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Chapter 7: Until it Breaks

May, 2007

Las Vegas, Nevada

So this is Vegas? Gail peered out of the tinted window of the town car as they approached downtown. It looked exactly the way it did in the movies: fake. She twisted the pendant on her necklace, a gift from Nick for her twenty second birthday, between forefinger and thumb, an unconscious sign of the anxiety pumping through her veins.

She still couldn't believe she was here. Not in Vegas, the location was fairly insignificant in the face of everything else, but here in the metaphysical sense. Or than she was pondering the metaphysics of her actions. Definitely not in character.

Gail had never been one for thinking too much. Not that she was dumb. She just didn't plan long term. She'd never had to. After all, she was a Peck. Her destiny was laid out before her and it really didn't matter what she wanted, she would follow in the steps of her mother, the Superintendent; her brother, the Detective; her Godfather, the Chief of Police; and every other member of their immediate circle because that was what Pecks did.

She'd never really questioned it. She didn't even really mind. There was something freeing about knowing exactly what you were going to be 'when you grew up' from the age of six. It had certainly made meetings with her high school counsellor a snap. Not like most of her friends who bounced from vet to kindergarten teacher to beautician at dizzying speeds. Gail had only ever planned to be one thing: an officer with the Toronto Police Service. Glamorous it was not, but it was what she had been raised to be, raised to believe in, and somehow that made it the safe choice.

Safe. Her whole life could more or less be summed up in that one word. At least until she met Nick.

Gail turned away from the effervescent glow of The Strip and smiled at her boyfriend of two years. Nick was definitely not the safe choice.

For one thing, her mother hated him.

Not that Elaine Peck had ever really approved of Gail's taste in men. Gail sometimes suspected that Elaine disapproved of men in general rather than Gail's tastes in particular, but she'd never been able to prove it, after all it wasn't like Elaine was rude to any of the friends her daughter brought home over the years. Elaine had made Superintendent for a reason: she was amazing at the superficial shit. She could smile and blow smoke up your ass until you thought she was the nicest lady you'd ever come across, and then suddenly the eyes would go dead and her voice would take on that too-friendly tone and you would find yourself doing whatever she asked because behind the friendly veneer was a threat you didn't want articulated.

Gail envied that skill. Where Elaine was all smooth edges and slippery as an eel, Gail was all sharp corners and stinging barbs that clung like so many burrs to a pair of wool socks. She was not a people person. It was probably a good thing she wanted to be a cop.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Nick teased, taking the hand that wasn't toying with her necklace in his, twining their fingers.

"My mother." Gail released the necklace. It bounced once before settling against her sternum.

"Ah." Nick squeezed her hand. He knew all about her mother. Though his own parents had died years before, he was amazingly sympathetic about Elaine. He wasn't like most kids she knew who believed any parent was better than no parent and would have thought Gail was selfish or heartless to complain about her mother to her orphaned boyfriend. "We don't have to do this, if you don't want to."

Gail raised an eyebrow. "What, you getting cold feet?"

"No cold feet here," He said, raising her hand to his lips.

She rolled her eyes. "Cheesy will get you nowhere, Collins."

He grinned. A quickie wedding in Vegas wasn't exactly how he'd envisioned getting married, but here they were, and he was pretty sure he was thrilled about it. "It got you to agree to marry me." He said, leaning over and stopping any smart ass rebuttal with a kiss.

November, 2012

The Penny, Toronto

"I don't think she's coming." Gail said, signalling the bartender for another shot. She'd already had five in the forty minutes she'd been sharing the bar with Sam Swarek, both of them twitching whenever the door opened. She'd given up hope of Nick showing up by now and, since she was going to have to beg a ride home anyway she didn't see any harm in keeping a nice sustained buzz until someone told her it was time for her to stop drowning her sorrows and go home to bed.

Sam didn't respond, at least not verbally. He did turn his head and give her a baleful glare, which she ignored. Gail ordered shots for both of them figuring he needed it far more than she did, and he was three shots behind.

The door opened again, admitting a blast of cool November air and a pair of women Gail didn't know. Sam looked and then let his head drop in disappointment. He really was raising moping in public to a level even Luke Callaghan hadn't managed to reach in his epic downwards spiral after he lost Andy. Gail made a drunken mental note to ask Andy about that one of these days. Gail couldn't even keep her boyfriend interested enough to show up when he said he might, let alone so in love with her he would descend into drunken pathetic messes that lasted months beyond the breakup. The girl must have beer flavoured nipples or something. She thought with a little giggle as she exchanged a twenty for a trio of shot glasses from the bar tender.

She pushed one shot towards Sam, but he shook his head. "Driving," he said as if that was a legitimate excuse for letting a lady drink alone.

She shrugged, "More for me," and downed all three in quick succession, and then regretted it almost instantly. The room was spinning now, and her hurt feelings that Nick hadn't bothered to come celebrate her reinstatement were only magnified by the tequila coursing through her system. She shouldn't be surprised. Nick has never been good at commitment. It's not like I didn't know better.

"You should be in bed."

Sam's voice penetrated the fog of her thoughts and Gail tilted her head to one side to better see his face. She smiled a goofy drunken smile and replied in her most sultry voice, "Only if you'll join me, handsome." Alarm bells went off somewhere in her mind, telling her this was a seriously stupid idea, but everything was muffled and spinning and nice, so she told the alarm to stuff it, and rose unsteadily to her feet.

When she was a few steps away from the bar she realized that Sam wasn't following her. She turned and crossed her arms over her chest, "Well?"

May, 2007

Las Vegas, Nevada

Nick looked at his reflection in the mirror and barely recognized the face staring back at him. His usually cheerful features were set in a grim line and he thought he looked more like a prisoner preparing to meet an executioner than a man on his wedding day. Just the thought that it was his wedding day set the icy lump in his stomach to quivering. A Vegas Wedding.. What the fuck was I thinking?

It wasn't just his face. The rented suit didn't quite fit, the shoulders were a couple centimeters too narrow and he felt like if he moved too vigorously it might rip along the back scene like some comic book cliché. He'd opted for a blue tie that Gail had bought him for a family dinner last year, now he was regretting it. Gail hated family dinners. What was for him a reminder of the first time he'd realized just how amazing Gail was, was probably a reminder of just how much Elaine disapproved. Which was a lot.

He took a deep breath, straightened the idiotic tie for the tenth time in as many minutes and took a step back. It was almost time. Gail would be waiting. He wondered if she was as nervous as he was, but he doubted it. Gail didn't do nervous, upset sure or even afraid (although even that was so rare it was easy to forget), but she never showed her nerves. It was one of his favourite things about her, her fearlessness. They'd done some crazy things…

Like running away together to get married in Vegas. Nick took a deep steadying breath, it didn't steady him. What the fuck was I thinking?

Gail smoothed her skirt for the tenth time in as many minutes. Nick was late and with every audible tick of the giant clock on the wall of the chapel her stomach twisted a little tighter. What if he doesn't come?

She did her best to squelch that inner voice, but when ten minutes became fifteen, and then twenty, she started to worry in earnest. At the twenty five minute mark she was half convinced he was lying dead in his hotel room, or somewhere between there and here. "Do you have a phone?" She asked the smiling woman behind the front desk, her own phone was turned off and sitting in her suitcase.

"Of course," the woman placed her large office phone on the edge of the counter in front of her. "Local call?"

Gail nodded and picked up the handset. She dialed the number of the hotel from memory, something any Peck who wanted to survive adolescence learned early, and waited, tapping her fingers impatiently as it rang over and over and over. When she counted ten rings she hung up, her worry turned to something like panic now.

"Everything alright, sugar?" The woman asked.

Gail took in the woman's frizzy red hair and impractical inch long acrylic nails with little Scottie dogs painted on them and barely managed to keep from snarling at her that of course everything wasn't alright, she was alone in a wedding Chapel. Instead she forced a nice polite smile and dialed the hotel's number again, this time selecting the front desk from the automated menu.

Two minutes later she set down the handset and sank into the nearest chair. "Bastard." She muttered, her entire body limp with shock. Nick was gone.

November, 2012

Sam's townhouse, Toronto

She wasn't sure how it happened. One moment they were getting into a cab and Sam was giving the driver an address - not hers - the next her shirt was hitting his bedroom floor and his mouth was nipping oh so deliciously at her neck.

The tequila coursing through her veins made her light headed and she could almost believe this was just a dream, except for the fact that she had never dreamed this and the pinch of half pleasure half pain when Sam twisted her nipple through the thin fabric of her bra would certainly have woken her instead of eliciting a moan.

This was real, it was happening. It was happening fast. His shirt joined hers and she ran both palms over his lightly haired chest before reaching down to unbutton his fly.

"Do you?" She asked as his hardened length sprang free.

"Bedside drawer," Sam half panted as her small, hot hand wrapped around his cock.

Gail released him and took a slow step back towards the bed, undoing her fly without taking her eyes off him. She released the top button and then slowly lowered the zipper revealing creamy, perfect skin and bright pink lace underwear. Her jeans slipped easily over her hips and landed in a puddle on the floor.

Sam was across the room in two long strides, pulling her against him and capturing her lips in his before his brain had a chance to think, really think, about what he was doing.

She pulled away with a coy grin and reached behind her to open the top drawer of his night table and reached in, fumbling a bit before pulling out a foil packet. "Where do you want me?" She asked in a husky, seductive voice.

Sam hesitated for a moment, his heart was hammering in his chest and his cock was painfully erect, but somewhere through the fog of scotch and tequila he had a distinct, if fleeting, feeling he shouldn't be doing this.

Gail sat herself on the nightstand and leaned forward, pressing kisses along his stomach, trailing downwards slowly, suckling and nipping as she went.

He twined his fingers through her hair and tugged her head back none too gently so he could look her in the eyes. "Are you sure?" He asked, breathing hard as he fought the urge to throw her down on the bed and fuck her until the doubts disappeared in a haze of pleasure. "We don't have t-"

She shook her head. "No. I want you inside me."

Her voice and her words sent a jolt of need right through him and he dropped to his knees, kissing her fiercely as his fingers reached for the waistband of her underwear.

She raised her hips to help him slide them off and then spread her legs in silent invitation.

For a second Sam remembered his first time going down on Andy, how unsure she'd been, and then how her body had responded so deliciously to his touch. The thought made his heart flip painfully and he banished it. Andy didn't want him. She'd made that perfectly clear. He let the fuzzy haze of drunken horniness take him as he lowered his mouth to the neatly trimmed landing strip between Gail's thighs.

Gail's back arched as his tongue found her clit, circling and suckling, drawing forth waves of pleasure. She ran one hand through his hair, the other coming up to circle and pinch her nipples until she felt her legs stiffen, her whole body contracting in a moment of mind-numbing pleasure as she came.

Sam rose to his feet and pulled her after him. Her knees wobbled, her muscles still loose in the aftermath of her orgasm and she fell against his chest. His burning hot cock pressed against her abdomen sending a hot current of need straight to her cunt. "Please," She whispered, pressing herself against him, all she could think of was how badly she wanted, needed, this.

With guttural moan, Sam dropped his mouth to her neck, sucking the flesh hard enough to leave a mark.

Gail cried out, digging her fingers into his back and thrusting her hips towards him.

He responded by pushing her down on the bed, pausing only long enough to pick up the condom she'd abandoned on his nightstand and roll it on before positioning himself over her. His eyes met hers and he thrust into her, hard and fast.

Gail cried out at the sudden fullness, her legs coming up on either side of his hips, drawing him even deeper. She moaned and that was all the encouragement he needed as he pulled out and thrust back in again, and again until they were both grunting with pleasure.

Neither one felt the delicate latex tear, they were too consumed in feeling everything else.

April, 2013

Sam's townhouse, Toronto

Andy didn't turn when Sam appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and he stood still and silent for a moment, drinking in the sight of her. She was tapping away at the keyboard, occasionally stopping to frown at whatever she was working on. Her long brown hair was twisted into a hasty braid down her back, and she was wearing one of his t-shirts over her own jeans, and in that moment it was like the last eight months hadn't happened. But, reality intruded swiftly on the daydream. Those months had happened, Jerry was dead, he'd pushed her away, and now if he wanted a chance with her there were things that needed to be said.

"We need to talk."

Andy jumped a little, startled by his voice. She'd thought she heard the door open, but she'd been in the middle of trying to remember exactly what items had been in her kitchen and had quickly forgotten. She saved the inventory list she had been compiling for her insurers on his laptop, and closed the computer before looking up at him, her dark eyes steady though her stomach was churning. Dear God he's gorgeous. "Yes, we do."