Court was back in session and I fell in a blaze of shit. I couldn’t recover from the morning meltdown that was Cerise Watts. She was my ace, but in this case, that card was only worth one point. None of my follow-up witnesses were stars. Not one could name Torro as the bad guy, place him at the scene, or discuss his levels of abuse against Delilah. Closed mouths and terrified minds, that was my afternoon. Torro’s people had gotten to them, despite my efforts to keep the witnesses isolated. Hell, Torro’s people could’ve infiltrated the jury pool weeks ago.
As I closed my briefcase and stood, I had the annoying thought that Max Torro was going to walk, unless my cross exams of his witnesses were so on point I’d stun the courtroom much like the court dramas of prime-time television. It was never the six-hundred-hour trial preparation containing cell phone tower locations and medical diagnostics and biological laboratory analysis that got the ratings—i.e., the boring shit that the audience (and jury) never saw and which most successful cases stood upon.
Sometimes, being a real-life prosecutor sucked ass.
I shot out of the courtroom before Torro’s lawyer could barf his ego all over me and now sat at my desk pouring over the police paperwork, grand jury minutes, detectives’ notes, highlighting anything that could give me the zing of gut instinct I was known for. When my phone buzzed with a text, I was finally made aware of the time, as if the muted glow of the windows behind me and deserted office in front of me didn’t give the initial clue.
Rising, I threw on my rumpled suit jacket, stuffing files I could read at home into my bag. I flung the fifteen pounds of paper over my shoulder, flicked off my lights, and headed out with the rest of New York City’s night owls.
The subway was quiet in that depressing way of being crowded but everyone was too dead-beat tired or glued to their phones to do anything about it. Once in the subway car, the only handhold to grab onto was above a woman whose head had clonked back into the train’s window and gave me a bird’s eye view of her tonsils. Her multiple tote bags stuffed with plastic and other strange shopping materials were splayed out on either side of her. I wished I could zonk out in public like that with fifty people standing around me while I took up at least three seat’s worth of a subway bench.
Forty-five minutes later, the train zoomed into my neighborhood, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the woman still snoring comfortably in her seats. I hauled ass out of the underground and into the streets, ready to get into my apartment and smack my face onto the floor. I would happily sleep on hardwood for the rest of the night, so long as I could close my eyes.
I said hello to my downstairs neighbor who was giving her fur critter, otherwise known as my 4 AM canine alarm clock, her nightly walk before sprinting up the first flight of stairs, using my keys, shouldering open my apartment door and—
Entering through the gates of heaven.
First hit: the smell of garlic, onion and tomato, the scent of the spaghetti gods.
Second hit: a topless woman languishing on my couch in my living room.
My briefcase thunked to the floor.
“Hey, babe,” the vision of lace and sin said. “Could you help me? I seem to have lost all my clothing.”
She arched her back at my arrival, her breasts perking accordingly. Her left nipple was pierced, and it was the weirdest, hottest thing I’d ever seen on a woman. That lithe body of hers was slick and golden with whatever secret candy lotion she had on hand.
“Not everything,” I said, noticing her white lace thong when she flashed me a cheek. Suddenly, the hardwood floor was looking a hell of a lot more appealing.
She crooked a finger, one leg sliding toward her body. “Then I guess I’ll have to lose that, too.”
“Noelle,” I said, part sigh, part horndog, because sleep was becoming the worst thing that could ever happen when my hot girlfriend stripped naked in front of me. I shed my jacket and threw it somewhere. I loosened my tie as she hooked her thumbs and slid her thong off and away.
She came up to her knees, assisting me in my suit-shedding, but instead of having my tie join my blazer, her deep blue eyes grew mischievous before she blocked out my sight and blindfolded me with it.
“Took you long enough to get here, babe,” her voice whispered near my ear.
“I have…I had—fuck.”
Talking was pointless. I focused on feeling instead and how her tongue kept following her fingers, down, down…
“Wait,” I said. I paused her movements by jerking her hand to a stop, but kept my grip gentle on her wrist.
Noelle’s hot breath receded, leaving a cooled, misted feeling on my torso. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking…”
I didn’t need the blindfold anymore. “It’s fine. Keep going.”
She blinked up at me, and I kept my expression schooled, relaxed, letting her know that it was okay. It wasn’t the first time a woman had nearly touched my scars.
Old, mottled, whitened from age, the burn spread across the left side of my torso and almost hit my ribcage with deformed tentacles. No one had ever brushed their fingers across the wound.
No, that was a lie. There was one person, but I shouldn’t think of her right now.
It was a forbidden area, but not because of pain. A feeling that scythed through the back of my head every time someone hovered near, assiduous fears and automatic protections tearing forth and preventing anything from ever hurting that spot again. It was a defense I couldn’t shake but made dedicated efforts to tame, especially after realizing that my growls, my predator-like reflexes to keep that area sacred, could really scare the shit out of people.
Noelle’s wrist was delicate in my hand, and I guided it down, away from the trauma. When she started to unzip my pants, I threw her into my arms and she shrieked out in surprise, then laughed. We twisted, turned, and landed on the floor. Past forgotten, we explored with nothing but present sense and skin.
#
An hour and a half later, I scraped the last of Noelle’s meatballs from my plate, sat back in my chair and patted my stomach, recently flattened by Noelle’s penchant for spin class which I pretended to hate but was okay with doing. Just don’t ever ask me where I am on Monday and Wednesday mornings. I’ll never tell.
“Isn’t this against my diet restrictions?” I asked her.
She perched on her seat beside me, still clad in her birthday suit and licking her fork clean. The tip of her tongue had me thinking I wanted it around my dick again. “You’ve had a stressful week, and for that you get a pass.”
“Thank you for that,” I said, catching her hand and kissing her fingers.
“I haven’t seen you for days and knew that topless spaghetti and meatballs would give me at least two hours with you wide awake.”
I grinned over her hand.
“I admit it, I missed you.” She gave an exaggerated head tilt, sending her brunette strands tumbling around her shoulders. Yet there was a thickness in her statement, not all joke. We’d been dating a year and while three years younger than my wise old twenty-nine, she’d been leaving clues everywhere as to her hopes for our future. Noelle Fields was hot, smart, funny, witty, and all my buddies loved her. She stimulated my brain on important matters like politics and world issues and was often a big help when faced with a legal conundrum. Noelle was also second year associate at one of the biggest law firms in the country, and, like me, enjoyed taking out her frustrations through sex. She was a stunner naked.
Except, there was something I couldn’t put my finger on.
I liked messy. Passion and anger with the satisfying conclusion of leg-tangling submission. Noelle didn’t fight; she understood. She never talked back and thought any problems could be solved by a good meal and warm conversation.
“You’re wrong,” I said to Noelle, and pulled on her forearm until her breasts molded against my body.
“Am I?”
“You’ve gained at least three hours with me at your service.” My other hand played, flicked, massaged her nipple ring.
“Spence…” she said, tipping her chin back.
I scraped my teeth down her neck, nicking that spot behind her ear that elicited the kind of noises from her I’d think about later and get hard just remembering, and found her clit with my fingers, building her up. She was slick, hot, and I slipped in…
My phone rang. And not that cute la-la-la type ring that is all harmony and pleasant interruption. It was a submarine alarm, bleating out its urgency because that was the only sound annoying enough to get my attention and make me answer.
“Who the hell’s calling you at midnight?” Noelle groaned, and unfortunately moved away.
“Anyone,” I said, heading to my bag leaning precariously on my front door. “My supervisor, fellow ADAs, paralegals, cops, the President…the law has no timetable, honey.”
“Spare me,” she said and picked up our plates. But laughed anyway.
I answered. “Yeah?”
“Spence?”
“Knox, buddy,” I said, and tried to sound friendly to my childhood sidekick, a man who should’ve known never to call me in the middle of the night during a big case, because more often than not I’d be taking out my stress by screwing my girlfriend’s brains out. “This better be the emergency of a lifetime, because you just—”
“You sitting down?”
An almost-frown touched my expression. “No, I’m standing ass-crack naked in the middle of my living room. Why?”
Noelle caught the concern and lowered the dirty dishes slowly into the sink.
“That scene I was called out to? The kidnapping in the financial district?”
“What about it?”
“It’s Emme, Spence.”
That name.
Eyes the darkest shade of green. Cascades of ink-black hair. A smile to melt me.
“Nope.” I said. “You’ve spent a few too many hours off the clock and twice that amount on booze and now you’re blowing up my phone because you’re hallucinating. Right? Right, Knox?”
My tone became rougher the further I committed to this storyline.
“You heard me,” Knox said, though not with unkindness. He sounded tired, resigned. Scared. “It’s been confirmed. The abducted woman is Emme Beauregard. It’s Em.”
My knees slammed to the floor.