Mitchell thought about going down the alley in the dark, in the rain, alone, barely able to see an inch in front of her face. Knowing that whoever was waiting was probably bigger, probably stronger, and probably armed. But she’d heard a woman scream, and that had made her angry. It was the anger as much as her sense of duty that had carried her into that alley. Softly, she answered, “Yes, ma’am. I understand.”

“But a fire you can’t control will eat you up, and something’s eating you up now.”

Mitchell said nothing. Her insides rolled, and for a minute, she feared she might vomit.

“You need to take yourself off the team if you can’t deal with what Sandy is doing.”

“Aren’t I off already?” Mitchell looked at Rebecca, confusion in her eyes.

“That depends. I can’t tell you who to sleep with. I can’t tell you who to love.” Rebecca looked past Mitchell to a ship that slowly made its way into the port of Philadelphia. She thought about Catherine, and how having Catherine in her life had made her a better cop because her own fires consumed less of her now. “I can tell you that if you can’t give her up, you’re going to have to learn to live with who she is.” Rebecca turned her gaze back to Mitchell’s face. “And what she does.”

“I’m trying.”

“Not hard enough.”

Mitchell nodded.

“You need to sort this out, in a hurry. I can’t order you to, but I think maybe you need to talk to Dr. Rawlings.”

“I want to be on this team more than anything in my life, except being with Sa—”

“I got that the first time, Mitchell,” Rebecca snapped. “Stop telling me things I don’t want to know about.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Mitchell straightened. “I’ll talk to Dr. Rawlings.”

“Your business.” Rebecca held Mitchell’s eyes. “You lose it one more time and you’re gone. I’ll put it in your file, and they’ll bury you somewhere until you quit from sheer boredom.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rebecca nodded and turned toward back toward Old City. “Let’s go. Jason says he has work for you.”

“Thank you, sergeant. I hope I—”

“Don’t thank me, Mitchell. Just get me a lead, will you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m on it.”

At the corner of Front and Arch, Rebecca spied the thin blond in the short leather skirt, shiny black faux-motorcycle jacket, and calf high, stack-heeled boots lounging against a light pole. Her face betrayed nothing but ennui, but her eyes were alive and riveted on Mitchell’s face. Rebecca sighed and glanced sideways at Mitchell. The officer’s expression was just as nonchalant as that of the woman who watched her, but her gaze was hungry.

“Christ.” Rebecca pulled her keys from her blazer pocket and stopped by her car. “Five minutes, Mitchell, and then get your ass back upstairs.”

In a rare breach of protocol, Mitchell forgot to reply as she hurried over to Sandy. She barely heard the Vette revving in the background or the engine roar as Rebecca pulled away.

“Hi,” Mitchell said quietly, reaching for Sandy’s hand. Their fingers entwined and she held their joined hands between their bodies, out of sight of casual observers.

“You okay?” Sandy asked.

“Yeah.” Mitchell grinned sheepishly. “I’m missing a few pieces of my anatomy, but, yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Dell.” Sandy searched Mitchell’s eyes, looking for the real wounds. “I’m really sorry.”

“Why? It wasn’t your fault. I got hot upstairs and mouthed off to Watts. That’s what Frye was on me about.”

Sandy looked away, remembering the pain in her girlfriend’s eyes when Frye had come down on Mitchell at the briefing. She remembered, too, Frye’s warning about what any kind of relationship with Sandy could do to Mitchell’s career. “You know, rookie, I can’t afford to cross Frye on this deal. If hanging around with you is going to screw it up, maybe we better coo—”

“Don’t…” Mitchell’s voice broke and she swallowed hard. “Don’t do this to me, Sandy. Please.”

Sandy had never imagined that someone else’s pain could hurt so much. “Dell, I…I don’t know what to do.”

“Just don’t leave me, okay?” Mitchell caught Sandy’s hand. “I need you.”

“You’re nuts.” Sandy’s heart hurt, hearing the words. Hurt in a good way, like something inside of her that had lain cold and buried for longer than she could recall was coming to life. “I don’t want to need you.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.” Mitchell smiled sadly. “I always knew you were the tough one.”

Sandy brushed her fingers down Mitchell’s chest. “I said I didn’t want to…I didn’t say I don’t.”

“That sounds so good.” Mitchell closed her eyes and rubbed Sandy’s fingers against her cheek.

“Jeez, will you cool it.” Sandy jerked her hand away and looked around nervously. “What if Watts or someone sees us.”

Mitchell shrugged. “Won’t matter now. I told Frye about us.”

Sandy gaped. “You what?”

“I told her I was crazy in love with you and if she wanted to fire me, to go ahead.”

“Oh, man.” Sandy hooked her fingers around Mitchell’s belt and dragged her to relative privacy under the overhang of the nearest building. Then she put her arms around Mitchell’s neck and kissed her until they were both breathless. Leaning into Mitchell’s body, she muttered, “I want to rip your clothes off and…do things to you.”

“Okay.”

“Go. To. Work. Dell.” Sandy kissed the grinning young cop again and hurriedly walked away before she totally lost her cool.

Laughing, Mitchell watched until Sandy turned the corner, thinking how hot she looked in that leather skirt.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sloan savored the warm breath against the back of her neck and the soft hand caressing her abdomen. It was twilight, and Michael lay pressed against her, one arm encircling her waist. The soft swell of breasts against her back and the whisper of gentle lips on her skin was the most precious sensation she’d ever experienced. The terrible fear that had filled her chest for endless hours disintegrated like ice in the sunlight and flowed from her on a healing river of tears.

“Sloan. Darling?” Michael tightened her hold, sensing the subtle shift in Sloan’s breathing. “Oh, no, my love, don’t cry.”

“I’m okay,” Sloan rasped quickly, lifting a hand to brush away the moisture. “Just happy. Have you been awake long?”

“A while.” Michael slowly drew her fingers over Sloan’s breasts, flicking over her tight nipples before drifting down her abdomen. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You’re waking me now,” Sloan murmured as Michael brushed her fingertips lower. “Michael…”

Michael laughed quietly and traced one fingertip along the valley between belly and thigh.

“Michael, we can’t,” Sloan warned, edging her hips away.

“Don’t make me have to follow you, darling,” Michael cautioned. “I seem to do best if I stay in one place. You don’t want to give me a headache, do you?”

Sloan sighed and grew still. “That’s blackmail.”

“Is it?” Michael sounded surprised, and then she laughed again. “All right. So I’ve been found out.”

“We should wait until you’re better.”

“I am better,” Michael insisted, placing her palm gently between Sloan’s thighs, her fingers resting against slick, ready flesh.

“I won’t be able to come.” Sloan drew a sharp breath as a fingertip circled her clitoris. “I’ll be worried about you the whole time.”

“Oh, this is serious.” Michael’s voice held a hint of playfulness. “All right. You are not required to come. You merely need to submit to my attentions.”

“Michael…” She thirsted for Michael’s touch, hungered to touch her. But the memory of fear rode hard on her heart, and she fought the desire. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’ve missed you.” Michael’s tone was serious now, almost wistful. “Because I need to be connected to you. Sloan, I need you back, too.”

Sloan’s heart turned over in her chest, and she was lost. Lost as she was each time the enormity of Michael’s love washed over her. “Oh, god. Anything you want. You know that.”

“I love you.” Michael smiled tenderly. “I just want to touch you. I want to feel your heart beat beneath my fingers. I want to feel your passion flow for me. I want to hear your breath break just for me—”

“Promise me,” Sloan asked, her pupils dilating with the surge of arousal mounting beneath Michael’s teasing fingers, “that…ah, god…that…”

“What, darling?” Michael watched Sloan’s lids slowly close as she pressed the length of her clitoris. “What?”

Sloan forced her eyes open. “That you’ll stop if…” her hips jerked and she gasped. “If it hurts…you…anywhere.”

“Sloan,” Michael soothed, her own heart beating furiously. “Touching you could never hurt me.”

“I love you.”

Michael smiled. “Then let me watch you come.”’

Sloan rested her forehead on Michael’s, her hand gently cupping Michael’s breast. She kept her eyes on her lover, but she couldn’t see. Love, desire, and need colluded to make her blind. Michael’s presence, alive and beautiful and loving, was more exciting even than her exquisite touch. It was too much for Sloan to hold.

A small cry of surprise and wonder escaped her. “Ohh…there…”

“Yes. Yes, my love.”

Gasping, Sloan slumped down to the bed, her limbs boneless, her chest heaving. “I’m…out of practice.”

Michael laughed, a husky sensuous purr of satisfaction. “Oh, I don’t think so.” Michael rested her head on Sloan’s shoulder, drawing lazy circles on Sloan’s belly with her fingers. “What are your plans for tonight?”

Sloan nuzzled Michael’s ear, then lightly bit the lobe. “I should head downstairs. I left things up in the air this morning.”

Michael lifted her chin and kissed the undersurface of Sloan’s jaw. “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“When you find out who caused the accident, let Rebecca handle it.”

There was nothing Sloan could do. There was nothing in her, nothing she was, that Michael didn’t own. “I promise.”

“Thank you.” Michael kissed her again. “I know what that took.”

“You don’t know how much I love you.”

Softly Michael smiled. “Oh yes, darling, I do. You always make me know.”

Catherine stretched and sighed. “God, I love sex in the afternoon.”

“It’s not afternoon,” Rebecca pointed out.

“Mmm. It was when we started.”

Rebecca grinned. “Wonder what Joyce thinks about where you disappeared to.”

“I hardly disappeared,” Catherine pointed out. “I merely took some…personal time…before my evening sessions.”

Rebecca stroked her lover’s hair, aware of a strange new emotion. Contentment. “I’ll be late tonight.”

“Has something happened?” Catherine asked carefully. She wanted to say, Don’t go out. Stay here. Let me close my eyes knowing you’re safe. Let me fall asleep in your arms.

“Not yet, but soon. Mitchell is going out undercover again, and I want to be nearby.”

“Be careful, hmm?”

“What, with Mitchell?” Rebecca asked.

“No, my sweet detective, you.”

Rebecca sighed. “I more or less ordered Mitchell to see you professionally today.”

“Ordering someone to undergo therapy isn’t usually the best way to start that process.” Catherine’s tone was mild, but her eyes were deeply serious.

“Maybe not, but she’s about to fuck-up her career. I gave her a choice.”

“Me or what—traffic patrol?”

Rebecca grinned. “Something like that.”

Catherine sighed. “Rebecca, darling—”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. I said she could see anyone she wants, and that whether she did or not was up to her. I wouldn’t check up on her.” Rebecca brushed her fingers over Catherine’s cheek. “Okay?”

“It sounds like a done deal.” Catherine rolled onto her lover and kissed her, a kiss that soon deepened and grew hungry. “Oh, dear,” she gasped.

“Uh-huh,” Rebecca muttered, wrapping her arms around Catherine and turning until she was on top. “Oh dear indeed.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sandy asked.

“What?” Mitchell picked up her chop sticks, then set them down with a sigh. “Not really.”

Sandy tipped her beer bottle back and drained it. “So. What’s up?”

Mitchell met Sandy’s inquiring gaze with worried blue eyes. “Look, will you just please promise not to go off to some meeting with this porno guy without checking in? Just do that?”

“Ah, jeez, Dell. Not that again.”

“What if something happens, and we don’t know where you are?”

Sandy put her hand on Mitchell’s leg and leaned close. “Nothing’s going to happen. Trudy will take me to meet the guy. I’ll say, Oh yes, I’d love to take off my clothes and suck your dick, and then he’ll say, Great, I’ll pick you up at such and such a time blah blah blah. Then you and Frye and Bluto will kick his ass.”