Chapter 13 - Cole

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The night is when I do my best thinking. The problem with this is that I’m thinking instead of sleeping. Staring at the ceiling, going through all the things I know and don’t know about the Heartbreaker. 

I turn over to see Eliza’s back, soft in and out of her breathing, filling the room with soothing, peaceful vibes. Her pillow has puckered over the back of her head, brown hair tucked under her head and I can only see the curve of her creamy neck, skin disappearing beneath the silk of her pajama top. 

She could be anyone

I resume my staring at the ceiling and close my eyes and listen to her breathing, letting the gentle in and exhaling rhythm cloud into my brain. 

She’s here, sleeping peacefully, spent and exhausted from her evening in my arms, her legs embracing my hips, her pale freckled skin covered by a thin sheen of sweat as I whisper the words in her ear that make her writhe beneath me. My hands on her breast, thumb tracing over her nipple as she moans in desire for more; a plea I give in to with relish my hand moving to fist in the ripples of blonde, pulling her head to the side to bite at her throat. 

My hand drifts lower, shoving the waistband of my boxers down to grip my throbbing length at the thought. As tight as I would grab her hair. I stroke my length up and down, losing myself to the thought of it being her, those wide doe-like eyes hazy and heavy lidded as she pleas with me, those plump lips wide and gasping. No more bravado. No more playfulness just raw need. 

My body tightens as she trembles in my fantasy, feet quaking as her voice rises to a crescendo of my name. 

Daisy shifts in her sleep. 

Not Daisy. 

Eliza shifts in her sleep and my fist stutters. What am I doing? I release my cock in shock at myself. I can’t think like that. 

I take stock of myself, my breathing heavy, my dick rock solid and aching with denied release. I groan and stand, splashing water on my face and neck and giving myself a silent talking to in the mirror. 

I just gave Eliza a key to the apartment. She’s here more often now than anywhere else. She is my girlfriend. 

She loves me. 

I lean in the bathroom doorway, looking down at the curve of her form in the bed. Daisy would look different. She would probably be awake with me, disturbed when I rose from the bed, crawling towards me across the sheets, her full breasts pressing against the confines of her silk pajamas. 

My body responds, hardening again under her imagined figure, and I have to bite a knuckle to distract myself. 

This is bad. I wish it was the first time I’d thought about her like that, but it isn’t. And the fact that it’s now happening around Eliza… it’s enough confirmation to the suspicion that I haven’t fully admitted to myself, even though I know it’s true without fully forming it. 

I need to break up with Eliza. 

She deserves to be the fantasy of the man sharing her bed, deserves to be someone’s one and only. She doesn’t deserve a man who lies in the bed next to her wanking about someone else. 

My stomach sinks as though I’ve just fallen through the floor. I walk back towards the bed and sit, rubbing my face in my hands.

But just as I’m about to spiral with self-loathing, my phone lights up silently on the bedside table. Her name dancing a taunt on the screen. 

The phone is in my hands, answered and next to my ear before I can even breathe. “Hello?” I whisper. 

“Mm, first ring. Couldn’t sleep either, Detective?” she purrs, and my semi-soft cock rises once again like she’s calling to it. I roll my eyes at myself and slip from the room quietly, switching on the sidelight and lying on the couch. 

“No. Too much to think about.” Too much or not enough? I wonder to myself unwillingly. “Lot’s going on at work.” 

She hums a reply. It sounds like she’s walking. A gentle breeze picked up by the microphone. “Out with the dogs at this time?” I ask with a slight stern note in my voice that I wouldn’t normally use with someone who doesn’t know me well. But with Daisy… I feel like I can show her this side of me. Not just that she’d like it… that she wants it, is tempting it. 

She gives a soft chuckle, “you know me so well, Cole.” 

I look at the time, it’s after two am and she’s out in the dark with a pack of pets to keep her safe. 

“You need to go home, Daisy. It’s too late for you to be out.” I say like I have a right to her. I have to remind my pounding heart that she’s not mine to protect. 

She tinkles a little laugh, breathy from walking. “I’ll be fine Cole, I’m scarier than anything out here, I’m sure.” 

I roll my eyes at the implication that the short, slim blonde would be any match for anyone taller than a labrador. “Daisy, I’m serious. Go home. I’ll stay on the phone while you walk.” 

“Oop,” she says, giggling louder this time. “Bossy Cole. I love it. Do it again.” 

I almost growl this time. “Go. Home. Daisy.” 

“Ohh,” she says, her voice shivering. “Gives me goosebumps.” 

“Daisy!” 

“Yes, sir.” A pout in her voice this time. “Going home, sir.” 

She says it petulantly, slightly mockingly in a voice that makes me need to remind myself that she’s not my girlfriend. 

But fuck. Her calling me sir? That’s hot. 

“Are you going?” 

“Yes, Cole. I’m going home,” she sighs. “You know you could come out and join me, if you like, next time.” 

“Daisy, there’s not going to be anymore ‘next time’s.” 

“You left me hanging today. You said you’d message me about lunch and you didn’t.” I get whiplash from her train of thought sometimes. “So next time we’re both awake before dawn, you can come join me for penance. I said I’d introduce you to my pack, didn’t I?” 

I chuckle. “I suppose I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry. The case just ran away from me.” 

She hums on the other end, and I can hear her moving past a bar or a club, wolf whistles in the background making my blood congeal in my veins, my muscles poised to hear if any of them get any closer or follow her as she walks home. 

“Sorry to hear that. Heartbreaker again?” she says, and I can hear the voices get further away. I don’t fully relax, though. 

“Yeah. Left a random stream of numbers.” I say, half my mind on her and half my mind on a brutal serial killer. Catching my thoughts, I drop it. I don’t want to speak about this to someone as delicate as she is. “It’s just the runaround, I’m sure. Trying to waste my time.” 

She sighs a little and I can hear her unlocking and opening a door, the clicking of paws on laminate. “Has the Heartbreaker ever done anything just to waste your time, Cole?” 

She sounds so serious for a moment, nothing like herself, that it jolts me into actually contemplating the question. Has the Heartbreaker ever done anything just to waste my time? 

“No.” 

“Mm.” There’s the sound of unclipping. “Then I suggest you keep looking. If I were you- which I’m glad I’m not, I don’t know what I’d do with full-time access to a cock- but if I were I’d start looking in places where I see streams of numbers in my daily life.” 

I snort at her joke, loud enough that I might have woken Eliza, and I turn away from the living room door, hushing my voice. “I dread to think what you’d do with full-time access to a cock, too.” 

“Cause chaos, no doubt,” she teases back. “Without the glass ceiling holding me back, I don’t know where I’d be.” 

I smile as I chuckle, ignoring the pool of warmth in my chest as I listen to her talk feminism in my ear, completely distracted by the rustle of sheets and clothes as she settles into bed. My mind wanders away from the patriarchy and pivots around thoughts of her in bed once more. 

Our conversation gets heavier as we talk about things that matter, intertwined with things that don’t. Her voice becomes soothing, her breathing even, as I feel my eyes drift closed to focus on the sound of her on the other end of the line. 

***

When I wake, aching from the couch but feeling better rested than I have in weeks, the call is still connected; the numbers ticking the seconds. I steal a moment to listen intently to the sound of her breathing in and out gently, just as I’d imagined her doing. 

I busy myself getting ready for my day, finding Eliza still in bed (another pang that feels more like guilt than loss this time) and I get dressed around her, waking her up to say goodbye before I go to the office. 

On my way to work, my mind drifts back to Daisy. Hours of soft, meaningless conversation. And, just as I grab my Heartbreaker files, I think back to what she said about the killer. 

Has the Heartbreaker ever done anything just to waste my time?

Grabbing my ID badge, I remember the next piece of advice. I’d start looking for numbers in my daily life. Looking down, I frown as a stream of numbers jumps out at me like it’s highlighted: 1025938. 

My badge number.