Chapter 28
Clem
My jaw is clenched so hard, I wouldn’t be surprised if I cracked a tooth.
I’m desperately trying to hang on as long as I can, prolonging this unbelievably beautiful torture.
My hand is wrapped in Tessa’s hair, the soft strands brushing my skin every time her head bounces, sliding me deeper into the wet heat of her mouth.
I don’t guide, I just follow, gladly going wherever she decides to take me. My eyes forced open so I don’t miss a single thing.
Christ, have mercy. What a sight.
I know I’m reaching the end of my restraint when my knees start shaking and I can’t stop the pressure building in my balls, and with the first inadvertent jerk of my hips, my body lets loose.
Even now, Tessa doesn’t let up, her rhythm slowing gently as I groan through my release. Only when I’m spent does she lift her head, a little self-satisfied smirk on her lips as she looks up at me with those warm brown eyes.
“You didn’t have to—” I start.
I was up early this morning and decided to wake Tessa up with my mouth. The plan was to make her come, then let her laze in bed a little longer, while I took a shower and got ready for my day. Tessa had been of a different mind and followed me into the shower, which is becoming a habit of hers.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from complaining, but as appreciative as I am, it wasn’t what I was aiming for.
“I wanted to,” she interrupts, getting to her feet and plastering her wet body against mine.
A residual shiver runs down my body at the skin-to-skin contact. She has that effect on me.
“And make no mistake,” she continues, “I probably enjoyed that as much as you did.”
“Doubtful,” I mumble, taking her mouth in a wet, slippery kiss, before adding, “You finish up in here, I’ll go put on some coffee.”
Since coming home from the hospital last week, we’ve spent every night together. Mostly here at Tessa’s on weekdays, so she can get her kids off to school in the morning, but over the weekend she spent a night with me at the firehouse.
Saturday night had been our first real date.
I cooked her a nice, quiet dinner at my place, after which we walked to The Kerrigan so I could properly introduce her there.
We had a few drinks, and played a few games of darts with Jacob and Buck, who was more of a gentleman than I’d expected.
Next, at around ten, we took the long way home, walking through the park and along the river before heading back to the apartment, where I was able to show her how much I enjoy having her in my bed.
Then on Sunday morning we had breakfast at the Bread & Butter Diner.
Between the game on Friday night and the diner, the entire town now probably knows we’re together.
Later on, I took her up on the Lizard’s Peak trail to try out the snowshoes I’d rented from Mabel on Friday, when I dropped by to pick out some new yarn.
It had been snowing quite a bit in the mountains, and I wanted to show her how pretty it is up there.
I think we got maybe a mile or a mile and a half into the three-mile hike, before we threw in the towel.
There was more falling and laughing than actual forward movement, but we had a lot of fun.
It was nice to discover that aside from liking each other and being extremely compatible in bed, we were also able to have fun together.
Her boys seem to take it all in stride, although, Remi is more closely observing Tessa’s and my interactions.
Knowing what impact seeing his father abuse his mother had on the kid, I don’t blame him for being a bit more cautious and protective.
Linc is just happy his mom seems happy, but his focus is on his own life and relationships.
I really like both those kids but—though I would never admit it—I think Remi will always have a special place with me. Probably because I recognize parts of myself in him.
I’m just pouring coffee in Tessa’s favorite travel mug when the boy comes down the stairs, his hair sticking out from his head in every direction.
“Morning,” I offer, getting a sleepy grunt in response.
I’ve discovered Remi is not much of a morning person, usually requiring Tessa to use threats of cold water buckets to get him out of bed, so it’s a surprise to see him up by himself this early at all.
I hope his mother and I didn’t wake him, that would be fucking awkward.
“Do we have eggs?” he asks, opening the fridge door and staring in, but I doubt he’s seeing anything.
“Move out of the way.” I bump him aside and find a carton of eggs. “What do you need eggs for?”
His breakfast is usually something he can carry when he rushes out the door at the last possible minute. I’ve seen Linc wolf down a plate of scrambled eggs for breakfast, looking for protein to start his day, but never Remi.
“Food.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “I figured as much, kiddo, but I notice it’s a bit of a departure from your normal fare. What gives?”
His eyes find me and appear to size me up.
“I need it to bulk up.”
Ah, it’s probably a sensitive issue for him, since he’s still a pretty scrawny kid, especially compared to his brother. I do my best to put on as blank a face as possible.
“Boiled, scrambled, or fried?”
“Scrambled.”
I dig up a frying pan, turn the burner on low, and spray a little olive oil before cracking three eggs on the side. I quickly stir them in the pan with a spatula.
“Is that enough?” he wants to know, moving in beside me.
“Should be. If you add a few slices of leftover chicken breast from last night, it’ll give you over thirty grams of protein, but what else are you gonna eat?
I mean, you can scarf down protein all you like, but unless you eat it with some healthy fat, fruit, and fiber, you won’t get the full benefits. ”
I did a bit of research into nutrition after my doc gave me a talking to about my high risk for heart disease, and I’m trying to eat more balanced meals myself.
“How do you know about that stuff?”
I dart him a sideways glance as I pat my gut.
“Because I’ve had to change my eating habits myself to stay healthy.
Obviously, bulking up is not what I need, but I have learned a bit about nutrition in the past six months or so, and to maximize the effect of the protein, you need to balance your food intake. ”
When Tessa comes downstairs a few minutes later, Remi is sitting at the island, scarfing up his eggs and cold chicken, while we discuss the merits of oatmeal versus toast or a bagel.
“What is going on here?”
She smiles as she rounds the counter and leans into me for a peck, before snatching her mug up and taking a full gulp of her coffee.
“Clem says oatmeal is healthier than bread,” Remi mumbles with his mouth full.
Tessa raises an amused eyebrow at me before answering her son.
“It is. It’s definitely a lot healthier than Pop-Tarts,” she adds.
“Do we have any?” the kid asks.
“Pop-Tarts?”
“No. Oatmeal.”
“We don’t, but I can add it to my list of things to pick up, if you’d like.”
“I’ve gotta get to the shop,” I interject, already running a bit late.
But I don’t really want to go.
I want to stand here in this kitchen, my body and mind still relaxed from this morning’s activities, watching Tessa drink her coffee, and Remi eat the food I cooked him, while listening to the two of them talk about simple stuff like grocery items.
Who knew this is what perfection would feel like?
Tessa
“Hey.”
I look up in surprise as Mancuso steps up to my desk.
I saw him come in a few minutes ago, but he disappeared into the conference room with Rick and Hugo without even noticing me.
It’s clear what they’d be discussing in there, and I wasn’t surprised I didn’t get an invite.
But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been curious as hell.
“Hey,” I return.
“Are you coming in or not?” he asks as if it were a given. “I’m about to brief.”
I try not to grin, but fail miserably.
“Does that mean I’m out of the dog house?”
He shakes his head, chuckling. “It means this case is coming together in a way not even you could fuck up at this point.”
Ouch, but fair, I guess.
“I’ll be right there,” I tell him, grabbing my mug and rushing for the kitchen to get a refill.
I may need the reinforcement.
It was an early morning, although you won’t hear me complain about the hour or so of sleep I missed.
The soft stroke of Clem’s talented tongue on my flesh is officially my favorite way to wake up from here on in.
But it does mean I’m walking around a little dozy, with my head in the clouds, and I want to be sharp so I don’t miss anything in this briefing.
“Four years ago, after Martha Benjamin died, Doyle found a copy of a divorce certificate he’d never seen before. He noticed it was dated a month prior to his birth date,” the agent starts the moment I sit down at the large table.
He puts up slides of the actual document as he lays out his case.
“Apparently, he’d always been told his father had been a one-night stand she only knew by a first name.”
“That must’ve been a shocker,” Rick observes out loud.
“Yeah, he’s pretty pissed when he talks about it.”
“So all this information comes from Benjamin?” I ask.
“This part, yes, and only after confronting him with all the beans his brother Everett spilled. Their father clammed up tight, but it wasn’t too hard to get Everett to talk.
He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed and was quick to share the basic layout of the organization his younger brother had pulled them into. ”
“So Benjamin went looking for his father,” Hugo prompts, trying to get Mancuso back to the sequence.
“Yes, and didn’t just find him, but an older brother as well.
Not only that, but discovered the obvious shared interest in cars.
Something his mother had tried to squash when she pushed him to go into teachers’ college instead.
From what I’ve been able to pull together, between his own betrayal, and the bitterness old man Shirk and his oldest had hung on to for all these years, hate became a common ground between the men.
With Benjamin clearly assuming the dominant role.
He and his brother both tried to sell me their motivation as some kind of misguided rescue mission for boys needing strong male figures in their lives, like they were talking about the fucking Boy Scouts. ”
Mancuso scoffs disgustedly, perfectly mirroring my slightly nauseated reaction to that information.
“Of course they shy away from the obvious punitive aspect of targeting kids of single mothers in particular, or the monetary gain their little army acquired for them,” he continues.
“Between all three Shirks combined, their worth is in the millions, and I don’t think we’ve uncovered everything yet. ”
“So what was the setup?” I want to know.
“Well, we know it was Benjamin who picked, groomed, and controlled the boys. It looks like Everett was responsible for the transportation of stolen vehicles to the junkyard in a smaller trailer, where he and his father would remove any identification on the vehicle, reset the odometers, and check and repair whatever they found wrong. Then the cars would be loaded onto a large shipping container, and would be trucked straight across the border to British Columbia as scrap metal. The RCMP is investigating where it went on that side of the border.”
The RCMP stands for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian equivalent of our FBI, responsible for federal law enforcement on their side of the border. It’s not uncommon for the two departments to work together, especially when it comes to organized crime, which this would fall under.
“Probably on a container ship to Africa or the Middle East,” Althof suggests.
“Probably,” Mancuso concurs.
“What about Ryan Wells?” I bring up, the boy’s poor mother still forefront in my thoughts, and she wasn’t the only one who lost a child. “Or the other victim. Did you find out anything more?”
“Benjamin straight-up refused to discuss anything around the murders at first, but Everett did,” the agent explains.
“He claims not to know anything about the boy in Walla Walla, which is entirely possible, but it was obvious he’s very familiar with what happened to Ryan, even though he tried to deny that too.
He tripped up when I talked about the different fingerprints we’d found on the Mustang and how we’d be comparing those to his.
Then he suddenly admitted his brother called him to meet up on the old logging road up Black Mountain, but claims the boy was already dead when he got there.
All he’ll admit to is helping to carry the body to the edge of the cliff, and driving his brother home to Spokane after.
He confessed he was too freaked out to go back and collect the Mustang so he could get rid of it, as his brother had instructed. ”
“Lucky for us,” Hugo comments. “That Mustang is where the investigation started for us.”
“That’s right, otherwise Ryan’s mom might never have known what happened to her son,” I point out, before asking, “What about the other kids who were recruited? What’s happening with them?”
“We’ve been able to track down most of them. Several of them have chosen to help the investigation, and we’re trying to work out with the prosecutor how to deal with them. In most cases they’re probably as much victims as the people they stole from. They’ll need some support for sure.”
This past week, Clem has talked to me a few times about his dream of offering an apprenticeship program, giving some of those kids a second chance. I don’t know if I’m speaking out of turn, but this seems like an opportune time to bring it up.
“Clem actually has a really good idea for some follow-up with those kids,” I start tentatively.
In the relatively short time he’s been in our lives, I love how much this man has already come to care about me and my boys.
Friday night he went with us to see Linc play, and I could tell from the way my eldest kept looking up to the stands, it meant the world to him.
He’d already become something of a hero to Remi, with this morning’s display in the kitchen just another example of how much my son looks up to Clem.
And to me…well, to me, he’s become the one I can see myself growing old with.
I love him.