Devil’s in the Details (44 page)

"How are you feeling?" Victoria looked down with bright eyes, her eyebrows raised with the mildest concern.

I shrugged, leaning forward to return to the coffee maker, "Happy, tired, sore, hungry." I glanced back at her, "All in all, I feel perfect." I was about to thank her for last night, but I felt it would come off cheesy like it did the morning after my senior prom when I had a similar awkward conversation with my boyfriend at the time. How did you adequately express the mind blowing physical experience I had shared with Victoria? Tell her that it was the best sex I had ever had? That it was the only time in my life I truly felt like I had made love with someone? It all felt too heavy and I didn't want to throw another heavy cloud around us when we just pushed away all of the surrounding storm clouds.

So, instead I opted to play it cheeky, winking at her as she stepped away to move back to the eggs and spinach. I knew Victoria would be concerned, since it was a night of firsts for me. "And how are you feeling?"

She pulled her hair up in a ponytail, "I’m actually borderline exhausted. Someone had me expending a lot of energy that my poor body is not used to." She gave me a look before washing her hands and reaching for a few eggs.

I laughed, hitting the start button on the coffee, "Well if you're lucky, you might be expending a lot more throughout the day."

Victoria blushed, "I think I've created a monster." Cracking an egg, she looked over her shoulder, "I need to run home after we eat. Mary called, said Detective Scarlett knocked on her door this morning, inquiring about me."

I felt my stomach drop at hearing the detective's name. "Okay." I leaned against the counter, folding my arms, "Why is this woman so determined to find you?"

Victoria kept her eyes on the large bowl, "I’m not sure. It's one thing to bother me but it's another to start knocking on my neighbor's doors." She turned to me, wiping her hands on a towel as she pointed at the frying pan next to me. "I’m going to call her and set up a meeting at the coffee shop by my house. Hopefully after she meets me and asks her questions, she will piss off for good."

I frowned, running a hand down my neck, feeling the raised lines from tiny bite marks left by Victoria. "Why do I feel like everyone is always trying to burst our bubble? All I had planned for today was breakfast and bed. You, me, no clothes and all the carry out we may need to keep our energy up." I looked at Victoria, catching the smirk on her face. "What's that look for?"

Victoria rolled her eyes, pouring the eggs into the frying pan, "I was going to actually tell you that after I met with the detective, I want to lock us up in my house for the rest of the day." She looked around my apartment, "Not that I don't like it here, I just like it when you're at my house." Her eyes fell on mine, "Having you there finally makes it feel like a home, Alex."

My heart melted at the simple handful of words strung together to create an impactful statement, making me fall even deeper in love with the blonde. "Are you suggesting I should move in?" I narrowed my eyes at her, "Because I don't think I can get my security deposit back until I fix all the hammer holes."

Victoria laughed, grabbing my arm to pull me closer for a quick, but deep kiss. One that made my body wake up fully and want to forgo the delicious breakfast that was assaulting my nose, drag Victoria back to bed and try out a few more things I’d thought about. "Let's see how this vacation together goes." She made a face, "But if you did move in, I would at least know where all of my Navy things are hiding."

Releasing me to flip the omelet, I bit my bottom lip, tucking my hands under my arms, "Speaking of Navy things, I kind of always had this fantasy about you in your dress uniform, or any of your uniforms. Do you have one of those big white hats the men wear?" My heart began to race as I pictured Victoria in nothing but her dress uniform shirt, partially buttoned and swaggering into the bedroom.

Victoria kept her focus on the frying pan in front of her, "Funny you should ask, but yes, I do." She then turned and gave me a heated look that made me bite my bottom lip harder in an attempt to funnel out the desire coursing through my veins. "If you're lucky and you give me back my one favorite hoody..."

I pushed off the counter and half ran to my closet, tossing random shirts and scrubs aside I thrust my arm up in the air, a hand wrapped around the worn grey material, "I found it! It's right here!"

I rushed back to where Victoria had her shopping bags from the mall, folding up the cherished hoody and tucking it in her bag, I pointed, "See, all ready to go home with you."

I looked up to see the woman I loved, laughing and shaking her head at me as she plated the omelet, "If I had known that was all it took."

I gave her a dirty look, "You play dirty, Victoria."

She grinned at me, "Yes, I do." She waved me over to grab a plate, "And you will find out how dirty I can play later today."

I groaned, walking towards her. "I really hate this detective."

After breakfast and a very long shower that started out innocent, then turned into another teaching lesson about things that can be done in the shower with Victoria, we packed up and drove back to her house.

Holding hands the entire way back, I felt like a giddy idiot. The whole world looked different. The sun seemed brighter and the spring blossoms had a stronger scent as it flooded the mini from the open windows. Even the music on the radio was perfect, the radio stations playing all of my favorite songs as I drove without a thought in my head other than how Victoria's hand felt in mine.

I couldn't stop looking at her at every stop light and I would often catch her staring at me. Grinning and hanging her head down when I caught her, she was a far cry from the guarded and protective woman I had faced down a few days ago. Replaced by what I imagine was the woman she was before the world changed around her and in her.

Right before the exit ramp that would take me to her neighborhood, I had a sudden desire to keep heading south and drive until we found somewhere to stop. Maybe find a nice house on the coast of the Carolina's, set up in a plantation house and leave our lives behind and start a new one where no one knew us. A life that could just be the two of us watching the sun rise and set without a care in the world. No more worrying about double shifts and grading papers.

I rolled my eyes as I hit the on ramp, my hopeless romantic brain getting carried away like it always did. I knew Victoria would never just up and bail on her job at the Academy and I certainly had too much dedication and self-created responsibility to my nursing job to just stop showing up. There was a reality that I had to adapt to now, adapt to this new beginning with Victoria by my side.

At least I was on vacation and I could indulge a bit in that side of my brain with the woman sitting next to me.

Driving the mini up into her driveway, we both waved to Mary and Dale as they worked on the flowers in the front yard.

Victoria got out immediately and trotted over to Mary, clearly asking about the Detective and what she wanted. The look on the two elderly neighbor's told me that it wasn't anything too disruptive, but as all good neighbors do, they made sure Victoria was told about the snoopy woman and her treading in a territory that was off limits in many ways.

I eased out of the car, reaching for our bags to head in the house when Victoria called out my name and tossed me her house keys, winking at me as I gave her a look. I was still getting used to this open side of Victoria. The ease she now had around me.

I motioned that I would meet her inside and walked to the front door, smiling lightly to myself as I scooped up her mail and took it in to the den, dropping the bags on the couch as I went. I sat the few envelopes down on the mahogany desk when one of them caught my eye.

It was a thicker one, a deep blue color and just felt different. The texture of the envelope had a rich feeling like wedding invitations did. I flicked the other envelopes out of the way, reading Victoria's full name and rank in the center in gold ink. I picked it up, looking at the return address.

"Voltaire Clothiers?" I scrunched my face up, recognizing the name of the company from the labels of Stacy's super expensive bras she bought for her second anniversary. I had even gotten a few product catalogs in the mail when I was in New York, tossing them in the recycling after I bought one bra and found it to be an overpriced piece of crap.

I moved to set the envelope back in its spot, trying to think if I had noticed what brand any of Victoria's underwear was. Smirking as I made it my mission to find out, I set the other mail back on the fancy envelope, barely registering that the return address for the underwear mogul was an address close to the Pentagon.

It disappeared completely when I was swooped up in the strong arms of blonde as I walked out of the den, receiving another kiss that sucked all thoughts from my head.

I left Alex with Dale and Mary in my backyard. The three of them determined to turn the disaster I called a flower garden into an actual flower garden. Dale taking the lead, digging out the one sad tulip plant I had planted last spring.

I had called Detective Scarlett while Alex was in the laundry room, washing all the new clothes I had bought and a few of her own things she packed. I told the Detective to meet me at the coffee shop around the corner from my house in an hour, giving me enough time to check in with Dani for any last minute things she might have dug up.

As I hung up and went to kiss Alex goodbye, I found myself watching her move around in my laundry room. Setting the washer and adding the right amount of detergent I used, folding up the few towels I had left in the dryer, I suddenly wanted Alex to move in with me. It had been a silly joke at breakfast, a way to distract Alex from lunging at me, but I had meant it when I said she made my house finally feel like a home. She finally made me feel like I had a home and not just a bed where I slept in between jobs.

I frowned looking at my phone as I shoved it in my pocket, I needed to wait longer before I asked her to give up her crappy, drafty apartment and move into this big empty house with me.

I still had to work out how I would navigate my second life with her in it, another thing that I had to talk to Dani about. An eventual exit strategy and or a retirement plan from Voltaire.

In the BMW, I called Dani.

"I was just about to email you, Professor." Dani's tone was less snarky than usual.

"I’m on the way to meet with Scarlett. She was knocking on my neighbor's door this morning." I felt my irritation rise, this meeting was going to be a struggle to keep calm and not resolve to other tactics I knew would work better than polite conversation.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I had gotten a ping from her phone when she made a call out from your address, I missed it. The basement has spotty signal and I was elbow deep in Scarlett secrets."

I gripped the steering wheel tighter as I left my subdivision, "And?"

Dani cleared her throat, "Let me head to the bathroom, I need to pee."

I sighed hard at Dani's code talk. Telling me she had to pee was her way of letting me know she had sensitive information. A minute later Dani cleared her throat again and sounded like she was in a tunnel, "Sorry. I had to zap myself before I continued. I dug deeper and it turns out that nosy Nancy applied to a ton of federal agencies in hopes of becoming a LEO at the highest level. DEA, FBI, ATF, border patrol, and even TSA, all kicked her back since her degree wasn't as diverse as desired these days. So I dug deeper and found that she did pick up a one year internship with Army Intel."

Dani paused, "A certain fat bird happened to be at a recruiter's office when she went in to try and join up for the cause. He rerouted her to an internship, promising her the same bullshit he promised us."

I felt my jaw clench as I flashed back to the practiced speech I heard sitting in a secured room in the Pentagon, listening to the fat bald fucker talk about how intelligence was the heart and soul of any war effort and that female officers were the future.

If I only had the sense to see it was just a sales speech and he was selling me all the swampland in the world. "Continue."

Dani chuckled, "I knew this would get your whiskers in a twist. Sadly, the good detective was not cut out for the "internship." She was smart but not smart enough for what the Colonel was looking for. She finished out her internship and was given a thanks, but no thanks, and cycled back down to local police and that brings us to the present."