So I'm in love with this couple, and I really like doing AU's, so this kind of happened. First time in this fandom, so fingers crossed you like it.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. I only own the mistakes, for which I apologize.

"You're gonna need to pass her on to someone else, bro," Antonio Dawson stated. Jay Halstead looked up from his desk and across at his partner.

"What you on about?" He asked, putting down the pen he was using to scrawl his signature across a couple of reports that he had just finished.

"I'm talking about the fact that you're sweet on her," Antonio smirked at him.

"I'll take her!" Adam Ruzek piped up from where he was leaning against his own desk. He smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. "She's hot."

"You just want my CI because she always delivers," Jay shot at him.

"Oh, is that a promise?" Adam grinned, his words laced with double meaning.

"Get off it," Jay growled, pursing his lips and looking back down at his paperwork. Antonio and Adam exchanged looks and grinned. Silence fell for a couple of minutes before Jay's cellphone buzzed against the wood of his desk again, and the two other men in his unit looked up again. "I can feel you looking at me," Jay snapped out without bothering to look up, reaching over to pick up his phone.

"Does your girl know something?" Antonio asked, not bothering to hide his smirk.

"She's not my girl," Jay replied, finally looking back up. "And yeah, in fact she does. Doing damn better than your CI's."

"Well, all of my CI's are druggies or recovering druggies," Adam muttered. "They don't usually have their phones on them. And when they say things, usually they're imagining them, or don't actually remember the details."

"By the way, she is your girl," Antonio repeated.

"She's not."

"Is that the hooker CI?" Kelvin Atwater walked into the office and grinned at Jay. "Yeah, man. She's your girl."

"Okay, you guys all need to back the fuck up," Jay snapped, getting up from his desk and glancing back down at his phone. "I'm going to go now, because you guys are all acting about three years old and I'm not interested in that shit." The laughs of his partners followed him out as he walked down the stairs toward the ground level, slipping on his leather jacket as he went. Trudy Platt, the grouchy desk sergeant, nodded curtly at him as he walked past. His car was parked in the lot behind the precinct. He slid inside and took a moment to breathe in before he put the key into the ignition and turning it over.

Erin Lindsay was a typical story on paper.

She was a foster kid, who's mother was a junkie and her dad was unknown. At fourteen, her mother died, and then for the next four years she bounced around between foster homes. She was always in trouble at school, for smoking at school, for coming in drunk, for getting into fights with other people. But she was smart. If things were different, this girl would have been on her way to Stanford or Brown.

Instead, she was working as an exotic dancer at Color Red on the bad side of town and probably doing a few favors for men willing to pay her money. It had never been proven that Erin was a prostitute, but most of the girls working at Color Red were.

Jay had recruited her as a CI when he had pulled over a car that she was a passenger of, and there had been a bag of X in the backseat. She clearly knew nothing about it, but she refused to implicate the driver either, who was one of her friends from the club, even though Jay knew that the driver was a repeat offender. Instead of charging Erin as an accessory, he asked if she would be willing to feed him any inside information. It was probably one of the smartest moves that he had made. She smoked, drank and swore like a sailor but she didn't touch drugs, so she didn't feed him any information that was born from delusions.

And Antonio was also right.

He had started liking her after a few months of her snitch for him.

She was strong willed, determined, smart, and drop dead gorgeous.

It was a hard combo not to fall for.

The case they were working on had started when a couple of girls that had been reported missing from their dorm rooms; by their friends and some of their teachers. They had been spotted at the airport on security camera's the afternoon that they went missing, all meeting up with the same guy, and taking backpacks from him.

The same guy who was well known as a pimp on the backstreets of Chicago.

It was sort of unusual for a man like him to move nationally rather than stay in their city, so they were beginning to think that it was him who was working for someone else.

And that was where Erin came into it.

She lived in that world and she might now something.

Jay text her a couple of times on the way over to the club but there was no response. He wasn't about to walk in there with his badge and gun on his hip and give himself away, so he ran his hand through his hair to tousle it up a little, and he swapped his smart work jacket for the leather one in his back seat and then headed into the strip club. She worked heaps, if she wasn't replying to her texts then that was usually where she was. As soon as he walked in the club, there were two girls clamoring around him, pressing their breasts up against his arms and back as they ushered him toward the bar.

Technically he was off duty, and he needed to blend in, so he ordered a beer and then spun around to face the stage, where there were two girls dancing. Neither of them were pretty or as lithe as Erin, but they were good enough to hold his attention for a while. After twenty minutes, though, he was beginning to think that maybe this was a wasted trip, and he checked his phone again, hoping that she would have text him. His phone was still blank, so he threw down a note on the sticky bar to cover the two beers he had drank, and then got up to leave. As he was walking toward the door, though, the music changed, the pulse a little heavier and slower and he chanced a look back toward the stage.

There she was.

Erin left everyone in her dust.

She stepped onto the stage, silver heels on her feet and the straps twining up her tanned legs. She was wearing a silver bra and thong, with a sheer, lacy dress over the top. She walked slowly, extending her legs out in front of her as she reached the pole in the middle of the stage. Her eyes skimmed over the crowd, and that was when Erin's eyes fell on Jay.

The look she gave him was fleeting, but the intent was clear.

He wasn't welcome there.

Which he already knew.

They had an agreement that he wouldn't come in here when he needed to see her.

Jay turned around and left the club, sitting in his car. It was only about twenty minutes before Erin appeared, wearing a pair of leggings and a hoodie. The hood was up and covering the top half of her face, and her long hair was tucked inside, but even then, it would have been impossible not to make out how gorgeous she was. She slid into the passenger seat of the car and looked over at him with raised eyebrows.

"You know I don't like you coming here," she said bluntly.

"I couldn't reach you on your cell," Jay began to explain but she just rolled her eyes and let out a little huff of breath and put on the seat belt.

"This better be an emergency," she grumbled as he turned on the engine of his car and pulled away from the curb. They drove for five or so minutes before Jay indicated to pull over at a tiny diner. He came here sometimes after he had pulled a late shift; the owners were a husband and wife and they made the best pancake stack in the city. They were also open from five in the morning, which suited his needs. They went inside and ordered, Jay only getting a milkshake and fries, while it seemed as though Erin ordered the whole menu.

How she ate the way she did and stayed as slim as she was, he had no idea.

"So there's this hustler," Jay began as they sat down in a booth in the back of the bar. "Do you know Dean Rickards. Uh..." he thought for a second. "Goes by Snake on the street?"

"No small talk to ease me into this?" Erin asked with a raised eyebrow, tilting her head to the side. Jay blinked and then smiled at her.

"How's work?" He smirked.

"Asshole," she rolled her eyes and looked out the window, but there was a smile pulling at her lips as she did so. Jay grinned, loving it when she smiled, creating dimples in her cheeks. They were quiet for the next few minutes before their food was brought over, and then they were quiet for another few minutes as they ate. Erin glanced over at him before reaching out and dipping one of her fries in his strawberry milkshake and then popping it in her mouth.

"Seriously? You have, like, triple the amount of food as me, and you still try and steal mine?" Jay asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.

"You love it," she replied with a shrug as she did the same with another chip. When they finished, Erin wiped the salt off her lips with a serviette and folded her arms over her chest, leaning back in the booth. "Okay, so Snake?" Jay nodded. "Yeah, I know him. Deals drugs, and a year or so ago he started pimping out girls. What is it you want to know?"

"Well it seems as though he's gone national, rather than just sticking to Chicago," Jay told her as he sucked his milkshake through a straw. Erin snorted and rolled her eyes as she leaned back in the booth and folded her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, right. He's a fucking moron. He can't even read or write or count, people are just scared of him. His right hand man is the one who counts all his money to make sure he doesn't get ripped off, but people say that he skims off him," Erin said. Jay raised an eyebrow at that.

"Could be this other guy? Who's gone national?"

"Why do you think that he's gone bigger?"

"We've seen him at the airport with a couple of girls that have gone missing," Jay shrugged as he pulled his milkshake in closer to him again. "We saw them getting given backpacks and then they've never been seen again...Except one girl. The first one who went missing. She was dead, and the PD in Albuquerque found her body torn apart in a dumpster, her stomach ripped up."

"How old are these girls?" Erin's casual posture was gone and she leaned forward, her eyes alert.

"They had all just started Uni. Two of them were nineteen, the rest were twenty," Jay told her, watching Erin's face carefully as she nodded and took all of the information in.

"Okay," she gave one final nod. "I'll talk to Nadia, she's a friend of mine who sometimes...Works for Snake, I guess you could say." Jay knew exactly what she meant by that, but he didn't pull her up on it. "I'll see if she's heard anything. But from what I know, if he's expanded, it's not just him. There will be someone else involved."

Erin worked tirelessly for Jay, but it shouldn't have surprised him. Young girls in trouble must have struck a nerve with her, reminded her what she had gone through, and she was trying to find something out before another girl showed up dead. Her friend, Nadia Decotis, was also her room mate, and she was the one person in Erin's world who knew that she was a snitch for the Chicago PD. Jay had been nervous about that at first, given that Nadia had already been arrested for prostitution and there had been signs of drug use, which made her unreliable. But Erin had always said that she trusted her with her life, and so Jay had left it alone.

Three days went by, and she hadn't been in contact with Jay. He couldn't be too surprised, because she had her own life and her own job that she needed to attend to. But then one day he got home after work and she was huddled outside his door.

"Shit, Erin," Jay's eyes widened as he took in her figure, hidden underneath an oversized rain coat. "Hey, look at me," he reached down to aid her with the stand to her feet, finally seeing her face when she tilted her head back. Her hair was damp and stringy, and matted, and then he cringed when he saw her bloody eye and split lip. "Shit, babe," the term of endearment spilled from his lips without a second thought. "Come on. We need to get you inside." She let him man handle her into his apartment, one arm around her waist and holding most of her weight, while the other pushed the door shut behind them.

"Jay—"

"No way, Erin," he murmured. "Don't talk right now. I need to get you cleaned up first. Cleaned up and warm." Her teeth were chattering viciously, and he realized that underneath the coat, her leggings and jersey were wet right through, from water and also from blood. "Look, get in the shower, and I'm going to get you some coffee ready." Erin didn't say anything, just nodded her head a couple of times before heading in the direction that he was pointing. The door shut and he heard the shower turn on a couple of seconds later. "Shit, shit, shit," Jay muttered under his breath as he turned to his kitchen.

He started with the coffee, turning on the pot, and then he grabbed his phone from his pocket and sent off a text to Antonio. He was meant to take over a shift from Atwater in a couple of hours, but there was no way in hell that he was leaving Erin alone now. Antonio responded by ringing and he lifted it to his ear.

"Hey, bro."

"What's going on?" Antonio asked.

"Erin's here," Jay began.

"Oh, really? So you're asking me to cover your shift because you're getting some ass tonight?" Antonio teased.

"Nah, bro, it ain't like that. Something's wrong, Tony. She's all beaten up and bloody," Jay muttered into the phone, not wanting her to hear even though there was a door between them. "I've gotta stay with her."

"Yeah, man, all good," Antonio assured her. "Look after your girl, and let me know how things are tomorrow." A hundred different scenarios were running through his head. The worst one that kept coming back to him was that someone had found out she was a snitch. He knew what happened when informats got caught out, and if this was the case, then she was lucky to be alive.

"Jay?" Erin voice was soft behind him and he whipped around to face her. She was wearing a towel that barely covered her wet body, her wet hair sticking to her face and neck. Jay quickly dropped his eyes so that it didn't look like he was checking her out—she undoubtedly got enough of that where she worked. "Do you have any clothes I could borrow?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. I'll see if I can find something," Jay mumbled, walking briskly over to his room. He rummaged through his drawers and found a pair of sweatpants with a draw string and a hoodie that he probably couldn't fit anymore. He took them out to the lounge and handed them to Erin, who then turned and disappeared back into the bathroom. Jay poured the coffee and gritted his teeth, and then realized that he didn't even know how she took her coffee.

He had a thing for a girl that was keeping him awake at night, and he didn't even know how she took her coffee.

Erin reappeared and he gave her a weak smile as she came over to join him in the kitchen, sitting on one of the bar stools. Jay slid the coffee over to her and she took a sip, scrunching up her nose.

"Sugar?" She asked, and he couldn't stop his grin as he pushed it across the bench. He should've known that she took it sweet, given how much sugary food he had seen her eat. She dumped a few heaped teaspoons in the coffee, and this time when she sipped from the cup, she didn't make a face.

"What happened, Erin?" Jay asked, attempting to keep the anger from his voice, not wanting to scare her. The brunette took in a deep breath, looking very small, engulfed in his cothes. "Who did this to you?"

"I was looking into Snake and those girls for you," she began, her eyes trained on her coffee. Jay's stomach clenched as he realized that this had happened because of him. "Nadia got me an in, but I think that he got on to me, because I finished up with this guy and the next thing I knew, I was begin dragged in front of Snake and some other guy." Erin chewed down on her lower lip as she took in a deep, shaky breath. "I got away when this fight started between a couple of girls at a john," she murmured, her voice shaking slightly as tears sprung to her eyes. Jay couldn't help it, he circled around to the other side of the breakfast bar and wrap his arms around her. At first she stiffened, but then she relaxed in his grip and nestled her head into his shoulder. They stayed like that for a long time, until her breathing evened out, and then he pulled back. Erin let out a shaky breath and Jay looked down at her flushed face, and he couldn't stop himself from lifting his hand to brush away a strand of hair that was clinging to her damp cheek. "I'm going to call Voight—he's my boss—and see if we can get you to look through some head shots to see if you can see the guy who was with Snake."

"His name was Carlo," Erin said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "He's related to Snake somehow, I know I've seen him around before. He also looked smarter—if someone's running this I'm guessing that it's him."

"Snake provides the girls and this other guy has the product that he needs to move," Jay mused. He took in a deep breath and ran his hand through his short hair. "You're lucky that they didn't do anything else to you," he murmured, reaching over to brush his hand over hers.

"Yeah, I know," Erin said. "Anyway, call your boss, I want to get back to Nadia—she'll be freaking out that I'm not back yet." Jay's eyebrows raised and he let out a short, humorless laugh. "What?" Erin frowned at him.

"You're crazy if you think that I'm letting you go back to your apartment—"

"What are you on about?!" Erin jumped out of her bar stool and stormed over to where he was standing. She suddenly look a whole lot less like the scared girl she was a few minutes ago, and a whole lot more like the fiercely independent woman that he had fallen for.

But that didn't make her right.

"I'm not letting you go back there—"

"Not 'letting' me?!" Erin glared at him, standing right in front of him now, her voice rising angrily with his. "You're not my keeper, Jay! You can't force me to stay here!"

"Fuck, Erin! I'm only trying to protect you—to keep you safe!" Jay snapped, his eyes narrow as he glared down at her. Erin met his angry gaze steadily with her own dark eyes. They stood like that for almost a full minute before suddenly, Erin was reaching up and grabbing his collar, and pulling at his shirt, jerking in close to her. Their lips met with a crash, and Jay let out a surprised 'oof' as he stumbled forward. There was a squeak from Erin when Jay steadied himself against her and he realized that he had touched a bruise.

"Erin—this doesn't change anything—" Jay began, his anger at the people who had hurt Erin bubbling up again. Erin quieted him once more, fusing her lips with his. Jay settled his hands around her hips, hoping that he wasn't hurting her. Her warm tongue flickered over the seam of his mouth, and he parted his lips with a sigh from deep in his throat. She rolled her tongue over his, and her body molded itself to fit with his own. Jay lowered his hands, gripping Erin's ass and lifting her up easily.

The last thing that Erin processed before her mind turned fuzzy with lust, was Jay resting her down on the couch, and lying down over her.

"She's you CI, aye?" Hank Voight grunted, looking through the tinted glass to wheere Erin was sitting with Kim Burgess, going through a thick book of headshots.

"Right," Jay jerked his head in a nod. Voight pursed his lips and gave a one shouldered shrug.

"Pretty girl," he commented. Jay dragged his eyes away from Erin to look at his boss sideways, but Hank was still looking through the glass. "That asshole did that to her face?"

"Yeah," Jay mumbled, looking back at Erin's face. It was actually looking worse now, the flesh under her eye turning purplish and her nose swelling. It made him feel like maybe he had taken advantage of the poor girl and her situation.

But then he remembered the fire in her eyes and the snap in her voice and he had to take into account that this wasn't just any girl he was dealing with.

It was Erin Lindsay.

There was a rap of knuckles against the glass that brought back Jay's attention, and he looked through at Burgess. She was holding the book up and gave a short nod, indicating that Erin had picked one of the mug shots.

"Okay, so this is gonna be hard and fast," Voight was growling out at his team and the other couple of officers who were coming in with them. "There might be some girls in there, and we don't want to hurt them—some of them are only teenagers and we want to get them back to their families. Our man target is Carlo and Dean Rickards, also known as Snake. Anyone else we manage to get is a bonus but these are the men I want you focusing on!" Voight jabbed his finger at the two mugshots that were pinned to the white board. "We have a reliable source that says that both of these men are at this address," Voights hand slipped down to the block of houses that Erin had directed them too. One of thee officers snorted and Jay turned his gaze back to him.

"Didn't know that hookers were now considered to be 'reliable sources' now," he grunted to the man standing next to him. The man looked up and caught the look Jay was giving him and quickly snapped his mouth shut. Jay turned back to Voight, and Antonio clapped a hand down on his shoulder and squeezed lightly.

"Ignore him, bro," Antonio said in a low voice. "We got this. We're going to get the asshole who did that to your girl." Jay nodded jerkily, looking down to load a clip into his weapon.

Antonio noticed that Jay didn't correct him when he called Erin 'his girl'. He made a mental note to revisit that once this was all over.

The troop all broke apart from the main office, some of them jogging down the stairs while the others talked quietly amongest each other; all of them with far too much energy at six thirty in the mornings than your normal person. Jay stopped by the tiny little coffee room where Erin was waiting until he came back.

Except she wasn't there.

Jay spun around to look furiously to where Burgess was doing up her vest.

"Where is she?" He snapped at her. She looked over, eyes wide with confusion before frowning as she came over to where he was standing in the doorway to the break room and saw that it was empty. She sighed and gave Jay a meek look.

"She was right here," she began to say, but Jay interrupted her with a huff of air and scanned the break room. Her phone was still on the bench and he picked it up, swiping across the screen and letting out a sigh of relief that it wasn't password protected. He went to her call logs, but the last incoming or outgoing calls were around four o'clock yesterday afternoon.

"Halstead!" Voight shouted from the top of the stairs, getting ready to go down and join the rest of the team.

"One second!" Jay shouted back, pursing his lips angrily as he stared down at the phone. He tapped on the message icon, and the latest one popped up—a picture.

Of Nadia.

Jay had only seen her once or twice from a distance, but he recognized her.

Despite the bloody lip and nose, and the hair mussed up in front of her face.

"Shit," he muttered, stalking across the office to where Voight was, holding out the phone. Voight took it and sighed as he glanced over Jay's shoulder to see the empty office. "Erin's gone, I don't know how long ago she left."

"She couldn't have gone too long ago," Voight said. "I guess we're just going to need to look out for her at the house as well."

"Do you think it might be a trap?" Antonio piped up from a few steps away. "I mean, they knew that she was a snitch, maybe they knew that she would come straight here, and then they dragged her back with this other girl."

"Or maybe they thought that she wasn't stupid enough to come to the cops, and Nadia was just insurance that she wouldn't," Jay muttered, his voice barely audible. He had had CI's who had been under threat, hell, there was a boy who was snitching on is gang who had been killed when they had found out—but while Jay had felt a little guilty, he had never been so worried he felt this physically sick.

"We need to stick with the original plan," Voight announced, his voice gruff as he looked across at Jay before readjusting his vest. "Come on, we all need to move out." Jay swallowed hard and Antonio shot him a sympathetic look before jogging down the stairs. Jay took in one last breath before following after his squad.

"You think that we're playing games here, you stupid cunt? We've seen you with your little boyfriend, we know that he's a cop," Carlo slapped Erin across the face and her head snapped to the side. She tasted an explosion of warm, bitter blood in her mouth as she accidentally clamped her teeth down on her tongue. She coughed and felt spit and blood dribble over her lip and she spat it out in a very unladylike manner.

"I didn't tell anyone," she replied shortly. Carlo looked over at his cousin, who despite the terrifying street name, did not look at all scary. In fact, he looked worried. He kept pushing apart the curtains with the muzzle of his gun and looking out.

"Bro," Carlo looked over at him in exasperation. "You're making me nervous." Snake glanced back at him guiltily. "The girl has only been done for a few hours, so unless she's a really, really good fuck—" he sneered at her when he said that. "—I doubt that he's missing her yet. And I'm thinking that she's not suicidal enough to go to the police. Especially with knowing that we have her pretty friend."

"Where is Nadia?" Erin demanded, glaring up at Carlo through her hair that had fallen in front of her face. "I want to see Nadia."

"I really don't think you're in a position to be making demands," Carlo stated with a smirk. She narrowed her eyes and tried to free her arms from the ropes that were tying her hands to the arms of the wooden chair. "But I'm feeling generous, so let's bring her in." Carlo nodded at the man who was standing in the doorway, a gun loosely in his hand. He ducked out, before returning, dragging a crumpled girl in after him.

"Nadia?" Erin gasped out, instantly straining against his restraints to try and rush to her friends side. Carlo twined his fingers through Nadia's stringy hair and yanked her head back, eliciting a muffled whine from Nadia as her face came into view. Erin felt tears rush to her eyes as she saw her friend and room mates face. Nadia's eyes were bloodied and bruised, one completely swollen shut, and her nose was bent at a funny angle.

"You fucking asshole," Erin bit out. "You fucking low life scum—"

"She talked to the cops!" Snake yelled out, his eyes widening in panic as he jumped away from the window and the curtain fell back in place. "The fucking bitch went to the cops!" Snake was holding his gun directly at her now, and Erin stared up at them. Living where she did, it wasn't the first time that she had had a fun waved in her direction.

But this was the first time that she actually thought that she might die.

That this might be it.

Suddenly there were bangs and shouts filled the tiny rundown house. Erin couldn't stop the smile that crossed her face as she heard Jay shouting, announcing the police presence.

"Jay!" She screamed out and quickly, he appeared in the doorway. But then Carlo appeared in front of her and pushed her hard, sending the chair toppling to the ground. Erin let out a cry as her shoulder and head collided with the hard wooded floors. Her vision spotted for a second and she blinked, the world coming back into focus.

Until Jay saw her and lunged forward and Carlo tried to back away furiously, his botoed foot colliding with Erin's face.

Her head snapped back and everything went black.

The room was all fuzzy and white, and her head was pounding. Erin groaned, and tried to lift her hand to rub across her face, and then let out a squeak of pain as it shot through her body.

"Oh, oh, oh," came a hushing noise next to her and an unfamiliar face came back focus as she blinked rapidly. "Evening, love! We were getting a bit worried about you!"

"We?" Erin croaked out, turning her head to look around the room. In the corner, Nadia was sitting in an uncomfortable plastic seat, all cleaned up. The bruises on her face were still obvious, one left eye looking very painful, but they would all fade with time. Although, she would be left with a little kink in her nose where it was broken. "Ohmygod, Nadia, I'm so sorry—"

"Don't, Erin," Erin assured her, getting up to go to the side of the hospital bed. "I'm gonna be fine. We were kinda freaking out—you got a really big bump to your head." Erin instinctively went to raise her left hand to touch her head, and then felt another rush of white hot pain shoot through her and she looked down to see that ber arm was in a cast and swing.

"You broke your arm," came a voice from the doorway, and Erin looked over to where the nurse was now tottering out. Jay was standing there, leaning against the door frame, looking mouth-wateringly gorgeous in jeans, a leather jacket and a blue v-neck shirt. "You also dislocated your shoulder, but we've already popped that back in," he gave her a half smile and Erin couldn't help but give a small smile in return. Jay pushed away from the door frame and walked over to the bed, standing on the opposite side from Nadia. "You're gonna be fine, Erin, we're gonna get you all fixed up here, and then take you somewhere safe." Erin's eyebrows pulled together and she opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but then Nadia spoke.

"I think I'm gonna go get coffee," she announced.

"Yeah, Ruzek will escort you," Jay told her. "He's just outside."

"Ooh," Nadia wiggled her eyebrows playfully at Erin, who just rolled her eyes in response. "He's yummy," she added before skipping out of the room. Jay raised an eyebrow as he watched her go.

"She recovers quick," he noted.

"She's strong like that," Erin murmured. He turned back to her and reached out to cover her hand with his. "So what's this about taking me somewhere safe?" She asked, returning to the previous conversation.

"It can take months before there's a trial and they might get bail—we're not going to risk something happening to you or to Nadia," Jay told her. Erin jerked her hand away from him and let out a huff.

"What are you on about?!" She exclaimed. "It's not like I'm testifying at this trial—how does this trial affect me?"

"Because I'm not going to risk Carlo or Dean getting to you if they get bail," Jay said, his voice firm. Erin opened her mouth to interject but Jay continued. "I've already cleared it with Voight, and he's called in a favor with Wit Sec and you and Nadia are all booked in to go as soon as you've been released from here." Erin looked as though she was going to argue again, but Jay leaned forward and gripped her chin, tilting her face upward toward him. "I can not see you get hurt again—do you understand me?" She stared up at him for a long moment before mutely nodding her head. Jay went to move his hand away, but Erin's good hand came up and linked with his, his hand warming hers.

"Am I going to see you?" Erin asked, her voice quiet and sounding completely unlike herself. Jay squeezed her hand and leaned in closer, so that it was only inches away from her.

"It's going to be a while, because there's different agents who are going to escorting you, and protecting you. I'll try to come and see you, but it'll be easier after the trial," Jay told her, so close that she felt his breath on her cheeks.

"As your CI?" She managed to ask, despite how horrid it tasted in her mouth. Jay rolled his yes as he moved impossibly closer, just a whisper away from her, a breath from her lips.

"I don't usually do this with my CI's," Jay murmured, before his mouth was covering hers and both of his hands were cradling her jaw. Erin leaned into the kiss, ignoring the twinge in her shoulder as one of Jay's hand dropped down to cup her neck. They kissed until Erin's lips were swollen—in a completely different way than they had been a few hours ago. Her eyes flickered open after a few seconds and she gave him a smile. "I've got everything under control, okay? You just need to trust me."

"I trust you, Jay," Erin assured him softly, a small smile on her face as Jay leaned back in.

Let me know what you guys think.