This is another of those chapters were the mature warning should be headed.
Forging a Life-25
The woman was driving him quietly insane.
Riah said good morning when Casey came down for breakfast each morning and set his plate in front of him before she disappeared upstairs. He watched her go each time. This particular morning, like all the others since that afternoon in Castle, she hadn't been unfriendly, but she had served him his breakfast as impersonally as a diner waitress serving a stranger in town. He missed the much more personal way she had given him breakfast lately, missed the kiss, missed the way she had let him hold her close, touch her.
Even Dreyfus's reports since the Laurance debacle noted she was different. The doctor wrote that she refused to talk about anything personal, and while Dreyfus noted that wasn't exactly a change, the doctor reported that she seemed to be getting back on an even enough keel he had decided to begin weaning her from the sertraline. It irritated Casey that she was, apparently, miraculously cured, and the temptation to prove otherwise was nearly overwhelming a time or two—might have been had he not noticed that when he came up on her from behind with no warning, she still jumped, flinched.
After a couple of weeks of sleeping alone, the widening gulf began to make him nuts. She was what she was supposed to be: friendly, polite, and distant—unless there was an audience.
He was the one being a girl, and it pissed him off.
Perhaps that's why the sight of Riah's naked back as she slept caused him to react as he did. Casey paused outside her bedroom door, studied her outline in the light filtering from the streetlamps. It was somewhere on the wrong side of three a.m., but Casey wasn't tired.
On second thought, he was tired—damned tired of sleeping alone, especially when she was just across the narrow hall from him.
That was his fault. He was the one who had chosen distance.
But she had let him.
He did what he had to, stored the gear in the room next to hers, checked in with Beckman, and went to his own room and got ready for bed. He was on his way back from brushing his teeth when he decided enough was enough.
The sheet and blanket draped over her hips, exposed her naked back. A slight smile played over his lips. Apparently, she'd become used to wearing no clothes to sleep in, and he studied the expanse of skin bathed in pale light.
She'd asked him to make love to her, and he'd recoiled. He'd given a lot of time to thinking about her request since then, and he finally reached the conclusion she had simply asked for gentleness when she used those words. He hadn't been so when he took her against the wall in Castle's cell, and because of the word she had chosen, he had had a visceral reaction. He shed the t-shirt and sweat pants he'd pulled on to sleep in.
Easing onto the mattress behind her, Casey figured the worst that could happen was she'd kick him out of her bed.
The only place he touched her was the base of her spine. He put his lips against her skin and slowly kissed, one vertebra at a time, upward. Her breathing changed when he reached the beginning of the scar tissue from Edmonton, and she went rigid. He moved along the lowest scar, expected her to demand he stop at any moment. She remained silent, though she relaxed again, and he continued his task. He traced each scar then returned to her spine.
She sucked in an unsteady breath when he reached her nape, shuddered, but that part of her, he'd found was one of the most sensitive on her body. A soft moan escaped her. He lingered, teased, and then he let his hands join in, explore. He slid his fingers beneath her sheet, let them glide up over the dip of her waist to her ribcage, and then his palm joined them, slid down so that his hand rested beneath her breast. His body fitted against her back, his legs along hers. He kissed from her nape to the join of her shoulder and neck, and his hand coasted up, formed around her breast.
Casey smiled a little when another soft moan escaped her before she tilted her head back and let him kiss to the spot beneath her ear. Her breathing went shallow and rapid as his thumb stroked lightly over her nipple.
It occurred to Casey that he should say something, but he couldn't think of anything that might not piss her off. Since this was one place where they had no trouble communicating, he decided that it might be best to simply let their bodies do the talking. After all, so far she hadn't protested. Of course, she wasn't reciprocating, either, and Casey paused a moment. She moved a little closer, arched so that her bottom rubbed against him. He smiled against her throat and then kissed along the line of her jaw toward her chin. All she had to do was turn her head, and he could take her mouth. He squeezed her breast slightly, and she turned her face toward him, reached her hand up to stroke along his cheek.
He took her mouth, but instead of letting the hunger off the leash, he teased her lips. He was careful to keep the kiss slow, gentle, and even after she let her jaw relax, her mouth open, he still went slowly. For a brief moment, she took control of the kiss, added heat, but when he didn't follow, she backed off.
Riah turned more fully toward him when he deepened the kiss. He simply tasted her then began to kiss the rest of her face. His hands traced her body, skimmed lightly over fields of skin, curved over rounded flesh, molded to her before moving on. His lips skimmed down her throat while his hands pushed the sheet away from her. His tongue traced along her collarbones, and he kissed over her chest.
Her fingers slid up his arm, over the muscle and scar tissue to his shoulder, shaped around his neck and slid into his hair as he kissed down the slope of her breast to her nipple. Casey suckled her softly, while her hands roamed what she could reach of him as he continued to lick, nip, suck her body.
Eventually, he reached her feet. Casey ran his hands up to her hips, applied pressure to roll her over, and then his mouth began the return trip to where he started. Riah's fingers buried themselves in the sheet covering the mattress on either side of her head.
He opened his mouth over her lowest vertebra and Riah's breath hitched at the touch of his tongue as his hand slid down the outside of her thigh and caught her knee, pulled it gently away so her leg bent and then stroked back up the inside of her thigh as he kissed higher up her back. She gasped when he found her, stroked over her, and Riah lifted her hips, gave his stroking fingers more room. He bit her earlobe, and she shuddered, groaned when his fingers stopped. He ran his hand up over her buttock to her hip and tugged until she rolled over.
He moved between her thighs, caught her, tasted her mouth again and slid slowly inside her.
Casey decided to take his time, make her as crazy as she'd made him, so even when she urged him to go faster, he stuck to the slow pace he'd chosen. He ran his hands lightly over her skin, and kissed her with a thorough gentleness. When Riah's body broke into a sweat, he shifted, moved his hips a little differently, and her breathing accelerated, her body tensed, strained. He felt it start, moved a little faster, a little deeper insider her, and then she shattered, Casey with her.
After a moment, he eased from her, moved to lie beside her and waited. He smoothed a hand over her skin, noticed the sleek dampness beneath his fingertips, his palm. Riah moved, rolled a little toward him. She watched him in the dark a moment, and he studied her face, reluctant to break what felt like a truce, if nothing else.
Not that they had been arguing. He felt he could have dealt with an argument. At least they could have gotten it all over with if she'd only yelled, screamed, called him names. Instead, that polite stranger nonsense had been worse than a cold shoulder or an armed camp would have been.
Her hand lifted, found his cheek, and her thumb stroked over his lower lip. He nearly smiled at that. Casey had figured out weeks ago that she generally followed that particular caress with the kind of incitement that led directly to sex. He pressed a kiss against her thumb and then caught her lips with his.
Riah's hands clung to his back, and Casey let his hands ghost over her body. He kissed her again, and her hands cradled his jaw, her fingers spread onto his cheeks. "I thought my bed was too short," she breathed.
He laughed against her throat, remembering what he'd told her one night when he'd scooped her up out of her bed after one of her nightmares. He was glad she didn't decide to even the score from the last time they'd had sex. "Apparently not," he told her.
"I thought I was too short," she added, and Casey re-evaluated the idea of tit-for-tat.
"Obviously not," he said against her cheek. In fact, she fitted against him rather well, he thought. His mouth caught hers once more, briefly, not yet ready to go again, though he rolled her beneath him again.
"I wasn't going to seduce Gray," she whispered.
It was Casey's turn to go rigid. The last thing he wanted was Laurance in their bed, and he pushed up on his elbows about to tear into her for even bringing up the other man's name.
Apparently, though, Riah was determined to say her piece. "I'd talked to Dad," she rushed on. "He thought Gray had in mind something like what he did have in mind. I was just worried about what he might do if he found a wire, and I thought that if he couldn't find one—"
He cut her off with his mouth, and this time, it wasn't the kind of sweet, gentle kiss he'd given her before. This one punished. "I don't want to talk about Laurance," Casey growled when he lifted his head. "Never say his name again—especially not when I've just made love to you," he told her curtly.
Oh, fuck no, he thought. Those were the last words he'd ever intended to use. For her part, she looked shocked as hell, so maybe he'd get lucky and she wouldn't decide to pick an argument over semantics. Casey certainly hoped he wasn't about to have to defend himself, wasn't going to have to tell her it was just sex and have her kick him right out of her bed.
Whatever she had meant to say, she kept to herself. She blinked, and what she said sank in then: she hadn't intended to sleep with Laurance. Somehow, that made him feel . . . lighter, happier. He damn near smiled. Instead, he bent and kissed her gently. "I think," he told her between kisses along her jaw, remembering what she'd said to him as he crushed her against the cell wall, "that this time you need to appease me."
That made her laugh, and Casey felt her relax beneath him. "How would you like me to do that?" she asked softly.
He caught her mouth once more. "You're an intelligent woman," he said, "and Adderlys are known for their ability to improvise."
Riah grinned at him. "Then," she told him softly, "I think we have to trade places."
Casey shifted, snaked his arms beneath her and rolled so that she was on top of him. "Now what?" he asked and slid both his hands to her hips.
"I'm thinking," she told him, stacked her hands on his chest and rested her chin on them.
"Think faster," he suggested and ran his fingertips over the curves of her bottom.
She arched a brow and said, "Your impatience doesn't help."
"Perhaps I could make a few suggestions," he offered and reached out and stroked her hair back and over her shoulder.
Riah gave him a slow smile, then refused his offer. "No, I have the family reputation to uphold here."
His fingers traced the line of her shoulder and then ran lightly up her throat to her jaw. "Then uphold it."
Waiting for her to make up her mind still left him with options, and he took full advantage of all that naked skin of hers. Finally, she moved, slipped her hands from beneath her chin and began doing to him as he'd done to her. Her mouth and tongue began to trace his body. She paused over a healed bullet wound that had nearly killed him fifteen years earlier. Her tongue soothed the scar tissue and then her mouth moved on. She pressed open-mouth kisses lower, and her breasts trailed along his skin as she moved further down his body.
He wondered if what he'd done to her had felt half this good.
Her mouth closed over him, and he went hard. He moaned as her tongue trailed up and down, her mouth hot over him. If this was her idea of appeasement, he decided he needed to find ways to see she had to appease him more often.
He reached for her, and she grabbed his wrists. Worse, her mouth stopped what it was doing. Casey was about to protest, but she rose on her knees, and the look on her face shut him up. She went astride his waist and slammed his wrists on the pillows next to his head. "Don't touch," she growled.
Startled, he stared at her. She'd never been aggressive with him, had never tried to be dominant, and he was suddenly curious to see where she might go with this. "Any other rules?" he asked.
She cocked her head. If she hadn't still held his wrists against her pillows, he would have been tempted to take her hips and push her so that she rubbed over him. "For now," she said, "just no touching." She smiled, released his hands, and added, "I'll let you know if there's anything else."
Riah's mouth took his, and in contrast to how he'd kissed her, she wasn't gentle. That bit of assertiveness on her part turned him on. He was perfectly willing to let her drive this time.
For a novice, she caught on quickly to dominance, though she didn't take it very far. He nearly suggested fetching his cuffs or a pair of her stockings, but neither her headboard nor her footboard had any holes through which the restraints could be placed. As a result, he kept his hands where she had placed them, moved only when she told him and how. For her part, she managed to tease him within an inch of his life with her mouth, her breasts, her hands, so much so that when she finally sank down over him, he suspected he wasn't going to last. She surprised him, though, seemed to know exactly when to still and keep him from coming without her.
He wanted to touch her, and when he asked if he could, she grinned, ground down on him and said, "No."
By the time Riah finally rode him to orgasm, he'd reconsidered the idea she was appeasing him. The woman had a sadistic streak he hadn't anticipated—but he wasn't complaining. When she collapsed against him, he considered wrapping his arms around her, but he didn't, left his hands where she'd put them. She rolled her head, pressed her lips against the base of his throat. "That appease you?" she breathed.
"For the moment," he told her. "You going to let me touch you now?"
His answer was that low, slow purr of hers.
When it was daylight, Casey shifted on the unfamiliar mattress. He was molded to Riah's back, though, so he didn't move much, just enough to get comfortable again. He considered waking her for a rematch, but before he could think any further than that, her alarm clock went off.
Riah's hand reached behind her, connected with his hip, felt up along his side. He rolled a little and shut off her alarm before catching her hand and bringing it to his mouth. He kissed her fingertips and then her throat, her jaw, and her mouth when she turned her head. "Can we go back to sleeping in my bed?" he asked when she turned toward him.
She kissed him very thoroughly. "I like mine," she said quietly.
"Mine has more room," he reminded her, and cradled her breast.
"We did just fine without all that room," she said and then moaned when he pulled her closer, moved against her. He kissed her, and when he let her mouth go, she asked, "Is this your way of saying you're finished being mad at me for saying what I did."
Casey moved his head back, stared at her. She hadn't been the one he'd been angry with—that had been himself. Her face was soft with sleep, and she stretched, rubbed her body against his, and he heard himself say, "Yeah."
She pulled his mouth to hers, kissed him and said, "Are you sure?"
Maybe her bed wasn't too small after all.
That night, though, he made sure she followed him into his bedroom
Things returned to normal—or at least as normal as things got on Mission Moron. The kid got himself into trouble; Casey and Walker, and occasionally Riah, got him back out of it. He worried that Riah might be a target, but as time passed and only Bartowski seemed to be on Fulcrum's radar, he relaxed. There were no side missions for a while, probably because Bartowski in jeopardy precluded it, so it came as a surprise when he heard from his former commanding officer, General Paul Patterson.
Beckman had sent him to Casey. There was a rapist preying on female officers, and General Patterson had asked if Casey could lend a hand catching the man. There were seven victims, two of whom had been killed, and none of the survivors could identify the man who attacked them. Reading the file, Casey wondered if they had chosen not to identify him. None of the military branches had particularly admirable track records when it came to the treatment of women.
He agreed to work the case. They would bait the trap with an old friend—former lover, actually—though Casey was not going to tell Riah that when he left. Celia Rogers, like him, was a major, and she was a drop-dead beautiful redhead. He was fairly certain Riah would not like that at all.
At the last minute, though, he decided to take Riah with him. After all, it might be better if he showed up with a date unconnected to the intended trap.
As soon as he walked in the apartment the evening of the operation, Casey's eyes searched for Riah. She stood at the kitchen counter prepping dinner. He dropped a kiss on her mouth. "I need you to come with me tonight. Formal dress."
He headed upstairs rather than wait for an answer. He owed Paul Patterson, and this whole matter, frankly, just pissed him off. It was bad enough to prey on women, worse when the women targeted were service members, fellow officers. Beckman was far from amused as well, though Casey suspected part of her annoyance stemmed from having Casey away from the Intersect for the evening. They had decided not to use Bartowski for this since it would be obvious he didn't belong, and Walker might be recognized for what she was. As a result, Walker would just have to babysit the Intersect.
Casey pulled his dress uniform from the closet and then turned back for his cover and shoes.
"And when do we need to leave?" Riah's question was a little testy.
"About two hours."
She crossed her arms, leaned on the door jamb and asked, "Where are we going?"
"Military ball," he told her, then named the hotel where it would be held. His old commanding officer believed they could catch the man that night. It seemed the rapist chose social events to select his targets
Eyeing the dress uniform he'd put on the bed, Riah asked, "Mission?"
He hesitated. It was, and it wasn't. Riah shrugged and crossed to the closet to find something to wear.
When they were both dressed and in the car, she asked, "Why am I going to a ball?"
Her question filtered through the mental checklist he ran. "I need a date." He had the earpiece and mic for Celia in a pocket, and he had memorized the hotel ballroom's floor plans. All he had to do was intercept Celia and quickly plot out her movements and where they could set up a good ambush for the bastard they were after.
Once they were inside the hotel ballroom, Casey spied Celia, nodded, and then kissed Riah's cheek and told her he needed to talk to someone. Celia's appreciative smile put him on alert. "Who's the civilian?" she asked as he stepped up to her.
"Girlfriend." He reached into his pocket for the electronics and handed them to her.
Before he could start his instructions, she lifted her brows. "Seriously, Casey, who is she?"
"Girlfriend," he repeated tersely.
She crossed her arms and quirked a brow. "You don't do girlfriend, Casey. I know."
He ignored her and started to quietly run through the decisions he'd made, put his hand on her back and began walking her through the areas where he thought they could best accomplish their mission. Celia always had a mind of her own, though, and he gritted his teeth as she challenged his decisions. He repeated himself firmly, and she came right back at him. She had always thought she knew better, but Casey was almost always proven right in their disagreements.
Casey remembered then why the sex hadn't been enough.
They broke off their argument when they were joined by a lieutenant colonel as they re-entered the ballroom proper. Casey hadn't seen the other man in years. The three of them talked old times and acquaintances. Casey would normally have enjoyed it, but he wanted to get this over with. He looked over his shoulder as Celia flirted with the other man, searched for Riah and found her talking to a captain he didn't recognize. He did, however, recognize the look on the man's face, and for the first time that evening, he took a good look at Riah and what she was wearing.
She had her hair up, one of those styles that twisted in the back, and pearls at her ears and throat. Her shoulders were bare, and he realized he'd never seen her expose that much skin before—if he didn't count when she was naked and they were having sex. The dress was black with a full-skirt, a strip of white ran over her breasts, called attention to them and exposed just a shade of cleavage. He narrowed his eyes, the shape and look of the dress was familiar though he couldn't place the reason for the familiarity. He didn't even excuse himself when he walked away from Celia, the lieutenant colonel, and the other two officers who had joined them while he looked at Riah.
Riah smiled grimly as the captain asked her to join him for a drink, and Casey clenched his jaw, had to make himself relax it enough to say, "The lady's with me," as he slid a hand into the small of her back. She stiffened, but he didn't care, looked a threat at the captain who excused himself and walked away. "Remember who brought you," he growled.
Ariel Taylor at her haughtiest, bitchiest self stared back at him from her daughter's face. Riah's chin lifted, her eyes went stormy and cold, and she raised her brows. She was more pissed off than he could remember seeing her. "Don't forget who you brought." She turned and walked away from him.
He almost went after her, especially when it became clear she was headed for the bar where the captain to whom she had been speaking had joined a couple of women at one end. Riah, though, went to the other end, and Casey relaxed when he realized she had taken a seat next to Paul Patterson. His old commander wouldn't let any harm come to her, and as long as she sat and talked to him, she'd be safe and Casey could focus on the job.
The other officers were gone when he rejoined Celia. For the second time in a matter of minutes, a woman raised her brows at him. "Still don't like to share your toys?"
He didn't dignify that with an answer, started in once again on how to play this out. In the back of his head, he hoped it would end quickly and he could get back to Riah, take her home, see what she was wearing under that dress because it sure as hell felt like nothing when he rubbed his hand along the surprisingly high back of the gown. Glancing over at her, he could feel the growl start, felt it roll up from his abdomen as she smiled at Paul Patterson. The General, God damn him to hell, was smiling right back at her as he held her hand and leaned toward her. Casey had a really bad feeling about this—in addition to the anger snapping through him at the besotted look on the General's face.
He followed Celia out, took up a concealed position where he could watch her, and he waited. He wished he was where he could see the ballroom, but he reminded himself he could trust Paul Patterson. The man had, after all, been madly in love with his own wife, he hadn't dated since her death the year before, and was old enough to be Riah's grandfather.
That was before he returned to the ballroom to find Riah dancing with his former commander. The other man was holding her closer than he ought. Just as Casey was about to approach them and cut in, he had Celia in his ear telling him she needed him.
It turned out to be a false alarm, and Casey began to think the night would be a wash. He told Celia he was going to check on Riah, but when he returned to the ball, she was nowhere to be found. General Patterson, on the other hand, was alone at the bar. Casey took the seat next to his old commander and signaled the bartender. He ordered scotch, neat, and turned to Patterson.
"Pretty little girl you found yourself," the General observed, lifting his own glass.
"Let her hear you call her that," Casey said softly, "and she'll probably gut you."
A small grin lifted one side of Patterson's mouth. "She didn't object."
Casey paused, the glass nearly to his lips and frowned at the other man. Riah had taken a verbal hunk out of him when he called her Baby once, but she had let a stranger call her a "pretty little girl" and hadn't objected?
He sat his glass back down, but before he could say anything, the General said, "I'm surprised you aren't the one getting gutted." Casey frowned. "You've ignored her since you brought her here," Patterson told him, then held up a hand to stop Casey's protest. "Yes, yes, you're here at my request and doing a job for me, but you left her where anyone could steal her. V. H. Adderly has always been very protective of his daughter. While I'm sure she's well-trained and can take care of herself, you know why you're here, and our boy could decide to change his pattern."
The General grinned, and Casey braced himself. "Besides, you should be ashamed of yourself. She's young enough to be your daughter."
"Well, hell," Casey growled, more than a little stung by the reminder, "she's young enough to be your granddaughter, but that didn't seem to keep you from holding her a little too closely on the dance floor."
The old man laughed. "You've got it bad, John." Before he could deny it, Patterson added, "But I can't say I blame you. How V. H. and Ariel managed to produce a daughter that charming, I'll never know."
Charming? Casey hadn't noticed that she was charming, exactly, but she certainly had her charms.
"She's not your usual type," the other man continued, "but she seems well-suited to you."
Casey was busy wondering what in hell that meant when Patterson suddenly smiled and said, "Here she is."
Riah looked a little nervous, and Casey wondered what she might have been up to while he was busy with what was apparently going to turn into the worst wild goose chase he'd been on in years. She smiled at the General, though, and Casey wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. He held her there, and Paul Patterson, damn him, twinkled at him. Patterson was a fierce son of a bitch. There was something wrong with the notion of the man twinkling. If he hadn't had the feeling it would prove whatever amused the other man was true, Casey would have released her then.
She slid her arm along his shoulders. Since he had the opportunity, he talked to Paul about old friends and enemies. Riah slowly relaxed. Casey kept his arm where it was and his hand on her hip. He absently stroked over it, noticed he still couldn't detect any evidence she was wearing anything under the silk except whatever held the skirts out. As the General explained how one of Casey's former fellow officers had been promoted and shipped to a cushy berth overseas, he felt Riah move a bit. He shot a glance at her face and saw a little self-satisfied smile curl her lips. He followed her line of sight and saw an impatient Celia looking his way. He stroked his hand up a bit and squeezed Riah's waist.
Casey eyed her, her face nearly on a level with his for a change, and she gave him one of those rare, dazzling smiles of hers. For a moment, he had the sour thought that now he had two people twinkling at him, but there was something in Riah's smile, an edge that had him excusing them to lead her on the dance floor. When he had put his arm around her and pulled her close as they moved, he asked, "What have you been saying to the General?"
She raised her face. Her expression was blank though her eyes gave away that she was far from relaxed—or pleased. "We talked about whiskey and movies."
Harmless enough topics, he supposed, but he couldn't shake the feeling that more than that had gone on between the two. He grunted and moved her around the floor smoothly. She could dance, he was surprised to learn. Walker was good at it, but few female spies he'd worked with were very accomplished. He'd once teased Bartowski that the younger man needed to know how to tango—the idiot learned the girl's part from his sister's fiancé—but he suspected Riah not only could do it but that Casey might enjoy doing it with her.
When the music ended, he escorted her back to the bar. Patterson had disappeared, and when he took the bar stool next to hers, he was surprised to see the bartender pour Riah a glass of whiskey from a bottle he recognized as the General's personal stash of bourbon. He always took his own liquor, having once told Casey that they never had anything worth drinking at things like this. His former commander and Riah's tastes and attitudes toward liquor were the same, he realized, and he wondered what else Riah had found in common with Paul Patterson. Women liked the General, after all. He'd seen the evidence time and again, but the man had never strayed, had never cheated on his wife. Casey's thoughts soured as he remembered that Paul was widowed.
When the bartender turned to him, Casey ordered scotch, preferring the sharp, smoky burn to the sweeter bourbon. When his glass was set before him, he raised it. "Apparently, you charmed him."
Even he could hear the curt disapproval in his voice, so he shouldn't have been surprised when her blue eyes went glacial. She lifted her glass. "Was I not supposed to?"
He snapped his own glass onto the polished surface of the bar. "You were supposed to be my date."
She nearly choked on her whiskey, and he'd never seen her do that before. She gently put her glass down and turned to face him more fully. "It's rather difficult be a 'date' when the gentleman who escorted you disappears for the entire evening." Her voice was low as she ground that out, and Casey wondered how he was going to defuse her anger. They had not really had an argument—bickered a bit now and then, but had so far avoided a real, knock-down, drag-out, slip-the-knife-in-where-it-would-do-the-most-damage fight. He wasn't sure he wanted to have one of those—knew he didn't want to have one in public—half afraid Riah would have one of two reactions: she would take no prisoners, or she would collapse. He didn't think he could withstand either response.
Riah wasn't finished, though. "Would you have preferred I amused myself with that captain earlier?" She looked around. "There's a rather handsome lieutenant colonel over there," she said and tilted her head in the man's direction, "and there's a good-looking major at the other end of the bar."
Casey returned her hard stare, silently told himself to say nothing further, and he apparently made the right decision when she sighed softly and added, "John, I know no one here but you. I have no idea why you brought me, but you apparently had a reason. The General is nice, charming, and he's the only person who spoke to me other than the captain and the bartender."
The General was also safe—at least Casey thought so. Maybe. His jaw ached, and he realized he had it so tightly clenched it was a miracle he hadn't cracked his teeth.
"No, Riah, I wouldn't prefer it. Paul Patterson wouldn't betray me that way." He tried to temper his voice when he said it, but a blue flame flared in her eyes when he finished. Something in that had come out wrong. This was what he got for talking to angry women, he supposed, but, damn it, she of all people ought to understand.
"Well, Major Casey," she said tightly. "You should have thought about that before you disappeared with that redheaded major and left me here alone."
That sounded suspiciously like jealousy, he thought, and he nearly taunted her with it. The truth smacked him upside the head, though. He had brought her here and, essentially, dumped her with no explanation. She could have been useful, he realized. Had he taken the time to explain, he might have been able to use her as another set of eyes, able to be where he couldn't. It had been shortsighted of him, and he wasn't used to the sensation that knowledge produced.
Riah, at least, generally followed the plan until forced to abandon it rather than arguing every single step of the way as Celia had done, and it would have been easier to work with her. Not only that, but there was an odd clause in ISI's official mission that would have entitled Riah to wear the Canadian army's uniform, qualified her for an officer's rank.
Perhaps that realization was why he tempered his response when he wasn't normally inclined to do so. "It's a job, Riah."
She opened her mouth to reply, but General Patterson was back. "I need to borrow your pretty little girl, John," he said, and took Riah's hand, led her to the dance floor.
Casey turned to watch, and as the General danced with her, he noticed the older man once more pulled her closer than Casey thought he ought. He ignored Celia in his ear a moment, and when Riah smiled widely up at Patterson, Casey felt like killing something. The feeling intensified when in response to whatever Riah said to the other man, the General put his head back and laughed. Riah laughed as well. Casey decided he'd had enough of watching her flirt with the other man, so when Celia curtly told him to come on, he skirted the dance floor and resumed his post.
It was probably just as well, he thought when another couple of hours had gone by and no one approached Celia who might be the rapist. He hadn't had to watch his former commander flirt with his. . . .
Casey's thoughts stalled. He'd told Celia without thinking that Riah was his girlfriend, but she had been right. He didn't do girlfriend, at least not long term, but whatever this was between him and Riah didn't feel like a transient thing. He could hardly have told Celia the truth, but Casey was uncomfortable with what the truth might actually be. Riah was no longer a cover. What they had was real, but he didn't have a name for it. Girlfriend didn't accurately cover it, and lover didn't seem right, either. Nor was she his partner. Paul had called her his pretty little girl, but Casey didn't think of Riah as a girl. She was a woman, and she was his.
Somehow he had expected to find her with Paul Patterson when he and Celia called it a night, concluded they were not going to catch the rapist after all. Patterson was alone at the bar, though, and Casey took a seat next to him. Riah's purse lay on the polished oak, and he assumed she must have gone to the ladies' room. He gave the General a curt summary of the evening, and when the other man sighed and shrugged before apologizing for dragging him out for nothing, Casey shrugged as well. They talked, and Casey grew uneasy as Riah continued to fail to return. Surely she wasn't off with some officer somewhere, and even as he thought it, he realized she wouldn't do that.
"Where's Riah?"
Patterson was lost in thought a moment. "I haven't seen her since she danced with that captain—Watson—an hour or so ago."
Casey went cold. His first instinct was to retract his earlier assessment that she wouldn't cheat on him. His second was to reaffirm that. She wouldn't. She wasn't made like that, and she certainly wouldn't have left her purse behind. He picked up the small, black, silk envelope, and opened it. Her BlackBerry was inside. Even if she had left the bag, she would have taken the phone. He studied those remaining in the ballroom, but he didn't see her. He stood up and walked the adjoining areas, but he didn't find her. He headed to the lobby, strode to the concierge's desk, but before he could finish describing her, the man asked, "Are you Major John Casey?"
Baffled, Casey cautiously confirmed it. He was handed an envelope, and Casey recognized Riah's neat, slanted handwriting. He ripped open the envelope. I've had enough and gone home. She didn't sign it.
She owed him an explanation, and he intended to get it.