Chapter 27
chapter twenty-seven
juan pablo
“I don’t want you to tell me how to fix any of this. I just want to vent, okay?” I nodded, hearing the reluctance in Priscilla’s voice. Whatever it was, it had her twisted in knots.
“I promise, I won’t mansplain or interrupt with advice unless you explicitly request it,” I assured her and shifted again, so that her head was on my chest.
My limbs still felt like jelly and my head was throbbing—fuck I was probably dehydrated. When Pris and I went hard like that, it took me a minute to recover. But I felt good. Not just about the obviously bomb sex we’d just had, but because Pris had come to me after what was clearly a hard day.
I grabbed a water bottle from the side of the bed and drank deeply then passed it to her.
“Shit, Priscilla, you wore me out, ma.” I wasn’t even gonna apologize for calling her that.
Thankfully, like me, she seemed to also think that we were past trying to pretend we weren’t back to being fully in each other’s lives.
That’s how it was with us, being together had always felt easier than being apart.
“I got taken off one of my cases.” She sighed, but instead of pulling back, as she usually would whenever she was upset, she pressed closer.
Her mouth against my neck while she talked.
“You know I can’t give you any details, but it’s one of my kid cases and it’s a fucking shit show.
I’ve been making noise about how we’ve handled it from the beginning.
” Her voice was tight, but it wasn’t just frustration.
Whatever had happened was worrying her, which explained the intensity of the last hour.
“And you weren’t getting a lot of support?” I tried to keep my voice as low as possible, because this, Priscilla telling me about her job issues, like in detail, was practically unheard of. Even a hint of judgement would shut her down on me.
She took her time to answer, her lips pressed to my neck.
My heart fluttered in my chest, as I lay there with her.
So fucking happy I could cry from having this again.
“It’s not even about support; they just weren’t listening.
I mean, some people were. Bri and I came to the same conclusions and were trying to talk sense into the rest of the team from day one, but people didn’t want to push.
The CPS worker is good, but again was not taking the time to look at the big picture.
Bottom line, we fucked up and now this kid is going to pay for it.
” Her voice shook on that last part and I turned my head, nuzzling her neck. Kissed her cheek and then her mouth.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t want to offer solutions, or minimize what clearly was a fucked up situation. And what else was there to say? There wasn’t a single pep talk that would make this shit any easier on her.
She kissed me back, her nails raking the back of my head, as she slid her tongue into my mouth. It was a long kiss, and I know she was using it as a distraction, but I’d never been strong enough to deny her. We separated reluctantly and she went back to talking.
“I’m pissed that they didn’t listen to me.
That this kid had to be in a horrible situation for weeks more than she should’ve been, when we could have removed her from that.
But mostly, I feel like I’m just a cog in a machine.
” She exhaled, and when she spoke again, she sounded small and really fucking tired.
“It’s sort of always been like this in some ways, so it’s nothing new.
It’s the nature of the job. We can’t fix everything.
I don’t know why it makes a difference now, but it does.
It’s just I can’t shake this feeling that me being there doesn’t even matter, and that scares me.
I don’t want something happening to someone on my watch because I was too burned out to do my job. ”
I scoffed at that, because no matter how I felt about Priscilla’s job, she was a damn good cop.
I sat up shaking my head and pulled her up so that we were sitting face-to-face.
“You would never do that. You’d get out first.” And I don’t know if it was the endorphins still running through my veins or if it was how sad she looked, but before I could talk my dumb ass out of it, I was trying to talk her into staying in the job.
“There’s not a better detective in the NYPD than you.
Your lieutenant is a fool if he doesn’t know that. ”
The side of her mouth turned up a bit and she shook her head like I was talking crazy.
“I know you’re not trying to get in my pants again, because my nether regions are on recess until morning, at least.” She whirled fingers in the general direction of my crotch, a doubtful expression on her face.
“And I know you’re going to need some rest.”
“Hey,” I balked. “I just sexed you up for like a full hour. I am not getting the credit I deserve.”
She threw her hands up and then gestured toward her “nether regions.”
“I just said you took me out of commission until morning. What do you want? To see me with a limp?”
I busted up at that and soon we were both giggling until we ended up lying down on our sides. I ran a finger over her forehead where a frizzy curl had escaped the bun on her head. “I’m not trying to talk you into or out of anything. I just want to be here for you.”
“I know. Thank you.” She pressed her lips to mine in a gentle kiss, her eyes still sad when we separated.
I thought about my conversation with Yariel, about his text from yesterday saying his agent had read Pris’s blog and loved it.
That she wanted to meet her, and I dearly wished I could hand her this new possibility.
But after tonight, and hearing how much she needed to feel in control of her life, I knew I’d overstepped.
I’d been promising her that I’d changed.
That I wouldn’t make the same mistakes of the past, and yet I’d gone ahead and blabbed to Yari with the intention of fixing things for her.
So, I could present her this neatly packaged new career, when she was still grieving the fact that the one she’d made for herself no longer fit her and ruin everything we’d manage to rebuild.
Or I could keep my mouth shut. So I said nothing and laid there dying inside while I watched her struggle.
“We can’t be fucking around at that cabin.” Her words pulled me out of my troubled thoughts and it took me a moment to figure out what she was saying.
“The cabin” was Easton’s family lake house.
Some kind of mansion Upstate we were all invited to for a couple of days next week, after Christmas.
The whole crew would be there and that meant we would be the only two who were not paired off.
And because our friends were meddling assholes, I knew she’d want to keep whatever it was that we were doing under wraps.
Hell, I was kind of glad that we wouldn’t have to deal with the twenty questions from our friends.
Still it stung to hear that she didn’t want them to know.
I nodded, as I worked on unclenching my jaw, so I could say something. “The last thing I want is being stuck in a house with Camilo all up my ass about my sex life.”
She twisted her mouth, trying not to laugh at my very poor choice of words. But when she spoke, she sounded better. “I’m going up to Ithaca tomorrow and will drive to the cabin from there.”
“P and Easton are coming down to Odette’s for Christmas Eve, so I’m going up with them. Can I catch a ride home with you?” I was being fresh, but there was no way I was blowing a chance to drive down together. Especially not after two full days of having to keep my hands and my dick to myself.
She nodded and burrowed into me with a contented sigh. “Let’s sleep, Juan Pablo.”
I wished I could tell Pris how much more I wanted with her.
But I didn’t need to add my own shit to everything she was already dealing with.
So instead, I reached over and turned off the lamp by the bed and gathered her tightly to me.
This wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot.
But it was what I could have right now, and I would take it.