Beyond the Call of Duty by Wendy Stone

her cremation and her internment in Saint Michael’s Cemetery
    “Weird, huh?” Gabe said against her skin. “It’s almost like you’re dead and the whole world is moving on around you while you’re stranded in some kind of limbo.”
    “Yeah, but it’s for...”
    “...our own protection,” they finished together. Lexi smiled.
    “I’m really sorry about Teri, Gabe. I know she meant a lot to you, but to find out she’s the reason you can’t go home...that has to be hell.”
    “I’m just glad I’m a believer in karma. She might be all sunshine and roses right now but one day...and she won’t know what happened. I talked to her not an hour before it all happened. There was no hint of what she’d planned to do.” He sighed heavily. “Thank you for being here for me.”
    “There are not too many places I can go right now, Gabe, so think nothing of it.” She heard him snort, and it made her smile. “We’ll get through all of this and get you set up in a new state, a new city. You’ll get a new house and a job where you’re not running drugs for the mob.”
    “What about you?” he asked, a strange note in his voice.
    “Well, I’ll go back to work and do what I do best; protect witnesses.”
    He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she felt his arms move from around her. He scooted over on the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then I’m just a job,” he said with a sigh.
    “No, Gabe, you are anything but just a job. You’ve got to realize I’m on unfamiliar turf here. I’ve never had sex with a witness before or allowed myself to have these feelings. You’re important to me, Gabe, so you’ll never be just the job.”
    He glanced over at her and sighed heavily. Turning a little in the seat, he lay down on the couch, his head pillowed in her lap.
    Lexi laughed. “Give the guy some head and he thinks he owns the world.” She stroked his long hair out of his eyes and away from his cheeks. The whiskers he’d yet to shave off rasped under her palm. The unkempt bad-boy look was a good one for him, and she felt her heart flutter. “You’re doing this on purpose,” she hissed, seeing his gaze flash to her breasts where her nipples now poked defiantly against the fabric of her sweatshirt.
    “I haven’t touched you,” he whispered with a laugh, “but if you want me to, I will. Can you just imagine how your nipple would feel in my hot, wet mouth? I bet I could make you come just by playing with these beauties.” He groaned, and it seemed to echo the one she could no longer contain as the words he spoke made her hot and left her needy and wanting.
    “I am not putting on a show for Luke and Jack, Gabe.” She tugged on a lock of his hair. “Now behave, or else I’m going to convince Jack you need to change your looks so we can keep you safe. I wield a wicked set of clippers.”
    He reached up and tapped his finger on her mouth. “You wouldn’t do that; you like how I look too much. Try a different threat, Lexi.”
    “How about this one; either you behave or you’ll never get the chance to touch me again?” She laughed at the look of horror on his face.
    “You can’t mean it.” He glanced up at her. “You would mean it, wouldn’t you?”
    Lexi shrugged. “If it keeps you in line, then yeah, I mean it. We can’t let any of this get out, Gabe,” she said, suddenly very serious. “I can’t let my boss see I have feelings for you, otherwise he’s going to ship me off to a different safe house than the one he’s shipping you too. We’d never see each other again.”
    He let loose another long, drawn-out sigh as if he were the most put-upon man on the planet. “So, if I behave, does that mean I can take advantage of you later?”
    “Hmm,” she said, as if deep in thought. “I think I might be able to arrange something like that.” She wiped the last of his tears off his face. They spent the morning watching the news programs on television. Lexi’s supposed death was