Chapter 8: A Little Bit of Wanting
The crash of the waves was a constant, rhythmic punch she felt in her chest. Teresa stood at the sliding glass door of her small beach cottage, a chipped mug of cold coffee in her hands, watching the gray Atlantic churn under a bruised evening sky. She hadn’t slept. She’d come straight here from the city, showered until her skin was raw, trying to scrub off the feel of Thorne’s hands, the sterile chill of the vault. The dress was a puddle of expensive velvet in her trash can.
Cassadee’s face, pixel-perfect on that screen, was burned onto the back of her eyelids. Subject C. Acquired.
Her living room was a testament to the last 36 hours. Case files were spread across the rug, mugs littered every surface, and her laptop glowed on the couch, filled with her frantic notes: timestamps, guest list names she’d memorized, the pattern of the codes next to Cassadee’s photo. The ordered chaos of a teacher’s mind trying to solve a puzzle made of nightmares.
A firm knock at the front door. Not the hesitant tap of a neighbor.
She knew.
Setting the mug down, she padded barefoot across the cool tile. She didn’t check the peephole. She just opened it.
Callum stood on her small porch, the ocean wind immediately mussing his brown hair further. He’d changed from the suit he’d worn in the surveillance van into dark jeans and a simple gray Henley, but he hadn’t slept either. It was in the tight set of his jaw, the shadows beneath his beautiful, tired green eyes. He held a brown paper bag in one hand.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” he said, his voice flat.
“It’s on the counter. I think it’s dead.” She leaned against the doorframe, not inviting him in, not shutting him out. “Did you bring a warrant?”
“I brought Thai food.” He lifted the bag slightly. The scent of lemongrass and chili oil wafted out. “And a new burner. The one you used last night is compromised. Protocol.”
Of course. Protocol. The word felt like a piece of grit between her teeth. She finally stepped back, leaving the door open.
He came in, his detective’s eyes doing a quick scan of the disordered room, the evidence of her obsession plastered everywhere. He said nothing. He went to her small kitchen island, unpacked the containers, found plates in a cupboard without asking.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, hovering by the couch.
“You need to eat.” He didn’t look at her, spooning pad thai onto a plate. “Your blood sugar is probably in the basement. It makes you reckless.”
A spark ignited in her chest. “Reckless? Getting us the first real break in this case is reckless?”
“Walking into a locked vault with a suspected predator is reckless.” He finally turned, leaning back against the counter. “Standing there, asking him about his process while he had his hands on you? That was a goddamn high-wire act with no net, Teresa.”
“You were the net,” she shot back, crossing her arms.
“I was two blocks away in a van! If that lock had clicked a second earlier, if he’d decided to show you something else in that room…” He ran a hand through his hair, the familiar gesture of frustration. “You’re not a cop. You don’t have the training for the psychological bounce-back. That shit gets inside you.”
“It is inside me!” The words exploded out of her, louder than she’d intended. The sound of the ocean filled the sudden silence. “He’s inside my head, Callum. I can smell his cologne. I can feel where he touched my back. I see Cassadee’s picture every time I blink. So don’t talk to me about training. My training is in surviving a room full of teenagers on a Monday morning. This is just… a different kind of hell.”
He stared at her, his chest rising and falling. The professional detachment he usually wore was gone, stripped away by exhaustion and something fiercer.
“I know,” he said, his voice low. “I know it is. That’s why I’m here. Not just for protocol.”
“Why are you here, then?” The question hung between them, charged and dangerous.
“To make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m not okay.”
“I can see that.”
They stood there, ten feet apart in the quiet, messy cottage, the sea roaring its approval outside. The food steamed, forgotten.
“The techs are pulling the data from the feed,” he said, shifting back to the case, a safer ground. “The codes next to the photos look like location references. A private numbering system. We’re cross-referencing them with properties linked to Thorne’s shell companies.”
“He said ‘the process is underway.’ For Cassadee. ‘Conditioning.’” Teresa wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “That’s not just hiding someone. That’s active. That’s happening right now.”
“I know.” He pushed off the counter, taking a step toward her. “We’re moving. Faster than we have been. Because of what you did.”
“But not fast enough.” Her voice cracked.
“It never is.” He was closer now. She could see the flecks of gold in the green of his eyes, the faint line of a scar through his eyebrow. He smelled like the ocean air and cheap soap from the precinct.
“He wants to add me to his collection,” she whispered, the horror of it fresh again. “He looked at me and saw a… a new acquisition.”
Callum’s jaw clenched. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yes,” he said, with a terrifying certainty. “I can.”
It was too much. The fear, the fury, the helplessness, the way he was looking at her like she was something both fragile and essential. All the sharp, fractured pieces of the last day coalesced into a single, unbearable point of pressure.
“Stop,” she said, but it came out weak.
“Stop what?”
“Being the detective. Being the one who has to fix it. Being so… solid. I can’t stand it.” She was trembling again.
“What do you want me to be, Teresa?” His voice was rough, barely a breath.
“I don’t know!” The words were a sob she refused to release. “Just don’t be him. Don’t look at me like I’m a problem to solve or a piece to preserve. Just for one second.”
He closed the final distance between them. He didn’t touch her. He just stood there, his heat radiating against her, his eyes searching her face.
“How am I looking at you right now?” he asked.
She saw it then, in the crumbling wall of his professional resolve. The raw, unchecked worry. The fear that had nothing to do with protocol. The same magnetic pull that had been there in the car after the near-kiss, amplified a thousand times by the shared darkness they’d just stared into.
It was the last thread of her control snapping.
She didn’t think. She just moved.
Her hands came up, fisting in the soft cotton of his Henley, and she pulled him to her, crashing her mouth against his.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a collision. A release valve blowing. A desperate, shared gasp against the terror.
He froze for a half-second, stunned. Then a low sound broke from his chest, and his arms locked around her, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other anchoring the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. He kissed her back with a ferocity that mirrored her own—all the pent-up tension, the days of arguing and worrying and trying not to feel this, exploding into the slide of lips and the desperate tangling of tongues.
The taste of him was coffee and salt and something uniquely, irrevocably Callum. It blotted out the memory of sandalwood and metal. His stubble scraped her skin, a delicious, real friction. She melted into the solid wall of him, her fingers tracing the strong line of his jaw, diving into his hair.
The world shrank to the points of contact: his mouth on hers, his hands burning through the thin fabric of her tank top, the frantic beat of his heart against her own.
He broke the kiss first, breathing ragged, forehead resting against hers. His eyes were closed, his grip on her no less desperate.
“Teresa,” he murmured, a plea and a warning all in one.
“Don’t,” she whispered, chasing his lips again, softer this time. A slow, searching kiss that asked the question she was too afraid to voice.
He answered by deepening it, his hand sliding from her back to her hip, holding her there as if she might vanish. The kiss slowed, turning from a frantic escape into something deeper, more terrifying in its promise. It was a conversation they’d been having for weeks without words.
When they finally parted, both breathing as if they’d surfaced from deep water, the room had changed. The files on the floor were just paper. The ocean was just sound. The only thing that felt real was the imprint of his body against hers and the shocking warmth in his eyes.
He didn’t let go. He just looked at her, his thumb stroking a slow arc on her hip.
“That,” he said, his voice gravel, “was definitely not protocol.”
A shaky, half-hysterical laugh escaped her. She rested her forehead against his shoulder, feeling the tension drain from her muscles, leaving a profound and dangerous exhaustion in its wake.
He held her up. He just held her. And for the first time since Cassadee went missing, standing in the eye of the storm, Teresa felt quiet.