“Hurry back.”

The slight hint of invitation in Catherine’s voice was enough to make Rebecca’s blood surge. Within minutes she walked back into the bedroom, naked, toweling off as she approached the bed. She stopped abruptly when she observed the intense expression on Catherine’s face and lowered the towel. “I get excited just watching you look at me.”

Catherine pushed the sheet aside, and rose to her knees, moving closer to the edge of the bed and threading her arms around Rebecca’s waist. She drew one small tight nipple into her mouth, reveling at the swift gasp from her lover.

Closing her eyes, Rebecca rested her palms on Catherine’s shoulder for balance. “Please…do it harder.”

Moaning with satisfaction, Catherine sucked harder, drawing the tight rosette back and forth between her teeth. When Rebecca uttered a small cry, an answering rush of arousal flooded her thighs. Gasping, Catherine pulled Rebecca down beside her on the bed. Drawing her hand up the inside of Rebecca’s quivering thigh, Catherine found her wet and open and moved inside her. “I need things from you.”

“What…do you need?” Rebecca arched off the bed. With her right hand she grasped Catherine’s wrist, forcing her hand deeper still.

“I need…” Catherine leaned over Rebecca’s body as she pressed even further. “…this passion, this life…”

Rebecca’s words were strangled. “Take it.”

“Yes.” Catherine stroked to the rhythm of Rebecca’s heartbeat pulsating around her fingers. “Oh, yes.”

With tremendous effort, Rebecca turned her head and focused on Catherine’s face. “Take me.”

With a cry of her own, Catherine brushed her thumb rhythmically across Rebecca’s clitoris and catapulted her into orgasm.

“God God, yes yes…” Rebecca moaned, writhing beneath the onslaught of release. Breathless, panting, she finally tugged weakly at Catherine’s wrist, stilling her motion. “I’m done…I can’t…no more.”

Catherine rested her forehead against Rebecca’s shoulder, smiling. When she felt Rebecca’s hands glide down her back to cup her hips, she said, “Relax for a minute. Enjoy it.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m enjoying it.” Rebecca strength was slowly returning, and with it, her own urgency to claim her lover. Lifting her hips, she pushed upward and turned Catherine beneath her. In another instant, she was kneeling on the floor, her hands under Catherine’s thighs, drawing Catherine to her mouth. Slowly, carefully, Rebecca explored with her lips and her tongue, soothing and teasing and tormenting until Catherine twisted against the sheets, her legs pressed to Rebecca’s shoulders.

“I’m ready…so ready. Please.” Catherine’s voice was a whisper, her breath broken with need. “There. Oh, Rebecca, there.”

Rebecca slid her palms beneath Catherine’s hips and drew the last drops of Catherine’s desire between her lips. Catherine came in Rebecca’s mouth as Rebecca inexorably called the passion forth from her soul.

“Ah, God.” Rebecca lay on her back with Catherine’s head on her shoulder, the sheets pulled up to their waists as they luxuriated in the aftermath of lovemaking. “I could get used to coming home to that.”

“That could be arranged.” Catherine’s voice was light, almost drowsy, as she brushed her fingertips lightly over Rebecca’s breast.

“Are you proposing marriage?”

Catherine grew still. Before Rebecca, her life had been orderly and predictable and satisfying. Then Rebecca had come into her life on a whirlwind of passion in the midst of terror, and she had changed everything. Now, Rebecca felt as necessary as air and water and food. “Yes,” Catherine said softly but quite clearly. “I am.”

Rebecca tightened her grip on the woman in her embrace, but said nothing.

When the silence grew too heavy, Catherine asked, “Does that frighten you?”

“Yes.” Rebecca closed her eyes, waiting for Catherine to draw away.

“Why?” Catherine moved closer, drawing her thigh across Rebecca’s, curling her arm across Rebecca’s chest.

“You don’t know what you’re getting into.” There was sorrow in Rebecca’s tone. “The job…it…takes something from us. I’m afraid there isn’t enough left for you.”

“Oh no, you’re wrong.” Catherine’s voice was tender and sure. Gently, she slid onto Rebecca’s body and braced herself on her elbows, her hands in Rebecca’s hair. “I love you for what’s in your heart.”

Rebecca shuddered, needing so badly to believe. “There are things I’ve done…things I do…” She sighed again. “You remember Sandy?”

“Yes,” Catherine replied, pleased that her voice was steady. Sandy. The young woman you were with when your lung collapsed. The woman who looked like she was half in love with you. Is she the woman you see at night when you leave here?

“I did something with her you might find less than honorable.”

“What?” Catherine asked carefully.

“The details aren’t really important.”

“In this particular instance, the details matter.”

“You don’t think…me and Sandy?” Rebecca laughed. “Christ, no.”

Catherine blushed. “She’s very attractive, and she obviously cares about you.”

“Catherine, I love you.” Rebecca kissed her, lightly at first, then with a sudden surge of passion. “There is no one else. Not Sandy. No one.”

“I’m not used to feeling jealous,” Catherine confided with a touch of embarrassment.

“I kind of like it. But you don’t have to worry.” Rebecca shrugged. “Anyhow, I signed Sandy up as a confidential informant today.”

“And you thought I’d object?”

“Getting information to me is always risky, and now she’s going to be doing it a lot more regularly.”

“Yes,” Catherine murmured drowsily, “but the fact that you worry about it is what’s important.”

Rebecca drew the sheet up over them and yawned. “It’s late. We should get to sleep.”

“I’m sorry. I’m fading a bit.”

“Mmm.” Rebecca kissed her and closed her eyes. “Me, too.”

As Catherine began to drift off, she realized that Rebecca had managed to avoid the subject of their living together very neatly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Michael turned carefully at the sound of her door opening. The pain in her head was constant, alternating between a low-level ache hovering at the top of her spine to an all-out cannon barrage that beat against the back of her eyeballs until it hurt to keep her eyelids open.

“Good morning,” Ali Torveau said as she approached the bed. “You don’t remember me, but I’m Dr. Torveau, the trauma surgeon who’s been taking care of you since you came into the hospital.”

“I have a few blanks in my memory of the last couple of days. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize.” As the surgeon spoke, she withdrew her stethoscope from the right-hand pocket of her white lab coat and leaned over the bed to listen to Michael’s injured lungs. “How does your chest feel?”

“It hurts a little when I take a deep breath. Not too bad though.”

“What about your head?”

Michael grimaced. “That’s not doing quite as well. Major headache.”

“It’s almost always temporary, but I can’t tell you how long it will last. It could be a few days; it could be a few weeks.”

“When can I go home?”

“You haven’t even been out of bed yet,” Ali responded with a small laugh. “Let’s take things one day at a time.”

Michael glanced toward the closed bathroom door behind which running water was faintly audible. “I can rest at home as well as here. And Sloan isn’t getting any sleep at all.”

“This has been hard on both of you, I know,” Ali said sympathetically. “How about if I talk to her—”

“Talk to who about what?” Freshly showered, Sloan walked directly to the bed, leaned down, and kissed Michael’s forehead. “Good morning.”

Michael smiled, the headache diminishing for an instant. “We were talking about me going home.”

“So soon?” Sloan spun around to stare at the trauma surgeon, her eyes glowing with excitement.

“Whoa.” Ali held up her hands, but she was smiling, too. “Let’s see what this morning’s CAT scan shows. If that looks good…we’ll see.”

“Good enough.” Sloan couldn’t keep the pleasure from her voice. As the surgeon started for the door, she called softly, “And thanks.”

When they were alone, Michael reached for Sloan’s hand. “I love you.”

The words hit Sloan like a hammer blow. Her knees felt suddenly weak, and the next thing she was aware of was gasping for breath as tears poured down her cheeks. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you were hurt. I love you so much.”

“Come here, love,” Michael murmured, tugging on Sloan’s hand.

Somehow, Sloan managed to get the bed rail down and very carefully stretched out next to Michael, curling on her side and pressing her face close to Michael’s on the pillow. “I’m such a mess without you.”

“Well, I’m here,” Michael soothed. “And you know I’ll never leave you, don’t you?”

Nodding, Sloan caressed Michael’s face as she slipped into sleep. I promise to take you home soon. And I promise, no matter what, that you’ll be safe from now on.

When Sloan was certain that Michael was asleep, she eased from the bed and slipped from the room. On her way through the hospital, she stopped at a payphone.

A female voice answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Sarah? It’s Sloan. Is Jason around?”

“He’s in the study. I’ll get him.”

A minute later, Jason said, “How’s Michael.”

“Good. There’s even a chance she’ll come home soon.” Saying the words made Sloan feel uncharacteristically superstitious, so she quickly moved on. “What are you doing?”

There was a beat of silence, then, “Phishing for addresses on our Internet ‘friends.’”

Sloan understood that to mean he was trying to pin down the on-line pedophiles the team had been tracking. Phishing referred to the practice of hijacking confidential information from on-line consumers by pretending to be a legitimate business updating a common account, such as AOL or Paypal. An individual would receive an e-mail claiming that there had been a problem with the billing of the consumer’s account and directing the consumer to click on a hyperlink in the body of the e-mail for the “Billing Center.” When the consumer clicked on the link they landed on a site that looked completely legitimate, but when they entered their confidential financial or personal data, it would be relayed back to the Internet thief.

“Finding anything?”

“Might be.”

Sloan caught her breath. “How about we discuss this at the office?”

“Sure. When?”

“Now.” Sloan hung up, her fatigue magically dissipating. She was ready to hunt.

At seven-thirty Rebecca settled into a plain office chair in the drab institutional room and nodded perfunctorily to the middle-aged man seated across from her.

“Good morning, Sergeant,” he said.

“Dr. Whitaker.”

“I was a bit surprised to find that you had scheduled more sessions with me.”

Rebecca shrugged. “My paperwork isn’t quite in order, and Captain Henry won’t assign me to any regular duty because of it.”

“Ahh…I see. So I’m the sticking point.”

“Yes.”

He asked the usual routine follow-up questions, to which she answered with the obligatory neutral responses. Near the end of the session, he asked, “And how is Dr. Rawlings?”

“She’s fine.” Rebecca held his gaze, refusing to reveal her surprise at the unanticipated turn in the conversation.

“How does she feel about your job?”

“Why does it matter?”

“One major source of stress in a police officer’s life is conflict at home. There is very often domestic discord stemming from the erratic work hours or complaints of…emotional absence.”

His words hit close to the mark, and Rebecca colored. “I’m not stressed.”

“Then you may be the only officer who isn’t.” Whitaker smiled slightly.

“What do you know about Catherine?” she asked abruptly. Never let the witness lead the discussion. Always take the offensive position.

Whitaker blinked. “Uh…I know you met during the serial rape case. I know that you saved her life.” A beat passed while he visibly regrouped. “And I suspect that you’re lovers.”

“Why?” Rebecca’s tone was laser-sharp.

“You haven’t denied a personal relationship, and every time her name comes up, you become defensive. No…not defensive. Protective.” He smiled. “Which is what you do, after all, isn’t it, Sergeant?”

“That’s the job description.”

“Does she mind what you do?”

“Her name does not belong in your report. If you want me to come back for another session, you had best see that it isn’t.” And you want me to come back, don’t you? You want something from me.