Everything is Connected (Unintentionally Always)

Setting: Begins at the beginning, but in this version of reality, Crews and Reese are lovers…and they have been since the start.

Merit Badge

The first time was intentional. He was new, he was headstrong and she was responsible for him. LAPD's newest detective given a badge and as far as everyone was concerned it was straight blackmail – or as the official news release read "in accordance with the terms of his settlement," which weren't to be discussed. He might have been the most hated man in the Department, but she had a feeling that wasn't something new for him. She was unsure if he was a test for her or the vice versa, but either way she was fresh out of rehab, just back on the rotation. She had no partner and he was the price of getting back on the street.

She was outwardly clean or so her department mandated piss tests would reflect, but still using – drinking anyway and his pretend chipper attitude irked her. His "in your face" style of addressing their partnering was brushed aside. She'd decide when and where that talk would happen – damn it! But Dani Reese knew just how to get headstrong men under her thumb, with her limber young body.

Charlie Crews was a problem assigned to her and he knew it. He didn't seem to care either way, he did what he wanted and dared her to turn him into the "rat squad," as he termed it. But in the moments when she finally drew him out from the guise of his Zen veneer; he went from lippy, prickly perfectly coifed partner to a hot, hungry lover without much prompting at all. All she'd had to do was push the right buttons. And let's face it with a man four months out of prison where he hadn't seen or been with a woman for twelve years – those buttons were large and obvious.

She'd found him alone in the morgue, talking to the body of a dead ten-year-old boy with whom he had a better connection than anyone he worked with. He didn't see embarrassed when she asked what he was doing.

"Seeking clarity," he responded flatly without a hint of emotion.

She circled him thrice slowly like a predatory animal looking for a weakness, while he remained seated and unmoving, just his eyes watched her. Each rotation brought her closer to him in a devolving spiral. She knew this dance by heart. He'd succumb to her wiles and then she'd own him, just as she had a dozen men prior. Her conquests just in the department alone were legendary and they didn't know about her weekend hunting expeditions when she sought danger in dark places. This guy was no match for her.

She'd brushed against him one too many times with her blouse open showing cleavage before the man in him noticed her, despite the Zen Detective's better efforts not to. His response was sudden and immediate; it was honest and eager.

"Tell me if I'm reading this wrong," was his only warning as he stood and backed her into a corner. She shook her head and he descended on her to feed like a vampire. He went from Zen spouting fruit freak to hungry attacker in 0.6 seconds. It was startling the rapidity of his transition and the voraciousness of his appetite.

It wasn't pretty; it was cold and impersonal in the stainless steel quiet of the morgue, ten feet from death. His hands were ice and then they were fire. His fingers dug into her skin hard, leaving red marks even on her tanned flesh. Later bruises would form; blue shadows of their sins written in her flesh. But Dani liked the pain, the punishment; what she was doing was wrong and she knew it.

What he was doing was instinct, but he feared it. He was strong and commanding, part of her liked that about him. He could take control of their position anytime he chose, but instead he kept facing forward looking at her. Many men who'd spent that much time in prison would have turned her against the wall and had their way. They'd just as soon not know; sex was for them, not their partner.

He was stiff like a piece of cold steel. His eyes burned with intensity, but she just looked away. His lean body felt taut and hard under her nimble hands as she tried not to look at his many scars. Sounds seemed an insult in a place so somber, so they stifled themselves, but his vigor brought her unconsciously to the point of enjoying herself. She couldn't help the tiny trails of blood left in the wake of her nails down his pale skin. He sunk his teeth into her shoulder to keep from crying out.

This place was solemn, sacred and cold, but they were burning each other with ferocious energy. The strength of response was stunning as he resisted the impulse to tear her clothing just barely. She could feel him holding back; restraining himself and it pissed her off. He lifted her onto a cold counter, but the burn of his hardness into her tempered the sensation against her bare buttocks. As he entered her, it was at once and memorable. Stars shot through her head as he slammed into her fully; then he paused trying to regain some measure of control. She deprived him of any vestige of control by viciously rocking against him. She slid up and down the length of shaft, griping him by the shoulders. He shuddered, his head lolled back and a deep groan left his chest.

She rocked again and was rewarded with his throaty growl, which sounded too deep to have come from the tall, fair man. His restraint and the power he held in check meant he was still showing her some deference and civility. She became committed to erasing that from his vocabulary. She wanted him raw and entirely undone. While the strength of his will was mighty and she found it arousing, she was intent on breaking him.

She jammed any meaningful emotional response down deep inside and flexed the muscles of her pelvic walls to grip him tighter. Their friction increased and she moaned softly as he was able to angle her so he bottomed out with each thrust. She stuffed her vocalization down deep within and redoubled her effort to drive him mad. She gripped him against her harder and increased the rhythm of their coupling to a frantic pace. He got the message and bucked wildly.

Again she saw stars as he drove deeply and hit all the right spots. A man who hadn't been with a woman in twelve years wasn't supposed to be this good. But he paid attention, he knew when he'd hit a sweet spot and he'd revisit it time and again. She wanted it, him - to be perfunctory. She didn't want to orgasm out of spite, but her body rebelled and she felt it ripple through her. In the haze of her vision, she watched a sly smile blossom on his face.

Damn him! She didn't care about him. He didn't care about her; they were supposed to be the other's tools. She needed control of him. He just needed human contact; it didn't matter that it was her; but that he seemed bent on seeing her, knowing her. He would not be conquered and bowed as other men. She wasn't used to that level of restraint. He would require extra attention. She raked her nails up his pale exposed thighs and he stiffened and grunted something unintelligible unable to control his orgasm any longer. She'd won – sort of.

He finished quickly, which was to be expected, but showed a tiny sliver of gentleness when he withdrew as he moved to kiss her. She ducked her head. Sex didn't have to be intimate and she certainly didn't mean this to be. He leaned close anyway inhaling the scent of them together. He forced both hands up under her damp hair, but rather than overpower her and steal or force a kiss; he pressed soft lips to her sweaty brow and murmured, "It's okay. I understand."

She pushed him off roughly. He didn't understand. How could he? He was still insolent and outside her control. God damn him! This would require effort, but she'd dominate him just as she had other men in her way; he'd just take longer. She stormed off and he looked at the spare ceiling of the morgue as silence once more descended; then he pulled up and re-buttoned his pants. He almost chuckled, but the morgue was not a place for laughter.

"I'm gonna go find your killer now," he told the still body of John Gibney. "My partner and I are gonna find your killer,' he added as he found the smell of her clung to him. He needed a shower and fresh perspective. Reese was nothing like what he expected, but he was very grateful for a female partner nonetheless.

Later in the darkness of that crack house, covered in her darkest fears, she cried out for him. She was the human contact he sought - in the most unlikely of people. The Buddha says we must accept life as it comes – everything that happens is right. She had to be that right.

He found the dead man, the dope, the act of taking another's life all vanished at the sound of panic in her voice. He knew she didn't want him; not that way – which made her plea all the more heartbreaking. As he lifted her into the tub, he was reminded of how small and light she was again. He flashed to his hands on the soft flesh of her buttocks as he lifted her onto the countertop.

Water sprayed and cascaded down the front of her shirt, every curve of her luscious body; one she'd never let him really enjoy was silhouetted in slick outline for him. She reached out to him, subconsciously, but the instant her hand met the warmth of his body she rejected him. He offered to help her from the tub, but walls and layers of darkness separated them. She was broken like him, a kindred spirit. They were inexorably drawn to each other as the moth to the flame that will scorch it. She walked into the light and he again tried to tell her he understood.

"We don't ever have to talk about it," he said. He meant both this and their earlier fiery coupling in the morgue. She ignored him entirely, but by the end of the case as they walked Arthur Tins along the gangway with Mark Rawls menacing in the courtyard behind him; his words escaped her mouth almost reverently, "everything is connected." There was wonder in her voice and he'd put it there.