Chapter 15

Tony

 

I pulled out, staying in her as she came around my dick had me un-fucking done. Her body shuddered beneath mine as I joined her, coming in a hot spill over one shapely hip. Making a fucking mess, but I didn’t care. What I cared about was the pleasure filled scream crawling its way up her throat, spilling between those so-kissable lips to hit the ceiling and drip down my walls.

It was beautiful, so wild it was insane, and I fucking adored that she would let go with me. That she would trust me, and let me take her there. That she would trust me to bring her back.

She lay panting on the polished wood of my dining room table, eyes unfocused and body trembling, shivering with fine little aftershocks. I pulled up my pants and tucked everything back in. I would have liked to join her in getting naked, but first things first – I had to get her cleaned up enough to get her upstairs and into a proper shower. I went around to the side of the table and moved another chair out of my way so I could bend down and kiss her.

My hand naturally found the silkiness of her hair, smoothing over it again and again, running my fingers through it keeping it back from her forehead. She slowly came back, focusing on me and I smiled.

“Hey, baby,” I whispered.

“Hi…”

She tried to sit up and I stopped her with a quick but gentle, “Not yet, just relax. I’m gonna grab something and clean you up a bit then I’ll help you up. You good?”

I knew the answer to the question by the semi-glazed look in her eyes and her languid movements. She nodded faintly, her eyes closing and I was loving that she was feeling good for a change. I had a feeling the pain would be creeping back in on her any minute, so any reprieve I could give her was a good thing.

I kissed her one more time and straightened up, going over to the paper towel rack and ripping some off. I turned on the tap at the sink and let it run warm, dampened some of the towels and went back to her, cleaning up the worst of the mess gently and taking the wad of towels back to the trash.

I helped her sit up carefully and had her wait a minute before trying to get down. She still seemed a bit shaky and that was okay, we weren’t in any rush. No hurry at all, as far as I was concerned.

She gripped the edge of the table and bit down on her lower lip as she carefully slipped off the edge and back onto her feet. I stood beside her and helped her and her hair moved aside from the site of her injury in her upper back. I got a good view of her scars, both top and bottom and I have to tell you, I marveled at what modern medicine could do. They weren’t that bad. Just slightly dimpled, pink and shiny depressions in her skin. The one on her shoulder blade honestly no bigger than her thumb and the one down low on her opposite hip, just above her ass? Well, it was no bigger than mine. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t that. I mean, they were almost dainty for all the damage they’d caused her.

She made to turn and I stopped her and whispered, “They aren’t that bad, precious. I mean it.” I traced a fingertip around one and pressed my lips to it, then traced around the other before going to my knees and kissing it. “Not that big, not at all,” I murmured.

She turned and I let her this time, putting her arms around my shoulders and looking down at me, tucking herself against me as I rested my chin on her stomach and looked up into her lovely dark eyes.

“You mean it?” she asked and I nodded.

“Seen much worse, precious.”

I stood up and she drew back just enough to let me before immediately tucking herself back in against my body, curving her arms around my waist. She rested her lips against where my neck met my shoulder and I put my arms around her right back, holding her carefully. She sniffed and rested her forehead against my shoulder and I frowned.

“What’s the matter?” I asked her and she sighed out.

“Nothing, I mean… just promise you won’t be mad at me.”

“Mad at you? Why would I be mad at you?” I tipped her chin so she would look at me and she did, a confused storm of emotion going on behind them.

“I should have said something… I haven’t exactly been keeping up on my birth control with having been shot and hospitalized and all of that. Normally, I take the pill but…”

“Shit, yeah… say no more. I didn’t even think either. It’s cool. We’ll do the morning after pill just to be sure. It’ll be okay.”

“Really?” she asked and I harrumphed.

“Takes two to tango, lover. It’s your body, not mine. You get to say what you do with it. If that’s what you want I’d be a real asshole not to support your decision. My mamma didn’t raise me like that.”

“I thought you might be a good Irish boy,” she said cuddling closer, voice relieved.

I smiled, “I am a good Irish boy, raised right by his momma and all; but I’m just a so-so Catholic. Had to give them something to be disappointed about, otherwise I’d be perfect.”

She smiled and giggled a little saying, “I guess we can’t have that.”

“What about you?”

“I’m a good Italian girl, not the best Roman Catholic, but also, I’m a defense attorney… so I guess I’m really not perfect.”

I chuckled and said, “Nah, you’re just overcompensating. I’ve heard that about you.”

She scoffed and leaned back, mouth dropped open in a perfect ‘o’ of surprise, brown eyes wide and sparkling. She took one look at my face and the humor on it and stopped smiling like a doughnut and gave me the real deal.

“Oh my god, you jerk!” she cried, and slapped me in the chest lightly with her good hand.

I laughed and said, “Against advice of counsel, I’ll plead guilty to that one.”

She pushed out her lips in defiance and said, “Well, I don’t know who your lawyer is, but after that, I would never represent you.”

I laughed and said, “Oh, hang me out to dry, would you?”

Her expression toned down to one that was oh so serious and she looked me straight in the eye and said, “Never.”

I believed her to my very core, and that kind of fierce loyalty out of her? Fuck. That was hot. I bowed my head and kissed her lips, holding her firmly but carefully to me. She returned the kiss, so serious, in a way that said she was willing to seal this deal and I loved that she wasn’t afraid to commit. I mean, this was one of those times that you didn’t need words. That even though our bodies did the talking, we knew without a single doubt, what the other was thinking and feeling.

When the kiss broke, we stood there between my kitchen and dining areas with our foreheads pressed together, just soaking each other in. It was one of the best moments, if not the best moment I had ever shared with a woman, or any other human being.

The cooler ambient temp of the room caught up with her before me, because she shivered lightly in my arms.

“Come on, I’ll gladly help you with that shower you missed out on.”

“I’d really like that,” she murmured and I had to smile. It was a done deal.

I led her up the stairs and into the bathroom, twisting knobs and getting the tap going. When I deemed it warm enough, I pulled up on the thing sticking up out of the bathtub faucet and let the shower spray take over.

“If I help you in to get warm, you steady enough I can go grab towels and leave you for a sec?”

“Absolutely, I should be. I just can’t really get this arm high enough for long enough to deal with my hair and my balance isn’t strong enough with the leg and hip to bend over far enough to compensate.”

“Man, you really gotta relearn how do to everything don’t you?”

“Just about, I guess I should be grateful he shot me in my non-dominant hand. If he’d hit my dominant side, my occupational therapist said I would even have to relearn how to write or sign my own name.”

“Jesus Christ.” I couldn’t even imagine that one.

I helped her into the bath and made sure she felt steady under the spray, she nodded, and I slid the curtain closed so that I could go grab a few things and finish taking off my clothes. I stepped across the hall into my bedroom and ditched the clothes first, throwing them in the laundry pile of ‘needs to be washed’ in the corner.

Back out in the hall, I grabbed some of the nice, big towels out of the linen closet before I stepped back into the bathroom. I flipped on the fan and called out “How you doing?” to let her know I was there before pulling back the curtain.

“Good,” she said faintly, and her voice was a bit on the dreamy side. She stood under the spray, head tipped back, hair slicked tight to her head, water sluicing down her body in these rivulets that accentuated every plane, angle, and curve, magnifying her skin. The whole effect was alluring and damned if I wasn’t starting to get a semi; a semi that wasn’t going to stay a semi for long when I stepped into the tub and she turned those lovely dark eyes on me.

“Hi,” she said, an edge of nervousness in her voice.

“Hey, precious.” I picked up her good hand and brought it to my lips, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm, turning my head to do it, but not taking my eyes off her.

How could I take my eyes off her? She was one of those natural beauties that seemed physically impossible, except she wasn’t and she was standing nude and perfect right in front of me, in my shower, and I couldn’t tell you how much I loved that… even though I hated with every fiber of my being the why of it.

She stared at me, those dark eyes of hers so wide, those kissable lips slightly parted in awe and silent invitation. I couldn’t say no to an invite as sweet as that, so I carefully stepped even further into her space, cradling her face gently between my hands while I kissed her. She held onto me. The hand on her bum arm resting on my hip, the other lying alongside my neck, thumb smoothing back and forth over my pulse that leapt for her.

She was everything to want in a woman. Beautiful, smart as a whip, and gave as good as she got. She’d been fierce before and if I had anything to say about it, would be again; she just needed a confidence boost. Someone to stand behind her and remind her that she’s got this. I could do that for her. I wanted to do that for her. First, I needed to remind her just how much she was worth and I could start pretty simply by washing her hair.

There was something incredibly intimate about washing a woman’s hair for her. I’d learned this through some of the trials and errors in the relationships that’d gone before, but this particular pro-tip I’d actually learned from Chrissy herself on our second date. We’d gotten into a discussion about how you could tell the person you were with was worth keeping around and she’d told me that for her it was by how intimate a man was willing to be with her. It’d been an offhand remark, but she’d said, ‘It’s the difference between a man handing you the bottle of shampoo while you’re in the shower together and him taking the time to lather your hair for you.’

It’d stuck with me, all these years, and I’d realized that I’d been that asshole quite a few times in the past. Handing the girl the bottle rather than taking my time with her to do it right. For Chrissy, I wanted to take the time and do it right and honestly, not because she needed me to, but because I wanted to.

“All I’ve got, sorry…” I murmured before emptying a generous amount of my shampoo into my hand. She had a hell of a lot of hair compared to me, so I imagined I’d need a lot more soap… just saying.

Shit. I don’t think I’d ever been so nervous to do such a simple task in my life. I mean, what if I didn’t do it right? She took a deep breath and turned around giving me her back, her scars, her most vulnerable side and I slicked my hands through her hair, burying my fingers in the clinging strands and working the soap through it.

“Lean against me if you don’t feel steady,” I murmured and she did, as soon as I’d gathered up all her long, thick hair, she put her back against my chest, her good arm raised, hand curved around the back of my neck, her other arm hanging limp and straight to her side.

I had a perfect view over her shoulder of those perfect goddamn tits of hers and my cock was so not complaining. I wasn’t trying to be about that right now, though. I was trying like hell to be what she both wanted and needed in a man because I wanted to believe that when the crisis was over, when it’d been averted, that she’d maybe stick around this time because I knew I wanted to.

If there was going to be a split between us this time, it wasn’t going to be a mutual one. I didn’t want her to go. I enjoyed our talks. I loved how easy things were with her. I really loved that she got it, even though she was technically batting for the other team, she knew what it was to be with a cop and around a bunch of other cops.

I was seriously regretting that we hadn’t tried to make it work years earlier. I feel like I’d missed out on so much.

“Turn, careful now, tip your head back and rinse… that’s it.”

She clung to me, trusting I had her as she tipped her head back, eyes closed so that the warm water from the showerhead could slick through her long tresses and rinse the white lather away. I spent some time washing her body and then quickly did my own despite her protests that she would at least like to do something in kind.

I gave her a cheeky grin and told her, “If you wanna, I won’t turn down a blowjob later.”

She laughed, high and bright and nodded, and the mood wasn’t so somber anymore, yet remained comfortably intimate. I pulled her close, kissed her gently and then twisted to turn off the tap. I got out of the tub first so that I could reach out and steady her. The bathmat one of those memory foam things, was one of the best buys I’d ever made for this house when my parents had turned it over to me.

They hadn’t died, far from it, they’d retired down to Florida and my brothers, one older, two younger had all gone on to do great things. Well, greater than a cop’s salary anyhow. I’d been an apartment dweller for a fair bit and when my parents had decided that the Maryland winters were too much and wanted to move to sunnier climates, they’d let me buy them out and take over payments on my childhood home. It was fuckin’ huge for one person, but there wasn’t much left owed on it and I could use the boost.

It was as if Chrissy’d read my mind. I wrapped her in a towel and she took a breath as if to ask me something but stopped before she voiced anything. I chuckled and said, “Go on; ask.”

“It’s rude,” she said and I stopped rubbing her down through the towel and sighed.

“So was having our first time together be on my dining room table. I’d like to think we’re at a stage with things that what might be considered rude by polite society’s standards is just plain straight talk between two people who are comfortable enough with each other to do it on said dining room table.”

She smiled and laughed a little and said, “You should have been a lawyer.”

“Now that’s rude,” I said. “Now what were you gonna ask me?”

She scoffed and slapped me lightly on the shoulder and said, “What’s wrong with being a lawyer!?”

“Nothing, precious, but that wasn’t what you were gonna ask me.”

“Oh my god! You’re incorrigible!”

“I’m aware… now spill.”

“I was going to ask… isn’t this place a little big for just one person?”

I chuckled and said, “I was just thinking that”, and launched into the explanation.

“You mean there’s four of you? Your poor mother!”

I laughed, hard and loud and pulled her into my arms, kissing her soundly as she giggled against my mouth, too.

“No, baby. There’s only one of me. My brothers are a handful all on their own.”

“So I imagine.”

I told her about my family, led her across the hall into my room and showed her some pictures. I helped her into one of my button down shirts. I know, I know, she had her own stuff here. Probably a few of those lacy, sexy nighties made it into the mix, too… but there was something about a beautiful woman in nothing but your shirt that… mm.

She sat on my bed, her long legs curled under her and stared at the framed photo of my family in my hands. It was an old one. Taken the day I’d graduated the police academy, but it was one of the few I had with all of us in it. I looked over her shoulder while I brushed her hair and told her stories about each of my brothers as she pointed them out. None of them particularly flattering, of course.

It was comfortable, it was nice, and I found I was seriously enjoying brushing her long hair. Mostly for how much it calmed her, her body relaxing. A tension she and I both didn’t realize she held all the time just slipping away.

I could do this forever, but unfortunately, we both needed to eat and get some sleep. She was coming into the precinct, into the city with me, tomorrow. It was gonna be a big day for her. Still, when she started to talk, I let her.

“I miss my parents,” she said softly. “My mom always knew what to do, you know? She would know just what to say to make things better.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She drew in a deep breath and set the photo of my family aside and said, “I don’t know what she would say about all of this, though, and it makes me miss her even harder.”

“Maybe it’s not about what your mom would say this time,” I said.

“I don’t follow,” she murmured.

“Maybe it’s about what your dad would say,” I suggested. I mean, it stood to reason. Typically it was the man of the family who traditionally dealt with violent situations.

“He’d honestly probably tell me I never should have taken the case,” she said with a bit of a bitter laugh.

“You really think so?”

“Yeah,” she said and I could hear a hint of a smile in her voice. “He wouldn’t mean it like that, though. My dad was sort of the absent-minded professor. He would say the most socially awkward things sometimes and it totally would be what he meant without actually being what he meant, you know what I mean?”

“What did your dad do?” I asked, I couldn’t ever remember if she’d told me.

“Linguistics professor at the university. He was kind of a savant when it came to languages. Spoke seven, but his specialty was Italian. My mother was a housewife and pretty much needed to be to keep him in line or he’d disappear for days poring over old texts and translating them. He was kind of a nerd.”

I chuckled, and put my arms around her, hugging her back into my chest and lightly resting my chin over her shoulder. I looked down at my big family, mom, dad, and all four boys and couldn’t imagine life without my brothers in it. It must have been pretty lonely for her growing up like that.

“I can’t imagine being an only child,” I said finally, watching her fingertips caress over my image behind the glass.

“I wasn’t, really. Sami was right next door. She moved there in the third grade and we might as well have been sisters.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. If my mom or her mom found one of our beds empty in the middle of the night, it wasn’t anything, they knew where we were. My mom and her mom ended up best friends, too. It was nice. A little dicey through puberty,” she laughed, “but we made it through.”

“Sounds like one of those one in a million friendships.”

“It was.”

“You guys doing okay?”

She heaved a big sigh and said faintly, “I think so. I mean, it hurts, but Janine, Sami’s mom, made it around to see me a couple of more times since the day of the funeral. David, her brother, too. I don’t think Bob, her dad, can handle it. Sami was a daddy’s girl. The press was hounding Bob and Janine so bad, they had to leave the city and get away for a while, otherwise I think they would have come around more.”

She fell silent and I nodded, asking finally and in a total attempt to change the subject, “What would you like for dinner? I’m pretty good at the whole cooking thing, always liked doing it, but really got into it out of self-defense with my ex.”

“Before or after our disastrous attempt at dating?” she asked, laughing.

“Before,” I said honestly. “Hasn’t really been anyone since you. Another stab at it, here or there, but nothing beyond a couple of weeks or a one-off fling that wasn’t gonna go anywhere.”

“I tried dating another lawyer,” she said. “It was only for a minute and pretty much ended the same way we did except…”

“Except what?” I asked when she fell silent.

“Except without the regret.”

I smiled and smoothed my fingers through her long hair, petting it almost, when I realized what I was doing and that it was kind of weird. It kind of tickled me pink that she’d regretted walking away, almost, if not more, than I had.

“Yeah, about the same for me too, you’re the one that got away, Franco.”

“You mean, the one?” she asked.

“Ah, yeah.”

“Wow, didn’t think I made that strong of an impression.”

“Well, you did and you do.” I slid off the bed from behind her and stood up, holding down my hand to her. “Come on, let me fix you something to eat, then we can hit the hay. You’ve got a big fuckin’ day tomorrow.”

She nodded tiredly and let me help her to her feet.

“That I do,” she agreed but I could tell she was thinking. I could tell she was thinking hard. Truth be told? I was, too.