Intersection (33 page)

“I already know,” Cassidy whispered.

“Cass,” Alex kissed the woman’s neck and moved behind her ear. She whispered, “You are the first woman I ever made love to and you will be the only, the last.” Cassidy lost her breath completely as the agent confidently undressed her; seeking nothing from Cassidy except her trust and her love.

“Alex…” Cassidy struggled to speak her lover’s name… “I…”

“Shhh…” Alex hushed the woman as she delicately moved her hands and her lips over the body that now submitted fully to her touch. “Let me show you,” Alex said as she lovingly kissed across Cassidy’s breasts and recaptured the soft lips that seemed to somehow call to her. “
Je t’aimerai toujours
(I will
always love you). Cass…always…” Alex lowered her kiss slowly; stopping only every so often to look back at the radiant face she had come to cherish. She felt Cassidy reach for her, pulling her closer. Alex held the woman tighter, pulling the small, soft body as close as she could to her own. She closed her eyes at the feel of Cassidy’s skin against hers, reveling in feeling her warmth. Alex could think of nothing that compared to the sensation of Cassidy O’Brien in her arms.

“Alex…please…” Cassidy was overcome by the sensations Alex’s touch seemed to produce within her. Her mind went silent. The feelings that traveled through every inch of her body consumed any thought or reason. She could only feel. It felt as if Alex were becoming part of her. She could not tell where she began and where Alex ended. It was beyond anything Cassidy had ever experienced; even when they had made love before. The more they were with one another; the more their bodies seemed to merge with their souls. As much as she hungered for Alex to send the final waves of ecstasy though her, a part of her longed for this to last forever and she thought she might willingly allow the woman loving her to consume her completely.

The agent gradually entered her lover and returned her kiss to her lips, moving in a slow, melodic rhythm that left the smaller woman beneath her gasping for air. Cassidy accepted her lover’s kiss and met it with passion as she felt Alex move gently inside her, sending her tenderly but forcefully over the edge of sanity. “Oh my God, Alex….” Cassidy held the agent’s head and looked into her eyes as the ripples of pleasure turned to pounding waves that pulled her under. Her eyes searched the agent’s, finding all the love and the comfort she could ever imagine amidst a passionate sea of desire. “Don’t let me go,” she pleaded as her body began to tremble.

Alex pulled her closer, holding her tightly with her right arm and quieting her quivering with her kiss. She pulled back
slightly as Cassidy’s body slowly relaxed. “I will never let you go, Cass…I am so sorry.”

Cassidy curled into the agent’s embrace as her tears fell. “Don’t, Alex, I know… I know you are…just hold me, please.”

The agent inhaled all of her own emotions. Cassidy’s presence in her life and in her arms seemed to fill an emptiness she had failed to recognize. She pulled the teacher’s face upward to look at her. “I don’t think I ever lived before you,” Alex admitted as her tears begin to fall. Cassidy stroked her cheek and collapsed back into her.

The teacher was shaken by her own need. As she lay in Alex’s arms the truth escaped her lips, “I have never loved anyone except you.” She held on to the woman she loved and drifted off into sleep knowing that she was lying in the arms of the person she was meant to spend her life with. Alex closed her eyes promising she would never again run from the woman beside her; she would never let Cassidy O’Brien go.

here are you going?” Cassidy pulled the agent to her as Alex pulled herself up.

The agent stopped and bent over, kissing Cassidy gently. “I have some things I need to take care of.”

“Now?”

“Cass…don’t make this any harder.” Cassidy sighed playfully. “I will be back in a couple of hours. Fallon will be here tomorrow and I need to go check on something before he gets here.”

“Brian is coming to New York? Why?” Alex rubbed her temple. “Alex?”

“It’s nothing to worry about.” Cassidy raised her eyebrow as she gently caressed the agent’s arm. “Don’t worry,” the agent touched her lover’s cheek.

“You are,” Cassidy observed.

Alex bit her lip to suppress a chuckle. “How do you do that?”

“What?” Cassidy asked. Alex looked at her, searching her eyes. The teacher smiled. “Well, Agent, you are not as hard to read as you think.”

“Is that right?” Alex asked.

“It is.”

“What am I thinking right now?”

Cassidy’s face was overtaken by a mischievous grin. “That you’d rather be climbing back in this bed.”

“That’s what you think?” Alex tried to be serious but when Cassidy looked at her she started to laugh. “I give up,” Alex
kissed the woman. “I do love you, Cassidy O’Brien,” she said as she made her way to her feet.

“Alex?” Cassidy called to the agent.

“Yeah?”

“You would tell me, right? I mean if I needed to be worried.”

Alex made her way back to the woman in the bed, buttoning her shirt along the way. “Cass, you let me worry about this case, okay? I will not let anything happen to you, believe me,” she stroked the teacher’s cheek and Cassidy closed her eyes.

“I know,” Cassidy sighed.

Alex finished getting dressed as Cassidy continued watching the agent’s every move. “Do you want me to get Dylan on my way back?” Cassidy was silent for a long moment. Her heart filled at the simple gesture the agent offered. Alex looked at her and saw the love spilling from her. “What?”

“You,” Cassidy smiled.

Alex shook her head. “Call your mother. I’ll get him.”

“Just take my car, Alex,” the teacher suggested.

“What?”

“Then you won’t have to take mom’s seat. Just take the SUV.”

“Cass…” Cassidy smiled and pulled the covers up. Alex was surprised. All of these little things, they meant more to her than she could ever express to this woman. “Okay, how about pizza? Maybe George’s?”

Cassidy smiled as the agent’s hand opened the door. “I love you, Alex.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s good because I love you. I’ll see you,” Alex called back.

Cassidy pulled the pillow to her and breathed in the scent of Alex as the agent passed through the door. She’d never felt so complete, so loved, and strangely, so safe in all her life. They were feelings that she didn’t know could exist as they did now. The teacher could tell the agent was concerned about something. That worried her but in some strange way she was thankful for the current chaos. It brought her Alex. She closed her
eyes trying to recall what life had been like just over a week ago. She remembered it but she couldn’t feel it. The agent had changed her life in a way she had only dreamed possible. Now, she just waited; waited for Alex to walk back through the door.

Alex made her way up the narrow staircase. A tall, broad shouldered man met her at the top. He was in his thirties, handsome with sandy colored, short hair and deep blue eyes. The agent smiled when he offered her a hug. “Brady,” she greeted him.

“Toles…what the hell is going on?” He asked as he broke their embrace.

“Ahhh. I’m not sure Steven… this Brackett…”

“Yeah, I did some digging,” he reached in his jacket and handed her a manila envelope.

Alex opened it and slid out several sheets of paper. “What the hell?” Steven Brady nodded his own surprise. “I figured the NSA. She’s DCIS? At the Pentagon?”

“Appears so,” Brady confirmed.

“Does Taylor know?”

“Yeah, he found it. You know him; he can uncover any needle in any haystack.”

“All right… so why is the DOD looking into my old case files? Shit… Steven…I
was
DOD.”

Steven Brady and Alex Toles had worked many cases together at the NSA before he moved to the New York office. He had been a Navy Seal, had served overseas for several years as well, and had lost several of his men in an unexpected IED attack in Afghanistan. The two had a great deal in common and were able to read each other well. “Alex, I don’t know,” he confessed. “What’s the deal with O’Brien? I saw the traffic cam.”

“I don’t know…but Krause is involved somehow…and now DCIS…”

Brady’s surprise was evident. “Jonathan Krause? You think O’Brien’s involved in arms sales?”

“Maybe… Campaigns cost money and he sure does live high on the hog.”

Brady spoke carefully. “What about his wife?”

Alex ran her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip. “She doesn’t know anything. She does know Krause.”

“Maybe she knows something that she doesn’t realize is important,” Brady suggested. That thought had crossed Alex’s mind but she knew she needed to be careful how she approached her dialogue with Cassidy. “Look at the last picture,” Brady instructed Alex.

Alex’s face fell. She reached for the bridge of her nose and held onto it for a long moment, grasping it so hard she left an imprint. “Brady…”

“Yeah… apparently they go way back…”

Alex swallowed hard and looked back down. “Fisher? Christ, Brady….They knew they were going to assign me to this. They knew it.” Brady nodded his agreement. “But why?”

“I don’t know.”

Alex let out a sarcastic laugh. “They didn’t count on Cassidy… wild card,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?” Brady asked. Alex sighed and looked at him, offering a slight tilt of her head. “Ooohhh,” he said, gaining a new understanding. “Haven’t lost your touch, I see,” he smiled.

“It’s not like that,” Alex said seriously.

“Don’t tell me the congressman’s ex actually tamed the beast,” he lightened the mood. Alex shrugged a bit. “She must really be something, Toles.”

“She is. Brady, if the letters…if they started as a way to divert attention… make a play at O’Brien…”

“What do you mean started?” Brady asked. Alex reached in her jacket and handed him the most recent letter. As the man studied it his gaze narrowed and his jaw twitched. “This guy’s
the real deal.” Alex nodded. “Looks like there’s more than one wild card, Toles. What do you need me to do?”

“Process that. See if you can get anything at all from it, anything. And see if you can find out who set her up in the FBI. Tate knows she’s undercover. I am certain of that. This has deeper roots, someone in the Pentagon, CIA… something… It’s not just Krause, not given all this…. And Fisher?He has to have some place local. That’s got to be my priority.”

“You want me to work that here?”

“No. Fallon will be here tomorrow. Think I’ll try a different angle on that front.”

“P.D.?” He asked. Alex nodded. “What about Brackett?”

“I told Fallon to trail her today. We’ll see if she shows her hand. She’s brash… cocky.”

Brady looked at his friend. “You think Tate is in on all this?”

“I think Tate knows she has another agenda…whether he’s a player or he’s being played; I don’t know.”

“I’ll work that one a bit,” Brady smiled eagerly. Alex knew he enjoyed these challenges. The agent turned to start her way back to the stairs when Brady grabbed her sleeve. “Toles…”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful,” he cautioned.

Alex nodded. “Just see what you can find. You work Brackett. I’ll work Fisher. I don’t want him anywhere near Cassidy.”