sense that Raven believed it might be true.

  “Almost there,” Lucien murmured. “Got the email up. There’s a file of pictures here, and a note from records, saying they’ll send the rest shortly.”

  His announcement alerted her to the fact that she’d unconsciously closed her eyes, and she pulled them open quickly, not wanting to be caught in yet another embarrassing moment. But the second her gaze landed on the screen, she wished she’d kept her lids sealed tight. Because an image opened right at that moment, filling the laptop with something she’d hoped to never see again—the inside of the dark hole where Lucien had found her on the day she should’ve been executed.

  * * *

  Even before Lucien realized his mistake, he felt the immediate tenseness in Raven’s body. Their legs and arms were touching, and she went from being distractingly soft and pleasant to being as rigid as a two-by-four. A surprised question on his lips, Lucien started to turn. Then the picture on the screen caught his eye, and he didn’t have to ask. Automatically, his hand shot out to slam the computer shut, but Raven was quicker. Her slim fingers closed on his wrist, stilling him.

  “Don’t.” She said it just above a whisper, but her tone was surprisingly firm.

  Lucien didn’t pull his hand back just yet, though, and he cursed himself for not thinking to preview the file before opening it up.

  Aloud he said, “Give me a second, and I’ll get rid of it.”

  She took a deep breath, and shook her head, then spoke again, her voice even stronger. “No. I’m okay. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

  Her eyes flicked to the screen, and her fingers tightened on his arm.

  “You don’t need to look at it,” he said quickly. “Let me—”

  She cut him off. “Maybe I do, though.”

  “Raven...”

  “No, I mean it. I spend my days helping people learn how to deal with their trauma, but I keep my own behind this... I don’t know. A barbed-wire fence in my head, or something.” Her hand dropped from his wrist, and she reached up to touch the photo on the screen. “It looks brighter in this shot.”

  He stole a second-long look at the picture, then brought his attention immediately back to her face. “I think it is brighter. It was lit up so the techs could get a good overview of everything.”

  She was quiet for a moment before replying, “Do you remember how dark it was when you got there?”

  “I do,” he said.

  It’d been so pitch-black that—even just a few feet into the entrance of the hole—he hadn’t been able to see his own feet. He’d damn near fallen a half a dozen times on the way. And when he actually reached the top of the nearly sheer drop, he hadn’t seen Raven, either. Instead, he’d heard her shallow breaths and small whimpers. His relief that she was alive had been as thick as his concern that she wouldn’t stay that way for much longer.

  “You called my name,” she added.

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “It probably sounds ridiculous, but it was like your voice was the light.” Her cheeks were tinged pink with embarrassment, but she didn’t retract the statement.

  Lucien didn’t argue, either. Instead, he brought his knuckles up and ran them over the color. Slowly.

  He knew what she meant about the light, but as far he was concerned, she was the one who’d parted the darkness. When he’d called her name on that day three years ago, there’d been a brief moment of silence. No breathing, no whimpers. Lucien’s relief had evaporated. Then her voice carried up. Cracked and so broken that he hadn’t quite been able to discern what she’d said. A disbelieving greeting, maybe? But it hadn’t mattered anyway. He’d climbed in, feetfirst, sliding his body down the hole and letting himself drop the rest of the way. Four feet more—or thereabouts—but he hadn’t known or cared. All he was sure of was that saving her from the fate of the rest of Hanes’s victims was the most important thing. He’d landed almost on top of her, and in spite of her situation, she’d reached out to steady him, then asked if he was okay in a raw rasp.

  “I would’ve died,” Raven said.

  The statement made Lucien’s heart drop with remembered fear that it might be true. Because right after she’d asked the question, she’d keeled over, straight into his arms.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” he replied, his voice gruff with emotion.

  In response, her hand came up to his, her warm palm
sending licks of heat through his skin. “Yes, we do. And you know I don’t just mean from my injuries.”

  Lucien swallowed against the thick lump in his throat, then nodded. There wasn’t much point in denying it.

  After she’d passed out, he’d held her for an hour. Right up until the paramedics arrived. Even after that, he’d carried her out himself. Then stayed by her side, riding along to hospital. Sitting by her bed and holding her hand and measuring her breaths. Fending off the doctors who said he should go home and rest. They’d told him her fainting was borne of exhaustion and lack of food, and assured him that she’d be fine. Lucien had believed them, but he’d still felt a deep need to be there when she regained consciousness. It was a compulsion.

  Raven’s fingers moved a little more, threading through his. “I’m sorry if I never thanked you properly for saving me. It hurt to talk about it. It still hurts, even just to think about it. But I owe you so much.”

  “No thanks were ever necessary,” he assured her gently. “And you don’t owe me anything.”

  It was true. At least as far he was concerned. The only thanks he’d needed were watching her open her eyes. Feeling how they landed on him, and seeing the recognition there.

  Until that moment, Lucien didn’t believe in love at first sight. He wasn’t sure he’d really believed in love at all. Even if his career hadn’t brought him face-to-face with the worst moments of humanity, his personal life would’ve already set him up for failure. His father had been a drinker and serial cheater and a manipulator. A very angry man, who took out everything on Lucien. His birth mother had died when he was born, and his stepmother, who’d been with them since Lucien was a year old, eventually gave up. She left both of them without ever looking back. In a practically textbook reaction, he’d spent his life avoiding serious relationships. He was conscious of it, though, and had accepted it. So when the moment struck—when a woman he didn’t know, who hadn’t heard his name, or learned any bit of his story, but who somehow threw out an invisible rope and tugged him in—he’d been stunned. She’d eventually learned it all, of course. She’d gotten to know him more than anyone else in the world. But in those seconds, he’d been speechless. Powerless. Unable to do anything but stare at her, just like he was doing at the present moment.

  “I don’t not owe you anything,” she told him. “I owe you everything.”

  “Literally nothing,” he insisted.

  She shook her head, the smallest of all smiles turning up her perfect lips. “Weirdest argument ever.”

  Even if she was right, he couldn’t muster up any of his own good cheer. He wanted her to see that saving her life had changed his own for the better, too. For her to understand what he was feeling but couldn’t say. He just wished he was better equipped to do it. He reached up and gave his ear a nervous tug. He’d never been great with words. But he’d never felt the lack so acutely, either, and he wished—badly—that he was a smooth talker.

  He cleared his throat and lifted both of his hands to cup her face. Words still didn’t come. The bad old memories swirled around in his head, mingling with the good ones, and mixing with the present. After a heavily weighted minute, it was Raven who spoke. Just one word, but somehow, she made it sound like an ache.

  “Lucien.”

  It was all he could take. Overcome, he dipped his face down and pressed his mouth to hers. For a moment, she was still. Just receiving the kiss. Her lack of reaction very nearly made Lucien pull away. Then—as if she sensed his intention to separate—her hands came up and landed on the back of his neck, holding him there. And more important, she came alive. Her lips moved with his, tasting and exploring, setting off the metaphorical fireworks that had waited under the surface for what felt like a millennium.

  Earlier, Lucien had thought the brief contact between their lips had been a kiss. He’d been wrong. So very mistaken.

  You were an idiot to hold back, he said to himself. A complete fool to waste two months living together, when the whole time, it could’ve been like this.

  His role as a detective and the consequences of that role? Secondary. His second-guesses about whether or not he could be the man she deserved? Tertiary. No doubts. Raven was the only thing in his sight lines. He needed her more than anything else.

  The pace of the kiss—the deepness of it—intensified. Her tongue came out to meet his, and all coherent thought took a backseat. Raven’s hands were in his hair now, tugging and twirling. Her body had shifted forward, and her soft curves pressed to his chest. The quick, staccato beat of their hearts rose between them, and it was impossible to tell where his ended and hers started. Their gasps were intertwined; their mouths were one. The words he’d been trying desperately to find had found a different, more thorough outlet.

  He didn’t want it to end. But when they paused simultaneously to gulp in a breath, Raven leaned away—just a little bit—and Lucien saw that a couple of tears had escaped through her long dark lashes. They were making their way down her face.

  Guilt flushed through him. “Raven—”

  “Don’t,” she said quickly, her eyes opening wider. “Please. Don’t tell me again that you’re sorry.”

  “You’re crying.”

  “It’s not your fault. I’m just overwhelmed by everything.”

  He ran a hand over his head. As if he could physically scrape away the worsening self-reproach. What had he been thinking? Almost kissing her had been bad enough. At least he’d had the presence of mind to stop it before it went farther. This time, though...he’d been swept away by his want. Caught up in the moment, when he should’ve been paying attention to Raven. What kind of man didn’t notice when the woman he was kissing was crying?

  Her hand landed on his arm, and he realized he’d just done it again—become wrapped up in himself rather than attending to her obvious hurt.

  He tried again to apologize. “Raven...”

  She stopped him a second time. “I mean it, Lucien. Do not tell me you’re sorry.”

  “Raven.”

  “And stop saying my name and making it sound like that.”

  He pressed his lips together for a second to stop himself from doing it again, then sought some alternative words. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Uh-uh,” she cut in. “That’s going to be an apology, too.” She sighed and wriggled back, lessening the intimacy of their pose. “I know what you’re going to say, anyway. We can’t do this. We shouldn’t do this. There’s a professional line, and we should stay on the correct side of it.”

  He wanted to argue. To tell her where the “professional line” could take itself. Except her words perfectly echoed his own concerns. They aligned with every excuse he’d made when he’d walked away three years ago—the same reasons that he’d played out in his head, every time he got the urge to call Raven.

  But they seemed awfully far away and unimportant a minute ago, didn’t they?

  Lucien opened his mouth—maybe to voice the thought, maybe not—but he didn’t get a chance to say anything, because Raven’s gaze flicked to the laptop, and she spoke first.

  “Looks like something else came through from your contact at the station,” she said, and Lucien took that as a sign that she was correct. It was time to get back to the other side of the professional line.

  Chapter 9

  It took all of Raven’s willpower to stay focused on the files open on the screen. It was a daunting task. The feel of Lucien’s mouth was too fresh in her mind. And though there was a now a comfortable few inches between them—the laptop rested on the table instead of their knees—it was impossible not to be conscious of his nearness.

  And that kiss...

  It had been the kiss to ruin her for all other kisses. The one she’d been waiting on for three years. She’d imagined it. Dreamed of it. Played out the ways it could have happened in the past, and the way it would happen if they’d e
ver met up again.

  And it made you cry.

  She didn’t know where her tears had come from. Not specifically, anyway. She just knew that one second, she was clinging tightly to Lucien, her body alight with pent-up desire, and the next she was fighting a burn in her throat while her eyes betrayed her. And the rawness was what made her sure that whatever prompted the unexpected tears, it wasn’t joy at finally getting what she’d always wanted. This was more intense. It felt almost like sorrow. Which really didn’t make much sense at all.

  She was thankful that Lucien hadn’t pushed for more of an explanation. It would’ve been too humiliating to try to explain that it wasn’t just the situation that had overwhelmed her.

  She eyed Lucien’s handsome profile, trying to puzzle through the conundrum. Why, when the man who unknowingly held her heart kissed her, would she feel such an overwhelming sadness? Why, looking at him now, did it threaten to creep up again? She finally had confirmation that he was just as attracted to her as she was to him, and yet she couldn’t manage to drum up some happiness at knowing it.

  Drawing in a breath, she forced her eyes back to the laptop, and made herself ask a generic question about the scanned notes on display.

  “Is that a police report?” she said.

  Lucien nodded without looking her way. “This one is from the Sandora file.”

  “The Sandoras were the second family targeted by Hanes, right?”

  “Yep. It was actually their case that alerted us to the fact that he was handing out clues about his victims’ locations. Figured it might help us now to have a quick revisit of the old clues to get us going with the new one.” He clicked a couple of times, and a photograph of a yellow note took the place of the file. “This was the one that gave it away.”

  The existence of the clues was common knowledge, but the contents of them had never been publicly shared. Raven leaned forward to get a better look. The words were written in tidy block letters, and they would’ve been unnerving in their oddness, even if she hadn’t known they’d been left behind by the man who’d killed her family.