13. Person of interest
THIRTEEN
Person of interest
SOMEONE WITH KNOWLEDGE OR INVOLVEMENT IN A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION; MAY BE A SUSPECT, WITNESS OR SOMEONE WITH CRITICAL INFORMATION
Trent’s jaw locked, his nostrils flaring at the air thick with the kind of tension and fury that could ignite wildfires. Maggie’s last words, a brazen challenge that danced wickedly across the lines of decorum, hung between them like a dare he couldn’t refuse. His pulse thrummed in his ears, a testament to the internal battle raging within him—a clash of duty and raw desire.
The air between them crackled for a moment, shifted from one source of heat to another, the alchemy of anger and lust bubbling beneath the surface like magma ready to erupt.
Now was the time to go. To walk away or to put her in cuffs and take her in to where she’d be safe from this snarling need that’d grown claws.
It was go or…
“Well? Are you just going to stand there looking like a deer caught in headlights?” Maggie’s voice was laced with impish provocation, her bright red hair a fiery halo in the dim light of her living room.
Fuck it. This was his damned apartment. He wasn’t going anywhere.
In two decisive strides, Trent closed the distance between them. Any chance of more banter evaporated as he yanked her close and captured her lips with his.
It was a kiss that spoke of unchecked yearnings, a prelude to promises whispered in the dark. As their lips met, Maggie’s scent—a tantalizing blend of vanilla, jojoba, and something uniquely her—filled his nostrils, stoking the temper that fueled his lust. His hands found her hips, and he pressed his fingers into the soft curves he’d learned only the night before with bruising strength.
Those eyes. Intelligent. Bright. Observant.
She couldn’t see him like this.
Maggie’s breath hitched as he turned her to face away from him before bending over the back of the black leather couch that had seen its share of lazy Sunday afternoons. Trent didn’t hesitate. With a swift motion, his zipper was down, the sound cutting through the silence like a starting pistol. His mind was a haze of Maggie—her scent, her heat, the way her soft sex beckoned from beneath the globes of her round and ample ass.
“Yes.”
It was the whisper he’d been waiting for.
As he entered her with a rough thrust, Trent was careful not to cause her any pain. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so frenzied with lust, his thoughts a whirlwind of sensory details and animalistic urges. Yet beneath it all, he was aware of a tenderness that caught him off guard.
“Fuck yes,” he echoed, inwardly bemoaning that he hadn’t been able to wait to undress. If he had, the chisel of his hip flexors would be tucked against her beautiful bare flesh.
He held still for as long as he could. Seconds. Minutes. He couldn’t be sure. Incrementally, the teeth-clenching tightness of her core gave way for his intrusion, relaxing the grip from this will be over too soon to fits like a glove.
Each brutal thrust was a revelation, a liberation from the man who prized control above all else. Townsend Harbor’s rain-soaked serenity had nothing on the storm that raged in the confines of this soulless living room with its hotel décor.
“God,” Trent grunted, every stroke a testament to the pent-up longing that had simmered between them for far too long. Maggie’s response was a moan that reverberated through his bones, a siren song urging him to abandon the shore for the tumultuous sea of their shared desire. His breath exploded out of him in rhythmic, ragged gasps, his movements becoming more frenetic as his thoughts became more garbled. Reason? Logic? His goddamned humanity?
Those had deserted him the second she bent over.
Maggie was no passive participant; she met him thrust for thrust, a provocative challenge sparkling in her voice.
“Yes. Harder. More,” she said in rhythm to his relentless strokes, her words laced with a devil-may-care demand that set his blood on fire.
Her smoky voice hung in the air like an electric charge, igniting something raw and primal within him. It was as if she’d lit the fuse to a powder keg of emotion that Trent had kept buried under layers of sarcasm, good nature, and meticulous order.
He knew anger—anger at the world, at the job, at himself—but what roared through him now was different. It wasn’t just temper or anger; it was a hurricane of passion, possession, and something even stronger. Something he couldn’t begin to identify.
Something maybe no one had invented a language for yet.
“Damn you,” he growled, the sound almost foreign to his own ears. She was peeling away the veneer he’d polished so carefully over the years, revealing the man who craved the wild, the unscripted—the real. This wasn’t just about sex; it was a seismic shift, toppling the walls he’d built around himself.
“No, fuck me,” she gasped.
He bent over her back to thread his large fingers in the silk of her wet hair, anchoring her neck back tight as he used the tension to truly follow her orders.
“You wanted dirty?” he snarled against the shell of her ear, a warning. A question. An urge building within him.
“Yes. More,” she urged, her voice a blend of defiance and desire.
Fueled by her dare, Trent lifted his hand, hovering for a nanosecond to question whether or not they should cross this new boundary. Then, with a firmness that made them both gasp, he brought it down, spanking her round backside with a force more than gentle but less than punishing. The sound—a sharp, satisfying smack—ricocheted off the walls, mingling with Maggie’s equally lethal cry of pleasure.
After one more pop with his palm, she shuddered and bucked, her moans and mewls crescendoing along with the muscles clamping rhythmically on his cock.
A scream erupted from her that was his undoing.
He couldn’t hold back, even if he wanted to. Maggie’s provocations were a red flag to the bull of his control, and he charged, driven by a need to claim, to conquer…
To connect.
This was their dance, one where humor and tension twirled around each other in a dizzying rhythm, culminating in decisions neither of them meant to make.
They were close, so close to the edge of reason, the brink of utter abandon. And as they teetered there, Trent realized that Maggie wasn’t just some siren leading him to his downfall. She was the compass pointing him toward a truth he’d long denied—the intensity of living without masks, the vulnerability of genuine desire, and the terrifying thrill of letting go.
That realization sent him spiraling after her into the abyss.
His breath came in ragged gasps, his heart thundering like a drumline as he rode the crescendo of their shared frenzy. Maggie’s back arched, a silhouette of pure feminine desire, her crimson locks cascading down like fiery waves.
She was a vision of voluptuous passion, a masterpiece sculpted by the hands of wanton need.
A goddess in exile.
The world narrowed to the electric connection between them, a circuit completed, energy flowing unchecked. He watched, mesmerized, as ripples of bliss shuddered through her—the way her shoulders trembled and spine arched, lips parted, and skin flushed with the rosy hue of satisfaction. He loved this—her unguarded moments, raw and beautiful.
As the last tremors of pleasure subsided, a wave of anger washed over Trent. Not at her, never at her. At himself. The realization hit him like a cold shower on a steamy summer’s day—he hadn’t turned her in for trespassing during her podcast sleuthing. His legacy, his very identity, was built on law and order, yet here he was, breaking both, all because he couldn’t bear the thought of betraying Maggie.
So he’d betrayed himself instead.
He fought for breath, for sanity, for something to say as their panting hung like mist in the aftermath of their storm.
Finally, he allowed himself to straighten and ease out of her.
She sighed but made no effort to move.
A flush of panic creeped up his neck. “Did I— Are you okay?”
“No,” she said gustily, turning to face him with an expression so pleasantly languorous, she might as well have been drugged. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay after that,” she admitted with a dopey half-grin. “What else makes you mad? I want to do it again.”
Trent knew she was flirting, but he turned away, troubled. He went to get them both a washcloth before he could rush out an idiotic reply.
Here was a side of him he never showed to the women in his bed. In this country, he had to be extra careful of perceived sexual aggression. It was a word he avoided at all costs.
Culturally. Vocationally. Sexually.
She would never understand. As incredible pleasure still thrummed through his every nerve ending, shame followed quickly as the victor’s memento mori.
Instead of allowing him to brood, Maggie turned to face him, eyes alight with a hunger he recognized. Because it was the same insatiable one that lived inside of him.
“Come back from wherever you’re going,” she whispered, shaping her hand to his jaw. “It doesn’t look like a happy place.”
Slowly, deliberately, she reached for the hem of his damp shirt, her fingers dancing along the fabric before she peeled it away from his slick skin. Trent stood exposed, every defined muscle testament to his disciplined life, but in this moment, it was Maggie who held the power.
“Seems like I’m not the only one who’s been hiding things,” she teased, tracing the lines of his abs with a mix of wonder and ownership. Her touch ignited a different kind of heat within him, one that simmered with tenderness beneath the boiling surface.
“I’m an open book,” Trent responded, a wry smile playing on his lips. But behind the humor lay an unspoken truth—a camaraderie that went deeper than flesh, a bond forged in the fires of vulnerability and trust.
Maggie’s moan of appreciation was a siren call, and Trent felt himself irresistibly drawn into the depths of her oceanic eyes. With the confidence of a woman who knew the power she wielded, she guided his hands to the small of her back, pressing against him as if they were two pieces of a puzzle that the universe had finally decided to click together.
“Let me show you how it feels to really let go,” she whispered, her breath a warm caress against his ear. She led him down onto the couch, her movements slow, deliberate, like honey dripping from a spoon. The frenzy of their previous encounter melted away, replaced by an exploration that was no less intense but far more profound.
Trent was lost in the sensation of Maggie’s curves beneath his fingertips, the softness of her skin contrasting with the hard lines of his own body. She moved atop him with a rhythm that seemed to speak directly to his soul, a languid dance that was at once new yet achingly familiar.
The way she looked at him, with such trust and openness, made something inside Trent stir—something he’d kept shackled for far too long. Her eyes held not just passion but a playful challenge, as if daring him to dive into uncharted emotional waters.
She’d plunge first if he wasn’t careful.
And that just didn’t fucking sit right with him.
It was in the ebb and flow of their joined bodies that Trent found himself adrift in thoughts he’d never dared acknowledge before. The realization struck him like the first thunderclap of an oncoming storm: life without Maggie would be like a painting stripped of color, a book devoid of words.
Something…unimaginable.
He hesitated, almost blown over by the strength of his reaction of that inner revelation.
Did she know? Did she realize just what the fuck she did to him? Was she doing it on purpose? Seducing him within an inch of his sanity without giving him an easy pathway back to reason?
He marveled at the paradox of their connection, how the raw physicality of her gentle, curious exploration of his topography could unearth emotions so intricate and complicated.
So…fragile.
In Maggie’s embrace, he discovered a safe harbor where he could anchor his most intimate fears and desires, a sanctuary where the masks he’d worn for so long dissolved into nothingness.
Danger alarms and red flags waved in his mind’s eye as she pulled him down so he stretched out long above her, their tongues dancing and sparring as he settled into the cradle of her body, chest to breast, hips undulating together, until his thickening cock found her drenched clit. Their intimate flesh branded hotter than the caresses they passed over smooth skin with their fingertips. He circled the head of his sex over the pliant hood of hers, teasing the engorged little nub there, testing its sensitivity and making her gasp and writhe before he thrust home once again.
This time, he took his time with her, peeling back to watch her eyes as he inched inside of her slick heat. They shone with a moisture he couldn’t identify, but no tears spilled as he stretched her legs wide, wider, reaching in between them to pay attention to the bundle of nerves now exposed by her open thighs.
She didn’t blink, only breathed to whisper encouragements. Naughty little nothings he’d never remember. Or always would.
The soundtrack to the night he fell hard for the woman he shouldn’t even glance sideways at.
His body didn’t give him time to consider the pang in his chest, as it was followed by the gradual onset of a tide of pleasure he’d never known.
As the crest of their shared passion receded, leaving them in the gentle shallows of contentment, Trent breathed in the truth with newfound reverence. Here, entangled with Maggie in the quiet aftermath, he understood that love wasn’t just a spark or a flame—it was a fire that could both consume and cleanse. And if the flame was always so warm, so well-tended…
He might just be ready to be consumed by it.
Trent’s arm was a band of warmth around Maggie’s waist, their legs a tangle of contentment beneath the soft throw blanket that had somehow survived their earlier tempest. He could feel the steady rise and fall of her chest against his side, each breath a whisper of serenity. The glow from the fireplace painted their skin in hues of gold and amber, cocooning them in its gentle radiance.
“Did we just… Was that even…?” Maggie’s voice was a sleepy murmur, trailing off into the stillness as she sought the words to capture the indefinable.
“Earth-shattering? Mind-blowing? Clichéd as it sounds, I think we ticked all the boxes,” Trent replied, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a post-bliss smirk. His fingers traced idle patterns on her arm, skimming over freckles that reminded him of constellations—each one a tiny point of light in the universe of her lovely skin.
The pink and gold of her Irish heritage and the dusky teak of his African one made for a visually stunning contrast as he charted her body like the old colonizing explorers had done to the world at large. Committed every curve to memory. Every valley, crevice, soft spot, every fine hair lifted in awareness and pleasure.
“More like galaxy-imploding,” she said with a chuckle, tilting her head back to lock eyes with him. In the dim light, they sparkled with the remnants of raw desire and something softer, something treacherous to a heart that had thrived on solitude.
Beneath all that, his masculine ego purred with a feline sort of pride.
“Galaxy-imploding,” he echoed, letting the term roll off his tongue as though he were tasting a fine wine. “I’ll have to remember that for the next time I’m bragging at the bullpen.”
“Ha, as if you’d kiss and tell,” Maggie teased, poking his ribs playfully. The action sent a jolt of awareness through Trent’s body, reminding him of how easily she navigated his defenses.
“You don’t know me,” he pretended to grouse, tossing a saucy look down at her before kissing the tip of her nose.
“Please,” she said, wriggling somehow impossibly closer. “Tell me one time when you lied on purpose…and being undercover doesn’t count.”
Damn, he was going to use that one.
“I only lie about the fishing trips,” he admitted, the truth laced with humor. “I think it’s a chromosome thing, because I’ve never met a masculine-presenting person tell the truth about the size of the catch and it doesn’t grow ten pounds with each retelling.”
“Good thing I’m not a fish, then,” Maggie said, her tone a mix of sass and sweetness that made Trent’s heart do an odd little flip. “You caught me, deputy. What’s the protocol now?”
“Protocol states that I should probably let you go,” he confessed, his voice wavering slightly as the weight of his earlier revelation pressed down on him. “But damned if I’m not much good at following rules when it comes to you.”
“Then don’t,” she whispered, the simple command wrapped in vulnerability. Her hand found his, fingers threading through his with a promise of more than just physical connection. “Break the rules with me.”
Her words were a key turning in a lock, releasing parts of himself he hadn’t even realized were shackled. “Maggie, I—” He paused, the enormity of what he wanted to say looming before him like a precipice. “I’ve never been this reckless with anyone before. Hell, we didn’t even use a condom.”
“That’s okay.” She shrugged. “I have an IUD.”
His relief must have been apparent, because she giggled a little.
“Reckless is just another word for living, McGarvey.” Her smile was a crescent moon in the night of his uncertainty. “And I’ve got a feeling we’re going to do a little bit more of that with each other before we’re through.”
In the quiet aftermath of their confessions, the room seemed to hold its breath, the only sound their synchronized heartbeats writing a rhythm for a future uncertain but tempting as the dawn. Maggie’s head rested against his shoulder, her red hair a fiery contrast to the subdued tones of his living room—a vibrant reminder that life was meant to be lived in Technicolor, and Trent was suddenly eager to paint outside the lines.
He bullied Maggie off the couch and into his bed, their legs tangled beneath the cotton throw as they let the fireplace warm their bare skin and cool their ardor.
Her breath was a soft cadence against his neck, stirring something tender within him—something that felt suspiciously like roots taking hold in unexplored soil.
A comfortable silence settled between them, the kind of hush that spoke volumes more than words ever could. They were two souls, stripped down to raw desire and now wrapped up in the quiet understanding that what they’d shared transcended physical release.
As Trent held her, the reality of their bond—an intricate tapestry woven from heated glances, whispered innuendos, and now this—settled over him like a blanket. It was warm, it was protective, and damn if it wasn’t as scary as a chicken coop at a fox convention.
“Hey,” Maggie began, tracing idle patterns on his chest. “I can hear you brooding. What’s up?”
“Nothing much,” he lied, because how did one explain that he was wrestling with the fear of losing something he never knew he wanted until now? Instead, he steered them back to safer waters. “Just thinking about how I’m going to get you out of here without my neighbors starting a betting pool on our…extracurricular activities.”
She laughed, a sound that bubbled up between them like a clear spring. “Let ’em bet. I’ll throw in twenty bucks on us lasting longer than the milk in your fridge.”
“Bold move,” he teased back, even as his heart performed an odd little flip at the thought of a timeline extending beyond the confines of tonight. “But you’re on.”
The laughter faded, leaving a poignant stillness that stretched out like the rolling fields and primeval forests surrounding the town. There was an undercurrent of uncertainty there—a silent acknowledgement that they were standing on the edge of something deeper than either had planned.
“Whatever happens…” Maggie whispered, “I’m glad we did this.”
“Whatever happens,” Trent echoed, his jaw cracking on a yawn.
The world outside faded, leaving only the soft sounds of the fireplace, the evening wail of the wind through the marina.
For once, Trent McGarvey wasn’t thinking about appearances, about the meticulous order he so often clung to. All that mattered was Maggie—the woman who’d managed to unravel him with nothing more than a look and a challenge that he’d been powerless to resist.