Chapter 10 Tom
Tom
Dating detective Sawyer was surprisingly easy.
Not easy in the sense that it required no effort—everything with her demanded constant awareness, a level of focus I couldn’t let slip, not even for a second. I had to be careful about what I let show, concealing parts of myself she wasn’t meant to see.
However, it was easy in the way breathing became easy once you stopped thinking about it. Natural. Right.
She fit into my life like she’d always belonged there, slipping into the spaces between work and sleep with an effortlessness that should have terrified me. Maybe it did, a little. But the fear felt distant, softened by the simple pleasure of having her there at all.
I found myself checking my phone more often than I had in years, planning my evenings around the possibility of seeing her—dinner plans that shifted to accommodate her unpredictable schedule, late-night conversations that stretched into dawn.
It was the kind of behavior I’d only observed in other people, but now I finally understood it—that gravitational pull, that constant, aching need to revolve around another person. I’d always thought myself immune to that particular madness.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
Shay showed up at the medical examiner’s office on a Friday afternoon, appearing in the doorway like a vision designed specifically to derail my concentration. Dark jeans hugged her long legs, a worn leather jacket was slung over a simple white shirt, boots that added an extra inch to her height.
“Doctor Hayes.” She leaned casually against the doorframe. “You got a minute?
“Of course.” The words came automatically. For you, always, I would have said, if it didn’t sound so unbearably sappy, though Shay would have probably gotten a kick out of it.
She quietly closed the door behind her and crossed the room. Her fingers trailed along the edge of my desk before she perched on the corner with feline grace, close enough that I could smell her perfume.
That scent had haunted me for days after our first night together. I’d caught traces of it on my sheets, my clothes, lingering in my house like a ghost.
“Busy day?”
“A little.” I leaned back in my chair, permitting myself the luxury of just looking at her.
The late afternoon light caught in her hair, turning the edges golden.
She was beautiful in that dangerous way that made men stupid.
I never thought there would come a day when I’d count myself among them, but here we were.
“It just got significantly better, however.”
“You smooth talker.” Shay smiled, reaching out a hand, her fingers playing with my collar. “Is anyone else here?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I’ve been thinking about you all day. And I don’t want an audience for what I’m about to do.”
How would any other man react when he heard something like that? With restraint? Professionalism? Some attempt at maintaining boundaries in the workplace?
I pulled her onto my lap, her legs straddling mine, and she made a small sound of approval that shot straight through me.
Her hands tangled in my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp as we kissed.
I could taste coffee and mint gum, could feel the rapid beat of her pulse where my thumb pressed against her throat.
She rocked against me, slow and unhurried, each movement designed to unravel whatever resemblance of composure I’d left.
My hands mapped the terrain of her body—the elegant dip of her spine, each vertebra distinct beneath my fingertips, the flare of her hips, the impossibly soft skin just above the waistband of her jeans where her shirt had ridden up.
Her breathing quickened, transforming into little gasps that drove me absolutely crazy.
“You know,” she said between kisses, her voice dropping to that low register that made me forget my own name, “this is highly unprofessional.”
“Extremely.” I caught her mouth again, my teeth grazing her bottom lip. “Want me to stop?”
“Don’t you dare.”
We lost ourselves in it—the heat, the urgency, the delicious friction of bodies pressed together.
The rational part of my brain, the part that remembered we were in my office where anyone could walk in, had shut down completely.
There was only this: her in my lap, her mouth on mine, the feel of her hands on my skin.
I needed to slow down, to try and regain some semblance of control.
“How was work?” I asked, forcing the words out, trailing my mouth along her jaw, down the column of her throat.
She sighed, the sound caught somewhere between pleasure and frustration, “Don’t ask.”
“That bad?”
“My boss’s being an ass, as always.”
I chuckled against her throat. “You really don’t like him, do you?”
“He’s a corrupt piece of shit. What’s there to like?”
The words landed with surprising vehemence, sharp enough to pierce through the moment. Captain James Donovan had always been a sore spot for her.
I kissed the corner of her mouth in apology for bringing up the subject, then the other side, feeling her soften against me.
“But I don’t want to talk about my boss right now. Kiss me some more.”
Her mouth found mine with renewed intensity, and for several minutes, conversation ceased entirely. The world narrowed to just this—her taste, her touch, the small sounds she made when I found a particularly sensitive spot. Time became fluid, meaningless.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, she patted at my hopelessly wrinkled shirt, and laughed—bright and unguarded.
“You’re going to get in so much trouble if someone walks in,” she said, but didn’t move from where she was perched on my lap, warm and solid and entirely too tempting.
Her fingers played with the hair at the nape of my neck, sending pleasant shivers down my spine.
“Worth it.” Was all I could manage.
“Since when are you such a rebel, Hayes? Breaking all the rules.” She smoothed down my collar, tracing the line where fabric met skin.
“Will you still not use my name?” I asked, my voice coming out more petulant than I wanted it to.
She pretended to consider it, her head tilting in that way that meant she was about to say something designed to get under my skin. “What should I call you? Thomas? Tom?” Her eyes glinted with wicked amusement. “Tommy?”
I grimaced at the last one.
“What, only Naomi gets to call you that? I always knew that you liked her better than me.” She affected a wounded tone, her bottom lip jutting out in an exaggerated pout.
I wanted to nibble at it until her lips turned red.
How could she be so cold and cutting in one breath, and playful and sweet in the next?
She was a contradiction, impossible to predict.
I never knew what I was going to get with her.
It made me nervous and exhilarated at the same time, kept me perpetually off-balance in a way that probably wasn’t healthy but felt addictive nonetheless.
I traced my knuckles down her cheekbone, her skin warm and soft, before cupping her face in my palm. “I don’t think there’s anyone I like better than you.”
The words came out more honest than I’d intended, weighted with truth I hadn’t planned to reveal. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Shay blinked, as if caught off guard by what I’d unintentionally given away. “Shut up,” she said, but her voice was soft.
I couldn’t help but kiss her again, however, we both sprang apart when there was a sudden knock on my door.
“Tom, you in there?”
Naomi’s voice carried through the wood, muffled but clear enough. Reality crashed back in. Shay stood up in one swift movement, finger-combing her hair and straightening her jacket, while I tucked in my shirt and tried desperately to look professional instead of thoroughly disheveled.
“Duty calls,” Shay said, reaching for the door handle.
“Tonight?” I asked her before she could leave. “Dinner?”
“Only if you’re cooking.” She glanced back over her shoulder, a small smile playing at her lips. “And Hayes?”
“Yes?”
“I like you better than most people, too.”
Then she was gone, slipping through the door and disappearing down the hallway with purposeful strides, leaving nothing but the ghost of her perfume in her wake.
Naomi appeared in the doorway a second later, taking in my undoubtedly flushed face and my wrinkled clothes with knowing amusement. “You good, man?”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
She grinned. “Yeah, I was.” She turned away, leaving the door open behind her. “Come on, Romeo. You’ve got a dead body waiting for you.”
* * *
As nice as dating Shay was, however, it didn’t quiet the gnawing hum beneath my skin.
I’d thought it would. Hoped, perhaps, in some naive corner of myself, that having her in my life would fill whatever void drove me to do the things I did. That connection—real, human connection—might cure me of the compulsion that had defined me for so long.
But the itch remained. Persistent. Waiting.
The harsh glare of the magnifying lamp created a small island of light around me. Before me lay a nineteenth-century copy of étude médico-légale sur l’empoisonnement, its spine cracked, pages foxed and brittle with age. I’d been working on it in stolen hours ever since I found it.
The familiar ritual should have soothed me—the precise application of wheat paste along a torn page, the careful realignment of the binding, the smell of old paper and leather.
It usually brought peace, a meditation of sorts.
But tonight, my hands moved mechanically while my mind churned elsewhere, circling the same thoughts.
It had been quite a while since I’d last heard from my friend. Months, actually.
It was as if they had vanished from the face of the earth, dissolved into whatever shadows they had spawned from. There were no new crime scenes bearing their signature, no new letter waiting for me at my doorstep.