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My body is humming for the last two hours of my shift.
I should probably stay home after I shower. She has an early morning tomorrow like she always does, but feeling like an asshole doesn’t stop me from parking on the street outside her house.
It’s after midnight, and I know she only has a handful of hours to rest before she has to get up to go to work, but sleeping alone in my bed feels like the worst thing in the world. It feels wrong to be there without her, and I’m betting that she feels just as awkward alone in her bed.
Since getting shot isn’t on my list of plans tonight, I press my finger to the doorbell, standing in full view under her porch light.
I sense her on the other side of the door before my ears register that she’s there. I’ve always been that way with her. Even when we were hours away, her here in Lindell, while I was away at college in Huntsville, she always felt close.
“Cash?” she asks, terror filling her voice when she pulls open the front door.
In a matter of seconds, tears leak from her eyes and form pathways down her cheeks.
“Fuc—damn it, Ads, what’s wrong?”
Her breathing is heavy, terror in her eyes.
“You’re ringing my doorbell after midnight. You tell me what’s wrong.”
I swallow several times, trying to fight down the disappointment I feel at her reacting this way to me, as if I’ve broken some agreement.
“Who’s hurt?” she whispers.
“What? No, Ads. No one’s hurt.” I scrape my hand over my shower-damp hair. “Shit. Shoot, I mean.”
“No one’s hurt?”
I shake my head. “I just wanted to see—”
The air rushes from my lungs when she slams her body against mine.
“Shh,” I urge, my hand running up and down her back in an effort to calm her. “I didn’t think. I’m so sorry.”
She starts doing that traumatized hiccup crying when I pull her back so I can swipe her tears away with my fingers.
“I thought Ronnie or Don—”
“No, baby. Come here.” I pull her against me once again, urging her legs up around my waist as I carry her inside. Withone hand gripping her ass, I use my free one to shut the door and engage the deadbolt before walking and activating the alarm.
She clings to me, her sobs softening as I carry her to her room.
Her lips taste of salt and mint when I place her on the bed and lean down to kiss her.
When her hands roam down my back, pulling me closer, I know she’s giving me permission to take this as far as my body demands. As much as I love being inside of her, that’s not why I came over here. I need her beside me more than anything.
It doesn’t stop us from making out like teenagers for an hour, her quiet cries turning into pleading moans. As if by some unspoken agreement, we never reach lower than our navels, despite the rolling of our hips and growing need.
“You scared me tonight,” she whispers into the darkness after our kisses turn calmer.
I pull her against me a little tighter, knowing that as close as she is to me right now, it’s still not close enough.
“I’m sorry. I forget sometimes that I’m a cop. It sets people on edge.”
Her fingers curl against my chest, and I don’t know how to read the reaction.
She was so supportive of me when I told her years and years ago that police work is what I wanted to do.
She encouraged me to get my degree first. Back then, I let myself imagine she was hoping I’d go to college and find something else because she was worried about me getting hurt in the line of duty. Back then, I pictured coming home to her every day from a factory job or something less dangerous, and I swear I could’ve done it. What I did during the day didn’t matter if I could just come home to her.
