Justice Served (42 page)

“Roll over on your stomach,” Sandy said.

“Huh?”

“You’re totally wired, Dell. Roll over.”

Mitchell flipped onto her stomach and cradled her head in her folded arms. A second later, Sandy settled astride her butt. Her heart and a few other places lurched at the sensation of heat and wet against her skin. She groaned softly.

Sandy pressed the heels of both hands into the center of Mitchell’s back and kneaded the tight muscles. “So what did they say?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mitchell mumbled, her eyes closed.

“Don’t be a jerk. What’s going to happen to them?” Sandy shifted lower on Mitchell’s rear to get her thumbs into the small dip at the base of Mitchell’s spine. She dug them in, circled and stroked, and Mitchell moaned again.

“INS has them…Immigration and Naturalization Services.” Mitchell lifted her hips and felt Sandy push back, the start of a slow, steady thrust-and-press that was going to make her awfully hot, awfully fast.

“So they’ll do what? Send them back to wherever they came from?” Sandy turned her hand around and slid her fingers lightly down the cleft between Mitchell’s legs, barely touching her. A feather-light caress.

“Jesus.”  Mitchell caught her breath, struggled to focus. “I don’t know. They’re here illegally, but they’re victims too.”

“Even Irina?” Sandy asked, her tone casual. She stilled her movements but kept her fingers resting against Mitchell’s sex.

“Yeah, I think so. I can’t see her having set up any part of that operation.” Mitchell rolled her hips and turned onto her back, unseating Sandy in the same motion. She caught Sandy as she started to topple onto the mattress and pulled her down on top of her body.

“What’d you do that for?”

“I gotta see your face if we’re gonna talk about this stuff.” Mitchell opened her thighs and settled Sandy’s hips between them. She kept an arm curved around Sandy’s small waist. “And you know what you were doing was gonna make me crazy.”

“Maybe,” Sandy said with a small smile. “But it relaxes you too. And then you don’t notice when you’re talking about stuff you don’t want to talk about.”

Mitchell raised her head and caught Sandy’s mouth in a hungry kiss that definitely made her forget what she’d been talking about. When she dropped her head back to the pillow, her body was buzzing. “Pretty smart.”

“Is she under your skin?” Sandy asked quietly.

“Not the way you think.” Mitchell looked directly into Sandy’s eyes. “I don’t want her. I don’t love her. But I feel…sorta responsible for what’s happening to her.”

Sandy rolled her eyes. “Jeez, rookie. You didn’t put her on that ship or force her to shoot those videos or make her train those girls, or whatever she did with them.”

“I know. But…I connected with her. And I used her.”

“Most cops wouldn’t care about that.”

“Rebecca would.”

“Yeah yeah.” Sandy stretched out full-length on Mitchell’s body and nuzzled her neck. “And so do you.” She caressed Mitchell’s chest, her abdomen, the tops of her thighs with slow, soothing strokes. “So you’re going to keep asking around, and I suppose you’re probably gonna go see her.”

“I don’t know. I’m sure the feds will keep them here until they find out everything they can about the smuggling operation. The girls probably know something about the local organized crime operation too.” Mitchell caught Sandy’s hand and pressed it between her thighs, keeping her fingers over Sandy’s. “There’s probably nothing I can do to help them.”

Sandy eased a finger on either side of Mitchell’s firm clitoris. “But you’re going to try.”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said, a hitch in her voice. She squeezed Sandy’s fingers hard around her. “Probably.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Mitchell’s belly was on fire.

“I know you gotta.” Sandy slicked her tongue over Mitchell’s lips, darted inside her mouth, and teased at her with quick flicks. She matched the movements with her fingertips between Mitchell’s legs. She watched Mitchell’s eyes glaze over and her eyelids flutter nearly closed. “And I know you’re mine.”

Then she proved it.

*

Rebecca turned her head toward the door as a shaft of bright light cut across the room. “I thought you were going to go home and get some sleep.”

“I was. I did.” Catherine crossed to the bed, leaned down, and kissed Rebecca. “I couldn’t sleep.” She stroked Rebecca’s cheek with the back of her fingers. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Carefully, Rebecca inched toward the opposite side of the bed and patted the space beside her with the hand that did not have the intravenous line attached. “Want to stretch out?”

Catherine kicked off her shoes, then unbuttoned her suit jacket and draped it over a nearby chair. She’d showered and changed when she’d gotten home. At the moment, a few wrinkles were the least of her worries. Taking care not to jostle the bed, knowing that Rebecca’s headache must still be brutal, she eased down beside her lover. She grasped Rebecca’s hand, entwined their fingers, and leaned her cheek lightly against Rebecca’s shoulder. “I always have a hard time falling asleep when you’re not beside me.”

Rebecca brushed her lips over Catherine’s hair. “I know. I’ll try to get home earlier from now on.”

“Now
there’s
something to look forward to.” Catherine closed her eyes and sighed. “Is this investigation over?”

“Our part of it. For now,” Rebecca answered quietly. “We’ve exposed the human smuggling operation, crippled the Internet pornography ring, and freed some of the victims. We’ve taken a respectable chunk out of organized crime, but it takes more than this to break its back. We’ll gain ourselves a few well-positioned informants within Zamora’s organization, and that will help us in the future.”

“Just one chapter in the book,” Catherine murmured.

“Yeah,” Rebecca agreed. “That’s what police work is all about. The story never really ends.”

Rebecca closed her eyes, and together, they slept.

Radcly
f
fe
is a retired surgeon and full-time award-winning author-publisher with over thirty lesbian and anthologies in print. Seven of her works have been Lambda Literary finalists, including the Lambda Literary winners
Erotic Interludes 2: Stolen Moments
edited with Stacia Seaman;
In Deep Waters 2; Distant Shores, Silent Thunder
. She is the editor of
Best Lesbian Romance
2009 and 2010 (Cleis Press),
Erotic Interludes
2 through 5 and
Romantic Interludes
1 and 2 with Stacia Seaman (BSB), and has selections in multiple anthologies including
Best Lesbian Erotica 2006-2010; After Midnight; Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists; First-Timers; Ultimate Undies: Erotic Stories About Lingerie and Underwear; Hide and Seek; A is for Amour; H is for Hardcore; L is for Leather; Rubber Sex, Tasting Him,
and
Cowboy Erotica
. She is the recipient of the 2003 and 2004 Alice B. Readers’ awards for her body of work and is also the president of Bold Strokes Books, one of the world’s largest independent LGBTQ publishing companies.

Her latest release is an all-Radclyffe erotica anthology,
Radical Encounters
(Feb 2009) and the romantic intrigue novel
Justice for All
(April 2009), and the romance
Secrets in the Stone
(July 2009). Her forthcoming works include
The Midnight Hunt
(writing as L.L. Raand, March 2010) and the first in the First Responder Series,
Trauma Alert
(July 2010).

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