I’d never actual y had to seduce anyone and I didn’t exactly know what to do. I was hoping just to get the bal rol ing and then Eddie could take over.

“Jet, I asked you a question,” he said.

My hands moved up his back. He had a nice back and I could feel the definition of the muscle under my fingers. I could also smel him and the combination of the two was pretty heady stuff.

“I heard you,” I said against his skin and then moved my mouth around the front and kissed his throat in the dent where it met his neck.

“You gonna answer me?” he asked and I got the feeling he wasn’t going to fal in line with my plan. The reason I thought this was because he stil had his hands planted on my hips.

That was a bummer considering I was liking my plan more and more as the seconds ticked by.

I pul ed my arms from his back and put them around his neck, my fingers went in his hair and I tilted my head back as I pressed his down.

“I’l answer… later.”

Then I kissed him.

I should have tried that first.

In the beginning, he didn’t respond, but then I got going and touched the tip of my tongue to his closed lips. The second I did that, his arms went around me and he kissed me back. Then he took over the kiss, his mouth opening over mine, his tongue sliding inside.

My body melted and my stomach curled.

He lifted his head and I said, “Yum.”

I didn’t real y mean to, it just came out.

I opened my eyes and his were liquid.

Then he started walking us toward the bedroom, arms stil around me, I was moving back, he was moving forward, his hands were active and he kissed me again.

This was more like it.

It was awhile later (a long while), after he’d let me take over again (for a little while), then he took over (for a longer while), when he flipped me on my back, spread my legs and final y, slowly, slid inside me.

“Chiquita.”

I opened my eyes at his cal as he pressed deep.

“Yeah?” I whispered, wrapping my calves around his thighs.

“I like where you were goin’ with this but you’re stil gonna talk,” he told me.

Eddie had me so figured out.

* * * * *

After, I was pressed up against his side, Eddie was on his back. He had his hand low on my hip and his fingers were moving absently. My plan was to distract him from the talk, at least until the morning. In the bright light of day, I could figure out how to say what I wanted to say. There were other, better, more important parts to my plan.

It would give me one last time to be with Eddie. I needed it. I deserved it. To make love and sleep next to him, smel him in my nostrils and feel him against my skin. To make one last memory so I could keep it with me for a long, long time.

And we’d made a real y good memory. I wrapped my arm around him and snuggled into his side.

His fingers curled on my hip.

“You think you got away with it,” he muttered and I could tel he found this amusing.

“No,” I said honestly, “But I’m hoping you’re feeling mel ow enough to wait until the morning.”

“Jet…”

I pul ed up and looked down on him.

“Eddie, please. Can I have this one night where we don’t argue? Please?”

He looked at me a beat, then his hand came up and slid in my hair and pul ed my face down for a lip touch.

“One night,” he said against my mouth.

I smiled at him.

His hand moved to my jaw and his thumb traced my smile while his eyes watched.

“I’m hopin’, with your shit finished, I’l see more of that smile.”

I dropped down and snuggled into him.

He wouldn’t be seeing any of my smile but where I’d be (that was, away from him and al his friends), I probably wouldn’t be smiling much anyway.

I could hear the ring tone from his phone. He dislodged me, leaned down, grabbed his jeans and pul ed the cel out of the back pocket. He came back, brought me to him again and flipped the phone open one-handed.

“Yeah?”

He listened for a bit then I felt his body tense.

I came up on my elbow to look at him and his gaze locked on mine.

“You’re shittin’ me,” he said into the phone.

He listened more and then he took his arm from around me and wiped his eyes.

“Right. Yeah. Later.” Then he flipped the phone shut and threw it on the nightstand.

“What?”

He looked at me.

“They found Fratel i dead in his cel . Someone broke his neck.”

I sucked in breath.

“Dear Lord,” I said on an exhale.

His arms came around me and he rol ed into me so we were both on our sides, front-to-front. “You okay?” he asked.

“How did that happen?”

“They don’t know. They’re investigating. He wasn’t in lock up, he was in a private cel . I made arrangements, I figured Marcus would renege on the deal.”

“Do you think he did?”

Eddie gave a single shoulder shrug.

“I don’t believe it,” I said and I didn’t. I didn’t want Vince dead. Maybe, if I was honest with myself, roughed up a bit, but not dead.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter to me. It’s just one more piece of shit washed away.”

But… Eddie was one of the good guys.

I stared.

Then I said, “Homicide is a bad thing.”

He rol ed me to my back, coming over me, his body mostly pressed against mine.

“Yeah,” he said.

“The worst thing,” I told him.

His hands slid into the hair on either side of my head.

“You aren’t okay.”

“I don’t care about Vince. He told me he was going to rape me with a broken bottle.”

Eddie’s eyes changed, instead of partial y wary and partial y resigned, they became active, as in, scary active.

“He said that?”

I nodded.

“Then I real y don’t give a shit that he’s dead.”

“But you’re a cop!”

“So?”

“Hank says you guys are the good guys, you play by the right set of rules and homicide is wrong, no matter who does it or why.”

He did a lip touch and then rol ed again, taking me with him so that I was on top.

“Hank’s a different kind of cop than me. Some dickhead makes my woman’s life a living hel and threatens to rape her with a broken bottle, I’m not f**kin’ losin’ sleep over the fact he isn’t breathin’ anymore.”