chapter 25
They made it down in the elevator without any other incident and found where he'd parked. Sean tossed in the bag of food and walked around to put her in. Was she gonna give him crap about it? He'd worry later, just wanted his hands on her. Any excuse.
Jo was tapping her foot; winding herself up to have a go at him, when he walked around the truck and saw her. He slowed down a little. Looking nervous. She frowned at him.
Sean sighed. "C'mon, Jo. I'm just gonna lift you in." He grinned. "You know you can't reach on your own." He shrugged. "I could go without you. Take one of the guys."
"Oh," she hissed at him. "Don't you start that again."
"What? Start what?"
"Do you really want to have this fight here?"
"Are we fighting? I thought I was helping you into the truck." He purred at her, smirking.
"Humph," she grunted at him. She did need his help. "Fine! Please help me into the truck."
"Gladly." He grinned wider. And moved in close, trapping her against the side.
"Sean..." she sounded like she was warning him now.
He stopped short, frowning. "We do have a problem, don't we?" He said softly. "I thought we were done with this at Sexy's. No, huh?"
"Location," she reminded him. "I mean do they have cameras in here?"
"They couldn't see anything anyway. You're so tiny." He sighed. "Yeah, at the exits and over the elevators."
"So, just help me in the truck... just do that... "She knew if she offered him something for later, he would more than take it.
"For now. But, I'm not letting you get away from me. Not now that I know what you're really worth." He looked at her like she was made of solid gold.
That look hit her hard. He looked so serious. She put her hand up and brushed across his chest; when he was this close she had real issues not touching him. He was wearing her down. "Thanks for the compliment, I guess. But we have to get going."
"Huh. Compliment?" He grabbed her, not as gently as usual and dropped her on the seat. Stomped back around and slammed his door shut. Didn't shut hers.
She rolled her eyes and leaned out to snag the handle and pull the door shut. She put her seatbelt on. If he was this cranky, God knows what his driving would be like.
Sean was a little confused and that made him angry. He didn't want to fight with her, but she made him so nuts. He was trying to say he needed her and she thought he was being polite and 'complimenting' her? Christ, what did he have to do to make it plain to her?
He silently sulked the whole way to the stakeout. Nodded as he passed the other car, and took their place when they drove off. Settled into the seat and looked out the window.
Jo watched him out of the corner of her eye. She knew she had upset him, but honestly, what did he want? They had known each other less than a week, had sex once and he's giving her the 'I'm not letting you get away' speech. It was the stuff of serial killers and stalkers. She sighed, again, and reached for the food bag. Or maybe romance novels; like she ever read those...
He figured she didn't want to talk about it, he just wouldn't say anything... at least that way he wouldn't be saying the wrong thing. Let her make conversation, if she wanted. God only knew, she could talk.
Jo picked at her sandwich. Why did it need twenty slices of meat? She took most of it off and even then, she could only eat half of it. She looked up at Sean.
"Do you want my sandwich?" she offered.
He hadn't even touched his. "Not hungry," he positively snarled. Didn't look at her.
Just stared out the window.
"Oh," she said in a small voice. "You sure?" Then she interrupted herself before he could growl at her again. "Fine... you told me..." She wrapped it up and put it back in the bag. She sighed. She looked out the window, she wriggled, she reached down and pulled her feet out of her shoes.
"What the fuck are you doing?" He snapped. "This is a stakeout, not a goddamn drive-in movie!"
"New shoes," she tried to explain. "They're hurting my feet."
"I don't believe this. You wore new shoes to a stakeout? What if we have to chase somebody? You gonna run down that alley barefoot?"
"I brought another pair and YOU are the one who wanted me to dress like this...I wanted to wear a suit and sensible shoes... but, oh no..."
"Oh, shut up! Gimme your feet." At least he was looking at her.
"What?" she squeaked.
"Don't tell me you didn't understand me. I said; give...me...your...feet." And he stuck out one hand.
She tentatively slipped her shoes off, undid her seat belt, twisted her body so that she was leaning against the door and slowly slid her feet over towards him.
Sean shook his head and sighed. Women. Why did they always buy shoes that made their feet hurt? Couldn't they find ones that looked good AND fit? He picked up Jo's left foot and began to gently rub it; the arch, around the back of the heel and the base of her toes. He felt her tense at first and then she began to relax a bit. "Better?"
"Yes, thank you and I didn't know we were going to be on a stakeout..."
"I told you we were replacing D and Franco. I thought you knew. Gimme the other one. You need some of those little pad things... or you're gonna get blisters." He groused.
"You told me that this morning, after I got to the office."
"Well, that's when I found out. You should keep a change in your locker, I guess."
"I do. It's in my car. I've got other shoes, though. And that feels really nice."
"Mmm. Used to do this for Stace, too. She always had sore feet after we went out."
He looked up at her. He looked surprised.
"I guessed that... but I didn't know how to ask. You knew exactly the right place to rub." She was still uncertain of her boundaries, but she added, "It's okay to miss her, Sean."
He still looked slightly shell-shocked. "I never said anything about her before this without … getting choked up. I don't know what this means. I... I'm not gonna forget her... am I?" Now he sounded scared.
"Shush, shush," she said. She scooted across the seat and tried to hug him. "You won't forget her... of course you won't... she's still in your head and your heart and nothing can change that. Or replace that. Nothing and no one."
Stiff and shaky when she first put her arms around him, he took a couple of deep breaths and visibly tried to relax. "Fuck, this is hard. I get so confused. I want to move on, but... I don't want to forget her. She saved my life... she was my life."
He looked at her. "I don't now how to do this, Jo. I need someone to help me. I want it to be you."
Jo inhaled. And this was her problem; every time she helped him a little further down the road to healing, she was going with him; holding his hand. And she was passing the point of no return.
"You don't really have anyone else do you, Sean? No family... only D and Sexy?"
"Yeah. For a long time. Mom's gone... haven't had a Dad since I was a kid. My sisters' moved cross country."
"Crap, is that a car?" She interrupted his reverie.
"Camera. Get the camera."
She scrabbled back to the passenger side and pulled the camera out of the glovebox. They should have done this before... unprofessional again.
"Didja get it?" He was slouched down now. Watching as the car rounded the far corner of the block.
She passed it to him.
He looked through the viewfinder. "Fuck! Missed the plate.'
"Sorry, I should have got it out before and then we got distracted with our D&M." [deep and meaningful - discussion]
"Huh?" He looked sideways. "Not your fault."
She didn't look happy.
"Don't worry about it. I think they kept going anyway. Just keep an eye out in case they come back." Sean knew she'd be fretting about it. She always got stuck in the details.
"And I am putting my other shoes on, can't chase anything down with no shoes on."
"Okay. I probably shouldn't be looking at your feet, anyway. You have pretty feet. Tiny... like your hands."
She smiled at him and blushed.
"Wanna hand me that sandwich. I'm hungry. And a water." He reached out without looking, just blindly extending his hand across the cab. Smacked it right into her chest. Now, he looked. "Oh, shit! Sorry."
"Jeez, knock the air out of me why don't you? It's okay... I'll get it for you." She found the food bag on the floor and passed him the sandwich and the water, as requested. Then she swapped out the red pumps for a black pair from her bag. She held her foot up for him. "Better?" she asked.
"Mmmhmmpf." His mouth full, he could only nod. Hoped she hadn't caught the quick readjustment he'd had to make after palming her breast. She had her head buried under the dash looking for her shoes. She made him crazy. Even when she wasn't trying.
"Yeah, I preferred the red shoes too," she said as if she had understood him.
Taking a gulp of water, he cleared his throat. "You can run in those?"
She looked chagrined. "Well not the best... but better than the others. These are Beautifeels; they're like a support high heel. You did want me to blend in, remember?"
"Yeah, yeah. Blame me."
"I'd be fine in boots," she argued. But then she had a hot memory of them both ripping their boots off on Friday and she stopped talking.
Sean obviously remembered, too. "Boots..."
She cleared her throat. "The real question is 'can I run in these pants?'"
"I can see you running barefoot... but, you cannot take the pants off. Or I'll be chasing you." He chuckled. "Instead of the perp." He pretended to think about it for a minute. "'Course if you took 'em off, the perp might just forget about running altogether."
"Yeah, right," she huffed.
Sean muffled a laugh. Cocked an eyebrow at her. Snickered. "Gotcha." He grinned, "distraction, remember?"
"What?" she queried.
"I thought we had discussed this. I'm faster, so you are supposed to distract the perp so I can catch him. Don't you remember?"
"Well, maybe so, but the only person I seem to distract is you."
"Well, you need to practice, so we get smooth at it." He snorted another choked off laugh. "Maybe I just need to get accustomed to it. And believe me, you distract a lot of people. Don't you notice?"
She frowned a little. "I do? That's just because I'm new and different... you know."
"Fuck, no! It's 'cause you're beautiful. Why you think Gonzalez is being such an ass? Fuckin' jealous. Even D looked you over. Not that he'd do anything."
She blinked at that. "There's a Gonzalez in every office... and they try to turn everything you say into a double entendre … you know a sexual double meaning. Usually I just ignore them."
"And in Mamacita's... every guy in the place was ogling you. Even before you punched me out. 'Stafa at Sexy's... I could go on."
"Probably a few less... after I punched you out," she chuckled.
"Still... You turn heads."
"Yeah right," she huffed. "And YOU have no affect on women at all!"
"That's different. I'm a man."
"What? What's the difference? Men check me out, women check you out."
"Yeah, but... uh... " He looked confused, again. "I never thought about it like that. Just... women look, but they don't do anything. Guys will... uh... you know...push."
Like she didn't know that. Look what he was doing. "Fine... I'll agree that women look but don't touch." It crossed her mind to wonder how she would react to that; if a woman touched him now. She had been sulky enough when that Maria woman in the Mexican restaurant had fussed over him.
Sean sighed, and turned to watch the building. Less than a half hour later, he tapped Jo's thigh. "Camera. People coming." He hadn't changed position, still looking asleep. "Behind us."
A pair of young men swaggered up the opposite side of the street. As they got closer, Sean snaked out an arm and pulled Jo closer and down so she wasn't visible over the dash. Almost put her head in his lap. He took the camera and clicked off a few quick shots, one-handed. The other he had on her shoulder, pressing her down.
As the gang members passed, he jerked forward, and let her go. When her head popped up, the boys were staring right at the truck. They hooted and shoved each other around, laughing and making rude gestures at her. But they kept going.
He sighed. "Sorry. Thought I recognised one of them. This way all he'll be thinking about is the lucky brother with the white hooker. Not wondering if he knows the truck... or me."
"Lucky brother," she repeated. "Jeez, give a girl some warning will you?"
Sean glanced at her. "I did warn you." He smirked a little. "What did you want me to do? Ask permission first? Those two are Bones... probably headed to a pre-sale meet. Setting up the rules for the exchange."
"So there's no point following them now?"
"Let's wait a bit. Don't want to spook them." He was staring intently out the window. "Watch for anybody doesn't fit in. This area is deep in their territory. Any strangers will be pretty twitchy."
"Assuming they know where they are. Are the boundaries that solid?"
"Depends on the crew. The Bones are pretty tight."
"So any infringement, they'll take badly."
"S'why I grabbed you." He looked at her. "If they'da recognised me, they might have run... or they mighta just started shootin'. Those big shirts make it easy to hide automatic pistols. And half these shits got armour-piercing rounds. "Specially if these are the guys that knocked over that Navy shipment."
She looked at him. She was a little horrified that he was so matter of fact. This was his world and it was so different to hers. Random shootings and gang wars were still pretty rare in Sydney. Australia just did not have the amount of guns that America did.
"You took D out on the weekend... what if something had happened to him, Sean?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"You are just calmly talking about random shootings if the guys think they recognise you. D would not have gone out on the weekend, except you asked him to."
Sean stared at her. "Jo, this is life, here. D knows. We grew up with this. We're careful. It's nothing unusual. We take risks every day. Saturday was no different." He sounded like he couldn't believe she was making such a big deal out of it.
"Well I don't like it," she grumped. As if what she felt could change it.
He snorted. "I don't, either. It's why I do this. Try to stop some of it." He grimaced. "D, too. We're only trying to make things better for... our people. It's not the fat cats at the top that get shot; die from overdoses. It's the kids in the 'hoods."
He looked over at her, so serious. "I lost probably half my friends... kids I grew up with... before I graduated high school." He swallowed hard. "I don't want that to happen to Rachel, or my kids, if I ever have any."
She reached for his hand. "I can't imagine living with that. My High School had a kid commit suicide in year 12 and the whole year got counselling. It is just a different world."
"Yeah, I guess. D, Sexy and I were lucky. We got out."
His head turned and he hissed at her, "Down! They're comin' back."
She didn't argue this time. Just threw herself down onto his thigh.
It went rock-hard under her cheek and she heard him inhale sharply. But he didn't move except to poke the lens over the edge of the window. She could hear it whirring as he took several shots.
Then a thunk sounded. Sean had tilted the wheel up out of the way. "Get up and come sit on me." He growled at her.
Her first instinct was to hide on the floor and pray he drove away, but she knew if they did that they would be blown. Running would make it very obvious they were not what they pretended to be. She lifted her head and moved to straddle his lap. She tried to be flippant, "We trying hos and joes again?"
"Mmmm." He answered as he nuzzled into the valley between her breasts. His hands slid up her back, under her shirt. He was playing with the clasp to her bra.
"Oh God," she muttered.
"Shhh. You see anybody come outta that door down there?" He chuckled. "I can't see."
She hitched herself a little closer to him, wrapped an arm around his head, turning her head to rest her cheek on the top of his head and looked towards the door.
Sean groaned. "Oh, fuck."
"Two... look Asian..." she whispered to him.
"Can you get a shot? They should be the buyers." He was muffled in her chest.
His breath was so hot against her skin. She took the camera from his hand below the door height, lifting it carefully. Her hand was a little small to hold it and take the shot but she managed it. "I hope it's got anti-shake... you're making my hands shake."
"Yeah, well I just hope I don't hafta chase anybody right now." He answered. "Is this bra expensive?"
"Yes... don't you break it... if you want it off, just ask..."
"Wanna hang it on the mirror... "
"What? Why?"
"Looks good." He laughed and rubbed his face on her some more.
She stroked the skin on the back of his head. "They've gone," she pointed out.
"Aww, damn." He chuckled and slipped his hands to the front, giving her a quick tweak. "Did you get the shots?"
"I hope so." She leaned back a little from him.
He tilted his head up to see her face. "Can I have a kiss?"
She looked at his face, so eager, so needy. And those eyes; big chocolate pools. She leant in and brushed her lips gently over his.
Sean sighed, a bit disappointed. But at least she hadn't said no. He checked his watch. Should really get her back where she belonged anyway. Next shift would be here any minute... and that meant Gonzalez.
"Thank you." He whispered. "You gotta get off me now. Shift change coming up."
"Eep, I forgot about that!" She rocketed off him and back to the passenger side.
Sean made no attempt to hide the fact that he was rather uncomfortable, simply reaching down and moving himself as best he could. "Fuck!" He swore.
"You don't have to get out of the car do you?" she asked worriedly, with a pointed glance at his groin.
"I hope it goes away by then." He huffed. I'm gonna hafta change to boxers if we do this very often. Or I'm gonna strangle something important."
"Oh no, don't do that," she said quickly, before she had really thought about it. Then she blushed.
He grinned like a school boy who'd just asked the most popular girl in school to the prom... and she said yes.
She grinned back at him; it was contagious. She squirmed a little and did some bra refixing. He had almost got her out of it. Thank goodness he had remembered the shift change; she had completely forgotten.
She checked the camera to make sure she had got a half decent shot of the two guys. It looked okay.
Sean bumped her shoulder. "Here they come. Time to go." He straightened up and turned the truck on. Then smoothly pulled out as the other car passed. He never looked at the driver, but Gonzalez stared at them, a nasty smile on his face.
"Ewww," said Jo. "Imagine if you had hung my bra on the mirror." She shuddered.
"Huh?" He looked in the rear view. "Why?"
"Seriously? Gonzalez would have never let that one go."
Sean just growled like an angry lion. "I'll kill him if he says anything."
"Don't react Sean... if you do, he knows he has hit a sore spot and he will keep poking at it... just let it go."
"Not if he's dead, he won't." He was scowling, and his nostrils flared as he breathed heavily.
He looked half serious to Jo. She reached over and ran her hand down his arm. "Don't react Sean... he's not worth it."
She tried to change the subject. "So, back to the office?" she asked brightly.
"Yeah, gotta run the photos." He looked her over. "You did say you had a change of clothes? Maybe you should do that first?"
"Why? I wore this into the office this morning."
"Ok, as long as you're okay with it..." He didn't seem too happy about that.
She sighed. She didn't need to cause more problems for him and if he beat down someone else because they made a comment... "My change of clothes is in my car. I can grab it when we park." She gave him a small smile. "If that would make you feel better."
"Good." He nodded, watching the road. They were already on the freeway, headed back north to downtown.