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He watches her as she applies a slash of red to her wide lips. He's painted his in the past. He'll paint them again, in the future, where they're going. He paints them now. Not for the theatre. For them, for a lifestyle.

He's dusted his face white as a ghost. As white as a clown. He is a clown. The clown with painted lips.

He's the clean shaven one. On the TV and the media, he's the one who will be the clown with painted lips. The one they'll shame.

'There's a lifestyle in the dance halls and the cinema', they'll say. 'Can't you feel the shame?' they'll ask. 'We loved you,' they'll say. Shame they never meant it.

All you need is love day after day. Day after day with painted lips. For him. For her. For love. Day after day on the TV and the dance halls everybody's in it. Such a shame.

She turns. She expects a kiss on her newly painted lips. A shame that all he remembers is kissing him. Him kissing her. Kissing him in the dance halls, his greasy hair caught between his fingers, his painted lips pressing his without her. Now there's a lifestyle he remembers. Such a shame she wants to change to her kissing only him. He's made her do it. He wants her all to himself. They both want to shame him, to change all his pride and poetry to shame.

He watches her as she climbs into the car. She's got brand new shoes. She should always wear red. The scarlet woman. Now there's a lifestyle with fashion chic.

There's a lifestyle and everybody in it wants to be elite. It don't exist! Only shame!

She wants to listen to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. She looks at him strange when he says no as they know no shame.

He watches her in the mirror, smiles with his painted lips when she climbs into the back. Such a shame. There's a lifestyle on TV, but like her mother she is tinged in red. The colour glows from her. She will be scarlet forever like her mother. Like her father's painted lips. Such a shame.

She will be the shame of her father. Her father will turn white with shame.

Turn white like a clown. A white clown with painted lips.

Such a shame.

Alex didn't remember driving to Evan's office building. Leaving her car at the kerb and ignoring the call of the security guard, she pushed through the entry doors with a loud bang. Barrelling into Evan's office without knocking, she brushed aside his nattering assistant and ignored the stares of his clients.

"Is something wrong, Alex?" Evan asked, removing his glasses.

"Yes, something is very wrong," she said tonelessly.

After a pause to consider her mood, Evan ushered everyone out and closed the door behind them.

He came towards her, arms outstretched to give comfort as he would when she was a child. "What is it?"

She moved away. Now that he stood before her, she didn't know what to ask or how to ask it, but she had to know. "Did you love her?"

His brow furrowed. "Who?"

She just looked back. Finally she said, "There's only ever been one." Yes, only one woman. Such a lonely man.

The colour drained from Evan's face. "Has he contacted you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Frustrated, she shook her head. "You should have told me about the affair a long time ago."

Evan searched her face for any softness. Alex's gaze was steady and unrelenting. He nodded as though realising he was left with no recourse.

"I loved them both very much," he said quietly. "We all acted on our needs so much more freely in those days. There was no plan on anyone's part.

Tim loved her first and he wanted to please her—One evening, I brought over this video, Women in Love, and we had had too much Chardonnay. At first we thought she was teasing, but it was what she wanted and neither of us could deny her..."

Alex felt bile rising her throat, but Evan kept talking, her distress unnoticed. His hands clasped behind his back, he looked out his office windows over the rainy cityscape.

"In the beginning it was just about Caroline's pleasure, but then...I think Tim was disgusted at his own desires and wanted to stop—oh, what am I saying?" He flailed his hand in Alex's direction but didn't look at her. "It awakened feelings that none of us could manage. He thought that she saw him as less of man because of what we did, and that she was leaving him for it. She wasn't; she was leaving us both..." His shoulders slumped. "I feel so much better that you know. All these years—"

His voice sounded very far away. She went cold to the point of shaking, then suddenly blazing hot. Urgency burned in her throat, and she found his wastepaper basket right before she threw up.

"Darling, I'm so sorry," he babbled. He stood too close. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand—the smell swarmed up through her nose and another wave of nausea nearly overcame her,

She moved out of his reach. "Don't touch me."

"I told you, it was just one of those things—"

"Which things? Fucking my parents or lying to me about it for thirty years?"

"It wasn't like that—"

Everything was a lie. Her parents' love-filled marriage, her memories of their martyred deaths, her faithful godfather...

Evan was still talking. "Your mother was a force of nature. Tim must have thought that doing that awful thing was the only way to be in control again—"

"I'm going to throw up again. Just shut up." Alex clutched her head. "Shut up!"

"I need you to understand—"

"This isn't about what you need anymore," she said, cold like her mother. "What I want is for you to piss off." She shrugged off his hand as he tried to stop her from leaving. "Just keep out of my life." When she slammed his office door, it was loud as a coffin's lid closing.

oOo

Oblivious to the light rain falling, Alex stood beside her car. She didn't know if she was safe to drive. Numbness kept washing over her and her chest was as tight as if she were drowning. None of this could be true and yet it had to be; she could feel it in her in heart.

Finally, she got in and drove off, but not home. The thump of the wipers louder than her thoughts, the Thames appearing and disappearing from her view until she arrived at her destination.

Her former girls' school still stood, now expanded with shining steel and glass. She'd never gone back after her parents' death. Evan had thought it would be too difficult for her to look out the windows at the scene of the explosion. Perhaps that's when it had all become but a dream in her mind.

The day-long drizzle had stopped. She turned up her coat collar on the cold mist that drifted across the rise, blanketing everything and blocking out the meagre sunlight. The white haze drifting along to obscure the school. Her boots sank into the lawn, and she struggled up the slope, determined. Looking down on the road, she tried to picture those final minutes again. Her red balloon escaping as she got in the backseat of Uncle Evan's car. Her mother demanding that she let it go. The click of the door. Daddy asking if she'd like music. Tinkling notes filling the vehicle. Watching for her balloon through the window. An ugly man staring back at her as the car passed him. Her father's gaze meeting hers in the rearview mirror. He would do that while driving, to assure that she was secure and safe...He was always taking care of her and her mum—

No. The adult Alex recognised that expression now. She'd seen it time and again in killers' eyes; the obsessive ownership of another body and soul. Closing her own eyes, she returned to the exact moment and all its searing pain. Her father wasn't going to let her live, to dare be happy when he was so wretchedly unhappy. Had there been a balloon at all—it floated alongside the car as though pulled by an invisible hand. Or had she sensed the danger and ran...her mother had called to her out the car window. Caroline's hand was on the door handle to give chase. Evan was running toward the car, calling out for Tim to stop. He had to do it now or he might lose his chance to kill his slut wife too.

The concussion from the explosion—

She was able to fight down the nausea this time. Her red balloon tugged her up the hill and out of the fog, into a bright light, so bright it burned her eyes. She raised her face to the sun, but there was only darkness—the solid weight of his chest, the welcoming black of his overcoat. Her legs gave way but he caught her before she could drop.

She was lifted and cradled. "I got you," was his rough voice at her ear. "The Gene Genie's got you."

He tucked her in the passenger seat of her car but when he started the motor, she jumped and couldn't stop her gasp of shock. He immediately put his arm around her, cupping her face with his warm, gloved hand to hold her against his shoulder.

"How'd you know where to find me?" she asked through chattering teeth.

"You needed me, and I was there. That's how it works." He gave her one of his quick sideways smiles. "Besides, where else would you have gone?"

Nodding, she leaned back, letting her eyes drift shut. She lost time again; they were at her flat. Ignoring her protests, he swept her up in his arms once more and carried her inside. He didn't set her down until they were in the bathroom.

He held her face in his hands and stared into her eyes. "You got chunder in 'our hair," he said tenderly.

She fell against his chest and began to laugh, which turned quickly to sobs. He rocked her before finally giving her a nudge. "Go on you, have a wash up."

When she remained standing there with her gaze downcast, he helped her out of her clothes and led her into the shower. "You'll be alright?"

She stared at him blankly from under water.

"Alex?"

She pulled his head under the spray to press a soft kiss on his cheek. "Thank you, Gene," she said gravely. "I was a bitch to you at the hospital—"

Rubbing his hair dry with a towel, he grumbled, "You doolally tart," but then said, "I'll put the kettle on."

He had a steaming cup on her bedside table when she wandered in, holding her gown's lapels closed tightly at her neck.

"Better now?" He was bustling around the bedroom, fluffing up the pillows on both sides of the bed.

Sipping her tea and ignoring the burning on her tongue, she didn't answer his question. "I am sorry, Gene."

He held up a hand to wave off her apology. She grabbed his hand and pulled it to her chest. "I was just so frightened that you were lying to me, like it seems that everyone else has." With horror, she felt tears rising in her throat. After everything that had happened this day, this was the first time she wanted to cry.

He flipped the duvet back and pushed her down on the mattress. "I don't lie," he said firmly.

"You just don't tell everything," she said as she swung her legs up and allowed him to tuck the duvet under her chin. As her eyelids drooped and she could feel waves of exhaustion washing over her, she mumbled, "Ridiculous being in bed so early. Got to call the Met—"

"Leave it, luv," he told her, clicking off the light. "Take a bit of a kip."

"Gene..." Her voice was only a whisper.

"Yeah."

"Lay down with me."

"Of course." He stripped down to his boxers quickly.

"You probably have things to do," she said as he crawled under the bedcovers with her.

"I'm stayin' put." Snuggling up behind her, he wrapped his arm around her middle and buried his nose in her damp hair.

She was barely awake. "I suppose you are," she breathed before falling asleep.

Gene didn't expect to sleep with everything on his mind. His fury at that Meg bitch still hot, and there was that damn Nige out looking for his next victim. But he felt as though a clock was running down for him and he wanted to spend the last few seconds that he had remaining just looking at Alex.

"You great... soft... sissy... girlie... nancy," he whispered very quietly so not to wake her.

oOo

He hadn't slept; only closed his eyes. A gentle, "Gene," made him open them.

"Yeah," he mumbled. She'd rolled to face him. He reached over her to turn on the lamp. No good conversations occurred in the dark.

"Now that we've had some rest—" She lay a hand on his stubbled cheek. "All of it, Guv."

His jaw tightened. "All what?"

"You know," she said stubbornly. "Everything. What really happens to me. How I end up in your world."

Scrubbing his face with the heels of his palms, he grumbled but still didn't say anything.

She gulped down tears. "I've just found out that my whole life as I understood it was a lie. Please, Gene. Tell me the truth about my death."

He was silent for so long she didn't think that he was going to respond. Then the words: "You're to be shot in the head."

She blinked but remained silent.

"You showed up in 1981. I knew that I was getting a new DI named Alex Drake. Course I thought it was a bloke. But there you were—"

"Dressed as a prossie."

"Right."

She tried to put the pieces together. "I go back in time..."

"Not really, I 'pose. I know that now," he said darkly, "it's a time that never really existed."

"It was real to you though."

Gene shrugged.

She might as well get used to the idea. She repeated what he'd told her: "I'm shot in the head." Her shaking fingertips traced his temple where a bullet hole should be.

"Need a fag," he said abruptly. Before she could stop him, he rolled off the mattress and fled the room.

After pulling on her dressing gown, she followed, but went to the kitchen and put on the kettle. When under great duress, one must have tea. Almost as an afterthought, she brought down a packet of pink wafers and another of Garibaldi biscuits from the cupboard.

Leaning over the sink, she craned her neck to look out the window. Gene was slumped on the bench, his bright head wreathed in blue smoke. He must be freezing in his boxers. She'd leave him to it though.

When he returned, she was pouring hot water over his Red Rose teabag and her fragrant loose leaf tea in a strainer.

"Me knackers are up around my tonsils," he complained.

"Come here, silly man," Alex said, opening her dressing gown.

He ogled her naked body. "That'll warm me up."

Pulling him close, she wrapped the gown around both of them as far as it would go. Laying her head on his shoulder, she rubbed his back, transferring her warmth to his chilled skin.

"Tha' nice," he mumbled into her hair. He managed to snag his mug and take a deep slurp of hot tea over her shoulder.

"I need to know more, Gene," she said softly.

"What the hell for?" He stepped away from her embrace.

"What for? Because I need to understand!" She belted her dressing gown tightly.

"You always do," he groaned. "You're like me old Uncle Den who's gotta take apart every toaster to see how it works." Nose buried in his own mug, he could feel her intense gaze. He leaned on the table and pouted. "Three. I'll give you three questions."

"Three? Like a genie's wishes?" She shook her head. "What sort of relationship do we have here?" she ranted, "where you don't take my deepest fears seriously?"

His features remained stubborn. "You don't take my frets seriously either."

"What do you mean?"

"This is nothing to mess with." He waved his hand up and down his body. "How the bloody hell am I here? With arms and legs and oh, right, a 'ead with no 'ole in it!" He tapped his temple. "We got one thing that we need to do; catch Nige so he can't pop you. End of." With a harrumph, he signalled that the topic was closed.

Squinting, she weighed up her options. He was a tough old nut, but she was confident that she knew the way to crack him open. Settling back against the benchtop, she shifted her legs so that her robe fell open to her upper thigh. Gene blinked slowly. Grabbing a handful of biscuits, he stuffed them in his mouth.

She started: "Like with Sam, I work in the CID on your team, solving crimes?"

He was relieved at the straightforward question. "Yeah," he said. spitting crumbs. "Chasing down armed bastards in the Quattro, slapping around the scum, then off to the boozer for lunch."

His gaze was distant; he was in that dream world of his own creation. "This is 1981?" she asked, "before my parents died?" Everything kept coming around to them.

"Yeah, that's why you're wit' me. You sort out something that's been preying on your mind."

"Sam mentioned that he encountered his father, came to understand why Vic Tyler abandoned his family. He didn't tell me the details though. I could see that it distressed him greatly."

Gene's gaze shifted away and he ate another handful of pink wafers. He was right; he was not a good liar. Alex pushed. "My parents' deaths do prey on my mind."

"Yeah," he mumbled, obviously nervous.

She refilled his mug with hot water, still thinking. "If I were to find myself in 1981, I would talk to them—" The words caught in her throat. To just hug her mother and father one more time—the Mum and Dad that she'd held in her heart until just a few hours ago.

He lowered his head to his mug again but winced when the tea burnt his lip. Or was it something more?

"You're a copper, remember? You were nothing but a stinking pig to your parents."

She slumped, gripping the edge of the benchtop for support. "I would be. Yes. But that wouldn't stop me from fighting to save them."

He gave a nod. "You did."

"But I can't, in your world? It's not a place about changing fate, right?"

He folded his arms tightly and stared at his bare feet. She could see this was making him terribly uncomfortable but she had to go on. "I find out my father was responsible for my mother's death, then I die?"

"You've used up your three questions."

"That was a single line of inquiry," she said, ignoring his head rolling back in exasperation. "This is my second."

After a martyred sigh, he answered: "No, you didn't die."

She raised her eyebrows. Then was surprised to notice that Gene was blushing. "What is it?"

He gulped down the last Garibaldi but complained, "These aren't Fine Fare. Can't even get a decent biscuit in this damn world."

She wouldn't be diverted. "Fine Fare shops went out of business twenty years ago. What is it?"

He rubbed the floor with his toe. "I liked having you around."

She snagged his fingers, pulling his hand into hers. He still didn't meet her eyes when he muttered, "I told myself that I was making you a proper cop but—"

"It's alright, Gene," she said gently.

He tugged his hand loose. "The first time you left—" A chill swept over her scalp. "I brought you back."

"I had more to learn," she suggested.

"Right," he blustered. "I know my job. The Chief Super sits upstairs at his desk, doesn't know anything about the streets!"

"Right," she echoed soothingly.

"But then this Jim Keats from D&C, he's the mate of that bitch Meg, came to investigate my methods." His head dropped again. "Started writing reports."

"And I had to leave."

"Yeah."

"How long? Sam was in your world for two years before he returned to 2006, but only a few months passed then."

"Three years," he said shortly.

Tipping her head, she said, "I can understand your frustration now. We had a close relationship, even if it wasn't sexual. A lot of late nights?" He nodded again. "There was intimacy and closeness—" He shifted, obviously uncomfortable for such talk. "And then this Alex has you tasered."

"It's alright."

"No, it's not." She gulped back the lump in her throat. "I really hope that you're right, and you are able to stop my death. I'd hate for you to go through falling in love with me over again only to have me die on you."

His fire was back. "Not likely. I tried to forget...Forget you, my own death, but I can't—" He crossed the void to cup her cheek. "I won't."

She had to believe. "Perhaps you've been set free."

"I don't know." It shook her to hear him sound so lost.

One last question: "Do you know who kills me?"

He stepped back again. "When you first showed up, you went hot on the trail of this toerag, Arthur Layton. We locked him up, but your father bailed him out in time to rig the bomb. Tabby helped me track Layton down. He's just gotten out of the nick."

"That's the parolee that you were searching for."

"Yeah. Somehow you must know he killed your parents—"

"You're telling me now."

"Damn. Right." He rubbed his head again. "I thought Layton was your shooter, but it's got to be Nigel. I was chasing his dad and landed here, now on his trail. It's all got to be tied together."

She moved to lean on the table beside Gene. "I think that I did know all along. Now that I see the events while knowing the truth, the real situation is obvious." She bumped his shoulder with hers. "I think you've saved my life already. Sam was right. The truth has set me free."

He peered at her down his nose. "But the truth hurts too."

She repressed the urge to tell him that for a man who didn't believe in psychology, he had excellent perceptions. Instead, she said, "This is the hardest part for me to accept. How Evan could take my parents' place in my life, all the while hiding his role in their deaths."

"That bastard. Yer mum wasn't even dead yet and he was sniffing around you, not knowing who you were."

"Sniffing around!? But I knew who he was...surely I didn't sniff back?" She looked appalled.

Gene turned aside, gazing sadly at the empty biscuit plate.

She slapped his arm to get his attention. "I didn't!"

"Got me worried, you did. You told me it was complicated and I thought you were just having one over on me. Now I see that it was complicated like that Greek fellow, Eddie."

"Eddie? Oh, do you mean Oedipus?"

"'spose."

"It would be an Electra complex, actually, but it doesn't matter."

"He left a video, your father did. The usual thing," Gene said gruffly, "how if he couldn't have your mum, the three of you had to die."

"I never saw that—"

"I destroyed it. I didn't want little Alex Price to be hurt by what her father did. I didn't know she was you," he told her. "You didn't tell me."

"I kept a lot of lies too, I suppose."

"Gets to be a habit."

"Yes. I learnt it in my family." She folded her arms tightly. "It's so odd. I remember things now from my childhood that I'd always accepted what happened, but now... How Evan was always there; I'd come into rooms and he'd be standing too closely to my mother, to my father."

"Your father?" Gene asked, confused.

"I suppose that I knew on some level that Evan slept with my mother, but my child's mind couldn't comprehend that the three of them—"

Outraged, Gene stood bolt upright. "Those perverts! And damn liars! Evan and Caroline 'fessed that they were shagging each other, but you're saying your mother was a bit of sweet meat in a three-way butty!"

"I shouldn't judge," she said with a shrug.

"Well, I will! Blokes might want to spice up their lovelife with a few bibs and bobs here and there, but bringing more than one cock into it will only result in a cock up. No wonder your Dad snapped like he did."

"It just doesn't make any sense though. How could he feel that way if he were sleeping with Evan too—"

Gene cut her off. "I don't want to 'ear a single detail!"

"He was just trying to make her happy."

"Which one?"

"Both of them," Alex said with a bitter laugh. "I tried to please her too, and never quite succeeded."

"Bitch—" Gene quickly added, "Sorry, Alex, but she was cold, I tell you."

"The thing is, Gene, you didn't really know her...Did you? How were they in your world?"

He was very uncomfortable when she asked him the mechanics of his existence. It was like trying to understand why some people would follow Man U instead of City. "They're dead, aren't they?"

"It's just all so confusing." She passed her hand over her eyes as though she could brush away the flickering memories. The room was silent but for the ticking of the wall clock. "It's late...or too early," she said. "We should get back to bed." She felt as though many layers of her skin had been burnt off this day. If he touched her, would she scream in pain or shatter as if releasing a long pent-up orgasm?

He did touch her, stroking her neck with his fingertips and she chose passion. There were only two people in the world and they were a breath apart in this kitchen. She stepped close enough to feel his chest rising and falling.

Gene was relieved that she seemed willing to let it drop. He snagged a strand of her hair and curled it around his finger. His Bolly...

His lips at her ear, he murmured, "I get why a bloke would do anything for his bird, do whatever he knew would make her happy. Never thought I'd feel that way..." He swept open her gown, revealing her flushed skin to his hungry gaze.

The corner of her mouth quirked in a smile. "I'm like my mum after all?"

"Let's make a rule," he grumbled, "no talking about your pervy parents when we're goin' at it."

She gave a watery laugh. Laying a hand on his cheek, she examined his face as though memorising his features. "I want to believe, Gene."

He kissed her chin, her throat, her collarbone. "Anything," he breathed.

Guiding his head back to her mouth, she kissed him deeply, making her intentions clear.

She felt his twitching erection against her bare thigh. "You've warmed up, I see." She started to head to the bedroom but he held her back.

"Here," he rumbled and her legs went weak.

"You're catching on fast for a beginner," she teased. "Making love all over the house—"

His brow furrowed, he looked around the kitchen. "Not that so much—" He led her back to benchtop. "Maybe this will work—"

She squealed as he lifted her to sit on it. "What the hell, Gene?"

"I can't figure out how we'll fit in the bed fer this," he confessed. "We're too bloody tall. I'd just fall off the end." He glanced over at the dining table chairs, and grabbed one, dragging it closer. "I think this'll work, I'll apply the five P's—"

"What are..." Alex said.

He sat down before her. "Prior preparation prevents pisspoor performance," he sprouted.

She giggled, but then sobered as he nudged her knees apart. "Oh." Don't giggle, don't giggle—she giggled again. "This is an eat-in kitchen after all."

He gave her a withering look. "You're not 'elping."

Putting her hands on his shoulders, she gazed deeply into his eyes and took a deep breath to control her laughter.

He grumbled, "Just want to do right by you."

"You will," she assured him before kissing him again, a soft exploration of his mouth as her hands smoothed along his neck and shoulders, sweeping the tension from his muscles. He relaxed, his own touch gliding under her robe, brushing lightly over her breasts and down her stomach before squeezing her thighs.

She whimpered against his tongue. Despite his uncertainty, he could feel her fragility and it strengthened his resolve. He wanted to be her hero. Tugging his mouth loose from hers, he followed the path of his hands down her body, suckling with aching gentleness at her heated skin. He lay his head on her thigh for a moment, breathing in her scent. All his fantasies had been in one dimension. Now that he could taste and smell her, his daydreams about her seemed as childish as his drawings. Hours of crude toilet talk about women with the lads were forgotten.

"Tell me what you want," he said quietly as he drew circles on her other thigh with his thumb.

"Well, if you insist," she gasped, arching back. When her head hit the window, she had a moment of panic. Could anyone see? Then she decided to fuck it all. Let them enjoy the show. Shaking with chills and waves of heat, she draped her legs over his shoulders. Holding herself open with one hand, she guided his face closer with the other, holding her breath to see if the lion would bow his head.

Tentative, he gave her clit a sweep of his tongue, light as a moth's wings on her cheek. His fingertips ghosted over her thighs, up to the tender skin behind her knees. She was already shaking so hard that she had to grip the benchtop tightly to stay on it.

"Jesus, Gene!"

His head snapped up. "I'm sorry—"

"Don't you dare fucking stop!" she ordered, grabbing his hair roughly.

"Cool yer jets, you soppin' pair o' knickers."

"That was very good," she said primly, sounding like a schoolmarm. "Gently does it."

He gave a snort. "Softly, softly," he muttered before returning to his task.

An unknown land. He was lost, his mind overcome. As with every time that they'd had sex, Gene swore that he was going to slow the pace and remember every sensation and detail. After all, this could end at any moment and he'd spend eternity with nothing but his memories to wank off to. He needed some good material here.

Instead, he was drowning in her, only flashing moments and feelings registered. The slide of her calves along his shoulders. The scent of deep woods and a distant ocean. The softest skin that he'd ever felt slid under his tongue and lips. His own arousal thumping a pulse hard against his belly. Heat soaking his hair. Her voice, with a timbre as he'd never heard before but wanted to hear forever, telling him to do that more, to use his fingers, deeper, harder now, right there—

She gripped his hair harder still, her heels thumped at his spine and the endless stream of instructions turning into a babble and sobbing of release. She slumped and gently pushed his face away. "Enough," she gasped, "too sensitive now."

He fell back in the chair and had to shift to give his own hard-on some relief. "Oh, you poor baby," she mumbled, pushing the hair back from her face. "You'll have your reward." She tugged him up to stand, pulled him close and shoved his boxers down. "You were wonderful," she said, her schoolmarm tone still there.

"I should think so," he grumbled. "Last person to put me through my paces like that was my sixth form footie manager."

She gave him a gentle slap but kissed the corner of his mouth at the same time. "You've earnt your man of the match for sure."

He harrumped but it turned to an unmanly squeal when she grasped his length tightly. "Shit, woman, this is going to be over—"

That was her exact intention. She worked him hard and fast and he could only surge into her hand helplessly.

Her mouth was at his ear. "I'd say you earnt that desk sex too. What do you want, Gene? You want me flat on my back, you're pounding me into the files? Or bent over—"

"Yeah, skirt up—" He'd wanked off many a time to just that fantasy but to have it be her hand instead of his—and he was gone, coming all over their stomachs.

Her laugh was just a little bit nasty but that turned him on too. As he sagged against her, he vaguely wondered if he was truly under the thumb and if so, was that a problem.

She hopped off the bench top. "Clean up and a bit more sleep, I'd say," she said bossily.

Sleepy, he trailed behind her. Yep, she definitely had him by the short and curlies.

oOo

Gene heard Alex's mobile ringing faintly out in the entry. Glancing down at her sleeping form, he slipped from the bed and hurried to silence it. When he saw Tabitha's name on the screen, he answered. "Yeah," he whispered grumpily.

"DCI Hunt?"

"Yeah."

"Is DI Drake available?"

He ignored her request. "What is it?"

"The burner phones. I have a possible location for Nigel Anthony."

"Just possible?"

"A strong possibility."

"Give me the address." He wrong it down quickly. Back on the East End. He knew this must be the place; rats always returned to their favourite hole.

"You'll bring DI Drake and meet me there?"

"Sure." He glanced toward the bedroom. It was still dark; Alex must still be sleeping. He was going to keep it that way. "And Tabby, check me out a gun. I'll be there in ten."

He switched off the mobile, silencing Tabitha's protests.

~ End Chapter 21

E/N: Yeah, we took some creative license with the Prices and Evan, but frankly, that vibe with the three of them gave us both a distinct impression.