Hunting Grounds

Chapter 18

Dinner had been followed by sitting on the sofa waiting for Rosie to send an email. That had allowed Kate and Rick to start kissing. And it had progressed into touching. They were soon way past second base. Rick had her bra pushed up so his hand was on her bare breast.

Kate had escalated the touching by opening his pants and getting her hand under his waistband. She had hold of him and was doing what she could to get him hard.

However, both were having trouble holding their concentration. Kate was about ready to lose hers when she realized her pants were open and his hand was on her core rubbing her clitoris hood. And then suddenly he had a finger inside her.

"Bed. NOW!" Done with all this, Kate wanted to graduate to something far more substantial and gratifying.

[_] /\ [_]

Rick's unpacked clothes ended up on the floor, not that either of them cared. After all, the floor wasn't that dirty.

Kate was still on top, and he was still inside her but was shrinking fast. She was content to just lie on top of him. God, she had missed him. She didn't even notice the tears.

"Did I hurt you? Are you crying?" Rick could hear her sniffling.

"No." Kate meant no to both and yet used a hand to wipe away the tears, demonstrating that yes, she was indeed crying.

"Well, since you're not crying…" Rick made sure his arms were nice and tight around her to hold her in place. He liked right where she was.

That only caused Kate to shed more tears. She wasn't used to this. She didn't cry; she rarely had any reason to. Yet here she was lying naked on a naked Rick after having sex. Lots and lots of sex. She was tired but very content right where she was.

Kate buried her face into his body and opened her mouth to tell him something. But she closed it again and held her tongue. Part of her screamed for her to tell him. And part of her tried so hard to get her to stay quiet. One side had to win.

"I think… I think I'm falling in love with you." A part of her had won the fight. Now both sides were arguing about how prudent telling him that really was.

Her admission made his telling her so much easier. "Kate, I fell in love with you when we were on that spaceship. The first one, not the one we have hidden somewhere in Maine."

Her eyes opened wide in disbelief, Kate took a breath and raised her head to look at him. To study his face to see if he was lying to her. "You. Love. Me?" No one had loved her since Sorenson had said he had, and look how well that worked out.

He stroked her cheek. "How could I not love you? Do you remember when I told you that women who could put up with having their men up and disappear on deployment for months at a time didn't grow on trees?"

Kate didn't answer him, but yes, she remembered.

"You strike me as a woman who could manage it. Oh, you wouldn't enjoy it any more than the other women or the men. But I think you could do it. Besides being very pretty and amazingly sexy." Rick grinned at her and saw her smile back at him.

"You have a good head on your shoulders. You didn't stand there screaming as that dog or whatever it was, tried to eat you alive. You have strength. You're an impressive woman, Kate Beckett, so please, allow me the honor of loving you."

Every word he said Kate felt go straight to her heart. She felt even more tears on her face. Was that why she was crying? She hadn't ever felt like this before. Not about anyone.

Kate nodded, too overwhelmed to say anything. She lay her head back down and let him hold her. She might still be a little scared, but a part of her was soaring. And that part of her was screaming really loudly, I TOLD YOU SO!

[_] /\ [_]

Kate woke to find herself alone in her bed. A sudden fear struck her heart. He had left her! Sex with her was one thing. He had gotten what he wanted, and he was gone. Then she heard the toilet flush; now she was cursing herself for thinking such thoughts. She sat up on the edge of the bed and waited for him to come back into the bedroom.

When he did, he was still naked. And she couldn't stop her eyes from going down there. Yes, she had seen everything, and she still liked what she saw. Kate held up a finger and motioned him closer till he was in range, and she reached out to take hold of him. Soon she had him in her mouth; she wanted to taste him again. She might still be tired and a little sore, but she could handle this and do this for him.

[_] /\ [_]

Her claw foot tub only really held one person at a time. Two would be stretching it, so she had gone first. Now Kate was dressed, ready for work, and sitting at the table with her laptop in front of her. She hadn't checked on Rosie last night. She had been far too busy with other things to do that.

Then she felt him. "This Rosie?" Rick was right behind her.

"She send four emails last night, and I missed all of them." She felt sort of bad about that.

"Well, you were kind of busy." Rick bent down and kissed her cheek, and Kate smiled. Yeah, she had a reason, a good reason, but she had still missed talking to Rosie. "Where's the coffee?" Rick needed something to kickstart his day.

Kate waved toward the kitchen and began to respond to one of Rosie's emails. "I'm going to tell Rosie you've arrived and moved in with me."

"Good." Rick would talk to Rosie later. For now, Kate could do all the talking or typing. "This is a coffee machine? What is it with you and coffee? That stuff in the precinct was more embalming fluid. No, that's too good for that stuff. Battery acid. No, still not good enough. I've got it! A monkey peed in battery acid. Okay, we're getting a new coffee machine and stopping at that coffee shop on the way into the precinct."

"Alright." Kate answered absently since her focus was on reading what Rosie had already sent and noticed that she was already responding to the first one.

"Rosie wants to know what you thought of her real estate locations. I'm telling her you loved the one in Hartford, Maine. And that she needs to look for used trucks still in good shape that are pre-1980 and local to this area."

"Tell her hi for me. We can talk later. Oh! Ask her to look for camouflage netting suitable for the area. We need enough to cover the ship to help hide it after we move it." Rick was beginning to think having her around to do all this shopping was a blessing.

"Done! We need to get to work. Montgomery told us to get in early for some reason." Kate was a little concerned that he wanted to find a way to get rid of Rick, to stop him from being her partner.

"If you're worried he's trying to find a way to get rid of me, you can stop. He doesn't have access to the right people to do that," Rick reassured her.

Kate closed her laptop after saying goodbye to Rosie till tonight. "So who did sign those orders?" Just who was this friend of his that arranged this?

Rick grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know? You ready? We still have to stop for real coffee first."

At that, Kate picked up her bag, checked to make sure she had everything, and then followed him out the door. "Would it be possible for me to have a key?" Rick asked her since he did live here even if most of his clothes were still in his duffle bag, or stacked on top of her dresser.

"We can stop and have one made on the way home tonight." Kate was more than willing for him to have a key. She wanted him to stay with her, hopefully forever. She found herself being thoroughly kissed at the bottom of the stairs on the way out. Naturally she kissed him back.

[_] /\ [_]

Since Rick had stopped at the coffee shop to get REAL coffee, Kate went up to her desk alone and saw that yes, indeed, Captain Montgomery was in his office. The guys, though, weren't yet in. So she proceeded to power up her computer, checked for any emails she had missed, and then checked her phone for any messages she had missed.

There was one text from Lanie asking how she was doing. Kate couldn't keep the smile off of her face. After last night and a quick blow job this morning, she was doing amazingly well. Even Rosie sounded like she was happy now that they were both together again.

Kate was reading a file on her computer when a coffee cup with a cardboard sleeve showed up next to her keyboard. Grateful, she watched Rick sit down in the chair next to her desk. "Thanks." The jolt of caffeine was going to be just what she needed. What he brought her wasn't going to taste like that nasty stuff in the breakroom.

"So, is coming in this early unusual?" Rick asked while he took a sip of his coffee. He had actually bought three: one for Kate, one for himself, and one to get past the Desk Sergeant downstairs.

"Being asked to come in early? Kinda. My being here early maybe not so much." She couldn't help but wonder what her Captain wanted. He obviously had gotten in very early. Since a lot had changed in her life of late, she had no idea what this was about.

Rick twisted around to look at Roy. He seriously doubted that Roy had the pull to have his orders changed even if he wanted to. His introduction to him suggested that he didn't care that Rick was here. He honestly didn't have plans to interfere with how Roy ran his precinct.

Rick was also betting his reports would end up in one of two places: the trash out back, after being shredded of course, or stuffed into a box and put in storage somewhere, never to be seen again. This might be a dead-end deployment but at least it came with benefits – he got to see Kate.

[_] /\ [_]

It was still early and Captain Montgomery had yet to even come out of his office, so why they had to come in early was still a mystery. However, they had a dead body, so Kate had driven them to the site. They walked down the street and then ducked under the yellow tape.

Rick glanced over at her. "So we're usually the last to know there's a dead body?"

"Welcome to the life of a detective. Hey, I thought Terrific Nick's was on the East Side?" Kate thought she knew her pizza places.

"No, that's Authentic Terrific Nick's. This is just Terrific. Then there's Terrific Authentic Nick's. That's right across the street." Rick pointed behind him as they continued inside.

"Alright, what's the difference?" Kate was falling behind these names.

"What's different is that this one has a dead body in it," Lanie informed them since she had gotten here before them.

"Ooh, O-kay." Kate laid her eyes on the dead body in the pizza oven. "Wow that is…" She stopped and just looked.

"Well done," Rick added since this was his first oven-baked dead body.

"Fortunately, he's just half-baked," Lanie added and suffered Kate's glare for keeping the joke going. "Male, mid-40s, and that's about all I can tell you till I get him back to the morgue."

Then Lanie came really close to Kate and whispered, "Is that him?" Lanie meant him as in the new love of Kate's life. The one with whom she had gotten lost. "You've been holding out on me, honey." Lanie didn't understand why some woman somewhere hadn't already snatched him up.

She introduced herself to Rick. "Lanie Parrish, Medical Examiner."

"Richard Rodgers, United States Navy. Are you that Lanie? Kate's best friend, Lanie?" Rick thought he had someone he needed to talk to about Kate. Get some inside information.

"So you two have talked about me?" Lanie was all smiles and she gave Kate the eye.

"Can you both focus, please?" Kate was getting annoyed. There was a dead body and Lanie didn't need to be talking about her life here and now. "I'm afraid to ask, but what's the cause of death?"

"It wasn't the oven," Lanie told her. "The stab wound to the chest tells me he was already dead when he went in. No earlier than 2:00 am."

"Murdered and then baked," Rick said. "Just guessing here, but he was baked to cover how and by whom."

Espo joined them. "No signs of forced entry and no prints on the doors, front or back."

"Who found the body?" Kate was guessing the owner but needed to know.

"Nick Junior. Not Terrific Nick, just Authentic Nick." Espo stopped when Kate gave him that look. "What?"

[_] /\ [_]

"George Burns," Lanie told Kate and Rick after they entered her office.

"You got prints?" Kate would be impressed if she had.

Lanie shook her head. "Not a chance. He did have titanium plates on his leg here. Dental numbers led me to his name."

"THE George Burns?" Rick inquired as that name popped up in his memory.

Kate was shocked. "You know him?"

"He was a war correspondent. An investigative reporter now, I think. What was he doing in a pizza oven?" Rick saw the look Kate had on her face. "I'm Navy and I was a SEAL team lead. Why would I not know a war correspondent?"

Kate gave Rick that. She searched the deceased's wallet and came up with a picture of a lovely young woman. "Wife, girlfriend?" She looked at Lanie.

Lanie shrugged. "He's listed as divorced."

[_] /\ [_]

"How do you know so much about pizza?" Kate was adding information to her white board while Rick was close by watching her.

"My mother lives here, remember? I was born and raised in this city. I spent a lot of my young life behind the scenes of a lot of theaters. Cheese pizza used to be one of my favorites in my youth. And Mother could afford it. Unlike all those high-priced movie actors, actors on Broadway don't usually make nearly as much."

"Ah." Kate got it now.

"So why was a war correspondent killed over pizza wars? Afghanistan, Tienanmen Square, to Authentic Nick's. He had to have found something. He used to be good." Rick didn't get it.

Something hit her. "Now that I think about it, Burns had to have kept notes. HEY, RYAN! Where did he live?" Kate called out.

[_] /\ [_]

"Door's been kicked in." Espo went in first with his weapon drawn.

Kate noted the obvious. "It's been trashed." Then Rick called her over. "Find something?" She let him have this one since he wasn't a detective.

"Does this bed looked well slept in to you? Changed the sheets, perhaps?" Rick knew how she felt about sleeping on clean sheets.

"No, it doesn't. So if he wasn't here, where was he staying?" Kate queried; Rick had actually found something.

[_] /\ [_]

"Cavalla?" Rick questioned once the leads took them toward drugs.

"Ryan, you were in Narcotics. When did you first hear about Cavalla?" Kate called out to him.

"2003 I think. Back when all those dealers were getting whacked."

"Running drugs out of real locations. It's not enough to get a warrant to look into it, but what if these drugs are in pizza boxes," Kate put forward to the three of them.

"That sounds risky even to me. I mean all of his workers would have to know they weren't putting just pizza in those boxes," Rick pointed out.

"Ryan, I want you to start digging into all of the workers."

"Which ones?" Ryan asked her.

"All of them. Terrific Nick's, Authentic Terrific Nick's, Authentic Nick's, and whatever other Nicks there are. I think I'm off pizza for a while." The dead body hadn't done it for her though having drugs in pizza boxes had.

[_] /\ [_]

"Authentic Terrific Nick's Pizza." Rick walked up to take-out with Kate.

"Want a slice?" the worker asked them.

"No, take-out, special order. For Sam Spade."

"Of course, Mr. Spade. I've got your order right here." He retreated and took out a box from under the counter, not from the warming drawer where hot pizza would be kept.

"We'll place it on your tab, sir."

"Thank you." Rick took a few steps and turned away to open it. "That is not pizza." All they both saw was bag after bag of something that clearly wasn't pizza.

[_] /\ [_]

"Monica Wyatt!" Kate looked at Rick and grinned wide. "Burns only took a picture of her and not him."

"She's Cavalla?" Rick gaped at her since this case was seriously something he wasn't used to. This wasn't him but he needed to learn.

[_] /\ [_]

Rick was following Kate into their apartment. "A woman as a master drug dealer. That must be why she was getting away with it. All those male Narcotics guys might not believe it so they over looked it?" Rick asked her.

"Maybe, but I don't think you're giving them enough credit. We cops don't care who you are. If you are a suspect then you're a suspect. And did you have time to stop and get pizza?" Kate wasn't sure she was that hungry.

"It's not Authentic Nick's, Terrific Authentic Nick's or any other Nicks," Rick told her. "It's from that little place down the street from the precinct. Surely they aren't selling drugs being that close to a precinct."

"Well, I'm going to let you taste test it while I go back out and get beer." Kate turned around and kissed him soundly.

"Heineken for me, please," Rick said as she started to leave.

"I'll think about it," Kate teased him and closed the door behind her. Meanwhile, Rick opened the box just to make sure yet again that it wasn't full of little bags of drugs. It even smelled pretty good.

[_] /\ [_]

A bite of pizza followed by a kiss. A drink of beer followed by a kiss. By the time the pizza and the beer were gone all that was left was lots of kisses.

Rick heard something. "What's that?"

"That's Rosie!" Kate knew that noise. It was her notification that she had an email.

Kate moved to the table to see what Rosie had to say with Rick looking over her shoulder. "That was fast." He saw what it was she had sent.

"You haven't seen Rosie at work lately. It only took minutes for her to find all those houses. Let's see what she likes best." Kate opened the first one for them to see.

"A 1979 Chevy Silverado 10, only 7,914 miles? That's unusual. Four-speed automatic, and it's all brown. If it's sound it might be a good one. $18,900. Not really sure if that's a good price or not. Looks like it's just outside the city. If it's still available on our first day off we can go take a look. Then we can make plans to go see that house," Rick offered.

Kate felt him lean down and kiss her cheek. She had Rosie, and she had Rick. Life was finally looking up.