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“Fuck, Johnson,” he grated out as he watched a fellow agent yank three of the few personal items he had out of the box on the corner of his desk, his voice ringing out in the absence of the usual din of the office. “Will you put that shit down?”
“Man,” patronized the rail-thin blond with a rattail hanging down his back, “I ain’t gonna hurt nothin’.” A paperweight made by his oldest son, a handprint block turned paperweight made by his youngest, and a coffee mug that read “Rock it Out!” created a trifecta of color flying in Johnson’s cadaver-like fingers. “Quit your worryin’, old man. I been doin’ this a long ass time.”
Slim let out a sigh of relief as the younger man caught the items before they crashed into the floor and carefully placed them back in the box. He didn’t have much in there. He never did keep much at the office since being at the office meant being at a desk, something he felt was a special kind of torture. But what he did have he wanted to hang onto. “Thanks,” he tossed with a glare.
“So you’re out.” Johnson leaned back against the next desk, badge dangling from a chain around his neck.
Slim nodded. “Yep.” He checked the drawers one last time, flicking his eyes over Johnson’s shoulder and lifting his chin at another comrade wishing him well. “My work with the DEA is officially done.” He glanced at his watch. “Well, done in seven minutes. Have a few weeks off before I start with Denver PD Homicide.”
Johnson nodded and kicked one ankle over the other. “You gonna let us buy you a round, have a sendoff?”
Slim thought about it. He could, and probably should, let the guys buy him a beer. Do the sayonara thing, DEA style. But he wouldn’t. He had other things to see to.
Slim shook his head. “Got shit to see to. Another time, man.” And with a barely a shoebox full of personal items he wanted to keep, he pushed in his chair and walked out early.
“I hear you, man. You got something on, you got something. Catch you later.” Johnson swung a punch to his shoulder on the way to the elevator. Slim gave him a chin lift and the promise to reach out for a drink in the future.
Not something, Slim thought as the doors slid shut.
Everything.
***
The brakes squeaked a bit as his decades old truck slowed to make the left-hand turn in the nice, mostly quiet residential neighborhood. Not all that far from his ma, truth be told. Mostly single-story homes, some bungalows with the occasional second story addition or converted garage. It was a nice neighborhood, safe and calm. Mostly families, some retirees. A far cry from his own patch that had served the dual purpose of being cheap, needed thanks to that fucking bitch of an ex-wife, and on par with his cover, a place a man like him would be expected to live.
A man like him was the kind that had an edge. The kind that blended in a bit too well in deep cover with the seediest scum Denver had to offer. A man who broke all the rules right along with them, eyes always on the prize. A man willing to risk his soul and even his body in order to make his collar. Making his collar meant getting back to his family, his boys, and Slim Lucas had realized just a tad too late that he’d made the worst mistake possible in putting his job before his boys. He’d rectified that as soon as could, hence the risk to his body.
But here he was, idling in his beat-up pickup across the street from a two-bedroom house in a quiet ‘hood. As he was nearly every night. And had been for the past three months.
Well, not quite.
Eighty-six days. That’s how long it had been since he’d ripped her heart in two, destroyed the trust he’d so desperately (and pointlessly) cultivated.
The house was dark except for one light, the one he knew hung in the kitchen over the massive island. It was a strong, bright pendant light with several bulbs and lit the kitchen fairly efficiently without someone needing to turn on anything else.
Tess was baking.
What was she wearing? The old apron that was surprisingly stain-free she’d worn when he’d hopped up on a stool and watched, fucking enchanted, as she’d iced cupcakes by the dozen in a million different themes?
A glance at the clock on his dashboard told him it was late, just after eleven at night and Tess was up baking. It made sense given that she owned a bakery. Baking was her living. But Tess, his Tess, called it quits before now since she’d known when to turn it off.
When to turn to him.
The first time he’d seen her (in person instead of a photo in a file on his desk) was in her bakery. Dressed in her usual attire of skirt and blouse, he’d been instantly taken with the fact that she’d looked more sweet than professional. He’d winged it, risking her saying no and screwing his role in the investigation out of the gate, and asked her out for beer in the first few minutes of being in her place.
She’d said yes.
He'd held on for four months before he lost it.
Slim knew he was attracted the minute he saw her photo. By the end of their first date, beers at a local dive bar that ended in a thirty-minute mouths-only make out session in the cab of his truck, he was enchanted. After the first time he made her come with his fingers a few months later, he was addicted. The look of surprise and rapture that came over her face left him feeling like King Kong on crack, desperate for more of her, desperate to see that look on her face again and again and again.
Leaning his head back against the headrest in his truck, he let out a deep sigh. Yeah, he’d lost it alright. He couldn’t take it anymore. He might have introduced himself under false pretenses. She might have known him under a different name. But there was no denying that Tess was his woman. He’d gone four months without claiming her and he simply got to the point he couldn’t take it anymore. She was his and he had to have her. That was it. That was all.
But the Tess he knew would have been in bed by now. The Tess he knew enjoyed her sleep after reading for a bit to distract herself from whatever it was she needed distraction from. Then, the Tess he knew would wake up in the morning, get ready for her day in one of those smart skirts and pretty blouses, her glasses sliding down her nose and her hair a riot of curls. She’d grab her purse and whatever bag or binder she’d hauled home and cart it back to the bakery.
The past three months since she’d found him at the station after being taken in the middle of the night to station for interrogation into her ex-husband’s drug business had been some of the worst of his life. And that included the five years he’d been married to that cunt who’d birthed his children as well as the five years after during which she’d still made a misery.
But this was worse. Three months without Tess were intolerable. He saw her everywhere he went but she was never really there. He could have sworn he smelled her subtle yet addictive perfume just behind him at the grocery store but he’d turn and no one was there. The loss of her was more painful than the decade of shit Olivia had dealt him.
He’d been good, though. He’d stayed away.
She’d promised him the last night they were together, the first night he’d been inside her, that they’d talk. He figured she needed time to adjust to the knowledge that he’d lied to her for the entire four months of their relationship, but he’d been hoping that she would reach out as she came to terms with it. She’d broken that promise and he’d been upset.
But now he was flat out pissed.
In the middle of her front yard sat a sign for Regan Realty. A sign that sure as fuck had not been there the night before.
Tess had put her house on the market.
“Oh, baby, what the fuck are you doin’?” he whispered to the otherwise vacant cab of his ancient truck. “What is going through that head of yours?”
That shit did not fly. She could not run away from him, away from that they had. While he hadn’t been honest about his name, and nearly punched his fist through her headboard when she’d called him Jake when he’d been inside her,
For four months, Brock “Slim” Lucas had courted, wooed, and seduced Tess in an effort to ascertain her involvement in her ex-husband’s drug empire. At first, she’d been so open about her life, about herself he’d thought she was sticking to a front. But that idea had left him maybe two minutes after she’d hauled her ass up into the cab of his truck for the first time. She was innocent, at least of anything to do with the former kingpin’s doings.
But she was guilty as hell of courting, wooing, and seducing one of the most dedicated DEA agents in the Denver area. She’d shown him, just for second, what it was like to surround himself with fresh, with clean, with class. And yeah, he’d fucked her on that because he’d fucked her with a false name and a false story. But she’d fucked up showing him that the softness on the outside wasn’t a front. It ran deep, all the way through to her very heart of her. He’d had a taste of it and knew that shit was sweeter than anything he’d ever known. She was his. He was hers. There was no play to make, no game going. Tess hadn’t meant to cast her line but she’d hooked him all the same.
And now his woman had a For Sale sign in her yard.
Slim seethed as he shook his head. “Baby, that shit is not right.” Resolved, he pulled away from the curb and started the drive home.
Tomorrow his woman had some explaining to do.