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Erin’s never seen him around before.
He looks worse for wear and very rough around the edges. If it wasn’t for his crisp brown leather jacket and clean black tee underneath, she would have sworn he hadn’t slept in days. The bags under his eyes are evident, as is, the tenseness in shoulders.
The bar is a small neighborhood joint usually filled with regulars. Rarely is there a newcomer, especially one that looks like him. Tall, dark, and extremely handsome with cheekbones she’d like to familiarize herself with.
So she does.
“So what’s your story?” she asks sitting down on the stool next to his.
He has amber liquid in his glass, its whiskey, and she can’t help but feel that’s extremely fitting for him. Erin knows another thing that would be fitting for him.
It’s her.
“You tell me.”
**
Erin felt the cool metal tip of a gun on the back of her head before she even knew he was behind her.
She immediately knew two things.
She shouldn’t have been snooping but curiosity got the best of her. Grant had stealth training.
It was a stupid idea to go looking throughout the house when she was a guest he didn’t plan to keep around. She was only there for a good fuck. In and out.
She ignored all the warning signs.
The barely lit hallway, shadows dancing on the walls from the streetlights peeking through the blinds, illuminated her path to the last room in the hall. It’s where she discovered paperwork that didn’t quite make sense. An organization that was represented by a head with too many legs.
It made her gut twist in a sickening way. She just didn’t know why.
What Erin did know?
The fact that her body missed the way his filled her with every thrust he took. The way his long muscled limbs were wrapped around hers minutes before.
That was scarier.
“And what do you think you’re doing in here?” he asks. His voice was cool and collected as if aiming a gun at your latest conquests head is so completely normal. She doesn’t dare move in the slightest…she thinks she should. A quick, painless death is something she didn’t deserve. No she was reserved for a much darker, longer, and tortured path.
So she keeps her body still and doesn’t move.
“I asked you a fucking question. What do you think you’re doing in here?” he repeats. His tone eerily dangerous, sending chills straight down her spine.
“Would it be acceptable to say I was looking for the bathroom?” she asks knowing that he wouldn’t have accepted that as the truth. If she knows anything about the man standing behind her it’s that he isn’t stupid.
She just might be.
“You got jokes now?” Grant steps closer until he’s right up against her backside. Ignited sparks dancing through her veins at the instant contact of his bare warm chest. Reality smacks her in the face when she remembers there’s a gun he’s hasn’t shifted on her head. “I have a joke. If you don’t give me a reason in two minutes, I’m going to put a bullet in you.”
She wishes she cared. She wishes she hated it. All she hates now is how she’s still getting to live her dream while Nadia’s six feet under denied of hers.
You know what? Fuck him.
Fuck his big bravado. She said she wouldn’t move. She lied to herself plenty of times, what’s one more?
She turns around so fast it makes her own head spin. “Go ahead. Shoot me.” She snaps grabbing the gun and placing it against her forehead. The actions quite familiar. The words hollow and echoing to three weeks ago in the hospital. “I don’t have a fucking reason. I was being nosy. Is that good enough, your heinous?” It’s hard to be intimidating when Grant’s much taller than her.
Erin lifts her chin, squares her shoulders, and she makes due with what she’s got.
Grant’s eyes are narrowed on her, his finger still lingering over the trigger, “Why did Shield send you?”
So he won’t shoot her…at least not yet.
“Who is shield?” Erin wonders if that’s the organization’s logo that’s imprinted on all those debriefs.
He steps forward causing her to take a step back. Her ass hits the edge of the desk, knocking over a glass paperweight cactus to the floor. When the glass hits the wood floor, his eyes flicker from her to where the paperweight laid in a million pieces. Erin’s surprised when he lowers his arm and places the gun on the desk. That’s twice now that he has the upper hand. She can’t let it happen again. She’ll always let it happen.
He blankly stares at her once again, “It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have just done that, I’m sorry.”
She feels stuck in a dance she was pulled into despite her protests. Except she actively chose to participate once she was in the middle of the crowd. The song, the dress, the shoes are all wrong. The part that should be, the part that matters, but is the only thing that isn’t wrong? The guy. Grant’s completely enchanting to her. The hidden secrets written in the creases of his eyes, the scars decorating his side, and haunted look he wears at almost every moment since she’s met him.
Shield? The logo that might be Shield? The fact that she almost died? None of it matters. Not really. She’s numb.
She’s tired, so, so, so tired. Exhausted of pretending that where she is in life and how she got there was worth anything. All it was worth was a few justices and a whole hell of a lot of misery.
She’s a detective. She’s supposed to care. She’s supposed to ask the questions. She’s supposed to grab the gun and leave.
Instead she grabs his hand, placing his rough palm on her ivory cheek. She recognizes the darkened, hooded look he has in his eyes. They look exactly like hers. Grant leans down capturing her lips in a heated kiss and she lets him fuck her on his desk.
She stays. She goes back two days later.
Old habits die hard.
**
Erin swings the door open to Mouse’s hacking center. He recently converted the stationary desk and computer into a full blown mini geek squad. It was cute.
She’s surprised Voight approved.
She leans over the counter, a huge smile on her face, “Hey Mouse.”
He looks up at her with a matching grin, “What up?”
“I need a favor. One that should be kept just between you and me.”
Erin did not want anyone to find out what she was up to. More importantly, who she was spending her spare time with. If Voight or Jay found out, she would be in a world of never ending surveillance. The two of them, getting along for the sake of the job, has ganged up on her more than once recently.
All claiming they were worried about her. How they didn’t want her to fall into old ways.
She didn’t want drugs. She wouldn’t be the little lost girl on the wrong side of the tracks. All she wanted was to feel.
Grant did that for her.
“Do you think you can manage that?”
Mouse sits straight up in his chair removing his feet from the desk, “Lay it on me.” He stands up meeting her at the counter.
Erin hands him the crumpled piece of paper with two names. Grant Ward. Shield.
“I need you to find out as much information as you can about him and this organization.”
“Is he a suspect for a new case?” he asks looking up from the paper.
She shakes her head, “No. Just call me when you have something.”
She walks away leaving him to get to work.
**
Erin should have known better then to tempt fate and continue this little game.
When she flicks on the lights in her apartment, Grant’s sitting in her recliner in the corner. He’s covered in sweat, dirt, and blood.
It’s been three weeks. No phone calls or texts. No appearances at the bar. No answering his door.
Where she should be pissed, she can’t be. Concern immediately floods her senses, “What happened to you?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.” He replies passively. He’s always staring at her like he could see inside of her soul. It’s unnerving. No one should want to get that close.
“You’re not fine. You’re covered in blood!” her feet are moving voluntarily towards the bathroom. She hurriedly grabs a couple washcloths, wetting them in luke warm water. Where she would usually mind about the water dripping, she could give a rat’s ass now. Before she exits the bathroom, she’s takes the first aid kit tucked neatly under her sink. She kneels in front of him and begins to wipe away the dried blood. She pretends she doesn’t notice he flinches or the way his breath hitches. He probably has a couple broken ribs.
“You need to tell me what happened?”
“Why Detective Lindsey? Are you going to arrest me?”
Her hand stills, “I never told you that.” How the fuck did he know? They never went into details. This is starting to get out of hand. Her behavior. His.
She doesn’t want it to end. A part of her really likes it.
“It’s written all over you and I may have done a little digging.” he states.
Erin tries to concentrate again on getting the blood off of his face so she could clean the fresh cuts on his cheek and lip. “You said no specifics. You lied.”
“I didn’t lie.” He defends. “I will never lie to you no matter what you ask me or how I might want to. I simply changed my mind.” What he doesn’t say is things changed and its getting comfortable. What he doesn’t say is how he wants to get to know her. What he doesn’t say is how he wants to help her but chooses not to. “Am I not allowed to do that?”
“You’re allowed to do whatever the hell you want.” She says throwing the washcloth down next to her. She opens the first aid kit to get peroxide, cotton balls, ointment and some gauze. One good thing – he doesn’t need stitches. “I just want to know what fucking happened to you.”
She soaks the cotton ball with peroxide applying it gently to his cheek. “I’m a specialist. I used to work for an organization called Shield.” He hisses through clenched teeth in result of the stinging. “I now run Hydra for its resources, not their ideals or what’s left of them. They are on opposite sides of a never-ending war.”
“So why not just tell me that?” she questions. He could have trusted her. She wouldn’t have trusted her either.
He sighs, “When I caught you that first night, I thought shield had sent you to take me down and into custody.” When he sees the confusion written all over her face, he continues, “I’ve done a lot of bad things Erin and I don’t expect you to stick around any longer.”
“You don’t get to make that choice.” She wants to make that clear. She gets to make the deciding factors when it comes to what she wants to do. Not Voight, Bunny, Jay or Grant. Just her.
“Did you kill someone tonight?” The thing is Erin doesn’t mind that he’s made mistakes. She knows all too well what it’s like.
It just sounds like where she had a chance, he didn’t.
“No.”
“Did you injure someone?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Closure.”
“Okay.” She says standing up in front of him.
Closure. The proverbial guiding light that unlocked something unholy in her. A monstrous route that ignites the idea that happiness is an endgame. It’s not.
She can’t seem to stop herself on the spiral downward.
Apparently, neither can he.
**
Mouse called her today.
He’s got all the files and information that she could dream of. His words. Not hers.
He’s hidden the flash drive in a secret drop off spot. She’s not the only one who he’s been helping off the books. It’s a secret she’ll never tell.
Erin can’t seem to put the flash drive in the damn monitor. Every time she brings her hand up, she quickly brings it back down to rest on the desk. Grant told her he would never lie to her. Erin believes him. He hasn’t broken that promise to her yet. The thing is, she doesn’t want to push him. She wants to know everything about what makes him, him.
She’s a good observer. Objectively noticing that Grant doesn’t like to talk about himself, or his feelings, or the nightmares that haunt him at night. He’s not very forthcoming with information at all. He’ll do it anyways if she asked.
So she tries not. She does eventually.
This has all the information she could need and want. It’s bothering her because it feels like she’s betraying the trust she’s put into him. The trust he put into her to believe what he’s sharing.
Which is crazy.
Betrayal. Trust. Those are terms she associates with someone she cares about.
Erin didn’t learn her lesson. She didn’t walk away. Erin cares and she let herself get wrapped up. Erin never reads what the flash drive has to say.
She’ll wait.
**
It’s been almost six months since the night he picked her up in the bar.
She still chooses to believe she chose him. She did sit down next to him after all. He refuses to since he learned the art of seduction. Please. She doesn’t need a class.
There was someone who loved her as soon as he laid his eyes upon her.
The bark was loud and sharp to her ears. The ferocious clicking against the hard wood floors heading straight her way. She crouched down to be met by the big fur ball. “Hi baby.” She cooed.
Harley, a dark chocolate lab licked Erin all over her face, resting his paws on her thighs, “Oh yes, I missed you too.” Erin continued to pet and play with Harley a few more minutes before straightening back up. “Where’s that father of yours? Hmmm?” she questioned mindlessly aloud.
“Is he still decorating?” Erin walked throughout the house until she reached the living room.
“Am I ever going to find you in a normal position?”
“Probably not.” He confessed, flashing her a full sloppy grin. Damn did she love that smile.
Grant stood up dusting his hands off on his jeans, “So what brings you here?”
“I brought takeout. Chinese. I got a little bit of everything. I hope that’s okay.” She answers curling the corner of her lips slightly.
“Did you get Lo Mein?” he raises an eyebrow anticipating her answer.
Erin rolls her eyes tipping her head to the side before crossing her arms, “All I know is that I am going to be enjoying a feast because someone-“ she coughs, “You, forgot something.” She enjoys seeing the momentary confusion that crosses his face before he smirks. An irritatingly perfect curve of his lips that makes her want to smack it right off. He’s already so damn good looking that it should be against the law for him to look even better. She begins to tap her foot as she nonchalantly strolls toward her.
Grant tucks a loose strand of her dirty blond hair behind her ear, “How could I ever forget.” He wraps his arm around her waist pulling her closer to him while his other hand is gently caressing her face.
It comes out as barely a whisper, “Quit staring and kiss me already.”
After a moment, he tips her chin up as he bends down to meet her lips in a kiss. Like taking the first sip of water after being so thirsty from the heat. Taking it all in as long as she could, craving the way they were so sweet and soft on hers. All the stresses fading away. It was getting easier to breathe, or so she told herself that. Much different from the earlier days.
She liked pretending she was okay. It was good to have her shit together- some days. Erin was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Because it was a just a dream.
It stung.
**
The tears were stinging her eyes.
Her hands were trembling and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. The pain in her chest was getting worse, she thinks she might be heart broken. Again.
Betrayal. Trust. Those words always coming back to haunt her.
There was a loophole. A big flashing sign that read idiot on her damn forehead. Technically he hadn’t broken his promise. Technically no one owed her this information.
But they did. They definitely fucking did.
“How could you?!” she yelled, her voice raspier than normal. Both men turned around towards the open door. Black mascara streaks stained her reddened cheeks, her hazel eyes burning a hole in both of them.
“Erin, I can explain.” Grant answers quickly. Almost like he’s panicking. He swallows thickly, “You weren’t supposed to find out-
She cut him off. “Shut up. How dare you give me some clichéd bullshit story? I wasn’t supposed to find about this little arrangement? Then you shouldn’t have made it in the first place!” She turned to the second man in the room, “What’s the matter, Jay? Cat cut your tongue?”
“If you would just take a minute to calm down, then I will explain.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Did I know Grant before you met him? Yes. Did I ever talk to him about you? No. This was purely business. There were no intentions of bringing personal matters into this.”
“This is personal. How can you say it’s not?”
“Can I finish or are you going to rudely interrupt me again?” he questioned sharply. Erin shrugged her shoulders stubbornly. Jay continued on. “I’m his partner Erin. I help him run Hydra and you’re not going to like whose next on the list.”
It hit her like a ton of bricks.
“I expected this from you but you Jay, no. This isn’t you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t recognize you either.”