Not So Innocent (Shattered Glass #2)

Chapter Twelve

Riley grunted when the doorbell jolted him, and the dog, awake. He hunted for his watch on the nightstand and then checked the time through one half-open lid. The numbers slowly came into focus. Four A.M. He’d slept a whopping hour and forty-five minutes. Fuzzbutt growled and hopped off the bed, his claws pattering into the next room.

The bell rang again. “Just a sec!”

After pulling on a pair of jeans, Riley used moonlight to steer through the maze of tools and stacks of floorboards in the den. The dog hopped over everything and skidded to a halt at the entrance. Fuzz sniffed through the crease in the door and yipped, tail wagging maniacally as he pawed the wood.

“?Siéntate! ?Quieto!”

Fuzz whined but moved back, sat, and waited. His whole body shook with excitement.

Riley didn’t need the porch light to recognize the figure bouncing up on his toes on the stoop. He whispered a terse, “Fuck,” and then snatched the handcuffs off the entry table. Throwing open the door, he moved quickly before his prey could run. “Nikolaj Strakosha, I’m placing you under arrest.” He grabbed Cai’s wrist and slipped on one cuff.

“Oh, but I—”

“You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Do you understand?” He slammed Cai’s chest against the wall and attempted to grab the other wrist.

“Yes, but—”

“Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Do…you—Goddammit hold still.” Cai seemed determined to make him angrier by flitting his arm about and out of reach. Riley finally got hold and snapped the second cuff on tighter than he intended. Only one person in the world made him lose it like this. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, but, see, there’s Julian and I—”

“You have the right to a lawyer and to have a lawyer with you during questioning. Do you understand?”

“I’m in trouble!”

After having Peter hang up on him twelve times, Cai’s phone going unanswered, and Austin giving him the brush off, Riley had gone to bed with a crushing headache from grinding his teeth. He didn’t think he could get more pissed. He was wrong. Yet, part of what Cai said filtered through his anger. Riley flipped him around and braced his palm against the wall just above Cai’s shoulder. “You have no idea how much trouble you’re in.”

“What are you charging me with?” Cai chewed his cheek, making his lips purse.

“Whatever I can think of.” Riley’s eyes narrowed. “Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?”

Cai blew upward. Strands of his hair floated above his brows and then back into his eyes. “Are you arresting me for real?”

A flurry of snow burst into them. Bits of it dotted Riley’s bare chest and back. Cai’s lips parted, the tip of his tongue curling up at the corner of his mouth.

“My eyes are up here, Nikolaj.”

“Uh huh.”

“Up. Here,” Riley repeated, tapping the tip of Cai’s nose. “Nikolaj, this can’t keep happening.”

“Aren’t you, um, cold?”

Yes, he was freezing his nipples off, and in danger of losing toes under the assault from Cai’s enormous feet. There was also the strong likelihood of a broken dick when Cai pounced on him like a squirrel who’d found the last acorn on earth. Before that could happen, Riley pushed him inside and went to throw on a pair of socks and a t-shirt. He returned just as the dog launched at Cai and knocked him onto his back.

“Ow. Ow.”

“?Bájate, Fuzz!” Riley ordered, racing over. He felt gently around Cai’s shoulder where it had met the floor. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Hit my hip pretty hard. Can you check?” Cai lifted his hip and manufactured the most innocent expression ever attempted by a human. The blatant manipulation didn’t keep Riley from eyeing the two buttons at the edge of the overalls.

This was not going well.

He leaned in to unlock the cuffs. “Roll over.” The dog complied. Cai didn’t.

“Wrong guy jumped me,” Cai whispered, staring up with guileless eyes.

Riley twirled a finger and ignored the jumpstart to his pulse.

This time Cai slowly turned onto his front. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Your turn?”

It required an extraordinary amount of willpower to keep from laughing. “Is that what they taught you in Europe? Outrageous flirting?” Riley reached for the cuffs and sighed.

Mittens.

Whenever Riley’s resolve cracked, the kid would do something to remind him of all the reasons not to indulge. Like wearing mittens. He unlocked the cuffs and tossed them on the side table. “Okay, kiddo. Up you go.” He offered his hand and helped Cai to his feet. “Let’s hear it.”

“Can I take off my coat?”

“I’m going to call and have you picked up.” He’d send Cai to Guantanamo to protect him at this point. “You’re not staying.”

Cai pulled off his mittens, then stuffed them into his pocket. “Oh, um, I think I am.” Through a tangle of wet black hair, he met Riley’s eyes.

The resolve cracked and splintered like the eggshell-thin barrier it was. Riley lifted the black curtain of bangs. “Knock it off,” he murmured.

“Yessir.”

“And knock that off too.”

Dimples popped out on each of Cai’s reddening cheeks. “Not a chance.”

“What?”

“You...um...y-you...heard me?” Cai sank down into the weathered recliner, crossing his legs and yanking his hat off. He folded his coat in his lap and then patted his thighs at Fuzz, “C’mere, boy!”

The dog whined, wagged his tail and lifted pleading eyes. “Ve,” Riley told him with a sigh. Fuzz leaped onto Cai’s lap and nuzzled his chin. Riley knew a lost fight when he was in one. “I’m going to make coffee. Do you want some?”

“Yes. Please...sir.”

Riley was stunned to hear his own breath stutter. Cai smiled into the dog’s fur.

There weren’t many situations in which Riley felt like he’d been dropped into the middle of the ocean, but of that handful of incidents, one hundred percent of them involved the person burrowed into his chair.

* * *

By the time Riley returned with two coffee cups, the pristine walls surrounding the window behind the sofa bore the beginnings of several sketches. Fuzz had fallen asleep draped across the back of Cai’s legs while he drew.

“Perrera.” The dog hopped off and trotted to the kennel. At least someone obeyed him.

Cai flipped around, looking guilty and, somehow, determined at the same time. “Your sisters and Ellie. From Christmas dinner that time. I can finish it. While you’re at work. Or next time we’re together. Together in the same room, not together like that. But we could be together like that. If you…” He took a deep breath and said slowly, “I can finish it later, while you’re at work, if you want.”

Riley wasn’t falling for that twice. The last time Cai offered a mural, it had taken sixteen hours a day for six weeks.

He handed Cai a cup and sat down in the vacated recliner. “I’ve had less than two hours of sleep. Mostly because your brother threatened me with litigation if I spoke to you without a lawyer. And that’s after he hung up on me twelve times. Are you waiving your rights?”

“Why?” Cai whispered, tracing swirls on his knees.

“Because I have to throw your ass out of the house if you aren’t.” And into an FBI safehouse.

“No.” Cai looked up, pain etched in his eyes and the tremble of his jaw. “Why have you become so cold to me?”

Riley hid his own pain, but shame lowered his temper. “I’m sorry, Cai. I haven’t been fair to you, or kind.”

“We were friends. We were always friends, if nothing else. I’ll take that. If-if there’s no—” Cai picked at his thumbnail. “Not above begging.”

“I feel like I need walls with you, Cai. Walls several feet thick with barbed wire. It used to be easy to remember you are off limits.”

“Is it Peter? Did he tell you to stay away from me? Is that why you never wrote back?”

“Do you think I’d listen to him if I didn’t agree?”

“You are an idiot,” Cai said and exhaled loudly like he was relieved at the answer. “Julian wants this story.”

Riley had forgotten that conversations with Cai caused whiplash. “I got that memo.”

“Peter and Austin are fighting. The tension is sort of”— Cai shrugged and looked directly at Riley—“sort of like you and me.”

Riley held his breath. He quashed the impulse to grab a fistful of Cai’s t-shirt and taste whatever candy had turned his lips purple at the edges.

Those dimples appeared again.

Riley’s left eye ticked.

“I needed to come here,” Cai continued. “Because you’re middle ground, you see?”

“No,” Riley said, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “I don’t see.”

“Oh.” Cai’s face twisted itself into several confused expressions until he landed on what to say. “Because Austin wants me to go to the police, but Peter won’t allow it.”

There was only one way to tackle the problem of Cai’s brain arriving at the conclusion of his story before he took anyone else on the journey. Riley would have to work with the information he did have. “I’m middle ground for what?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Of course you can’t.” Riley rubbed his temples and stretched his jaw. His doozy of a headache was fast approaching migraine status. He thought about the hat tucked in his coat pocket. That stupid chullo with the pom poms. It helped remind him of Cai’s age, of his sweetness. The grey one he fiddled with in his lap didn’t belong to him. It was too normal. Whose cap was that? “So, you came here to tell me that Julian wants to write a story, Peter and Austin are fighting, and I can help but you can’t tell me how?”

“Yes. No.” Cai huffed his exasperation. “I mean I can’t tell you now.”

Riley sat forward in his chair and set his mug on the coffee table. He’d yet to drink a drop. “You rushed over at four in the morning to tell me that you can’t tell me?”

“I could have come at three or two or one! Or yesterday,” Cai added, his tone rising. “Or any one of the five million four hundred thousand seconds that I’ve thought about you since I got back from Europe.”

“Cai—”

“But I did rush over here at four A.M. to tell you everything, in fact. To spill the whole story and make it impossible for Peter and Austin to continue arguing because the milk would be on your shoes, and you’d be the one stuck cleaning up my mess—or not really my mess this time. Because it’s not a hundred percent my fault. Then you answered the door all bare chested and no shoes and your hair looking like spring soil and bits of sleep on your eyelashes, and then you Mirandized me! Now I ask you, how’m I supposed to say anything when you tell me it can be used against me? And besides that, besides that, all I can think about is if I launch all of my weight at you, would it be enough to bring you down and keep you down while I show you exactly what I’ve been thinking about for those thirty-six-million-eight-hundred-thousand seconds since you last kissed me?” Cai finally took a breath, his shoulders deflating as he added a quiet, “Rounding down.”

Riley stayed firmly planted in the chair, going so far as to scoot further back and cross an ankle over his knee. Only the scant steps between them kept him from sharing his own fantasies about those same seconds.

With his heart so laid bare on his sleeve, Cai proved the ultimate test in self-control. Riley needed a wall as wide as the Grand Canyon and as tall as the sky would allow. “If you are waiving your rights, then we need to do this officially. Are you waiving your rights?”

“No. Yes. I don’t...” Cai set his cup on the coffee table and shredded a fingernail with his teeth. “I need to trust you.” Steady grey eyes challenged Riley. “I need to trust you. ”

“If you’ve broken the law, Cai, I’ll do what I can to help you, but I—” He wasn’t adding hypocrisy to the list of screw ups today. Riley leaned forward, elbows digging into his knees, hands clasped tightly. “Let me help, Cai.”

The cage rattled in the next room while Fuzz nosed his blanket into a comfortable position. Cai glanced at the bedroom door and then at his coffee. “It’s hard to think when I’m this tired. Can I sleep for an hour first? On the sofa?”

Riley considered that a win. He wanted the information now, but if Cai said he needed sleep, amidst all of this, he meant it. “Take the bed. I’m going to be awake. I’ll get you up in a few hours.”

“Thanks.” Cai blinked and weaved, trying to stay alert as he attempted to pull off his shoe. Dirt crumbled off the sole and into the crease of the sofa. Riley’s heart contracted.

You’re making a mistake, his brain warned as he went over to help. “You’re getting dirt everywhere.” He picked up a heel and pulled off the shoe. His palm slipped higher, skimming the back of one hairy calf.

Cai stared at Riley’s arm like his eyes were physically attached to it. The rise and fall of his chest became frenetic. Then as if that burst of energy sapped him, he sagged. “I’m at this coffee shop in East London, and there’s this vintage Triumph sitting outside. Totally restored 6T Thunderbird.” Cai yawned for a full ten seconds. “Blue, but vintage sky blue, not the blue they use today. This older guy, like, sixty, or a young seventy, comes out of the shop and he’s got this awesome helmet.”

“I thought you needed to sleep. If you can tell stories about Europe, you can talk about—”

“The guy climbs on the bike and looks at me. Maybe I’ve got it written all over my face that I want on that bike. And he…” Another big yawn as Cai gripped the sofa cushions and blinked a few times. “He kinda tips his head toward the back seat. And I got on. I got on and rode around with him for hours.”

“Yeah?” Riley stroked small circles with his thumb. Goosebumps broke out under his touch. “Doesn’t sound like you.”

“He-He-um…he um…” Cai’s breath hitched. “He took me to his house, with dark green shutters. Dark green. Like your eyes. And and and—”

Nothing compared to the power of Cai’s reaction to his touch. It was primal. It made him careless. He moved further up the pant leg to the underside of Cai’s knee. “And?”

“Huh?”

“Dark green shutters…”

Glazed eyes focused where Riley rubbed beneath the fabric. “I was me. For the first time.”

It was cruel to take advantage of him when he was tired and stressed. “You’re making no sense. I think it’s time for bed.”

“Yes please.”

“Alone.” Riley pulled away and sat down on the coffee table.

“Killjoy,” Cai muttered as he stumbled into the bedroom.

Riley followed to the doorway with his coffee cup nearly shattering from his grip. Cai lay spread out on the bed, right leg bent, and one round ass cheek pressed tight against the fabric of his thin overalls.

Fuzzbutt whined and wagged his tail. “Ve,” Riley said and pointed toward the bed. Fuzz left his kennel and hopped up on the mattress. He curled in the crook of Cai’s knee and laid his chin on the other leg.

Cai mumbled something into the pillow and patted the mattress. Riley left the room before temptation proved too much to resist.

* * *

Riley paced and yelled into his phone in front of one stark, white blank wall that glared at Cai. He glared right back while viciously ripping the top off of another Pixy Stix with his teeth. This house was lopsided. Colorless. He needed to paint. To do something.

He poured the sugar-powder into his mouth. While it melted into a paste on his tongue, his gaze drifted from the wall to Riley. Mmm. Much better. He threw the straw in with the other empties and poured three more into his coffee then added those to the pile too. Thirteen and counting. Best to stop now. He didn’t want to overdo it. The goal was to avoid a depressive cycle, not crash into one from sugar withdrawal. He tried to concentrate on the wall but then imagined attaching himself to Riley like one of those suction cup things people stuck on their car windows.

Not good. Bouncing thoughts. Hypersexual. The crazy meter was tipping the wrong way.

Hypomania might be bad. A depressive episode would be worse. Mania would be disastrous. He checked for the rising whispers of long-smothered voices. All was silent, so that was good. Now, if he could just stop obsessing about sex.

He ran his hands up the puckered skin on his arms to remind himself what happened when he lost to his bipolar. Then he dug his meds out of his front pocket. After swallowing one with the coffee, he mentally prepped the empty wall for something. Another mosaic using the wood bits and pieces that Riley kept in the garage? And those nails, he thought, counting the boxes next to a pile of floorboards. They were a special type, though. Antique. Probably expensive. An art piece made out of them might not be appreciated.

His phone played a whip crack. He picked it up to read Rachel’s text.

Rachel: All quiet here. Bored. Need some smoke. Want me to check up on Tommy?

He couldn’t think about Tommy right now. Not while he was surrounded by Riley’s scents. His leg still tingled from his touch. And things were good between them. Almost like old times when he’d woken up this morning. Among all the ways he could mess this up, Tommy stood out. He waited until Riley paced into the bedroom and then answered Rach.

Cai: No. Stay w/P&A

How she could be bored at Peter and Austin’s was a mystery. They had three different consoles, a pinball machine, a VR system, and five giant flat screens.

Rachel: Rabbit yelling. Really pissed. Austin calling lawyer

Cai: Peter’s talking 2 Riley. Score smoke from Dare. Don’t go out

Rachel: Dare and Julian DD at FSI 4 me. Need Cole’s info for the B&E

DD? Oh. Dumpster diving was fine. Breaking and entering was not.

Cai: DD fine. No B&E Dare will get into Cole’s house. Stay put! Promise?

Her answer took so long that he almost risked calling.

Rachel: Promise

Cai: No snooping around

Rachel: Fine. Will leave B&E 2 Dare *mwah* Going 2 be naked and bent over CLA’s lap soon?

Captain Latin America fit Riley from his Adonis jaw to his chiseled chest—which would be bare if Cai were bent over his lap. That painted a vivid image in his head. He made a frustrated face and stuffed a cushion into his lap. A small sound escaped his throat.

If he had any guts, he’d flaunt his erection at Riley by grabbing the bulge in his pants and licking his lips, like he’d seen Dare do a million times before some guy fell at his feet.

Oh, that was the wrong direction for his thoughts to veer. That way led right to Riley unzipping his pants. He’d do it slowly, too. With a playful wink.

The phone slipped from Cai’s grasp and landed softly onto the sofa.

Riley on his knees, mouth open, sienna skin dotted with drops of sweat—

“Cai!”

“What?” He jerked his head up and yanked his hands from under the pillow. “I wasn’t...” His cheeks roasted like a third-degree burn.

“Are you masturbating?”

“No. No. Well. I was...pressing...a little?” Sweat broke out on his scalp. God how he hated his hypomania. “It was an accident?”

“You accidentally masturbated on my sofa?”

“No…I was…It was tight so I…adjusted it…things…my overalls, not my thing…” The situation was ludicrous, and it took every ounce of his being not to laugh.

Riley stared, openly and undeniably appalled, until Cai shrugged helplessly. When he finally spoke, it was to bite out, “Are you ready to go?”

“Go?” Things didn’t seem funny now.

“I need to take your formal statement,” Riley said.

“Oh, but I-I said I wasn’t— We weren’t— I don’t want to meet with anyone else.”

“Nikolaj…”

“No!” Cai jumped up. The cushion fell to the floor. “You. That’s who I trust. Only you.”

“I said if I could.”

Cai snatched up his phone and shoved his feet into his Keds. “I came because I trusted you. I didn’t have to come here.” Riley advanced toward him. Cai’s pulse shot through his veins. He tripped over his shoestrings twice while trying to get to the door. “It’s you or no one.” Backing up, he felt for the knob. “That’s what I told you. They’ll try to put me into The Program or arrest me.”

“Nikolaj, WitSec is an optional program. No one will force you into it.”

That condescending tone brought out Cai’s bitter side. “Yeah, optional. Option one: testify and join. Option two: testify, don’t join, and”—Cai put a finger-gun to his forehead—“bam!”

“It’s—”

“I like my brains!”

“No one is—”

“You like my brains too.” Cai poked that same finger-gun into Riley’s chest, his voice rising. “And since they’re about the only thing you do like about me, I want to keep them in my freakin’ head!”

“Cai!”

“What?” He searched Riley’s eyes for signs that he was about to get thrown over his shoulder and carried out to the car. Something much more dangerous happened instead.

“First of all.” Riley brushed his thumb along Cai’s bottom lip, then caged him against the door. “I like a whole lot more than your brains.” He smelled like cedar and dime store cologne.

No need to worry about accidental erections at this point. “Oh?” Cai’s brows popped up. As his heart rate skyrocketed, he stooped down until they were eye-to-eye. Didn’t even matter that Riley was using his attraction to manipulate him. “What um...what else do you like?”

Because that’s what’s important right this second?

“Second of all,” Riley said, evidently ready to ignore Cai’s Very Important Question. “Witness Protection doesn’t have the budget to accept everyone. There’s no use getting worked up when there isn’t a credible threat.”

Riley was seducing him into this. Making it hard to think or reason. “When will I know if I qualify? After my corpse turns up? And don’t think that I missed you ignoring the getting-arrested part. Which means my options are: the program where I never see my family again, death where I never see my family again, or jail where I see my family once a week under the supervision of armed guards? I’ll choose my own option: leaving.”

“Do you trust me?” Riley asked. Cai nodded hesitantly. “Angelica will be there to keep you from getting arrested. And I will do everything in my power to keep you from being put anywhere that you don’t expressly agree with.” He picked up Cai’s coat and handed it to him. “Okay?”

“What happens after?” Cai wasn’t sold yet.

“After today?”

“After I tell them everything. If I’m not getting arrested, and I don’t want protective custody, what happens to me?”

“You’re free to go.”

“Can, um, can I stay here?”

“You just said that you didn’t want protective custody.”

“I said that I trust you. I don’t trust the rest of the FBI. Agent McCleary gives me funny looks. Like he wants to arrest me for breathing.” Cai tore off a hangnail and sucked at the pain and blood it left behind. “He racially profiled me. Because I’m Muslim.” Yeah. He could do some manipulating of his own. Take that, wily Riley.

“You’re an atheist.”

“I look Muslim.” He’d missed that laugh. When Riley laughed, all Cai could think about was getting on his knees. “Got my tongue pierced for that.”

“What?”

Oh, no. Cai blinked. “What?”

“Stick out your tongue.”

“Pull down your pants,” Cai shot back and then slapped his hand over his mouth.

Riley laughed again and Cai’s toes curled in his sneakers. Just wasn’t fair to be affected like this but not cause that same reaction.

“Quit stalling.” Riley handed him his coat. “Not all law enforcement are like the cops who set you up, Cai.”

“At least with criminals you know what to expect.”

“Trust me. Can you do that?”

Cai didn’t like the idea of sitting in a room with a bunch of judgmental cops. But he did trust Riley. It was the whole reason he’d come here. “And I can stay here after?”

“You can stay here. You sleep on the couch.” Riley took a full step back and buttoned his coat. “And finish the mural quickly because this isn’t another six-week endeavor.”

“Yessir.” He could get used to Riley’s breath doing that.

“Stop smiling, Nikolaj. This isn’t a situation to smile about.”

“Yessir.” Cai pressed his lips together when Riley’s exhale came out choppy. He bounced on his toes as he added, “Um, Riley...”

“What?”

“I, um, I may have dropped my hat somewhere—” What was a good word that was also sufficiently vague? “—awkward.” Riley pushed the door open and jabbed his finger outside.

Why was he angry again?

A blast of cold wind blew against Cai’s face and the question died before he voiced it. His stomach churned. The idea of facing a bunch of FBI agents stirred old memories. Bad memories exhumed and examined during countless therapy hours. Sitting in the back of a patrol car, listening to the rants of a cop threatening to shove a gun up in him and pull the trigger. His cellmate laughingly explaining what lighting his parents on fire was like. “ And, dude, I can barely hear them screaming over the crackling sounds. Then it’s all over. Finally I don’t have to listen to their fucking mouths anymore. And, man, the place smells like bacon. Which is funny right? My parents smelled like bacon!” Ha ha. Get it? So funny.

Cai gagged as he stared past the driveway to the barren houses beneath a bleak winter sky. Everything inside him fought to go back into the house. He forced himself to take another small step forward. His foot met air.

Riley swept him into his chest. Cai lifted his hands, palms out, like he’d been asked for surrender. Shock tensed his body. It took a second to realize he was being kissed. Riley’s mouth on his, warm and hard, air from his nostrils whispering along his cheek. Then it was over before he could make sense of anything. Do anything. His chest heaved. He stood there, arms raised in the same position. The wind brought tears to his unblinking eyes. “You kissed me.”

Sparks of humor glinted in Riley’s eyes. “Figured that out, did you?”

“You stopped kissing me.”

“That genius mind of yours never stops working, does it.”

Cai’s lips throbbed, wet and hot and slightly swollen. “Why?” Wrong question! “Why did you stop kissing me?”

“I’m an old-fashioned guy. I like participation.”

“I’ll participate. I’ll participate,” Cai said, desperately grabbing Riley’s suit jacket and trying to pull him close but failing to get a grip with the stupid mittens on. “Do it again!”

Angelica Jackson pulled her BMW into Riley’s driveway and honked. Cai waved her off frantically.

“We’ll talk later.” Riley shut the door and locked it just as Angelica climbed out of her car.

“But I—”

“Later.”

“Good morning, Agent Cordova. I’d like to drive my client in, if you don’t mind?”

Cai liked Angelica. She was the best criminal defense attorney in the city. Right now, though? Right now, he might shoot her.