Page 30 of Pursuit of Her

"I did what was necessary," Reagan managed, the practiced line sounding hollow even to her own ears.

"Necessary," Eve repeated, the word dripping with quiet fury. "Was it necessary to let me mourn you? To let me build a life around your absence? To let me believe you'd chosen vengeance over what we had?"

The questions stripped away Reagan's defenses one by one. She felt exposed and vulnerable in a way no other situation had ever left her. This was the confrontation she'd avoided for a decade—not with Captain Morgan of the Phoenix Ridge Police Department, but with Eve, the woman she'd loved enough to die for.

"Yes," Reagan whispered, the admission torn from somewhere deep and unguarded. "Because the alternative was watching them destroy you too."

Silence hung between them, charged with a decade of unspoken truths. The apartment felt too small, the air too thick with possibility and shared history. Eve was close enough now that Reagan could see the pulse beating at the base of her throat, could count each uneven breath.

"And now?" Eve asked, her voice barely audible. "Why come back into my life now, when you're systematically eliminating the men who tried to kill you? Why risk everything by contacting me?"

Reagan had asked herself the same question countless times since leaving the first breadcrumb for Eve to follow. Logic said to maintain isolation and complete the mission without complications. But standing here, feeling the years between them collapse like a house of cards, she finally admitted the truth—to Eve and to herself.

"Because I couldn't stay away anymore." The confession emerged raw and unfiltered. "Because after ten years of watching from a distance, I needed?—"

She didn't finish. Couldn't articulate the desperate longing that had finally overwhelmed her carefully constructed mission parameters.

Eve's eyes darkened, something shifting in their depths. "Needed what, Reagan?"

The question hung between them, an invitation and a challenge wrapped in three simple words. Reagan stood at the crossroads she'd avoided for a decade: duty versus desire, mission versus the woman before her.

Reagan's control fractured. Ten years of distance collapsed in an instant.

"You," she breathed. "I needed you."

Eve's breath caught at Reagan's confession. The raw vulnerability in those three words—"I needed you"—seemed to break something free in Eve that had been locked away for a decade. Reagan watched as the anger in Eve's eyes collided with something else—longing, perhaps, or the recognition of a truth too long denied.

"Reagan." Eve's voice was barely more than a whisper.

The space between them vanished as Eve closed the final distance. Her hands found Reagan's face, fingertips tracing new contours that time had carved into features they'd once known so intimately. Reagan remained perfectly still, afraid that the slightest movement might shatter this fragile moment.

"Ten years," Eve murmured, her thumbs brushing along Reagan's jawline. "Ten years of questions without answers."

Reagan's carefully maintained composure fractured under Eve's touch. She closed her eyes briefly, the discipline of the vigilante giving way to something more vulnerable, more human.

"Ask me now," Reagan breathed, her voice unsteady for the first time since entering the apartment. "Anything."

Eve's answer came not in words but in the press of her lips against Reagan's. The contact was tentative at first, a test of boundaries long thought impenetrable. Reagan's hands found Eve's waist, pulling her closer with a desperate urgency that betrayed her earlier restraint.

The kiss deepened, ten years of absence fueling a hunger Reagan couldn't control. Eve's fingers tangled in her hair, pulling slightly as she backed Reagan toward the wall. Documents fluttered to the floor as Reagan's shoulders collided with the evidence board, the physical representation of their investigation now scattered beneath their feet.

Eve's movements turned more insistent, fingers tracing the raised tissue of the scar while her mouth moved to the pulse point on Reagan's neck. A shudder passed through Reagan's body, her discipline crumbling beneath Eve's touch.

"Eve," Reagan gasped, her hands moving restlessly across Eve's back, beneath her tank top, relearning contours both familiar and changed. "We shouldn't?—"

"We shouldn't have done a lot of things," Eve interrupted, her voice rough with emotion as she pulled back just enough to meet Reagan's gaze. "But right now, I need this. I need you. Ten years, Reagan. Ten years I thought I'd never touch you again."

The raw honesty in Eve's words shattered Reagan's final defenses. With unexpected grace, she reversed their positions, pinning Eve against the wall with deliberate pressure. Her hands caught Eve's wrists, raising them above her head in a gesture both protective and possessive.

"Tell me to stop," Reagan challenged, her voice low and strained, "and I'll go. But if I stay?—"

Instead of answering, Eve surged forward, capturing Reagan's mouth again with a hunger that left no room for doubt. Reagan released Eve's wrists to slide her hands beneath her tank top, tracing the smooth skin of her abdomen, the curve of her ribs, the swell of her breasts, the familiar landscape of a bodyshe'd memorized years ago. Her hands roamed, lifting Eve’s shirt and throwing it to the floor in one fluid motion.

She paused for a second to take in Eve and barely suppressed a gasp before she leaned down and kissed Eve’s breasts, taking a nipple carefully into her mouth and kissing it.

“You are magnificently beautiful,” she whispered between kisses.

Reagan took Eve’s other nipple in her mouth, swirling her tongue over it and flicking it lightly. Eve’s body immediately responded, and her nipple hardened and she leaned her head back.

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