You think it will get in the way of you reaching your gun, don't you?

Catherine had noticed that whenever they walked together, Rebecca took the street side, as if shielding her. She was also very aware that no matter where they were, Rebecca constantly scanned the surroundings, looking for something or someone out of place. It wasn't a question of Rebecca always working, it was simply that Rebecca was always a cop.

And in that regard, there was no middle ground. "If you won't wear an overcoat, then you need to switch to wool blazers. The silk is not heavy enough for this time of year."

Rebecca laughed. "If that will make you happy, I will. Except * 143 *

RADCLY fFE they're still in storage from last winter. It might be a week or so before I have time to retrieve them."

"Give me the tickets, and I'll pick them up for you."

"You don't have to," Rebecca said as they climbed the stairs to Catherine's brownstone.

"I want to. That's all a part of our being together."

Inside, Catherine shed her coat and briefcase as Rebecca took the pizza into the kitchen. A moment later, Catherine joined her. She made an appreciative sound as Rebecca opened a bottle of cabernet and lled a gla.s.s for her.

"This is wonderful," Catherine sighed after her rst sip of the dark wine.

With a contented groan, Rebecca leaned her hips against the counter, arms outstretched on either side, her ngers curled around the edge, enjoying Catherine's pleasure. "Better than wonderful."

Appreciating the way the ne, pale linen stretched across Rebecca's chest, Catherine nodded. "It's the rst night you've been home for dinner all week. We should celebrate."

Rebecca patted the pizza box. "That's what I thought too."

Catherine took another swallow of wine and set the gla.s.s on the small butcher block next to the stove. Then she stepped up to Rebecca and placed her hands on the counter inside of Rebecca's, trapping her lover between her arms. "I wasn't thinking about food."

With Catherine pressed along her length, Rebecca remained motionless, content for Catherine to lead. "Not hungry?"

"Well," Catherine murmured as she slid her hands over Rebecca's back, "I am, but I was thinking of pizza for the second course."

"I like cold pizza." Rebecca tilted her head back, offering her throat. She growled softly as Catherine's teeth caught at her skin. When she raised her hands from the counter to embrace her lover, Catherine grasped her wrists.

"No. Keep them right where they were." Firmly, Catherine guided Rebecca's hands back to the curved edge of the counter. Then, as she kept Rebecca pinned with the force of her pelvis between Rebecca's thighs, she kissed her. Slowly at rst, the tip of her tongue tracing the juncture of lips and moist inner recesses. Then a little harder, a little deeper, until their tongues danced in teasing counterpoint. While she * 144 *

Justice Served savored Rebecca's mouth, she slipped her hand between them and unb.u.t.toned Rebecca's shirt.

"Catherine," Rebecca whispered at the rst touch of ngertips against her breast. With her hands clenched around the edge of the counter, she braced her arms for support. The muscles in her legs trembled as Catherine kissed her, one warm palm kneading her breast, a thumb icking at her nipple.

"Mmm," Catherine moaned as she broke the kiss and dragged her ngernails down the center of Rebecca's abdomen to her belt. As she deftly slid the leather free of the clasp, she whispered, "So much better than pizza."

"You make me feel so good," Rebecca gasped. "You make me forget...everything, except us." Her head swam as Catherine's ngers dipped inside her trousers and found her ready. "When you touch me..."

The exquisite pressure left her breathless.

"What?" Catherine's voice was deep, husky with desire as she kissed the corner of Rebecca's mouth, her jaw, her neck-one hand inside Rebecca's shirt, caressing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the other stroking rhythmically between her legs. "What happens, darling? What?"

Rebecca's vision wavered as her stomach tightened, her thighs turning to jelly. Her breath came in short pants, and a sound somewhere between a plea and a prayer tore from her throat. "You make me whole."

"We make... oh G.o.d..." Caught unawares by a sudden surge of heat that raced along the inside of her legs and up her spine, Catherine shuddered. Eyes nearly closed, she rested her forehead against Rebecca's and slipped inside her, never breaking the rhythm of her strokes, only moving deeper, taking more of her. Taking all of her. As she felt Rebecca spasm around her ngers, she whispered, "We make each other whole."

Long moments later, when Rebecca could speak, she whispered, "I love when you do that to me."

Sated by her lover's pleasure, Catherine nestled her head on Rebecca's shoulder, arms loosely clasping her waist. Eyes closed, she drifted without thought, only knowing that she was happy. "Mmm. Do what?"

"Just take me, like I'm yours."

* 145 *

RADCLY fFE Catherine raised her head, her eyes still hazy with arousal. "You are mine."

Rebecca grinned weakly, nding it dif cult to control her body, which still felt boneless. "Yeah. I know. But when you have your way with me, I really know."

"Stick around, detective," Catherine murmured, nipping at Rebecca's chin. "It gets better."

"I don't see how it could," Rebecca replied, suddenly serious. She lled her hands with Catherine's hair, holding her head as she took her mouth with erce intensity. She kissed her, suddenly desperate for the taste of her. When she felt Catherine tremble against her body, she moved her mouth to Catherine's ear. "I'm not going anywhere."

Catherine wanted to ask for her promise, but instead, she found Rebecca's hand and guided her lover's sensitive ngers underneath the edge of her skirt, along the path her pleasure had streamed earlier, and to the center of her desire. Pressing Rebecca's ngers through the slick heat, into the waiting heart of her, she had no need for words.

* 146 *

Justice Served

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Sandy stood by the bedside, watching Mitch.e.l.l sleep. An open book lay on her chest, the edges of the pages crumpled against her bare breast. Lamplight shone in her face, and she didn't budge even when Sandy leaned down and kissed her lightly. Moving carefully, Sandy stripped and lifted the sheet to slide in next to the slumbering woman. As she reached to turn off the light, Mitch.e.l.l stirred.

"Hey, honey," Mitch.e.l.l murmured, turning on her side, knocking the book to the oor in the process.

"Hi, baby." Sandy snuggled close, edging her thigh between Mitch.e.l.l's. "Go back to sleep."

"Mmm, in a minute." With a contented sigh, Mitch.e.l.l nuzzled Sandy's neck, inhaling her scent. "Missed you."

"You and Jason were so into your spy stuff when I left, I wasn't even sure you heard me say goodbye."

Mitch.e.l.l chuckled and wrapped an arm around Sandy's waist. "I heard you." She kissed the tender spot below Sandy's ear. "Everything okay?"

Sandy rubbed her palm back and forth across Mitch.e.l.l's chest, nally trailing her ngers over the inner curve of one small, rm breast.

"Yeah."

"You're home earlier than usual. S'good."

"Uh-huh." Sandy debated sharing the news that she'd run into a girl at the Blue Diamond who'd seen Trudy in the club the night before, asking some of her old friends for a place to crash. After a few more stops in a few more strip joints, Sandy had nally scored a phone number to get a message to Trudy. It wasn't Trudy's telephone number, of course. It was a link in a phone-message tree that the street girls often used to thwart their pimps when they were planning to cut out on them or if they just wanted privacy. Rather than risk having their cell phones * 147 *

RADCLY fFE con scated and their messages intercepted, they pa.s.sed messages from one to the other through a convoluted set of phone relays. Eventually a message would reach its intended recipient, and a callback number or time for a meeting would wend its way back up the tree to whoever had initiated the contact.

Sandy had gotten a return message-with the time and place for a meeting with Trudy the following night. She wasn't certain their getting together would come to anything, because she didn't know if the girl had any more information about the video p.o.r.n ring than she'd already revealed. Still, it was a place to start, and Sandy could at least try to talk Trudy into contacting her if she learned anything new or if she had another offer to do a p.o.r.n shoot. No way was one police raid going to shut down that kind of business for good. Anything selling s.e.x was impossible to kill.

In the end, she decided that only Frye should know, because that was what the detective was paying her for. She didn't like keeping anything from Dell, but she didn't want to get her into trouble, either.

And, she admitted to herself, the less Dell knew about these activities, the better. She'd only worry. Or get protective. And even though Sandy liked the way it felt to have Dell care about her that way, the downside was having Dell get all bent out of shape about it. So she kept silent about the details.

"You okay about tomorrow?" Sandy asked instead, stroking the back of Mitch.e.l.l's neck.

"About the promotion ceremony?" Mitch.e.l.l nuzzled Sandy's nipple until it hardened, then icked at it with her tongue. "Yeah. You're comin', right?"

Sandy directed Mitch.e.l.l's mouth back to her breast. "Uh-huh."

"Good," Mitch.e.l.l mumbled before devoting herself to sucking Sandy's nipple to rigid attention.

"Mmm, that's nice," Sandy sighed, closing her eyes and savoring the heat that washed through her as Mitch.e.l.l teased. "Did you hear from your sister today?"

Mitch.e.l.l stiffened, but kept her mouth to Sandy's breast. "No."

"Does she know about tomorrow?"

"Don't see how." Mitch.e.l.l rolled over onto her back.

In the silence that followed, Sandy leaned up on an elbow and * 148 *

Justice Served settled her palm on Mitch.e.l.l's abdomen. The muscles beneath her ngers felt like wood. "What did she do to you?"

"Nothing. She was only here an hour or so yesterday."

"I don't mean yesterday, Dell," Sandy said impatiently. "I mean before. Whenever."

"Look, Sandy, honey-"

"It's like a splinter, Dell. You gotta pull it out, no matter how much it hurts."

Mitch.e.l.l laughed-a short, hard sound. "Jesus. First in therapy, now in bed. I can't get away from old history."

"You did, though, right?" Sandy smoothed her hand in slow circles, not the way she did when she wanted to get Dell hot, but the way she gentled her after she'd already made her come. Coaxing the clenched muscles to relax, Sandy continued softly, "Get away from it, I mean. All this time that you haven't seen her-you've been keeping all of this stuff deep down inside somewhere."

"How do you know that?" Mitch.e.l.l rasped, her throat thick with the effort of keeping a lid on her emotions. Seeing Erica had been so hard, and then talking to Dr. Rawlings about Robin had hurt so much, and now...now, Sandy's tenderness was crumbling the last of her defenses to dust.

"I can feel it. When I hold you. When you hold me. When we make love." Sandy shifted until she was lying on top of Mitch.e.l.l, her narrow hips between Mitch.e.l.l's thighs, supporting herself on her elbows so that she could see her lover's face in the moonlight that angled over the top of the sleeping part.i.tion. "You don't have to tell me. But I want you to.

It makes me feel...better...to tell you things."

Mitch.e.l.l wrapped both arms around Sandy's waist and pulled her down into a tight embrace. With her face buried in the curve of Sandy's neck, she haltingly surrendered her secrets.

v "Rebecca, darling," Catherine murmured. "Phone."

Rebecca was already awake and leaning over her, fumbling on the bedside table for the handset. Clearing her throat, she said sharply, "Frye...Where?...Be there in fteen. Do me a favor and roust Watts for me too." She paused to listen, sliding from beneath the covers and * 149 *

RADCLY fFE automatically tucking them along the curves of Catherine's body. "And, Frankel, keep this quiet. I don't want to see anything about this in the morning papers. Yeah, well, do the best you can."

Catherine sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. A check of the alarm clock told her it was close to 4:00 a.m. "What is it?"

"Trouble," Rebecca grumbled on her way to the bathroom.

"Four a.m. calls always are," Catherine whispered. She followed her lover into the bathroom and pulled her robe from behind the door.

Slipping into it, she leaned against the vanity and observed Rebecca's sleek form shimmer behind the gla.s.s shower doors. Raising her voice to be heard above the water, she asked, "Can you tell me?"

After twisting the hot water k.n.o.b to off and enduring fteen vicious seconds of cold water beating on her head, Rebecca stepped from the shower and took the offered towel. "Thanks." Rubbing down briskly, she said, "That was one of the night Ds. He called in a homicide, and Captain Henry told him to call me. Details are spa.r.s.e, but if Henry's putting me in the middle of someone else's case, it can't be good."

"That's it?" Catherine leaned against the bathroom door and watched Rebecca ef ciently a.s.semble her battle gear. Dark suit, pale shirt, thin black leather belt, shoulder harness, handcuffs, bifold leather wallet with its shiny gold badge declaring to all the world just who Rebecca Frye was.

"For now." Rebecca halted abruptly in the midst of dressing and leaned to kiss Catherine's cheek. "I'll let you know when I know."

Catherine stepped into Rebecca's arms and kissed her mouth. "If you don't get home before morning, call me. I have a break at noon."

Rebecca took the time to hold her lover for an extra twenty seconds that in the past she would never have spent. Holding Catherine, savoring her warmth and remembering the sound of her climaxing just hours before, Rebecca murmured, "I'll call just as soon as I can. I love you."

"Be careful, darling. I love you too."

Catherine went back to bed, retrieved a book from a stack on the bedside table, and tried to read. It was always hard to sleep when Rebecca worked at night, and now that she was wondering what new challenge her lover was about to face, it was impossible.

v * 150 *

Justice Served "Don't touch anything yet," Dee Flanagan ordered automatically and, since she was addressing Rebecca, needlessly. Rebecca always waited until given the go-ahead before slipping on gloves and examining anything at a crime scene. At least, at one of Flanagan's crime scenes.

"Just give me the word," Rebecca replied as she always did, even though Flanagan routinely made a point of telling her rst when she released the scene.

Rebecca hunkered down next to Watts. Their shoulders and thighs touched as they stared into the open driver's side of a BMW sports coupe. A white male, thirty to forty years of age, was slumped behind the wheel, very dead. "Is the ID for certain now?"

"Yeah."

"f.u.c.k."

"You got that right."

"Time of death?" Rebecca questioned.

"Flanagan hasn't graced us with her opinion yet."

Rebecca nodded, silently a.s.sessing the body. The victim was casually dressed in chinos and a polo shirt. His topcoat was unb.u.t.toned, as if he had been sitting in the car with the heater running-waiting for someone, perhaps. Or holding a conversation. No sign of a struggle. No sign of a weapon.

"There's blood and such on the driver's door," Watts said quietly.