Love the Way You Lie (Femmeslash)

(This story was written for one of Samantha's Challenges on the Goodreads - Less Than Three Press group.  The prompt was "Love the way you lie.")

"You fucking bitch. Seriously, Kai? How could you?"

Kai froze mid-step, her dark eyes instantly finding the familiar shape of her partner in the darkness as Lynne stepped out of the deep shadow of a recessed doorway and onto the only slightly less dark sidewalk. It was well after midnight and, while most city streets were well lit with copious numbers of streetlights, this particular street had a strange habit of losing more bulbs than it was worth replacing.

"Lynne," Kai began cautiously, carefully balancing the package she had mere moments ago secreted away inside her leather jacket. "What are you doing here?"

"Apparently I'm catching you in your little lie." Even in the dark, Kai could see Lynne's eyes flashing bright and wet despite the scathing fury in her words. Kai's shoulders tensed as Lynne reached up to swipe angrily at her face, watching carefully for any small movement that might betray her reaching for the Kel Tec P-32 that was most likely concealed at the small of her back. Kai really didn't feel like taking a bullet tonight, and unless she did some fancy talking, the likelihood of that happening was increasing with every second.

"You told me you had a job. And I believed you." Lynne crossed her arms over her chest, her movements stiff. "Then Jackson calls and asks for you, says he's got something he'd like you take care of this evening and do I know where you are."

Kai closed her eyes and cursed herself for seven kinds of a fool. Damn that man straight to hell. If he got her shot, she was going to take it straight out of his hide. She sighed softly as Lynne gathered steam and pressed on.

"And I thought to myself, 'Gee, Lynne, if Kai's supposedly out on a job, and Jackson doesn't know where she is, what the hell is going on? Is she ok? Is she hurt somewhere and needs help?'" Lynne bristled, choking on the last words, her face turning away as she fought for some semblance of her normally rock solid composure.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. Worried that something was very wrong, Lynne would have checked the GPS on Kai's phone – the one she always carried and so very few people knew the number to, not the burners she used for most of their work. When things went badly in their line of employment, they tended to do so on epic levels, usually involving large numbers of bullets and unhealthy amounts of bloodshed. They had both agreed to the GPS tracking as a way to ensure they always knew where to find each other in the event everything went to hell. Calling the phone in the middle of a job was a good way to get one of them killed, so she would have come out to take a discreet look around.

Lynne had likely parked her motorcycle over a street and then started to quietly recon the area, assessing the threat level as she approached the location of Kai's phone. She had apparently made it to within a few doorways when Kai had stepped out onto the sidewalk.

And watched as Kai embraced the tall brunette with her, laughing softly at something whispered in her ear and kissing the woman's cheek before turning to walk back up the street. Seen through Lynne's eyes, between the lie and the obvious show of affection, the evidence was pretty damning.

"Lynne—"

"You lied to me." Lynne's reply was flat, more whispered than anything else, but Kai could hear the betrayal and the pain it held and it drew her breath up short, needling her in the chest.

"Lynne, please," Kai started slowly. "It's not what you think." She held her hands carefully in front of her, away from her body as she took a slow step toward her partner, cautious to make no sudden movement that might result in bloodshed between them.

"No? Then just what the hell is it?" Lynn snapped, her head whipping around and her hands landing on her hips. Kai watched as Lynne balanced herself, unconsciously settling into a fighting stance as her weight shifted to her left foot, the right dropping back slightly as she lowered her center of balance. It was a small relief that she was going for fists over firearms, and Kai couldn't help smiling a little bit at that, feeling a tug of lust low in her body. As far as Kai was concerned, Lynne was 120lbs of pure sex appeal when she climbed in the sparring ring, and the current position was close enough to count. This wasn't quite the way she'd envisioned this going, but she'd long ago learned that where Lynnette Marie Calleton was concerned, very little was likely to go as planned.

"Lynne, I'm going to reach into my jacket, ok?" Kai moved her hands slowly, reaching inside the black leather jacket with all the care of a bomb tech handling high explosives. She withdrew a small package wrapped in nondescript brown paper and held it out in the palm of her hand, offering it up to her partner with a weak smile. "It's for you."

Lynne frowned, then stepped close enough to snatch the proffered object. She made short work of the wrapping and opened the box inside, pausing just long enough to grab a tiny light from the pocket of her riding jacket to illuminate the contents. As her eyes focused in the sudden brightness, she went stock still.

Kai's heart did its damnedest to pound its way out of her chest as she waited, battling the wave of uncertainly that washed over her. She could look down the wrong end of the barrel of a loaded and cocked pistol without flinching, but this… this just might kill her if it went wrong.

Lynne sniffed and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, her chin quivering, her head bent.

"Annie's a friend from way back. She's a gunsmith, but she does some metalsmithing on the side and I wanted something special. Something that meant something special to us…" Kai trailed off as she gestured silently to the box in Lynne's hands.

Lynne took the ring out of the box and slipped it on her finger, sniffling as she stared down at it mutely. A moment later, she was in Kai's arms, her face pressed damp and warm against the taller woman's neck.

Kai let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, wrapping her arms tightly around the beautiful woman pressed up against her. She dropped her cheek onto Lynne's hair and smiled, closing her eyes as they stood clinging together in the dark.

She knew a Yes when she heard one.