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“So, why are you after this guy? This murderer? Especially when he’s got one percenter connections?”
She shifted in her chair and tapped her fingers on the surface of the table. “Money. The payoff will be big. If I catch this guy, I’m set for most of the rest of next year. If I’m careful about my expenses. It’s one more year hunting.”
Caleb considered this as he filled a mug. “What’s after hunting?” he finally asked.
She frowned and wrinkled her nose. She reached out and nudged the digital camera lying on the table.
“Your back-up piece,” he recalled.
She nodded. “Pretty soon I’ll have to fill in the gaps with private detective work, I suppose.”
Caleb picked up both filled mugs and crossed the small kitchen. “Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Assuming you can get the license.”
“I can,” she assured him. “But dick work is mostly that. Dick work.”
“I don’t get it.”
She sighed. “Most private detectives end up sitting outside shitholes like the Rainbow, waiting to take a money shot of some asshole cheating on their spouse. It’s not… I don’t know. It’s just less…” She waved her hand, searching for the right word.
“Honorable,” Caleb said suddenly, as it popped into his head.
A slow grin spread across her face. Caleb’s fingers tightened on the mugs he was holding as his cock jumped behind his zipper. It might not have been the smartest idea, bringing Izzy home and fucking the hell out of her, but his cock didn’t seem to agree. He set his mug down on the table and started to hand her the other one. Then he stopped. “How do you like it?” he asked, realizing that he’d forgotten to find out. Damn. Having someone else around was definitely outside his comfort zone.
She continued grinning at him. “I think you know.”
Caleb’s cock jerked again and he glowered at her. “Izzy,” he said, warning her off. Then he remembered her asking if that meant they were friends. They were something, all right. Had been something, at least, when he’d had her underneath him, wet all over—some places more so than others. The memory would keep him warm in the coming months, at least.
She smirked at him. “Black is fine,” she finally said. “I don’t need it to be sweet.”
Caleb left that comment alone and set the mug down in front of her. “So, you’ve been doing this all your life?” he asked, to change the subject.
She nodded. “It’s who I am.” She gazed at him over her mug. “What about you? First the Army, then the force. Looks like you’re always protecting and serving somehow.”
He pulled out a chair and slid into it. “In my own way, I guess.”
“How’d you fuck it up?”
In truth he wasn’t all that surprised at the question. Izzy seemed to have a way of cutting through the bullshit. It was like she didn’t have the time or any interest in playing games or even in being overly polite. He supposed that made sense. Practical job, practical girl. As much as he didn’t like talking about himself, he kind of admired her style.
He held his mug in both hands but the heat didn’t warm him much. His fuckups weren’t lapses of judgment the way other people’s were. They weren’t simple mistakes made based on instinct or bad information. His failures went deeper than that, he knew. “I get caught up,” he said quietly. “I forget real people are involved. Vulnerable people. Innocent people.” It was the first time he admitted it to himself out loud. “This time it was a woman and her kid. I put them at risk. I mean, they were already at risk,” he amended. But it sounded too much like he was making excuses for himself. “They would’ve ended up hurt. Or dead. Eventually,” he told Izzy. “But I didn’t help the situation. I tried to put their abuser away. But the system glitched, and he got out instead. He was never supposed to be out.”
Izzy sighed and took a sip of her coffee. “Ah, the system,” she said. “I try not to think too hard about what happens after I bring them in. Too many of them get out way too early. As long as more stay locked up than get let out, I guess I can live with it. But I don’t have to like it.”
Caleb nodded to the open laptop. A program was up that he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t really decipher what he was seeing on the screen. “What are you doing?” he asked her.
“Getting to know the illustrious Badlands Buzzards. The people involved, how they run their business. That kind of thing.”
Caleb groaned. “Would I sleep better not knowing how you were doing that?”
She grinned at him. Caleb groaned again. She probably thought it was another rebuke, but it wasn’t. The woman was too much temptation wrapped in a fitted T-shirt and gym shorts that were more than halfway up her thighs. Her long, dark hair had dried and it was cascading around her shoulders and down her back. Caleb had never had a woman in his kitchen. Certainly not a woman who looked like this. And definitely not a woman he’d fucked just a few hours ago… and couldn’t wait to again. Somehow his “It’s not you, it’s me” speech had derailed before it even left the station.
