When he didn’t automatically start reading me my rights, I took that as a good sign and opened the door.

“Come in,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t betray how nervous I felt. Just because he hadn’t arrested me yet didn’t mean he wasn’t there because someone at the FBI had changed their mind about pressing charges.

“Nice place,” Clay said as he followed me inside. “Much better than the dorms at Quantico.”

I set down my papers and turned to give him a hard look. “Why are you here, Clay?” I held up a hand when he opened his mouth. I needed to clarify before he said something that made me want to smack him. “And don’t tell me you came for me unless you want to explain exactly what you mean by that.”

He looked puzzled, but not guilty, which I took as another good sign. I wasn’t going to be completely at ease, though, until I heard the whole story.

“The last time I saw you, you were being escorted off campus with all of your things. I tried contacting you, but you wouldn’t respond. You disappeared without an explanation.”

Now I was the one feeling guilty. “I got kicked out.”

“Fuck,” he said in a long, low voice. “What the hell, Rona?”

“How much did Anton tell you about our family? About why I was living with him?”

“He didn’t. But I don’t see the connection.”

I sighed and rubbed my hand over my face. I didn’t want to have this conversation. “If I tell you that I lied about something on my application, something from my past, but that I didn’t want to talk about it, would you accept that?”

He closed the distance between us and took my hand, squeezing it. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

I made myself meet his gaze, even as the emotion I saw there made me uncomfortable. “Not this. Not now.”

I saw a flash of hurt, but it was gone almost faster than I registered it. He released my hand and wrapped his arms around me. “Okay then.”

“Okay?”

He nodded, then bent his head and brushed his lips across mine. “Okay. No more questions. As long as you know you can come to me if you need to.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I doubted I’d ever want to tell him what had happened in any more detail than I just had. I liked him, I really did, but it wasn’t going to happen.

So I gave him the one thing I could.

Me.

I crashed my mouth into his, my teeth bruising against my lips. I felt his surprise for a moment, and then he reacted the way he always had when we came together like this.

He palmed my ass, pulling me tighter against him. I pulled at his shirt, eager to feel his skin, to lose myself in him the way I had before. There’d probably end up being fallout when we were done, but right now, I didn’t care. I hadn’t let myself admit how much I’d missed him until now. We’d only slept together those couple months while we were in Virginia, but he’d been in and out of my life for years. Not enough to be a constant, but definitely enough for me to be able to count on him.

His mouth made its way down my jaw, his teeth scraping against my skin. His fingers moved across the skin at the top of my jeans before sliding under my shirt, fingers skimming the sliver of revealed flesh there. I thought for a moment that I’d have to remind him that the shirt stayed on, but then he turned me around and pulled me back against him. His cock was hard against my ass, and when he kissed the spot under my ear, a shiver ran through me.

I closed my eyes, letting my head fall to the side as he kissed his way down my neck. One arm stayed around my waist while he shoved his free hand down the front of my pants. I let out a yelp that turned into a whimper as his fingers plunged between my folds. I was barely damp, and the extra friction took my breath away. I gasped and squirmed, but he held me tight, forcing me toward climax with rough, abrupt strokes.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I panted, reaching behind me to grab at his leg. “Clay…”

His name ended in a cry as painful pleasure burst inside me, sending electricity racing across my nerves.

“There’s one,” he said with a smug smile. “Point the way to your bedroom, and we’ll see how many more we can get.”

The answer turned out to be two more, for a total of three. I had to admit, there was something to be said for not being on a timetable.

“You’ve got a nice ceiling.”

I turned to look at Clay. “What?”

“Your ceiling.” He pointed. “It’s nice.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That is possibly the weirdest post-coital comment I’ve ever heard.”

He reached over and pulled me to his side. It felt strange for a moment since we’d never really…cuddled before, but then the familiar scent and feel of him registered and I relaxed again.

“Would you prefer to talk about what happened? About why you never take your shirt off when we’re together?” Clay’s voice was strangely gentle. “There are a lot of other things we could talk about, but I meant what I said, Rona. I’m not going to push. I just don’t want you to kick me out of bed right away.”

I didn’t look at him, but I shifted so that I could trace patterns on his bare chest. I had to make conversation, get his thoughts off what I was hiding. It shouldn’t have been hard. It wasn’t like Clay and I hadn’t talked before. Even back at Quantico, after we’d started sleeping together, it hadn’t been difficult to talk to him.

“Mind if I ask what you’ve been doing since I last saw you?” Asking him about himself seemed like a good way to steer the conversation.

“I finished up my lecture series,” he said, “and then I asked to be assigned somewhere as a field agent.”

“Really?” I was genuinely surprised. “I thought you loved teaching.”

He shrugged. “I did, and I might enjoy it again, but I wanted a change.”

“To field work?”

“Working as a profiler isn’t exactly the same as starting off as a junior agent,” he pointed out. “Though I’m going the ‘pair up and investigate’ route rather than the ‘sit in the office’ route.”

“You didn’t get in any trouble over me, did you?”

He looked at me now, his fingers playing with the sleeve of my shirt. “No.” His eyes widened. “Please tell me that wasn’t why you left.”

I shook my head. “As far as I know, they have no idea we were…you know.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of my head. “Haven’t you ever heard that if you can’t say it, you shouldn’t do it?”

I rolled my eyes, but I secretly enjoyed the fact that he was teasing me. It made the fact that we were laying here together seem less intense.

“Anyway, it took a while for things to go through since it’s more of a specialized position, but I’ve been officially assigned to the Denver office for the past two weeks.”

Denver. That was only a couple hours away.

“Did you request Denver?”

“No.” He looked down at me again, expression serious once more. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the fact that you’re not far away.”

“Is that how you knew where I was?” I asked, keeping my tone light. “Inappropriate use of agency resources?” His cheeks turned red, and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “Really, Clay?”

“That’s not exactly how it was,” he said. “The agency generally monitors trainees who have left the program, especially ones who…” The sentence trailed off, and he looked away.

“Who got kicked out,” I finished for him.

He nodded. “All I did was ask Alphonso to keep me in the loop if your name popped up. He called me back at the beginning of last month to say that you’d applied for a PI license here in Fort Collins.”

If Clay had just been some random hook up, it would’ve been creepy. Hell, if he’d been someone I’d been in a relationship with for two months, it would’ve been creepy. But after Anton died, he’d looked out for me. It was a completely Clay thing to do.

It could’ve been more than that, but I wasn’t about to venture down that rabbit hole. I stuck with what was safe.

“How’s work going?”

“Great,” he said brightly. “I’ve been partnered with Raymond Matthews. He’s a great agent, responsible for taking down dozens of child pornography and human trafficking rings in the past few years.”

The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I filed it away to check in the future and focused my attention back on Clay and the new problem I’d just realized.

No timetable meant no specific time he had to leave. I’d never had to think about how to ask a guy to leave before. Most of them couldn’t wait to get away after we were finished, as if they were afraid I’d read more into it than sex. Or I’d been the one to leave before things became awkward.

I’d enjoyed the sex, and I was glad to see Clay again, but now I was wondering if it was such a good idea, making him think that we were going to pick up where we left off in Virginia. Or that we had something to pick up other than casual sex.

“I’ve got to head back,” he said with a sigh.

“I understand.” I tried not to sound too pleased with his statement. I really didn’t want to risk my friendship with him, which meant I needed to figure out how to handle things before we did this again.

If we did this again.