It was hard to say goodbye to Cassian. I didn’t want to leave him at the inn, but he wouldn’t come with me. His hesitation was reasonable, though.
After spending every night together, I was really falling for him. The room lit up whenever he entered. I slept better with him cuddling me, which he did so well. I never knew another person’s embrace could feel more comfortable than the bed itself. I never knew a kiss could mean so much, and he gave them so freely. I was spoiled by his affection.
The night before I left, he flung his arms around me and kissed me slowly. I held him close, savoring the time we had left. Every night with Cassian had been heavenly, but it felt wrong. I shouldn’t have been sleeping with him while working on his case, but this didn’t feel like a fling. This was serious.
While he kissed me, I let my hands wander. They slipped beneath his cloak to feel the dip of his waist, but my knuckles brushed something hard in his cloak pocket.
“What’s this?” I asked with a gentle laugh.
Cassian looked down and back up. He fixed a smile onto his face, unclasped his cloak, and said, “Nothing.” He tossed it to the ground with a dull thump and kissed me again, and I was too distracted to think anything of it, especially when the rest of his clothes came off.
We fucked slow and soft that night, and I tried to remember every inch of him. I loved how his face flushed and his eyes fluttered shut; I loved the way his thighs squeezed my hips and the way they trembled right before he came, his cock twitching a mess onto his soft stomach; I loved the way he begged me to come inside him every time and how he seemed to share the pleasure of my orgasm; and I loved the whimpers he made every step of the way. He was perfect.
In the morning, I couldn’t let him go. We cuddled until it was almost too late for me to leave.
I packed my things while Cassian got dressed and disappeared. He returned shortly with coffee and breakfast, insisting I sit down and eat with him.
“So,” he said as I settled across from him at the small table beneath his snowy window. He was already pouring me a steaming mug of coffee. “Jasmine has agreed to go to Ladiall with you to help you get access to the will. Is that all right?”
“Oh, sure,” I said as he slid the mug to me. “Thanks, beautiful.”
He beamed at me. “I just want to make sure you come back to me.”
“It’s hard to stay away,” I said with a wink, taking a sip of the coffee. I groaned at the rich flavor. Coffee made by Cassian was always the best cup of coffee I’d ever had. I don’t know what he did to it, but it tasted like coffee should.
Cassian reached across the table and held my hand while we shared our breakfast of sausage, potatoes, and eggs.
When it was time to leave, Cassian wished us both goodbye, triple-checking that we had everything we’d need for the trip.
“Cassian, relax!” Jasmine said after he’d asked her for the fourth time if she’d packed herself a lunch. “We’ll be okay. It’s not that far.”
Cassian sighed. “I’m just going to miss you both.”
“We’ll be back the day after tomorrow if all goes well,” I said.
He folded his arms behind his back and smiled at me. I wanted to kiss him badly, but we still wanted to keep our relationship a secret. I had a feeling everyone knew anyway, but I didn’t want to test it.
The journey to Ladiall went fast. Jasmine was good company, and I was certain she knew about Cassian and me, because she spent a lot of the trip telling me embarrassing things he did as a child. I wasn’t complaining.
Ladiall was a big city with wide streets and tall brick buildings. City maintenance cleared the snow away every morning, which made it far easier to get through town than it had been to walk there from the inn.
I brought Jasmine to the Force headquarters first thing. I needed to know why they hadn’t sent me the analysis and the writ.
The cold brick room was familiar to me, but Jasmine shriveled into herself when we stepped inside. “You’ll be all right. You’re with me,” I said, leading her through the chaotic main area to my commander’s workroom.
Commander Decker sat at her wide stone desk, reading a paper with one hand and pinching her brow with the other. She dropped her hand and looked up with tired eyes, but she snapped to attention when she recognized me. “Officer Thorndrop. You’re back,” she said. “Who is this?”
“This is Jasmine Bloomday. She’s an owner of Fibbersnap Inn, and she’s helping me with the investigation. Did you receive my writ request?” I asked.
Commander Decker searched through a stack of papers to her right and asked, “When did you send it?”
“About a week ago. I expected a quick response to an active investigation out of the city, but I never heard back.”
Decker frowned at me. “Sorry, Thorndrop. It appears it never arrived. If you have what you need, perhaps I can expedite it.”
“It never arrived?” I glanced at Jasmine, who held a pinch of concern between her eyebrows.
I withdrew my journal and flipped to the extra page on which I had retraced the sigil. I pressed the open journal onto her desk and slid it toward her. “I took multiple sketches in case this happened. Someone must have intercepted it,” I said. I explained the nature of the drawing to her and that I needed an analysis of the sigil.
