Darkening Skye (Under Covers Book 1) Read online

  "To have fun."

  "Lie."

  He said it casually, between kisses. The words slipped out of my mouth.

  "To get laid."

  "Better," he said. It sounded like a praise. He kissed me again. "Why?"

  "Stop it," I said. "Why do you care?"

  He stopped kissing me. I closed my eyes to avoid looking into his. His words made me open them again.

  "Because I care about you. And I think you were working. And I'm afraid that you were in danger. And I want you to tell me you aren't."

  I sighed. "I wasn't working. And I was there to get laid. My handler advised me to do it before the mission."

  He nodded, as if he expected it.

  "You're going undercover again?"

  His voice sounded tight, as if he was forcing the words out carefully. I didn't want to think about it. In that bed, on that night, there shouldn't be anything else but release. I shouldn't complicate his life even more, and I couldn't afford to go into the underworld with something to lose. Something as precious as him.

  He was still waiting for an answer, brushing his fingertips idly along my hip and my thigh, then back up all the way to the underside of my breast, igniting a fire in them that he refused to put out. Long lazy strokes over my sensitized skin, building up desire and declining me any relief.

  "Yes."

  "Deep cover?" he asked.

  His tone said that he had guessed the answers.

  "Yes."

  "Dangerous?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "On Monday."

  "When you said you have the weekend free... This means we only have this weekend," he said.

  "I fought myself not to call you," I confessed.

  "Me too. I lost tonight."

  It hurt to hear that. It cut all the way through to my very core to hear that rejection. I was in love, he was in lust.

  "Hopefully just for a weekend. We'll have better luck next week," I said.

  "Skye, I'm not asking you to do or not to do something you want or need during your mission," he said.

  My heart tightened even more. Of course he wasn't. Why did he have to be so cruel as to insist on the matter? I just said it would be only for this weekend. He put his finger on my lips in time to stop my next words.

  "But I'll wait for you."

  I opened my mouth, but he pressed his finger harder on my lips. I didn't know if I wanted to tell him that I was not going to have sex with anyone while undercover, or that he didn't have to wait for me because I had no idea when the mission would end. Probably I would have said both at the same time, incoherently if he hadn't stopped me.

  "Don't say anything. It's my choice to wait and it's my choice not to ask you for anything. I don't care what you do as long as you come out of it safe. If you still want me after that, I'll be here."

  That did not sound like lust. Maybe he did love me back. He hadn't said the words, so I didn't make things harder by saying them. I loved him. A part of me didn't believe him. He was too good at his job, too experienced in handling people for this to be something other than the right things to say in this situation. He just told me the perfect lie that would keep me safe.

  "Ok," I said and I snuggled in his arms.

  It felt warm and safe. It was something to look forward to come back to. Even if I didn't believe he would still be there when I came back, I wasn't going to waste this moment.

  Chapter 27 The one

  Nicholas

  Skye was the first woman I brought to this house. Into this bed. When I moved back into my childhood home, I was already past the age of casual dating and I had already lost the ability to open myself to anyone. Seducing women was even easier than catching murderers. I did it rarely, when biology forced me to act. The lack of emotion or connection always left me feeling like I had taken advantage of them. I liked women but I dealt so much better with them when I respected or feared them. I hated my own hypocrisy because most of the time I had to conceal an utter and relentless indifference.

  In the pitch darkness of my bedroom, Skye burrowed into me, wrapping herself in my arms. Her face was pressed against my chest so hard I didn't know how she could breathe. She seemed to calm down. For the first time that night, or maybe for the first time since I met her, she relaxed. She allowed herself to be calm. She felt more at peace than when she was when I spied on her meditating.

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn't escape my thoughts. The worst fears I had about meeting her again had been surpassed by her words. I thought the worst I'd have to handle was to be in love with her for the rest of my life while she saw nothing more than a convenient way to satisfy a sexual kink. I prepared myself for pining after the bright bubbly California girl who could have never fit into my life of dark inner demons. I was ready for her to react with disgust to my appearance. I was ready to see fear in her if at any point she remembered Dvorak touching her. She must have sensed that that horrible man was an alternate me. With a few different choices, I would have been a monster.

  I had foolishly thought that the worst thing that could happen was if she rejected me as too old and too broken. It would hurt, but I would understand that.

  Alarms had rung in my head from the moment I saw her dark makeup and her sharpened features. The only thing that kept me at a sane distance from her was the very lack of darkness in her. Sweet, innocent, light hearted and well loved. She was everything I would wish to keep pure. To not sully with my hands that had killed, with my mouth that had lied, with my mind that had seen evil. But that night I saw that she had crossed over. She was no longer an idealized version of a girl I could love if only I was less broken. She was exactly the woman I could love just as I was.

  Maybe if I asked her about the mission in the kitchen, maybe if I hadn't given her what she asked, maybe I would still have a chance to walk away my own man. But I hadn't and now I was hers.

  I wasn't lying when I told her I didn't care what she did while undercover. I wanted her to out and safe. The amount of torment and jealousy I was going to feel was mine to control and overcome.

  It was strange that it didn't even occur to me to ask her to step away from the mission. I knew her better than I knew myself. Not only she would have refused to give up, but the mere request would put more distance between us than I could ever make up for.

  My desire for her was even more desperate now that I knew she was going to be in danger, out of my reach. Wherever she was going, I couldn't protect her. I had no idea how I was going to survive until she came back.

  I was determined to hold her for as long as she let me even if my body demanded something else.

  My self-restraint didn't get tested. She was probably half asleep when she started nuzzling me. I wondered if she knew what she was doing when she kissed and bit her way up my chest. My beard seemed to get in the way and she skipped it to go straight for my mouth. I kissed her back and slowly rolled her on her back. Her strong muscles danced under her skin, and I felt her instinctual defense mechanisms. Whatever else her mission was going to be, she had trained for close quarters combat. I wished I hadn't thought that. Purposefully I focused all my awareness on that moment. There would be plenty of time to fear for her. I gave her time to accept my domination.

  Her legs parted of their own accord and I settled between her thighs. I was already dripping and I was tempted to forget about caution and have my fill of her. I wanted her to be safe and I owed her safety. I reached into the drawer of the nightstand and found a condom. I rolled it with one hand before sliding inside her. I slowed as much as I could. I wanted that descend to never end. She gasped and lifted her body to meet me. I gripped her hip and pushed her gently down.

  "Slow. This time we go slow."

  She tried to obey but at times she still bucked under me. She was already clenching rhythmically around me, wet and hot, inviting me to rush in. I don't know how long it took to be as deep inside her as I could. It took even longer to pull out, and longer s
till to slide in again. She panted and moan and beg me to speed up.

  "Please. I need more."

  "Shhh," I hushed her. "Patience. We have all the time in the world, Skye."

  Or maybe not. She shuddered and squeezed me so tight I couldn't move for a few long, delicious seconds. She came down from the peak of her orgasm but after a few slow thrusts, she crested again. Her whole body shook in rapture. I couldn't believe I was able to bring her such pleasure. The first ray of the morning sun fell on faces. Her eyes were rolled back in ecstasy but she forced herself to open them. There was only black.

  "God, Nick, please."

  I thought it was going to take hours for me to reach orgasm, but my name on her lips was the most potent aphrodisiac. I pumped hard and fast into her. The sensations overwhelmed her and she closed her eyes, but I refused to close mine. I wanted to remember her like that, undone and completely mine. I came violently, screaming her name.

  It was a long, delicious weekend and I would have sold my soul if it could last forever.

  Chapter 28 - Happily Ever After

  Nicholas

  I was by her bedside when she woke up in hospital at the end of her mission. I held her hand until she came out of sedation. She cried in my arms for all the horrible things she had done during her mission. I never asked her for anything, and one day she left.

  She was in sunny California, alive and well. I knew this because she kept me up to date. She called me from her parents' house while she was still on medical leave. She called me again next month, when she got promoted from Vice to Narcotics. She called me two weeks later to ask my opinion about a case. She called me once after an argument with her brother who ended up telling her that she should quit the force. She called me one evening because she had a Court appearance the next day and she asked for my advice.

  We saw each other twice in that time. Once when she came to New York to testify on the trial of the Russian Mafia leaders she helped put in jail. The other time was when a case brought me all the way to Los Angeles. I hadn't told her I was in LA, but she showed up at precinct where I was interrogating my suspect. That whole week was one of the strangest of my life.

  Months went by. She called me on my birthday. She called me the evening after Katherine's engagement became public. She called me when I was at a bar in in Virginia the night after I had attended the execution of someone I put away. I was so badly messed up that night, I looked for a woman who looked like Skye and I charmed her all the way into my bed. I did things to her… things I had never dared to do with Skye. I made her feel how she never felt before. I made her beg for more. I gave her all the passion Skye had stirred inside me and never fully released.

  I never called Skye and she never asked why. She never asked if I was still waiting for her. Every time she called, I steeled myself for the news that she had met someone who made her happy. Every time the call ended when she ran out of things to tell me and an awkward silence threatened to occur. I lived for those small noises she made at the end, when she was forcing herself to say good bye.

  She never called more than three times a month, and not less than once. She called me before accepting another undercover mission. It took fifty-six days to hear from her again. She was still in the Police station when she called me at the end of that operation. She was elated to tell me that for once she didn't get beaten up or shot in the ass. She called again to tell me she was offered a position in Robbery Homicide.

  It got more and more difficult to hear her settling into her old life. I had offered her everything I had to give, without expecting anything in return. I couldn't bring myself to sever ties with her. I accepted these scraps she fed me, and a treacherous part of me kept hoping. If I gave her enough time, she would find her way to me.

  I never knew I could be so patient. Maybe I was a coward. Since the end of our case, nothing good happened in my life. My father had died after a long and painful illness. My sister had drunk herself to death about the same time. My only nephew was raised by his father, and when he remarried, they moved out of New York. The only new relationship in my life was a weird friendship with a murderer Katherine and I arrested. I saw a side of myself in him, but it was a different kind of kinship than with Dvorak. This man was probably the only human being as lonely as me. Coincidentally, I always visited him after she called me.

  *

  Katherine's wedding was the only pleasant surprise in my life. As much as I wanted my partner to be happy, her wedding made my own loneliness even more painfully clear. Once it was clear that Skye wasn't there, I drank enough to numb the pain.

  The Captain found me in the corner where I had skulked away. He looked younger in his Police uniform, or maybe it was just because he wasn't weighed down by the cares of his office for one night. He sat next to me, with a glass of scotch in his hand.

  "Woods, you have to do something about your situation," he went straight to the point.

  "Captain, is this the time or place for this?"

  "It is the perfect time. Because I'm not here as your Captain. We worked together for a long time, and I'm talking to you as your friend. Whatever is going on with you, get it sorted. You can't live just to do your job. You need an anchor outside police work."

  I nodded, unwilling to have the conversation. I loved my job and although I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, I had other interests. I went to museums, I read about history and art. I studied chemistry and kept up to date with scientific progress. More than once this knowledge served me in my investigations, but it didn't make me less passionate about them. I even started to go to the gym and run regularly once I found a treadmill that had the perfect size for my psychology and history journals.

  He didn't seem convinced but he left me alone. I appreciated that he took the time to reach out to me on a personal level.

  I didn't want a temporary partner so I took my vacation at the same time as Katherine's honeymoon. I was tempted to go to California. To call Skye when I was already in LA or to show up at her door. It was too creepy for words. I talked myself out of it in my shrink's office. I knew that if Skye called, I was in serious danger of asking if I could visit her. I worried she would call before my vacation was over and it hurt that she didn't.

  With only one week of vacation left, I was getting restless. Skye hadn't called in three weeks, and during her last call she hadn't mentioned going undercover again. I read LA papers and I stayed updated with news from LAPD, so I was sure she wasn't hurt. I just didn't know what she was doing.

  It was a beautiful Sunday morning in June. I took my book into a park near my house and sat on bench to read. I allowed the book to transport me to medieval France to such extent that I didn't recognize the voice that addressed me.

  "Is this seat taken?"

  "No," I said and looked up, out of the book.

  Skye stood in front of me with an awkward smile on her lips. Her hair longer and her skin was more tanned than I had ever seen her. The soft curves were back, replacing the sharp edges of her MMA fighter body.

  "Skye!"

  I bolted upright and the book fell on the grass. We both bent down to retrieve it. Our hands touched when we picked it up at the same time. Her lips were so close to mine, inviting me to touch them.

  "Hello, Nick."

  Her breath touched my cheek I fought back the urge to kiss her the way I kissed her in my fantasies. Maybe I had fallen asleep while reading and this was just a dream. It felt like a dream, but not enough to risk making a full of myself kissing a woman I hadn't seen in so long.

  She sat down on the bench, and I sat back on my spot. She slipped her hand in mine, twining her fingers between my own. Her hand was small and warm.

  "Katherine sounded pissed off when I called her," she said.

  "You disturbed her on her honeymoon?"

  "I had to know if it was ok to show up."

  "Skye, I'll always be your friend. You don't need to ask permission to-"

  "I needed to check if
you're seeing anyone. I have no right to mess up your life. "

  "What?"

  "I love you," she said. "I never even tried to get over you because time is supposed to heal all wounds. It didn't heal me of you. I understand you don't feel the same. I heard the deafening silence of you never calling me. But for once in my life I wanted to say it to your face. I want you to know I love you because I told you, not because you can tell from all the stupid reasons I kept making up to call you just to hear your voice."

  At first, I was too stunned to answer. Then when I tried to answer, I found no words to articulate my feelings. I did the only thing that could express what I felt. I kissed her firmly on the mouth. The world began to spin around us. I couldn't get enough of her. I swiped my tongue over lips and she opened them without resistance.

  In a few minutes, we ran out of breath and out of patience. I wanted to tear off her clothes, but we were in the middle of a park in Brooklyn with dozens of kids running around us.

  "I take it you're not sending me away?" she said.

  "Smart girl as always."

  "Can we go to your place?"

  I took her hand and we headed out of the park. I had walked there from my house because I needed the time to unwind and clear my thoughts before diving into my book. I could have called a cab and saved a few minutes, but I wanted to enjoy walking hand in hand with her for the first time. She squeezed my hand like she had from her hospital bed. I squeezed it back hard, as the pain of seeing her battered and broken seared through me again. In some stupid way, I felt responsible for what happened to her. I wanted her to be less sunny, less cheery and less well adjusted. I wanted her dark and broken enough to accept me as I was without wanting to fix me.

  "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked.

  "I guess I'm not sure you are really here."

  She stopped suddenly forcing me to stop and look at her. Her features had lost their usual brightness. No smile tugged at her lips. No sparkle in her eyes. I saw the darkness in the girl who came to my house more than a year earlier. The one I loved above all reason. She grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me down into a kiss that seared me all the way to my soul. My hand found the small of her back. I pulled her closer and she molded her body on mine like a second skin. I kissed her until I didn't know where I ended and she began.