Chapter 15
—It’s science
Hector
This was turning out to be a hell of a day.
It started with the worst case of blue balls I’d ever had thanks to Iris.
That smile on her face when I’d asked her out on a date was dangerous.
Dangerous because I realized—yet again—that I would do just about anything to put that look on her face as often as possible, including possibly getting fired because I chose to stay in bed all day fucking her senseless instead of going in to work.
Instead, we took separate showers—mine being a cold one, which ended up not helping, so I took myself in hand to thoughts of her naked body underneath mine.
An hour later, I dropped her off at her apartment after checking to make sure her door had been fixed properly—it had—and then made my way to work.
Then, I’d been volunteered—more like volun-told—to assist with our junior ranger science lesson this morning.
By the time I got back to my office, I ended up eating my lunch at my desk while filling out timecards and schedules. I was mid-bite of my sandwich when my phone rang.
It had better not be anyone else calling in sick. Having Diden out today was already bad enough.
“Madeira,” I answered grumpily.
“Good morning, sunshine. It’s Agent Andrews,” she said on the other line. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked her, hoping she’d skip the chit chat and get to the point.
“Apparently, Steve Stanton decided to showcase our body on his podcast episode last night,” she informed me, causing me to roll my eyes.
“What did he say?” I asked, and I knew she couldn’t miss the agitation in my tone.
“I’m not entirely sure since I didn’t listen to the whole thing,” she said. “However, I was informed by no fewer than three people this morning that dear old Steve made a comment about the cotton ball found in Iris’s apartment.”
She paused, allowing me to take in what she had just said, and I knew why—that information had not been released to the public.
“You thinkin’ we got a leak? Or an unintentional confession?” I asked.
“Don’t know yet,” she said. “I plan to reach out to him today to strike up a conversation, but there’s about a dozen people at both the local PD and here at the ISB who knew about it, so a leak isn’t entirely out of the question.”
“Iris knows, and I also told two of my highest-serving rangers—Diden and Jennings—since they’ve been on this case since the beginning,” I told her so she knew there were a few more.
“I figured,” she said. “Do me a favor, though, and start keeping info close to your chest from now on.”
“You got it,” I told her.
“Alright, have a good one. I’ll be in touch,” she said and then ended the call.
Great. The last thing I needed was this nut making this case more complicated than it already was.
Going back to my sandwich, I took a big bite…just in time for the phone to ring again.
Dammit.
This time it was my cell, so at least I could see it was Archer, Iris’s brother-in-law, calling.
“Hector,” I answered.
“Hey, man. Got a heads-up from a buddy still workin’ at LVPD letting me know my Iris had her apartment broken into. The report also says you showed up because it might be related to a case you were workin’ on. Anything I need to be worried about?”
I knew Iris said she had mentioned the body to her sister, but I wasn’t sure if she had mentioned the break-in. I also didn’t know how much Anna had shared with her husband.
“How much do you know about the dead body?” I asked, deciding I better figure that out so I didn’t repeat anything.
After a brief pause, Archer spoke. “Did you say a dead body?” He’d asked in a way that I knew this was brand-new news to him.
Well, shit.
I started from the beginning, filling him in on the discovery at Lake Echo all the way up through the break-in. However, after my conversation with Agent Andrews, I opted to leave out the cotton ball part.
“How bad was the break-in?”
“Nothing was taken,” I told him, deciding to go with the truth but not the whole truth. “Police still aren’t sure if it was a random break-in or related to the body from the lake.”
“What do you think?” he asked, because he knew that even if the evidence wasn’t always clear, someone in law enforcement usually had hunches about these kinds of things. “Do I need to get her moved to another apartment?”
“She’s stayed with me the last few nights. Partly because her landlord took his sweet time getting her locks changed, and partly because I’m leanin’ toward it not being a random break-in.”
There were a few moments of silence as he took all of that information in.
“She’s staying with you?”
This was where the conversation could go one of two ways.
I could play it off as no big deal—just me doing a favor for my friend’s sister-in-law.
Or I could tell him that I planned to make her mine, and while she wasn’t sleeping at my place tonight, she would be back at my place soon enough, and I planned to figure out a way to keep her there.
As much as I knew he would understand, it felt weird having that conversation with Archer before I had it with Iris, so I opted for the first option…for now.
“She called me right after it happened because she was concerned about the connection to the case,” I said.
“After talking with the cops—one of whom I had worked with back at the LVPD—they suggested she not sleep there that first night so they could get everything they needed. So, I offered my guest room, and she took it. It was that or staying with her eighty-year-old neighbor next door.”
“She called you right after it happened?” he questioned. “Didn’t know you guys were that close.”
I heard the accusatory tone in his voice.
“She had my number from the incident at the lake and thought this might be related, so she called,” I repeated. “She’s staying at her place tonight with her sister Cora, but if I get word of something else going down, I’ll let you know, and I’ll make sure to keep an eye on her.”
“Appreciate it,” he said, and I could hear a little bit of relief in his voice. “Thanks, man.”
I hung up with the promise to keep him informed of any new updates.
As I finally finished my lunch, my thoughts drifted right back to Iris—and they stayed there the rest of my shift.
Front and center in my mind was kissing her in my kitchen, along with the way her body felt pressed up against mine—soft and supple.
I imagined her bare underneath me, begging me not to stop, as I brought both of us intense pleasure for hours on end.
I also thought about our date tomorrow. I wanted her. God, did I want her. But I also wanted to take her out, to show her that I wasn’t just after sex. She deserved more than that. She deserved better than me, but for some reason, she was willing to overlook that.
Which was dangerous, because the more I thought about her, the more I realized I was already falling hard for her, which was all the more reason I wanted to give this a shot—a real shot.
Over the last few days, I’d noticed she had a hard time accepting a compliment.
When I mentioned how gorgeous her body was the other day, she’d accepted the praise with a smile, but there had been some hesitation—a little flicker of doubt in her eyes.
I wasn’t sure if that was from her upbringing of not having a loving, affectionate family in the beginning, or if she’d dated some asshole in the past who’d chipped away at her self-esteem and brought her down so she didn’t know her own worth.
By the time I got home, I tried to burn off my excess energy with Sarge, taking him on a long walk.
Didn’t matter, though. The second we were back, he flopped in front of her bedroom door like he was waiting for her to come back.
I couldn’t blame him. I felt the same pull.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one in this house thinking of Iris.
I grabbed dinner and dropped onto the couch. I’d eaten in front of the TV for years without a second thought, but after a few nights of sharing the table and meals with Iris, the silence felt lonely for the first time—even hollow.
I had leaned over to grab the remote from the table when I saw her bag of craft supplies. Needle-something, she’d called it.
My fingers itched to text her, to use it as an excuse just to see her name light up on my phone. I pulled it out and then paused—her sister was in town. She deserved that time with her. I could wait until tomorrow.
Tomorrow—a date where I planned to pull out all the stops.
In my twenties, I never bothered. Back then, it was all about quick, no-strings, with a woman who wanted the same thing.
But I was older now, and Iris wasn’t some fling.
She was already under my skin, in my head, and in my bed in ways I couldn’t stop imagining.
Still, no harm in a little reminder. Maybe even a picture.
Me:
Hey, Iris. Enjoy your time with your sister. Just letting you know you left this here. I’ll bring it tomorrow when I pick you up. 6p okay?
Iris:
I think I was a little distracted this morning and totally forgot it. ;)
Iris:
Thank you. And yes, 6p is perfect.
I really wanted to make a comment about her being distracted, but I chose to let it go.
I was a forty-year-old man acting like a teenage boy.
I chuckled at the thought. If my teenaged self knew that I had a date with a woman who looked like Iris tomorrow, I think I would have spent the next twenty-something years looking forward to it.
I grinned just thinking about it. And that grin stayed on my face for the rest of the night.