Chapter 25

"John!"

She yanked the door open and stepped partly out into the hall to take one of the bags of groceries from him. "What did you do, buy the whole store?"

He smiled at her from between two more bags. "That's what I thought when I saw you come through my door with all those groceries. I'm just returning the favor."

"I don't need groceries. You did."

He came into the apartment and pushed the door shut behind him. "You do need groceries. I'm going to cook for you tonight."

She looked at him skeptically. "Do you even know how to cook? Your apartment didn't look like it."

"It was a new place," he said, slightly defensively. "And yes, I do know how to cook, it's just not much fun cooking for myself. Good food requires good company."

She smiled gently as she deposited her bag on the counter. "I'm glad you think I'm good company," she said as she took the second bag from his arms and put that down too.

He put the last bag on the counter and took her in his arms, giving her a long slow kiss. "Yes, I consider this very, very good company indeed," he said, his voice husky.

She pulled back slightly. "Are you…sure?" she whispered, tentative. "I mean…after what you saw…"

"Iris." He gathered her into his arms in a tight, impulsive hug; she returned it. "I told you, this didn't change how I felt about you. It still doesn't. That was one of the bravest things I've ever seen anyone do, walk in there today and play that video for the panel." He gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek and turned to the grocery bags. "You said, last night, that this all would be worth it if you could keep this from happing to anyone else again. It looks like you're going to get your wish. Tom's sister wasn't the only other victim besides you; Tom said she hinted that other female rookies on the force had gone through a 'rough hazing' also, and he thinks he might know some of her friends who may have gone through it. He's going to talk to them, see what he can find out." He reached into one of the bags, dug out a tall wine bottle. "Not enough to get you drunk, Iris, I promise. Just to go with the dinner and to get you to relax. You've had a bad couple of days."

"I came home and took a long nap. I was really tired." Iris admitted as she reached into one of her cupboards for two wine glasses and poured some wine into one for herself, the other for John. "So how did it go?" she asked as she handed him the glass.

He sipped the glass as he leaned against the counter. "They didn't arrest him, unfortunately. He refused to speak with them, asked for a union lawyer. Nothing they could do after that. But they did look at the video and Turner said she's pretty sure we can find at least three of the other men who raped you that night. One of them will talk."

"One of them is going talk or you'll make one of them talk?" she challenged him. "I don't want you breaking the rules for me, John."

"I'm not breaking rules. I'm evening the score." His eyes were hard chips of blue ice. "They broke the rules first, Iris. They touched you when you didn't want to be touched. They hurt you. You almost died because they were all drunk and decided to drive home." Haunted darkness. "I'm almost glad your fiancé died, Iris. Because if he hadn't, you'd be dead by now."

"He wouldn't have…" Iris protested.

He looked at her steadily. "Can you say that, Iris? Really say that? He was too much of a coward to face a hazing on his own, so he threw you into it without a second thought. Even got you drunk and drugged you to make it easier for them. If he could do that—this boy you grew up with, went to school with, and promised to marry—do you honestly think he wouldn't have turned into a Simon Carter, or an Andy Bowers?" A hard swallow. "A Peter Arndt."

He turned his back to her, putting his glass down on the counter. Without turning around, he said quietly, "Her name was Jessica. We'd gone out for three years. We were in bed together that September morning watching those two planes hit the Twin Towers. And I re-upped, and when I came back, she'd found someone else." A fist clenched. "One night I got a phone call from her. She sounded...upset. I could tell something was wrong. But I didn't leave. I didn't go to her. It was a little while before I got back to the States. And I found out she'd died. A car accident, they said. I knew better. Her husband Peter Arndt, the man she'd left me for, had been physically abusive for months. Then one night an argument got out of hand and he killed her, then belted her into her car and crashed it to make it look like she died in the accident." An anguished hiss. "I wasn't there. She called me for help and I didn't help her. I couldn't keep her from dying."

Iris swallowed hard at the pain in his voice. Guilt, regret, and a heart-deep pain. She knew that that felt like; despite what Kevin had done, she'd truly grieved for him. "I'm sorry, John." Empty words—but he'd know she meant them.

"I couldn't bear it if that happened to you. I've lost too many people I cared about. My Dad. Jessica. Sam." A hard swallow. "Joss."

So he'd known Joss Carter. Iris had heard of her—who hadn't? She'd almost singlehandedly brought HR down, but it had cost her her own life in the process. Iris had attended the memorial ceremony in which Joss Carter had received a posthumous Purple Shield from the NYPD. "I…I held her as she died. Watched the light go out of her eyes. She was the first person…woman… I'd truly cared about since….Jessica…and then she was gone. I got into this to stop bad things from happening to good people. She was one of the best people I've ever known. And I didn't keep her from dying, just like I didn't keep Jessica from dying." His voice was husky with unshed tears. "When you lose that one person who grounds you, connects you to the world, what do you become? I got…lost. Lionel followed me halfway across the country and brought me back. I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for him. But…I still felt lost." He turned, caught her gaze with his own. "And then I walked into your office that morning. And you dressed me down for trying to manipulate you." A ghost of a smile on his lips. "You caught my interest. And no matter how hard I tried afterward, I couldn't forget you. A friend of mine, Zoe, came to town. Offered to spend the night. And for the first time since I've known her, I turned her down. I looked at her but all I could see was you."

What could she say to that? Nothing. So she let her kiss say everything she wanted to say to him. It deepened, lengthened. His hands came up to cup her face, and she ran her fingers through his hair…and then a different hunger awakened. Gentleness turned into passion, and she broke off the kiss long enough to slip her shirt off over her head. He put his hands on her hips, lifted her seemingly effortlessly onto her kitchen counter, putting her face-to-face with him so she wouldn't have to stand on tiptoe to kiss him, and he didn't have to bend to reach her. His hands, strong but gentle, slid her bra straps off her shoulders, and she lost her breath in a hiss of pleasure as he stroked her bare shoulders, upper arms. Exquisite gentleness, so different from the hard, uncaring roughness she'd felt that night; and different from Kevin's inexperienced rough fumbling.

And different from the first time he'd touched her.

"John…" it was hard to think with his hands on her. She had to force herself to reach for his hands, grab his wrists, take his hands off her simply so she could form words. "Wait." He stopped, looked at her quizzically.

"You said you wouldn't let what happened change how you see me." He nodded wordlessly. "But you are. That first night, with you, on my birthday…it's different from how this feels now. You're looking at me like I'm a victim."

"I'm sorry, Iris," he said huskily. "I just…I don't want to remind you of what you went through."

"Stop thinking about it, John. What happened, happened. Nothing we can do about it now. It's just something I have to live with. But you treating me like a victim isn't going to help. It'll keep reminding me of what happened. Stop it. Just be yourself. That was…who I fell in love with."

It was the first time she'd dared to say The L-Word. The last time she'd told someone outside her family that she loved them had been Kevin—the cats and dogs at the shelter didn't count—and she had hesitated for a long time to use that word again. Had tried not to even think about it. But through the tumultuous events of the last few days, she'd come to the realization that somewhere along the way she'd fallen in love with John. She had to be crazy, out of her mind, falling for someone—falling in love with someone—who she didn't even really know anything about; she wasn't sure, at this point, if John Riley was even his name. But she knew him, even if she didn't know anything about him, and that was who she'd been first attracted to, and who she'd gotten to know during sessions in her office.

She knew he was attracted to her. That he cared for her. But he hadn't used The L-word; and just now, listening to him talk about Jessica, about Joss Carter, she knew he had loved them. Didn't know how he felt about her; but now she knew he'd had a first chance. And a second. And had lost both, in the worst ways possible. She remembered Dad's words 'Love like that comes along once in a lifetime, if you're lucky.' It was easy to understand how he'd fallen into the survivor's guilt trap; how he'd decided that shutting himself off was the best way to keep from getting hurt again. And she knew he'd never love her the way he'd loved Jessica, and Joss Carter.

But that was all right. Maybe she was being blind and stupid and foolish, falling in love with a man who might not—maybe couldn't—return it, but at least this time she'd known what she was getting into. And that reminded her…she slid off the counter, her hands going to his pant zipper—he'd obviously gone home after work, changed into something comfortable before going to the store for groceries and coming to her place.

She'd avoided the trashy romance novels Melissa gave her, with their steamy sex scenes, out of disgust. She'd never felt that way for a man, about a man, and had simply dismissed it as an author's fantastic imaginings. But her own situation with John was straight out of a soap opera—a therapist falling for a patient, for pity's sake!—and in the last few weeks she'd dug those books out of the back of her closet and started reading them. She would never, ever admit to anyone that she did—but she'd learned a few things from them.

John groaned as she started using that knowledge. "Iris…you keep that up…we'll never get dinner…"

"I could have you for dinner," she chuckled, and apparently the vibration and the changing pressure in her mouth had some interesting effects on him.

He grabbed her shoulders, pulled her to her feet. "Iris…don't start something you aren't willing to finish," he said, and she read a dark, predatory sexual hunger in his eyes. And…she wasn't afraid of it. There was no malice in it, in him. And something inside her wanted to rise to meet that challenge.

"What makes you think I'm not willing to finish it?" she initiated the kiss this time, and let herself go; let her own heat and passion loose in an aggressive, hungry kiss.

He felt the change in her, and groaned again. "Bed…more comfortable…"

"Yess…" she hissed into his mouth, and, dinner forgotten, they headed off to the bedroom.