The deeper he pushed into me, the more I felt how much we belonged together. We fit so perfectly in each other’s arms. It was like I’d been missing a piece of myself since as far back as I could remember, and now I’d finally found it. I was never letting go.
I shuddered as I felt him swell inside me. His breath was hot on my ear, coming in short bursts, in desperate gasps. I pulled back, looking into his eyes and seeing the pleasured strain on his face. I knew he needed the release just as much as I did.
“Let it go,” I cooed to him, holding his face in both my hands regardless of the pain. “Go ahead, Nathan.”
He looked into my eyes as he bit his lip and released inside of me, relinquishing his own pain, guilt, and doubt with each pulse of his orgasm. I held his gaze, watching the rapture overtake him, watching as both our bodies let go of all the darkness we’d been carrying and finally ascended into the light.
When he lay in my arms, head burrowed into my breasts, I knew everything was going to be all right. The trial tomorrow, Peter Wallace’s fate—none of it mattered. We were free.
10
I stood outside the doors where Nathan would soon make his exit, dressed in my nicest suit and smiling so hard I thought I might pop the surgical glue on my cheek. He’d done it. He’d testified. I couldn’t possibly have been prouder of the man.
News crews had gathered down the steps near the street, waiting for him to make his appearance. As he finally emerged past the door, he looked around, eyes narrowed.
“So, this is it, huh? I do a good deed and now they throw me to the wolves?”
I laughed, following his gaze toward the reporters. “It’s not so bad. They’re going to love you. You’re a hero!”
“Nobody ever loves a billionaire,” he muttered, straightening his tie. I knew he hated it. It had been a bitch convincing him to wear one during his testimony.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” I said, trying not to grin too hard and hurt myself. “Come on. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Nathan smiled. “Did you bring your gun?”
I laughed and shook my head, following him out the front doors and down the courthouse steps toward the clamoring journalists and flashing cameras.
Their voices rose in a chorus around him, cries of “Mr. Hale! Mr. Hale!” so loud they were all we could hear. I knew Nathan had planned on slipping past them without making a statement, but he stopped when it became clear they weren’t going to let up. He held up his hands to calm them down.
“Mr. Hale,” one woman said, speaking excitedly into her microphone. “It only took the jury thirty minutes to reach a guilty verdict on the Peter Wallace trial. How much do you think your testimony tipped the scales in the prosecution’s favor?”
Nathan smiled patiently and looked around at the multitude of stations all vying for footage of the city’s most prominent billionaire. Then he put his arm behind my back and pulled me forward beside him.
“I think when anyone does the right thing, it makes a hell of a lot of difference—more than we ever think it might,” he answered, his arm remaining tight around my waist. I looked up at him as he continued: “We’re made to believe that one person can’t make a difference without money or power. I have both, but none of that mattered. What mattered was a woman—a detective—so driven by the desire to do the right thing that her actions convinced me it was time to stand up for something greater than myself. You all know me as the billionaire playboy Nathaniel Hale, the guy who throws obnoxious parties and spends way too much money on cars and other frivolous things.” He smiled, turning to face me. “But that’s not me anymore. Now I’m the guy who does the right thing, because one woman dared to stand up and challenge me. And that could’ve been any of you. Anyone can stand up and do the right thing, because all it takes is one person to show the rest of the world how powerful they really are.”
Oh God… I thought to myself.
“But this woman,” he added, a grin slowly spreading over his face. “Is the real hero of this story, not me. And she’s my hero.”
I smiled as he leaned down and kissed me, completely aware of the cameras all trained on him, on us in that moment. What he was doing was going to cost me my badge—my entire career. But as the media stuttered, desperately trying to make sense of what was happening, I let Nathan wrap me up in his arms and give me what I’d always wanted, what I’d always needed: redemption.
“Mr. Hale!” a reporter shouted over everything, breaking the stunned silence, but Nathan just put a hand up and released my lips long enough to shout, “No more questions.”
I found myself being pulled away, my whole life leading up to this moment flashing before my eyes. What in the world was I thinking? What in the hell was I going to say to the captain?
And how soon could I get this man somewhere private and do something totally and completely indecent?
11
“What the hell is this?” Captain Pierce asked, staring at the gun and badge I’d dropped onto his desk. I was ready for this. Surely he had seen what happened on those courthouse steps as much as anyone else did.
“Sir, we both know what this is,” I replied, trying to remain as calm and level as I could. “You saw what happened earlier today, and I’m turning in my badge.”
“Sandra, I’m afraid I can’t accept it.”
Did he think I was stupid? I was an employee of the state, and I could quit right now, walk out of here, and forget any of this happened. “Captain Pierce…” I said indignantly, prepared to give him a lecture about all the bullshit I’d put up with over the last few years in this office, but he cut me off with a hand loudly slamming down onto the table.
“Detective, just stop. Sit there, shut up, and listen to me.”
I narrowed my eyes. I could feel my nostrils flaring like an angry bull. I didn’t have to put up with this. Still, something about the urgency in his voice made me settle back down in my seat.
“Sandra, why do you think I put you on this case?” the captain asked, coming round his desk and standing there, looking down at me. “Do you think it’s because I think you’re the best detective for the job? Hell, did it ever occur to you that maybe a detective shouldn’t be wasting her time protecting a fucking witness?”
“I… Captain, I don’t understand…” I whispered, staring up at him. What in the hell was he trying to say?
“Sandra, I put you on this case because you have history with Mr. Hale. We both know you’ve been fucking him.”
I blinked. I felt like I’d been slapped right across my face. My stomach sank to my feet where it coiled into knots around my ankles, preventing me from leaping up out of the chair and clawing Captain Pierce’s eyes right out of his honky skull.
What the fuck? Did this asshole really think that kind of bullshit was going to fly with me? This was sexual harassment!
“Nathaniel Hale has a few, let’s say, ‘well known’ predilections. Putting you on his protection detail was critical. I needed you close to him, Sandra.”
I swallowed the acrid rage rising in my throat. What was he getting at?
“You put me in there because you knew Nathaniel Hale had a thing for me? What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked, locking the Captain in a hateful stare. “If it wasn’t a felony, I’d strangle you with your fucking tie!”
“I put you there, Sandra, because I knew you could get under his skin. To your credit, it seems like you’ve went well above and beyond the call of duty.”
“You asshole,” I replied. I knew exactly what he was implying. He’d been playing me right from the beginning. I wasn’t sent in to talk to Mr. Hale because I was the best cop for the job, I was sent there because the Captain knew we’d been intimate! I was sent there to put him off balance!
“Maybe you think I’m an asshole, but I’m an asshole who gets results. Thirty-six women were in that container they tossed into the fucking Pacific Ocean,” the Captain said, stepping over to his filing cabinet and pulling
out a manila folder. “Thirty-six souls, and God-fucking-knows how many others buried around this city because Wallace was walking free.”
“We put him in prison, Captain. Nathaniel Hale’s testimony put him there.”
“There’s only one problem with that,” Captain Pierce said, tossing the folder onto the table. I stared down at it, at its contents: picture after picture of Nathaniel Hale, and in the same frame, Mr. Wallace. “You might think Nathaniel Hale is the good guy here, but it seems he had a bit more interaction with Wallace and the Paddies than you might want to admit.”
I thought back to the conversation Nathan and I had over dinner, trying to hide my emotions. The world swirled around me. I could feel darkness closing in from all sides, my pulse pounding in my head so loud that it almost drowned out the Captain’s next words.
“So it might interest you to know there’s another container on its way, detective. Full of women, just like the last one.”