“You called it home again.”
“Well, my library is there, so what do you expect?”
Eamon smiled at her, reaching across the center console to brush his knuckles over her cheek.
“I guess I should call Griffin and tell him I can’t make it to the station.” She leaned into his touch, kissing his palm as she reached for her phone.
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Eamon snatched it from her hand and dropped it into the cup holder. “You should know better by now… unless you’re fishing for a day off.”
“I wasn’t, but now that you mention it, we could finish what we started in the shower.”
“I like the way you think, Detective.” He closed the distance, capturing her in a searing kiss, but as quickly as the temptation to spend the day in bed emerged, it was shattered by the blaring trill of her cell.
“Don’t answer it,” Eamon moaned against her mouth.
“If I worked at an office job, I wouldn’t.” Bel collapsed against his chest, letting him hide her in his embrace as she answered the call. “Hello?” She inhaled slowly, praying whoever was on the other end didn’t hear the breathless arousal in her greeting.
“Bel?” Olivia’s distress was so loud that she relaxed. Her partner wouldn’t detect any emotion that Bel was experiencing through her own haze of anxiety.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“It’s my car,” Olivia said. “Lightning hit my neighbor’s tree last night, and it fell onto its roof, so I’m stuck at home unless someone can pick me up. Will you be at the station today?”
Bel sighed and peeled her face off of Eamon’s chest. So much for spending the day locked in his arms. “Yes, I’m on my way now.”
“I can come get you.” Eamon brushed his mouth against Bel’s as he spoke into the phone’s speaker. “I’m already driving Isobel to work.”
“Could you?” Olivia said. “That would be great, but you’d have to drive me home as well.”
“It’s no problem. We’ll be there soon.” Bel hung up and leaned back in her seat. “Playing hooky was a nice fantasy.”
“One of these days, I’ll convince you to shirk your responsibilities and spend the day hiding beneath the covers with me.” Eamon jumped out of the car and peeled off his shirt. “I’ll be quick.”
“I’ll be enjoying the show.”
He smirked at her before jogging to the obstruction, and for a split second, Bel’s faith faltered. The tree was a monster in her own right, thick and long and impossibly heavy. It would take mere mortals hours to cut apart its gargantuan truck and tow the parts off the road, but Eamon simply bent his body until the trunk rested against his bare back. With a groan that echoed off the distant mountains, he heaved, the wood protesting the pressure, and just when it seemed like the weight would crush him into the asphalt, he surged heavenward. With a visceral roar that was more animal than human, he shoved the tree into the woods, her mass splintering apart with a crash so earth-shattering that Bel involuntarily yelped. The deafening noise echoed endlessly, and when the world finally fell silent, all that remained of the obstacle were the hundreds of lost leaves and a dirty Eamon.
“That was hot!” Bel whistled suggestively as her boyfriend cleaned the broken branches from the road. If only she hadn’t answered Olivia’s call. She could’ve been on her way home to spend the day tangled in the sheets with this human perfection, but alas, she was headed toward hours of dead ends and paperwork.
“I don’t know why you doubt me.” Eamon climbed back into the SUV, and Bel picked out the nature stuck in his hair.
“I don’t.” She traced her fingertips down his abs. “I know you were trying to preserve your shirt, but this was a dirty move, taking it off after I’ve resolved to go to work.”
“Gotta give you a reason to come home to me.” Eamon caught her wandering hand and pressed it to his lips.
“And it is a glorious reason.” Bel captured him in a kiss, biting his lip with enough pressure to tell him exactly how affected she was by his display of power.
“Call me selfish, but I like this Isobel.” Eamon smiled against her mouth. “I’m happy this case isn’t dragging you down with it.”
“I’ve experienced so much pain in my life, especially this past year.” Bel sobered, retreating to her seat at the reminder of how many lives they’d lost. “My mom passed away when I was a kid. I’ve almost died… a few times. I’ve been kidnapped. I’ve seen more dead women in the past few months than I’ve seen in my entire career, but I’ll end up sick or dead if I forgo my own happiness. I deserve to be happy. I feel everyone’s pain so deeply, then you add my own trauma to the mix, and I feel like I’m drowning. I am allowed to be happy, aren’t I?”
“Of course, you are.” Eamon reached across the divide and pulled her hand into his fists. “You carry the weight of the deadon your shoulders. You fight for them when they have no voice, but you’re alive. You get one chance at life. I don’t want you to waste it falling into depression every time you work a tragic case.”
“I feel selfish because the girls in the lake suffered. They didn’t get a happy ending, but I can’t do this job if I spend every waking moment suffering alongside them. And I want to do this job. I love it, but there’s so much evil in this world. So much darkness. It’s easy to let it poison you, but you make me happy. I want to be happy.”
“Lord knows, you make me happy.” Eamon started the SUV, transitioning her hand to his right fist so that he could navigate the debris-strewn road.
“Griffin knows about you,” Bel said. “So does Olivia and my dad. I think even Barry is catching on. Everyone important to me understands that you’re different, meaning we don’t have to hide like we did in the beginning. It’s a tremendous weight off my shoulders since I feel safer when you’re around. I love knowing that you’re unofficially part of the team.”
