LITMIR.BIZ

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leaned in and kissed the corner of his jaw. He sighed and leaned in against her.

      “What is it?” she asked, her lips brushing his skin as she spoke.

      “It’s just that this is real now, you know? This isn’t just some one-night stand. This is for real. I care about you a lot, Avery. I really do. And I don’t want to rush things.”

      “We’ve been dancing around this for the last four months,” she said. “I don’t think that’s rushing.”

      “Good point,” he said. He kissed her on the cheek, then on the little bit of shoulder her T-shirt was showing. His lips then found her neck and when he kissed her there, she thought she might collapse to the floor right on the spot, pulling him down with her.

      “Ramirez?” she said, still playfully refusing to use his first name.

      “Yeah?” he asked, his face still brushing against her neck and applying kisses.

      “Take me to the bedroom.”

      He pulled her close, hoisted her up, and allowed her to wrap her legs around his waist. They started kissing then and he obeyed her. He slowly carried her to the bedroom and by the time he shut the bedroom door, Avery was so lost in the moment that she never even heard it close.

      All she was aware of was his hands, his mouth, his well-toned body pressing against hers as he laid her down on the bed.

      He broke their kiss long enough to ask: “Are you sure about this?”

      And if she needed one more reason to want him, that was it. He genuinely cared about her and did not want to ruin what they had.

      She nodded and pulled him down onto her.

      And then for a while, she was not a frustrated Homicide detective or a struggling mother, or a daughter who had watched her mother die at her father’s hands. She was just Avery Black then…a woman like any other woman, enjoying the pleasures life had to offer.

      She’d almost forgotten what that was like.

      And once she started to get acquainted with them, she vowed to herself that she would never allow herself to forget them again.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Avery opened her eyes and looked at the unfamiliar ceiling over her head. The muted light of dawn came in through the bedroom window, spilling across her mostly naked body. It also painted Ramirez’s naked back beside her. She turned over slightly and smiled sleepily. He was still asleep, his face turned away from her.

      They’d made love twice the night before, taking two hours between each session to make a quick dinner and discuss how sleeping together could complicate their working relationship if they weren’t careful. It had been close to midnight when they had finally drifted off side by side. Avery had been drowsy and could not remember when she’d fallen asleep but she did remember his arm around her waist.

      She wanted that again…that feeling of being wanted and being secure. She thought about running her fingertips along the base of his spine (as well as a few other places, perhaps) just to wake him up so he could hold her.

      But she did not get the chance. The text alarm of her phone went off. So did Ramirez’s. They pinged together, an occasion that could only mean one thing: it was work-related.

      Ramirez sat up quickly. When he did, the sheet slid off of him and revealed everything. Avery snuck a peek, unable to resist herself. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table and looked at it with bleary eyes. While he did this, Avery retrieved her own phone from the pile of clothes on the floor.

      The text was from Dylan Connelly, the A1 Homicide Supervisor. In Connelly’s typical fashion, the message was direct and to the point:

      Body discovered. Burned badly. Maybe trauma to head.

      Get your ass to abandoned construction lot on Kirkley St NOW.

      “Well, that’s nice to wake up to first thing in the morning,” she grumbled.

      Ramirez climbed off the bed, still completely naked, and hunkered down on the floor with her. He pulled her close to him and said, “Yeah, this is nice to wake up to first thing in the morning.”

      She leaned into him, a little alarmed at how insanely content she was in that moment. She grumbled again and got to her feet.

      “Shit,” she said. “We’re going to be late to the scene. I need to get my car and get back home for a change of clothes.”

      “We’ll be okay,” Ramirez said as he started getting dressed. “I’ll text back in few minutes, while we’re on the way to your car. You space yours out. Maybe the text sound didn’t wake you. Maybe it took me calling you to wake you up.”

      “That sounds deceptive,” she said, sliding her shirt on.

      “That’s clever is what it is,” he said.

      They smiled at each other as they finished getting dressed. They then went into the bathroom, where Avery did her best to make sense of her hair while Ramirez brushed his teeth. They hurried to the kitchen and Avery threw together two bowls of cereal.

      “As you can see,” she said, “I’m quite the cook.”

      He hugged her from behind and seemed to breathe her in. “Are we going to be okay?” he asked. “We can make this work, right?”

      “I think so,” she said. “Let’s go out there and give it a try.”

      They wolfed down their cereal, spending most of the time looking at one another, trying to gauge the other’s reaction to what had happened last night. From what Avery could tell, he was just as happy as she was.

      They headed out the front door but before Ramirez closed it behind them, he stopped. “Wait, back inside for a minute.”

      Confused, she stepped back inside.

      “Inside,” he said, “we’re off the clock. Not really officially partners, right?”

      “Right,” Avery said.

      “So I can do this one more time,” he said.

      He leaned in and kissed her. It was a dizzying kiss, one with enough force to cause her knees to sag a bit. She playfully pushed him away. “Like I said before,” she said, “don’t start. Not unless you intend to finish.”

      “Rain check,” he said. He then led her outside and closed the door behind them this time. “Okay, on the clock now. Lead the way, Detective Black.”

***

      They went with Ramirez’s plan. She did not return Connelly’s text for another sixteen minutes. By that time, she was nearly back to her apartment and still quite giddy over the way last night had played out. She managed to get dressed, grab coffee, and hit the street again in less than ten minutes. The result, of course, was arriving at the scene on Kirkley Street roughly half an hour later than Connelly would have preferred.

      There were several officers already milling around. They were all familiar faces, faces that she had come to know and respect since becoming a Homicide detective. The looks on their faces this morning clued her in to the fact that this was going to be a very long and bitter morning.

      One of the people she saw in attendance was Mike O’Malley. She found it alarming that the captain would be out here so soon. As the head over most of Boston PD, he was rarely seen in the hustle and bustle of everyday crime scenes, no matter how vile they might be. O’Malley was currently speaking to two other officers, one of which was Finley. Avery had grown to respect Finley as an officer even though he tended to be a little too aloof for her liking.

      She spotted Ramirez right away; he was chatting with Connelly on the far side of the abandoned lot.

      As she made her way over to Ramirez and Connelly, she took in the scene as best she could. She’d been through this part of town several times but had never paid it any real attention. It was one of the many financial blights on this end of town, an area where enthusiastic developers had sunk tons of money

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