“You’re cooking?”
“Yeah. Your choice is between spaghetti or steaks.”
“Oh.”
It was a weird noise. “What?”
“I was gonna cook.”
“You cook?” I was stunned. Since when?
“Why you gotta say it like that?”
“I dunno, because—I had no idea you cooked.”
“I’ve cooked for you before.”
“You have?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
He was quiet.
“I would love you to cook for me,” I assured him.
“Of course you would,” he said smugly, and I smiled at the sound. Ian clothed in his arrogance, smirking on the other end of the phone, was the best thing I could imagine.
“So I’ll wait for you to get home and cook for me.”
“As opposed to what?”
“You walking through the door at some point tonight and the house smelling like food and me putting a cocktail in your hand as I serve you dinner.”
He was thinking again, quiet as he considered his options. “That sounds pretty good too.”
I chuckled. “When do you actually think you’ll be home?”
“I’m thinking around eight—we’re doing paperwork now.”
“Oh, you guys picked up Aronson already?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled.
“What?”
“Well, guess who’s all mobbed up now?”
I could not bite back the snicker. “No shit.”
“No shit,” he grumbled. “Little Peter Aronson who used to be a CI when he was running with Cantrell and his car theft ring downstate has moved up in—”
“You’re such a snob.”
“What’re you talking about?” He was incredulous. “I’m trying to tell you a story about Aronson and how we have to put that piece of shit into WITSEC and you’re giving me—”
“Downstate,” I snorted. “Really, Doyle? Everything in Illinois that is not Chicago is what?”
“Crap,” he baited me, “and you know it is.”
“You should learn respect.”
“And who’s gonna make me?” I could hear the husky, smoky sound in his voice that signaled his desire to play. He wanted to be home very badly. “You?”
“You’re awfully lippy over the phone,” I said as I turned toward the front door, having decided I needed to take a quick walk down to his favorite bakery and pick him up a blackberry pie. It was his favorite. “Come home and try and give me this much grief.”
“Oh, I’ll give you something.”
“Promises, promises,” I teased.
Silence.
“Ian?”
He cleared his throat. “So if I… if I wanted….”
I’d been waiting for this. Hoping. “Yes?”
“I could—” He took a breath. “—because since you’ve been home, I’ve wanted to—and it’s stupid, but—”
“It’s not stupid.”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, of course I do.”
“What?”
I smiled into the phone. “You want to be inside me.”
No reply.
“Because then you’ll know I’m really here, with you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“When we—” He coughed. “Two weeks ago, the first time after the kidnapping, I got that all out of my system.”
“What?”
“I felt like you were slipping away, like maybe you thought I couldn’t protect you.”
“I can protect myself. Me getting kidnapped was on me, not you.”
“Yeah, but I’m your partner, your backup. You should know if you can’t do something, that I can.”
“We’ve been through this already.”
I was not weak. He couldn’t protect me from the whole world, and neither did I want him to. Having him put all that on himself, the burden of not trusting me, instead feeling as though he had to watch me when we went out into the field together, wouldn’t serve either of us well. We were partners; he wasn’t there to be my shield.
“I know, and I don’t want to dredge it up because everything got better.”
“After we had sex.”
“Yeah.”
“But now?”
“Now nothing, we’re good.”
“Ian?”
“You can’t think that how we have sex matters to me.”
“I don’t, but I also think that sometimes you want me but you stop yourself.”
“Yeah, so what if I do?”
“Why would you do that?” I sighed. God, getting the man to trust me all the way was going to kill me.
“Because maybe you don’t—”
“What did I say?” I demanded, my voice edged with frustration. Why on Earth would I tell him something I didn’t mean? It was maddening the way he couldn’t tell me what he was thinking and feeling.
“Miro—”
“Ian,” I said sternly. “What did I say?”
“I don’t wanna go over—”
“Ian!”
“God, you’re like a dog with a bone!” he lashed out. “You said that however I wanted you was good.”
“And so what, you don’t trust me? I’m a liar?”
“No, but—”
“Jesus, Ian, you don’t think I’ve thought about it?”
“What?” He was breathless.
“You don’t think I’ve thought of you shoving me up against a wall or down on the bed and just taking what you want?”
“Stop.”
“Your skin all warm on mine,” I mused with a groan.
“I’m at work, dickhead.”
“Your hand in my hair, the other on my cock,” I went on, my voice low and seductive, knowing I was pushing it but loving the idea that I was driving him nuts. “Stroking me until I spill all over your hand?”
“Oh God, now I can’t even walk.”
I cackled, feeling mischievous and powerful at the same time. “You know, sometimes I think, what would Ian feel like moving inside of me?”