“That’s good we understand each other.”

“We do.”

“You know what you got?” Reece asked and Colt’s eyes went to Feb on her knees, in his bed, in his t-shirt.

Shit yeah, he knew what he had.

“Yeah,” he told Reece.

“Take care of it,” Reece said then Colt heard the disconnect.

He flipped her phone closed and tossed it on the nightstand while Feb asked, “Everything all right?”

Colt looked at her. “He’s worried about you.”

“Well, I didn’t have Denny Lowe and his hatchet in my bedroom tonight.”

Thank Christ for that.

Colt decided it was time to have a certain conversation.

“We didn’t talk about protective custody tonight, baby.”

Her body gave a small jerk but after she recovered she held herself completely still.

“Feb?”

“Do you want us to go into protective custody?” she asked.

“It’d be smart.”

She tilted her head to the side and he saw her eyes were active. She’d been thinking about this, a lot.

Her voice was quiet when she asked, “Doesn’t it mean he wins, even a little bit, we go into hiding?”

“We’re on top, he ends this in jail and we come out safe.”

She looked away for a few seconds before she looked back to him and then came closer, putting her hands on his chest.

“Okay, listen to me, Alec, okay?” she asked and he nodded, sliding his arms around her and pulling her closer as she went on. “I know this is gonna sound crazy but, he already took a lot of my life. We go away, we’re together and we’re breathin’ but we’re in limbo. Life’s gonna go on but we won’t really be livin’ it.”

“Honey –”

She lifted her hand and put her fingers to his lips before she whispered, “I wanna watch you get dressed in the bathroom. Your bathroom. I wanna make you breakfast in the kitchen. Your kitchen. I want you to come into the bar when you’re off duty and I wanna get you a beer. I wanna fall asleep in your big bed with my cat on our feet. I want us to have the life we were meant to have. I want us to live the life we should have been living.” She got closer and her voice dropped even quieter. “Baby, I don’t want to miss another minute and it’d be even worse knownin’ he took it away.” Her hand slid from his mouth, down his jaw to his neck. “Is that crazy?”

No, it was far from crazy.

“It isn’t crazy,” he told her.

“Is it stupid?”

It wasn’t crazy, the jury was out if it was stupid.

He didn’t tell her that, instead, he said, “I’ll keep you safe, Feb.”

She nodded then ducked her head and pressed it into his neck. “I know you will. I’m countin’ on it.”

He pushed up until his back was to the wall and he pulled her close, into his lap and she snuggled even closer, wrapping her arms around him.

“Gotta call Sully, baby.”

She nodded against his neck.

He flipped his phone open and made the call.

“I’m halfway to your house.” Sully used this statement as a greeting.

“I was on the phone with Reece.”

“You know then.”

“Yeah, they get anything at all?”

“They got a hatchet and an attempted homicide with a coherent witness who identified his attacker immediately puttin’ the last piece into the puzzle which’ll nail this jackass to the wall.”

“That’d make me feel better if he wasn’t still out there.”

“Half the east Texas police and probably every Fed in the Lone Star State is searchin’ for him, Colt.”

“Yeah, searchin’. Call me minute he’s found.”

“Gotcha,” Sully said then he called, “Colt?”

“Yeah?”

“Without Reece as a target, he gets away, he’ll be comin’ after you.”

“I know.”

“Stay alert.” The worry was clear in Sully’s tone.

“You got it.”

Colt flipped the phone shut and tossed it on the nightstand with Feb’s.

He held her for awhile and it seemed she liked the quiet and peace of it, left to her own thoughts, so he gave it to her. When he felt it was time, he started to move to the lamp but her hand moved down his stomach.

“Feb –”

“No, Alec,” she said against his neck as her mouth travelled south. “He’s gone now. Now it’s just you and me and the life we were meant to have.”

Then her body moved so her mouth could get where it wanted to go and Colt saw her curl herself between his legs then she sucked his cock while his hands held her hair away from her face so he could watch the show. Then, when he decided he wanted her pussy and not her mouth, he yanked her up, tore down her panties and planted her astride him. Then he watched her ride him while he fingered her clit until she came and then he watched her ride him more, until he couldn’t watch because he came.

The light was out, he’d pulled the covers over them, she was pressed to his side, her leg thrown over his thigh and he could feel his wetness sliding out of her as she pushed in closer and Wilson hopped up and settled at their ankles.

“Love you, babe,” she whispered into his chest.

He gave her a squeeze with his arm around her waist. “Love you too, Feb.”

After awhile, her weight grew heavier as did her breathing and he knew she was out.

He was hearing Stevie Nicks singing in his head when Colt fell asleep in the bed, in the house, with the woman at his side that life meant him to have.

After waiting for forty-four years, for the fifth night in a row, Alexander Colton was finally living the life he was meant to be living.

Chapter Eleven

Unidentified

I woke up when Colt slid out from under me. I nabbed his pillow and pulled it to my chest, wrapping my arms around it.

Wilson followed him out of bed and started meowing. Then he followed him to the bathroom then he followed him down the hall then, after a minute or two, Wilson shut up.

I let Colt’s pillow go, looked at the clock and saw it was after nine in the morning. I rolled when I heard Colt coming back down the hall and I got up on an elbow, pulling my hair out of my face to watch him walk into the room wearing nothing but boxers.

His eyes were on me and he came right at me, stopping briefly at the side of the bed to hook his thumbs into the boxers and yank them down. I got a good look, I liked what I saw but it didn’t last long because he leaned in and pulled down the covers. A slight cold hit me before it was swept away when Colt put a knee to the bed right before he covered me with his body.

His hands went into the tee at my sides and his face disappeared into my neck where he said, “Mornin’ baby.”

This wasn’t just a morning, this was a good morning but I decided not to point that out because he probably knew it already.

I slid my hands across the skin of his back, turned my head and said into his hair, “Mornin’.”

His hands were moving on me, his weight heavy, both felt unbelievably great as his lips slid up my neck to the hinge of my jaw where he said, “Fuckin’ love Saturdays.”

I smiled because he sounded content and also because I agreed with him. Only better day in the week than Saturday was Sunday and that was tomorrow. Something to look forward to and it’d been way too long since I’d had something to look forward to.

His hands went up the shirt, taking it with them then it was up further then he arched his back, I lifted my back from the bed as well as my arms over my head and the tee was swept away. He tossed it to the side and dropped his mouth to mine.

“Feel like waffles,” he muttered against my mouth.

I knew what that meant.

Something else to look forward to.

One of my hands went up his neck and my fingers sifted into his hair before I replied, “Me too.”

He grinned against my mouth then he took it in a deep kiss and, after, he did other things at other places on my body with his mouth. Then he was between my legs, lifting and spreading them wide and cocked with his hands behind my knees. He took me with his mouth, making me come then he moved up and over me, fucking me slow and sweet, then harder, then faster, then even harder, his hands on me, my hands on him, our mouths locked, tongues sparring, building it again for me, but now also for him, until I exploded the second time just moments before he lifted my knees high, rammed in deep and groaned.

After, when Colt was gliding gently in and out of me, his tongue tracing my necklaces, I was thinking I was pretty happy I’d packed the waffle iron with the stoneware.

* * *

Colt waited for his waffles because I did yoga.

Seeing as I’d had two orgasms, I didn’t really need to do the yoga to relax and de-stress, but I did need to do it to practice and keep fit.

Colt sat at the bar on a stool wearing a pair of shorts and a tee, reading the paper and drinking coffee. I was in the den, my yoga mat down the length of the pool table, one of the scented candles that I brought over from my place burning and I had Norah Jones playing. I was trying to concentrate, clear my mind, focus on my positioning, my muscles, my breathing, deepening the poses, rooting myself to the floor for the balancing ones but this was difficult. This was difficult partly because there was a lot of shit to think about so clearing my mind was a challenge. This was also difficult because, more times than most when I caught Colt in my vision, he was watching me.

“Don’t watch me,” I ordered as I moved from triangle pose to downward-facing dog.

“Baby, your ass is in the air and you’re wearin’ tight clothes. Not watchin’ you is impossible.”

“You’re breaking my concentration.”

“With practice, you’ll get used to me enjoyin’ the show.”

I rolled my eyes to the floor which luckily Colt couldn’t see.

“Next time, you’re doin’ this with me,” I told him and he burst out laughing so I asked, “What?”

“I do yoga the day you play basketball.”

Morrie and Colt had often tried to get me, Jessie, Meems or whatever girl Morrie was dating at the time to play basketball with them. It was supposed to be a low contact sport but the way they played it was not. I figured it was their way to look superior as well as bump into girls a lot. I didn’t mind that, it was all the running and sweating and dribbling and rules that I minded.

No way I was going to play basketball. Ever.

“Enjoy the show,” I invited, and dropped down into child’s pose as I heard Colt chuckle.

Something about his chuckle, maybe the satisfaction I heard mixed with the humor, freed my mind. Everything left it and all I had was the scent of ocean in my nostrils, Norah in my ears, my mat under me and my muscles releasing.

* * *

I made Colt waffles. We ate them both of us sitting on the counter. He helped me clean the kitchen, which I thought was nice until I realized he did this to delay taking a shower so he could do it with me.

The shower we had was nicer than him helping me clean the kitchen. A lot nicer.

We got ready for the day. This took Colt five minutes. It took me forty-five.

We went to my apartment and got another load, leaving behind nothing but my bed, nightstands, lamps, dinette set, table and armchair. While we were in the truck with the boxes on the way home, we discussed the rest of my belongings and how it was too bad Mom bought that bed from Bud because now we had an extra one. Still, Colt figured he had enough room in his garage to store it all until we could find homes for it. I’d called my landlord and he was happy I was jumping my lease by a few months. Our town was a popular location for city commuters and retirees looking for accommodation that took less than three hours to clean so he had a waiting list.

However, when we hauled the boxes into his house and went out to check the garage, we found Colt wasn’t correct, mostly because Mom put all the shit from his second bedroom in the garage.

We stood staring at the stuff piled up in his garage, so much only a small amount of moving space was available.

“I’m not a big fan of scraping ice off my car,” I commented, staring at all the crap in his garage and I felt his eyes come to me.

“Feb, for two years, you parked under a tree.”

I was seeing that being a detective’s girlfriend might not be as cool as I’d thought it would be, considering to be a detective you kinda had to be pretty sharp and you definitely couldn’t let anyone pull anything over on you.