"It would be nice if we could just sit, talk, enjoy each other's company," Henry told Jo. "And I'd greatly appreciate the opportunity to try to win your full forgiveness," he added.

VVVVVVVV

Jo pulled away from the pleasurably long kiss with Henry to catch her breath. Wow, she thought to herself. What had ever possessed them to wait this long before doing this? And despite it being their first kiss, it also counted as a makeup session! She looked up into his eyes, seeing him again as if for the first time and hoping that he could see the forgiveness in her eyes. It was going to take a lot to get to fully know, fully understand this man - as if that were possible with anyone - but she knew that she was definitely going to enjoy doing so.

Henry took in a breath and let it out softly. He continued to hold her close with one arm wrapped around her waist and cupped the side of her face with his free hand. While he gently rubbed the lower edge of her lip with his thumb, laughter danced in his eyes as he gazed into hers. "I thought you said that we should get off by ourselves and talk."

"Um, well … this, too," she blushingly admitted with a grin. She took advantage of his unbuttoned dress shirt and traced a finger over the scar on his chest. Satisfied at the pleasured reaction it evoked from him, she then spread her fingers out and traveled them up his chest and snaked her arm around his neck.

"I agree," he whispered. "This, too."

Their lips met again in a heartwarming and almost heart stopping kiss. There was a lot they needed to discuss but in these few, stolen moments, he preferred they speak the language of love.

vvvv

The next morning, Jo, Henry, and Mike filed out of Lt. Reece's office. She had shared with them how Kathyryn Yee had confessed to finding out about Adam and his unnaturally long life while performing a routine background check on him before she'd agreed to represent him. It had been her plan to get him off so that he'd walk free. After which she planned to "sell" him to a human trafficking ring for a large sum of money.

"His guilty plea gummed up her plans a bit," Mike said.

"But not for long," Jo noted, shaking her head. "She always seems to have an ace up her sleeve."

"And as far as we have been able to determine," Reece began, eyeing Henry, "she only found out about him. No one else."

Henry took in and blew out a sigh of relief. "That's, ah, good to know."

"And," Reece continued, eyeing Jo, "we won't be seeing her in anyone's courtroom either in the near or far future since she's being disbarred."

"That's really good to know," Jo said with a grin.

Mike and Jo sat down at their respective desks. His phone rang and he answered it while Henry poised in front of Jo's desk.

"How's Lucas Spielberg doing?" Jo asked jokingly.

Henry chuckled and replied, "He should be able to return to work soon. The events of the past 24 hours have served to sap him of his strength more than he had anticipated. I advised him to rest for the next two days."

Right on cue, Mike hung up and tore a piece of paper off of the notepad on his desk. "Life goes on, or rather death does," he told them and stood up. "We got a body." He walked over to where they both now stood while reading the notes he'd taken. "Place called Aveda Institute over on Spring Street. Seems that one of the students while shavin' a guy cut things a little too close," he said while running a finger across his throat.

The three of them quickly headed out of the precinct to assess the situation. Life and death did indeed go on.

VVVVVVVV

Notes:

There is an actual Aveda Institute on Spring Street in NYC. Their web site is

Thank you all for following along with this story; I really appreciate it. Hope you liked it. And it looks like this will be the last story I post on . So many 503 Error codes trying to post this last chapter. Finally posted it but something's up with that site. Too bad. Only AO3 for me going forward.