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Crossroads
They were just two lonely people heading towards New York, just two trains passing in the night. She didn't think it would end like this.
Isabella was having a hard time not grinning like a loon at the telegraph operator. Edward had left her at the office with a lingering kiss, earning them a death glare from a wrinkled prune of a woman before Isabella had pushed him away with a laugh and a wave. She couldn't wait to check in and hurry back to the station to make the connecting train they'd both ride to New York. If Edward's business finished quickly, they might be able to grab a bite to eat together… among other things.
Isabella shook her head and thanked the operator for the small reply envelope. She cleared away her thoughts of dangerous dark eyes and clever hands as she unfolded the expected confirmation of receipt. Only that wasn't what this was. She scanned the simple lines as a sickness grew in the pit of her stomach.
TO: AGENT SWAN
FROM: SPECIAL AGENT CAM, NY FIELD OFFICE
REPORT RECEIVED.
NEW ASSIGNMENT ISSUED.
INTELLIGENCE REPORTS MAFIA PRESENCE ON YOUR SCHEDULED ROUTE TO NEW YORK, NY.
ACTING AGENT TO SEEK OUT, LOCATE, AND MONITOR ONE EDWARD MASEN AND PROVIDE IDENTIFICATION AND CAPTURE ASSISTANCE AT GRAND CENTRAL STATION.
SUBJECT CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS.
The yellow paper fluttered to her feet as Isabella's world shattered yet again.
xxx
The walls of the hallway of the passenger car swayed under Isabella's searching hand as the train picked up speed after pulling away from the station. She pressed her palm into the wood with a firmer pressure as she struggled to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
He was a mobster.
He was the first guy since Jake – Hell's bells – the only guy to ever make her feel at home in the churning whirlpool that was her life. Not a steady rock on which to stand, dragging her down to the depths; but someone who knew how to ride the waves of change and cruise to the eye of the storm, who showed her the beautiful order present in chaos, and could bring her to such sweet heights of passion.
He was a killer, a button man, a sleaze. He was her target, and he would spend the rest of his life behind bars when she did her job and brought him in.
Isabella stumbled into the next car, not caring that it was stacked high with leaning piles of packages and crates that creaked with each jolt of the train. She fell back against the wall and closed her eyes as she willed herself to remember Rose's face as it had been after those slime balls had finished with her. All she could see was him, leaning over her in the dark, sweet and naughty words falling from his mouth like stars as he moved within her.
She wasn't surprised when she opened her eyes and found the dream replaced with the flesh-and-blood man. She fancied that she could see her despair reflected in his eyes as he moved closer. Edward veered to the side at the last moment, and she gasped at the feel of his lips moving on the curve of her jaw, the heat of his mouth replacing the chilled air of the un-insulated baggage car.
She sobbed her painful pleasure into his ear and clutched at his shoulders, digging deep into his muscled arms before pushing his pinstriped jacket down his arms and to the floor. It landed with a thunk, freeing herself to explore his chest and back before she plunged her fingers into his hair. His fedora toppled to the floor.
Isabella clutched at his back.
Edward cupped her ass.
She arched against him.
He savored the press of her hips.
They clawed at the life and wildness within each other.
As Edward kissed his way along the slender column of her neck, he reached down, catching the free-hanging fabric of her skirt at the knees, and wrapping his fingers around her silk clad thighs. Isabella shuddered as he pulled slowly upward and tugged his mouth to her eager lips, his tongue meeting with her own.
Edward pressed her into the wall as soon as the skirt's hem cleared her waist, and caught her as she jumped into his arms. They both ignored the clatter of her shoes on the splintered wood floor as Isabella's hand snaked down the soft linen of his shirt front until her finger tips touched his waistband. As Edward tightened his grip on the bare flesh of her behind, they both gave thanks for the brief, carefree romp they had indulged in that morning, and the hurried packing afterwards which had resulted in the pleasant absence of cotton interference between his fingers and her skin.
They stopped kissing then, and brown eyes held with green as Isabella's clever fingers pulled first at the leather strap of his belt, and then at the top button of his fly. Neither one of them smiled, and their panted breaths mingled, hot and moist, between them. They marked the slide of each rounded piece of bone through its slit of fine wool with a shared catch of breath. A second hand joined the first as Edward's arms began to shake from the full weight of her small frame. Then he was free to her grasp and they both moaned softly. Isabella pulled herself up his torso, and he quietly slid home. They finally broke the mating contact of their eyes. She rose again, and then he pushed up slowly as she fell.
His head fell forward onto her shoulder, and he began to nibble and suck at the arching grace of her collar bone while her head lulled back, tapping against the wooden wall with a soft thud each time he filled her. They moved together with a near-choreographed perfection, Edward adding a slight upward grind which caused her to moan louder each time and to dig her nails into the flesh of his flexing back through the fine fibers of his shirt.
The measured pace increased with the patience of a sea tide on the night of the full moon: growing to a surging rush so gradually that momentary observations would detect no change even as the pressure and tension mounted. Edward breathed her name into the curve of her neck as Isabella bit down on her inner lip to stop from calling out.
And then he sucked, hard, at the pulse below her jaw, her life's beat. She shuddered, her head pounding hard into the wall while her feet flexed and quivered behind his back. Seconds later he cried out, still beside her ear, where she couldn't help but hear.
"Oh, fucklove, Isabella, I -."
They held for the length of fifteen heartbeats, five breaths, two more whispered 'love's.
Edward pressed a single kiss to her throat and disengaged.
Isabella ignored the twin trails of moisture running down her cheeks.
Edward began to button his fly.
Isabella bent to pick up his jacket.
An unexpected weight at the bottom of his coat attracted Isabella's curiosity, but she couldn't control her gasp when she reached into the inner pocket and pulled out a Colt .45. She met his gaze with incredulity, but it was his bleak expression of annoyance that made her loosen her grip on the light wool and caused her eyes to water once more.
She blinked several times, hoping to clear away the image of his casual stride towards the corner. She jumped when he retrieved her purse from the floor, and her hands moved of their own accord, wrapping around the comforting cold iron. He began to open the bag and her fear began to mount.
"What are you doing?" She tried, and failed, to steady her voice as it wavered. "Drop my purse, Edward." Her palms were growing sweaty as she tried to remember what exactly she had been carrying today, to remember her handgun training, to remember her duty. To forget the way his fingers felt on her flesh.
"You're not going to shoot me, Isabella." A chill blew through his words.
"I'm not?" She wasn't sure who she was really asking.
Isabella winced as he pulled out her father's final gift to her: a Derringer pistol, clean and well cared for, and deadly at this range. He finally met her eyes with a despairing shake of his head.
"You know, don't you? You've known all along." He let slip the Gagliano name and moved closer to her, poisonous words dripping with each step.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'd never seen you before in my life. I told you, I'm heading to New York on a job transfer. I'm not the one who lied. I'm not the one who betrayed a trust." She stared at him unblinking.
He smirked down at her. "How much do they pay you to whore –" She felt the pain in her knuckles before she recognized that she had played a bit of chin music on him.
"You… Boob!" she raged. "You approached me. How dare you imply that I –. I'm not some pro skirt or roundheel who falls into bed with every man I meet. I thought we… But you sat there and listened to me tell you about Rose and what they did to her. And you – you're a gangster." She leveled the gun at him, her duty finally clear.
"And you're turning state's evidence in the Hand's trial."
Isabella felt as if her blood had turned to ice as she watched Edward raise his gun – her gun – casually and survey her expression, dark humor flashing within his hooded eyes. He chuckled without mirth as he idly pet the shaft of her tiny heater.
"They told me to kill you, Isabella. To rub you out and throw your body from the train."
She was more scared by what she found in his dark eyes than what she did not.
"I said I would."
Isabella raised the heavy Colt and cursed the effortless way with which he countered.
The sound of gunfire echoed down the corridor of the train.
"What once was had, forever lost; thy fate is destined, thy love star-crossed." - Nenia Campbell
A/N: Parallel story, Crossing Paths, posted.
