By the end of the week, my neck was sore, my back was stiff, and my body hummed with a kind of expectant energy. I filled the bathtub with steaming water and threw in a ball of moisturizing bath fizz. The scent of lavender filled the small room, riding on the steam. A thin film of condensation formed on the bathroom mirror, turning my naked body hazy and blurred. I was prettier this way, I thought. Surface only, out of focus. Drunk college guys had certainly thought so, but then they probably said that to any girl.
I stepped into the bath and let the hot water wash away all my tension. I’d never understood the appeal of hooking up, but I’d done it. Anything to be normal, to pretend to be normal. So I’d hit the clubs with some friends and find a random guy to disappoint me twice before morning. Get dressed. Walk away. Forget his name. Had I even asked for it? Whatever. Typical college student. Things were a little trickier as an adult. Now guys wanted to date. They were thinking about commitment, about starting a family.
No, thank you.
Now it was the older guys who wanted a quick fuck. Men like Hennessey. Most likely divorced and career-focused, they didn’t want a goddamned commitment. They wanted a screw in the supply closet. Except he hadn’t wanted to fuck. He’d wanted to talk, so what did that mean?
Men were confusing.
I spread my legs in the warm bath. Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back against the porcelain. My sex was already slippery from the soap. Cold gunmetal eyes. A sardonic smile. The word rookie used like an endearment. I rubbed myself quickly, roughly, being as hard on my body as I wished he would be. I want him to hurt me. With that strange thought, I came in tight pulses that sent ripples through the bath water.
I breathed the hot, humid air in the aftermath. What did it mean? Nothing. I laughed under my breath. It meant I was horny. Nothing more.
After drying myself, I pulled on a tank top from a music festival and loose sultan pants, and I settled down to paint my nails. It was a luxury, a brief nod to my femininity in a career path dominated by men.
My style was eclectic and excessively feminine—frilly and glittered when plain would have sufficed. I tried to tone it back for the office for obvious reasons. Partly because any extra accessories, like earrings, could be used against me by a perp in the unlikely event of a foot chase. The other reason was because I tried my hardest to paint the picture of a driven professional. Of a severe law enforcement officer.
Even my nails were filed short and painted with a clear coat for strength. The only exception were my toenails, which I shaped and painted in a full self-service pedicure every week. Sometimes I used a deep red, others a girlish pink. Today I chose a light blue, drawing from some deep desire for open sky. It was as if I bundled all my vanity into my feet, which I’d stuff away into sensible low-heeled shoes for work each day.
I was waiting for my toenails to finish drying when the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock. Ten on a Friday night. I wasn’t expecting anyone, but despite being a woman, alone, I wasn’t afraid. I could kick the asses of most perps. More importantly, I’d learned long ago that criminals didn’t knock at the front door. They lured you into white vans. They lived in your own home.
The image through the peephole made me smile. I schooled my expression and opened the door.
Hennessey stood on the step, looking casual and right at home. The faded black fabric of his T-shirt matched his eyes. It molded to the lean muscles on his chest, revealing what the suits had left hidden. Strength. Power. Sexiness. Faded jeans and a well-worn T-shirt was practically a wardrobe of seduction on a man like this, the masculine equivalent of showing up in nothing but a trench coat and high heels.
If you want me, take me. My body responded like a live wire, primed from spending the whole week working with him and having lost its professional inhibitions through exhaustion. I could spin these fantasies in my head, and no one would ever know.
Especially him.
I may have crushed on older men, I may have fucked them, but I resented them too. I resented their allure and their dominance even as I craved them. Part and parcel of the daddy issues, I supposed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, a little brusquely.
“We found the warehouse. It’s owned by a subsidiary of Laguardia.” He held up a stack of stuffed file folders. “I’ve got shipment routes going to and from that dock. We can narrow down which one it is based on pay loads and time of day.”
“Okay, let me rephrase. How did you find me?”
He raised an eyebrow. “FBI Agent.”
“Stalker.”
He lifted the case of beer he held in his other hand. “I come bearing gifts.”
I sighed and stood back to let him in. “Forgiven.”
He passed me by, his gaze roving down my body. The tank top barely concealed my breasts or my nipples, which had hardened in the night air. A sliver of my belly and the upper curves of my hips were revealed by the low-slung pants. And at my feet, the sky blue stood out like some sort of testament to my youth, a sharp contrast to the hardened, experienced, jaded man in front of me.