22. Twenty-Two

twenty-two

Charlotte

Hours passed and I still hadn't heard from Phoenix about the lab results. There were no new messages and absolutely nothing had been delivered to my email, which wasn't unusual, but I did find it to be quite annoying. I know these things take time and that it was unprofessional to call and rush the lab techs at the risk of cross contaminating the evidence, but I was quite an eager beaver today and my brain just wouldn't settle the hell down unless I had some damn answers.

So, I picked up my cell phone and reluctantly called the lab.

"Crime lab. This is Kendall Wilson speaking."

"Hi, Kendall. It's Charlotte Greene, the CDA working with Hutch and Rhodes."

"Oh, yes, that's right. What can I do for you, Charlotte?"

"I was hoping to maybe get an ETA on the hair follicles. I'm sorry to be a pain but Rhodes told me they would be ready today."

"We're not quite there yet," Kendall answered, which had me scowling as I leaned back in my seat, struggling not to get further agitated. "Some of the results are back but not all of them are ready."

"Okay, so lay on me what you do have."

"So far, it's basically the same. Most of the follicles we collected belong to Amber and Daniel Strickland."

I sighed.

Damnit.

This was not good news.

"However," Kendall continued, "we did find some follicles on Amber that don't belong to her or Daniel."

My heart jolted. "Really?"

But it would be just my fucking luck for her to tell me it was animal hair.

"Yes, and after further investigation, I discovered they're from two different males."

I nearly tumbled out of the chair when my body reactively dove forward, stumbling to my feet. "Two?"

"That is correct," Kendall confirmed. "Two. It'd taken me a while to sort through everything, and unfortunately, I was only able to find a strand with the root still intact on just one of them. The other strands are rather short, but I'm going to try and see if I can at least gather some mitochondrial DNA from the shafts."

"And how long will that take?" I asked.

"It'll be a while, Charlotte. 72 hours at most. I know that's not what you want to hear and that you have Harley and Chief breathing down all of your necks right now, and I'm sorry. I want to catch this guy as much as you do, but this form of testing is something that unfortunately cannot be rushed. I hope you can understand."

"That's fine, Kendall." I wasn't happy, but there wasn't anything I could do about it, so I just took the little bit of info she was able to provide as a win and just simply bobbed my head. "Would you mind doing me a favor and forwarding the results you do have to my email address?"

"Uh, yeah, no problem. I can totally do that."

I gave her my info and then ended the call, sighing as I sat down at my computer and pulled up my emails, waiting.

Once I had what I needed, I printed off the pages and then began going over everything from scratch, starting with Delilah's case.

I stared up at the two mobile white boards Blaire and Perry were nice enough to let me borrow from their offices and wiped the sweat beading down my brows away, checking for what had to be the thousandth time that I hadn't made a mistake and forgotten to jot down any significant information. Everything appeared to be precise, so after convincing myself it was okay to unhand the files and focus more on the boards, I dropped them on my desk and then perched down on the end of it with my arms crossed firmly against my chest.

None of this made a lick of fucking sense.

Delilah wasn't drugged. And other than the DNA we'd gathered from her rape kit, there was no additional evidence that had been found or reported indicating there was another assailant.

Then again, just because no evidence had been found didn't necessarily imply a second man wasn't involved.

But it did, however, make it insanely fucking difficult proving there was.

If only those cameras hadn't been broken. That footage would've given us all the answers we needed.

"Hey, Charlotte," Harley said, knocking twice before she stuck her head in the door. "I'm about to head home."

I twisted around to stare at the clock on my desk, blinking in surprise. It was getting late. I should've left over an hour ago, but I was way too invested in my work to even think about going home.

"You're still at it?"

Harley stepped in, whistling as her eyes briefly scanned over each board harboring the crime scene photos and paragraphs of notes and theories scattered everywhere in dry-erase marker.

"Yeah." I sighed tiredly and swiped away the last of the sweat marinating my face. I must've looked like a circus clown, but my condition must not have been too bad because Harley made no mention of any smudges smeared along my face. "To be honest, I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind."

"Cases like these can do that sometimes. Do you need me to take over for a few days so you can get some rest?"

I shook my head and said, "I'm fine. Really, I am. It's just the additional hair follicles the lab found on Amber that's been bugging the hell out of me. One of them has to belong to our perp, but the second one… That just completely screws up our theory and any hopes of it—"

"Not necessarily, Charlotte."

I lifted my chin and met her gaze, my brows crinkling. "What do you mean?"

"The extra follicle does raise some suspicion, but it doesn't imply there are two different aggressors. Amber and her husband are swingers, Charlotte. It's possible Amber had another engagement prior that day with a special friend, or perhaps a more special kind of friend her husband has no knowledge of. The possibilities are endless, but there's no way to know for sure until DNA is back, and, well, Amber will also need to be questioned again too."

I considered that, having realized Harley made a damn good point.

"Have you told Hutch and Rhodes about it?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I left messages, but neither has responded. Their phones are off."

"I wouldn't sweat it too much. They probably got called into a meeting and had to shut down their devices. Chief gets rather pissy when over half the department would rather be on their phone than pay attention to their briefings."

I couldn't help but chuckle. Yeah. That sounded like Chief.

But it had also been hours since I last reached out to them. I doubted he had them tied up for that damn long.

"You've worked hard today, Charlotte. Wrap it up, go home, and get some sleep. You can fret more over the hair follicles tomorrow. Are you fine locking up, or would you rather I wait for you?"

"I'll lock up. I still have to pack my bag and make a trip to the break room for a coffee. I don't know who was generous enough to put a Keurig machine in there, but—"

Harley casually cleared her throat then, grinning at me.

My mouth dropped. "Harley, I fucking love you."

She giggled and shook her head. "I love you too, Charlotte. Now, go home. I'm serious. I have access to the office feed. I'll check it in exactly one hour, and if I see you're still here, you're fired for an entire week. A whole week. Do you understand me?"

Now it was my turn to laugh. "Yes, Harley. I understand."

She took her leave then, and after a moment there I'd paused to listen, almost swearing I'd heard her speaking to someone. I marched over to the door to check it out, but when I stuck my head out, glancing left to right down the halls, there was nobody there. As far as I knew, Harley and I were the last ones in the building.

Deciding I was exhausted and that it was my brain playing tricks on me, I left my office and headed down to the break room, which was literally the first room at the head of the building, just off the right-hand side. It had taken me about five minutes to get my coffee ready thanks to using multiple Keurig cups to fill the biggest to-go cup we had, but once I had it in hand, I was stalking back to my office and groaning in absolute heaven at the taste, just for all of it to come spewing out of my mouth when I walked in my office and found Spike butt-naked, hard as a fucking rock, with his lion mask on, grinning wickedly at me.

His clothes were tossed in an ugly pile just under the white boards.

"On your knees," he commanded in a seductively gruff voice.

I swallowed hard, trying not to choke, and glared at him with my lips pursed.

"What the fuck are you doing, Spike?"

I fought like hell not to purposely glance at his amazing cock or the fact that his piercings looked like they were ready to rip through his gloriously sensitive flesh.

He spit in his hand and then gripped his amazing girth, stroking it, making my lips part and eyes widen with what I was failing to convince myself was deceptive fascination.

My knees grew weak, and reactively my tongue was slithering along my bottom lip at the sight of pre-cum leaking out his swollen head.

Snap the fuck out of it, Charlotte!

I shook my head fast, luckily managing to catch my coffee before it slipped from my grasp, and rushed to put it on my desk, releasing a shriek when a large hand had suddenly gripped my throat from behind.

My body shuddered in sickening pleasure when Spike's fingertips fastened around my skin and slightly obstructed my airway, his cock pressing against my ass.

"You've been a bad girl, Eve," he whispered, and I fumbled on the tiniest breath I could draw in, unsure why he'd called me Eve when he knew that wasn't my real name. "Showing up at the precinct looking like this, you're just asking for any man to shove his head between your scrumptious legs. That's not okay, Eve. In fact, I almost buried three of my coworkers today because they wouldn't stop staring at what's mine."

"That-that's not my fault," I choked out, hating the moan as it tumbled out my mouth when he ground his cock even rougher against my ass.

"You're right," he replied in a spine-quivering growl, one that sent a pulse of fire straight to my aching cunt. "It's not."

His hand tightened around my throat and in a breathless, forceful push, I was bent over the desk with his free hand snaking up my skirt and under my panties. Spike cursed low under his breath as he felt the arousal drenched along his fingertips.

I knew what was coming and that there was nothing I could do to stop it, so I waited, bracing myself for his cock.

But then my back arched, and the most guttural sound evaded my throat when his scorching hot tongue snaked up my pussy from behind and his mouth began feasting greedily on my asshole.

"Oh my God," I cried, panting harder as new sensations rushed through me, driving me to the fastest orgasm I ever had in my fucking life.

Spike gathered my juices with his cock and eagerly rubbed it up and down my pussy, pausing when he reached my entrance. It was all the warning I got before he impaled me in a brutal thrust that had my eyes rolling in the back of my head and my hands desperately gripping the sides of my desk for support.

"You're mine," he hissed, pounding into me so hard it had the desk sliding up and me damn near toppling off it and head-first onto the floor. "You fucking hear me, Eve? MINE!"

"Ye-yes, Spike," I cried again, moaning the more I felt my pussy continuously weep as he fucked me faster.

Deeper.

I still couldn't believe it. Karl and I were together for years and never, not once, had my body ever experienced something so intimately intoxicating as this.

"I'm sorry!"

"Oh, baby," he spoke again, his hand leaving my throat and fingers forcing their way inside my mouth, hooking against the inside of my cheek.

I groaned at the discomfort, but it didn't stop him from hammering into me like he was adamantly trying to teach me a crucial lesson.

"You should be. Why don't you show me just how sorry you are, yeah?"

I knew what he wanted, so when he slipped out, I immediately turned and got down on my knees, opening my mouth wide for him.

He wasn't gentle. Not at all. Spike never was.

He fucked my throat with so much anger and vengeance it was like my appearance at the precinct this morning had ultimately pissed him off and this was his way of getting payback.

And for all I knew, maybe it was.

That was fine though. Because he'd pissed me off whenever he came after my job.

So, just to be a bitch, I scraped my teeth along his shaft and then grinned big when he hissed in pain and jerked out of my mouth with a fatal, heated look flashing through his dark eyes.

"Charlotte."

And then I sucked him back in, deep throating down his piercings until I couldn't breathe.

Spike cursed loudly, then stumbled back, holding my head in place the faster and harder he worked his hips. I held on and let him fuck my throat as deep as I could possibly handle until eventually, he exploded down my mouth.

I swallowed everything and then heaved in desperate, greedy fucking breaths when Spike trudged off with a sated sigh and gathered his clothes.

"I'm sorry," he muttered as he dressed, shaking his head. "For trying to get you replaced. It felt like you were trying to tell us how to do our jobs, and I got pissed when you started questioning us about the suspects. Then, when I found out who you really were and that you've been lying to us, it didn't help make it any better. I just…reacted, and I'm truly sorry."

He finished getting dressed, then approached me, grabbing my hands. He brought them up to his mouth, and in a bold move I hadn't anticipated, kissed each of my knuckles gently.

"Please forgive me. I was wrong." He moved closer, his mouth pausing by my ear. "All you have to do is sit on top of that desk and I'll give you a second taste of just how sorry I truly am."

"Spike." My lips parted as I stared up at him, gasping as he forced my body back until I was sitting on the desk and his head was between my legs, sucking and licking up my pussy again.

"You… don't…" I started, but it was already too late. His tongue was deep inside my core and his fingers were sliding in easily after, stroking along each of my favorite spots until my pussy was shamefully grinding against his hot mouth and I was collapsing, leaving his face soaked.

"Let me follow you home?" he asked when he rose to his feet, trapping his lips against mine before I could ever get a word out. "Please."

I sighed, still fighting to catch my damn breath. "Fine, Spike. You can make sure I get home safely."

He grinned at me through his mask, looking so elated it had my heart smiling despite how angry I still was with him.