Darker: The Inquirer

by M. S. Parker

  We hadn’t made promises, exactly. We’d agreed to only fuck each other, and I’d been stupid enough to believe that he meant it. I’d never asked for exclusivity from any other partner because that hadn’t ever been part of the deal.

  The taxi pulled into the parking lot next to a building with a neon sign that said Franco’s. I paid the driver, adding a tip for his willingness to stay at the ranch while I’d gone to Bradyn’s cabin. He thanked me and gave me his card, telling me to call when I needed a ride back to my hotel.

  I’d gotten a voicemail from Shadae earlier this week, telling me that she’d keep my cabin for me until I called to tell her I wasn’t coming back. I hadn’t called, which meant I’d been able to leave my suitcase there and take the key she’d left under the mat. I could’ve stayed.

  Which would have been a bad idea.

  The bar was exactly what I’d asked for. On a Saturday night, it was busy, but not so packed that I felt claustrophobic. I took a seat at the bar with the wall at one side and an older woman at the other. She looked like she was here for the same reason I was. To forget something and be alone without actually being alone. Based on the blank way she glanced at me before turning back to her drink, I didn’t need to worry about her hitting on me.

  “What can I get you?” The bartender was massive, his bulk taking up enough room that I wondered if he could even turn sideways in that small space behind the bar.

  “Long Beach Iced Tea.” Close to the Long Island Iced Tea, I preferred the taste of this one when I wanted something stronger than beer but not strong enough to knock me on my ass. I also wasn’t in the mood to throw back a few shots and go back to the ranch, and this drink would let me take my time.

  The bartender nodded, and less than a minute later, the drink was in front of me. I sipped at it, the burn faint as it traveled down my throat and into my stomach. It was good, but I couldn’t enjoy it the way I would have if I’d been here under other circumstances.

  Circumstances like not finding a naked woman in Bradyn’s cabin. Or circumstances where I’d known better than to get involved with someone while working.

  Okay, so I hadn’t known that he was connected to my case until after we’d already slept together a couple times, but I had known before the last time. I should have never let it happen. Just because I hadn’t wanted to make a big deal about him being my date for Kaimi’s wedding didn’t mean I’d needed to go back to his hotel room and have sex with him again.

  I had no excuse for my behavior. Just because I’d wanted him wasn’t good enough. My actions had consequences, and this was one of them. I’d been stupid enough to trust him, and I was paying for it now.

  One thought followed another, and I didn’t try to stop them. I’d drown them tonight and have a massive headache tomorrow, but at least he’d be out of my system, and I could focus on work.

  At some point after my second or third drink, I’d started people watching, but I didn’t realize that I was even doing it until a guy sat down at the table closest to me, and the redhead who already occupied the space asked him to leave.

  “Let me buy you a drink.” He leaned closer to her, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Just one drink, and if you still want me to go, I will.”

  He sounded polite enough about it, but something about him made me think he wasn’t going to be put off that easily.

  “No thank you.” The redhead’s voice was firm, and I wondered if she saw the same thing in him that I did. “I’m waiting for a friend.”

  “Have a drink with me while you’re waiting. When your friend gets here, she can join us.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. When she jerked her hand back, he didn’t grab her, but even from where I was sitting, I could see the anger on his face.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  I was fairly certain that don’t be like that was second only to you’d be prettier if you smiled when it came to phrases that pissed me off, but it was a close second.

  “I’d like you to leave.” The edge to her voice shook, and the fear under her words was clear.

  “Only if you come with me.”

  Nope.

  I hopped off my chair and made it to their table in just a couple steps. My head felt a bit wobbly, but I wasn’t slurring or stumbling, so I was sober enough to deal with this asshole.

  “You’re in my seat.”

  I felt the woman’s surprise more than saw it, but I didn’t look away from the guy.

  “I don’t see your name on it.”

  “For real?” I laughed. Shit. I was a little drunker than I’d thought. “What are you, twelve?”

  His face turned red, like that deep tomato red that made you think of strokes and heart attacks. “You laughin’ at me, bitch?”

  “Aren’t you smart?” I felt people watching me now, but I kept my focus on him.

  He seemed like the sort of coward who’d wait until I looked away and then punch me or something like that. His hands were in fists when he stood, but I didn’t back down. It could’ve been the alcohol, but it also could’ve been the fact that I was tired of seeing assholes like this act like women owed him something.

  “This ain’t your business,” he said. “You best go back to your seat before I do somethin’ you’ll regret.”

  I stepped toward him, putting us almost nose to nose. Literally. He and I were basically the same height. Probably why he was such a douche. Trying to make up for what he lacked in height. Probably other areas too.

  For one tense moment, I thought he was going to hit me even though most of the bar was watching us now, but then someone appeared to my left. I could only make out a vague shape with my peripheral vision, but as soon as the person spoke, I knew who it was.

  “Security’s gonna take care of him, Nyx.” Isaac Huxley had an amazing voice. It slid over my skin like…well, like something warm and nice. “And they’ll walk the young lady to her car when she’s ready to leave.”

  I looked over at Isaac. “Promise she’ll be okay?”

  He smiled, the resemblance to his father almost eerie. If I had a picture of Brew at Isaac’s age, I doubted anyone would’ve been able to tell them apart. Behind me, the jerk was being half-dragged to the door, cursing and yelling insults. I ignored him and waited for Isaac to answer my question.

  “I promise.” He reached over and touched my arm. “Why don’t you let me take you back to the ranch rather than calling a cab? Since we’re going to the same place, it makes sense.”

  He was right, it did. I just wasn’t sure I was ready to go back yet. Then again, I realized, if I went with him, maybe I really could get past Bradyn through this good-looking man. We’d flirted a bit before, and he seemed interested in me, but in a casual kind of way.

  Exactly what I wanted.

  After all, everybody knew that the fastest way to get under someone was to get over someone else.

  Or something like that.

  “All right.”

  He put his hand on my back, between my shoulder blades, and used his touch to steer me out of the bar. I kept waiting for the heat and electricity I felt every time Bradyn touched me, but I felt nothing but pleasant warmth and a feeling of safety. Not the same sort of safety I’d felt around Bradyn, but safe enough.

  I wasn’t going to fall for that twice, though. If Isaac and I fucked tonight, that’s all it would be. No second time. No talking about my past. If he couldn’t handle the way I needed things to be, we wouldn’t do anything at all.

  The ride back to the ranch was fuzzy, but the cool – well, cooler – air that came at me when Isaac opened the door woke me up enough to give me the strength to get out without needing help. He gripped my elbow anyway, and I let him. As I made my way toward my cabin, I couldn’t stop from looking toward Bradyn’s cabin, wondering if the woman was still there, if they were in bed together.

  If they were fucking right now.

  I frowned.
r />   Nope.

  Fuck that.

  I stopped, and when Bradyn turned toward me, a question on his face, I grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him toward me.

  Okay, so I surprised him with the kiss, but I assumed he’d do the same thing every other man who was attracted to women would do and kiss me the fuck back.

  I did not expect him to grip my shoulders and hold me in place while he stepped a good foot and a half away.

  “I’m flattered,” he said, his eyes not meeting mine. “But you’re drunk.”

  “What the fuck?!” I shook off his hands. “Who do you think you are?! I’m a grown woman! I can kiss whoever the hell I want to kiss! Won’t be you again. I can tell you that.”

  My face was hot, my hands curled so that my nails dug into my palms. The physical stuff, though, wasn’t anything compared to the sick feeling in my stomach. It had nothing to do with the alcohol. I hadn’t drunk enough to throw up. Which I knew meant I was sober enough to decide if I wanted to kiss someone.

  A tiny voice spoke up, reminding me that I might not have been blackout drunk, but maybe I wasn’t the best judge of whether or not I was too drunk to kiss a man.

  Nope.

  I was in control. I got to decide what I did, when I did it, and with who.

  Whom.

  Fuck it.

  “Fuck you, Isaac. You and the horse you rode in on.”

  With that harsh insult out of the way, I opened my mouth to tell Isaac Huxley exactly what I thought of him.

  Three

  Bradyn

  I was hovering on that line between waking and sleep when the sound of a vehicle coming up the drive woke me all the way. Since there weren’t any guests scheduled to come into the ranch until the end of October, my mind immediately went to Nyx.

  Even while I told myself to just let it go, that I could wait until morning to find out if she was actually back or not, I climbed out of bed and walked over to the window. I recognized the truck as Isaac’s and wondered if he’d decided to bring back someone for the night but wanted to use one of the cabins instead of taking her into his room at the main house.

  I didn’t blame him. I couldn’t imagine trying to have sex with someone knowing that my parents were right down the hall.

  Then I realized who was with him, and my stomach clenched. When Nyx kissed him, I started to turn away because I didn’t want to see that, not even when I was as mad at her as I was. Except more movement kept me watching.

  Isaac wasn’t kissing her back, and it looked like she was pissed about it.

  She wasn’t staggering, but I didn’t doubt that she’d been drinking. It didn’t take much for me to put together that Isaac had found her at the bar he’d mentioned going to, and he’d brought her back here because she was drunk. Not because he planned to sleep with her.

  I could hear her yelling, though not the words, and I was out the door before I realized what I was doing. I trusted Isaac not to take advantage of Nyx and not to hurt her, but I still felt a wave of protectiveness wash over me, and I kept walking.

  Halfway to her, I remembered that I was just in a pair of boxers, but I wasn’t about to go back to put on clothes and shoes. Who knew what would happen in that short amount of time?

  “Fuck you, Isaac. You and the horse you rode in on.”

  Under other circumstances, I would’ve found that funny, but I could see her spiraling, and protecting her from herself took priority. I stepped between her and Isaac, my hands up with palms out in case she decided to throw a punch. Considering how we’d left things, physical violence wasn’t completely out of the question.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Nyx put her hands on her hips and glared at me.

  “I can take it from here, Isaac.” I didn’t look away from the raging woman, even though I was talking to the man behind me.

  Nyx scowled. “I don’t need to be taken care of, asshole.”

  Clearly, alcohol hadn’t made her forget that we were pissed at each other.

  “Let me get you inside, Nyx,” Isaac said. “You shouldn’t be wandering around out here when it’s dark.”

  “I’m not a child, Isaac. Fuck off.”

  Isaac sighed, and I was tempted to roll my eyes.

  “Go ahead back to the house, Isaac.” I turned just enough to show him the seriousness on my face. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.”

  She was muttering things under her breath that I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear, but I ignored her for the moment because Isaac stepped closer. “I can handle her.” His voice was low. “You don’t need to play superhero, Bradyn.”

  I liked Isaac. I really did. He was a good guy, and he treated his parents well. Any man or woman would be lucky to have him.

  Except Nyx.

  She was here under false pretenses and had lied to his parents. That was the reason why. It had nothing to do with the fact that I still wanted her despite all that.

  “I’m not playing hero,” I said. “Just trust me on this. It’ll be better if I deal with drunk Nyx.”

  “All right, I’ll go.” He paused, his finger coming close to my face. “If you take advantage of her, I’ll cut your balls off and use them as Halloween decorations.”

  “Thanks for that imagery,” I said dryly.

  A moment later, the gravel crunched as Isaac walked back to his car. I waited until he drove away to speak to Nyx. The fact that she was still standing there, glowering at me, was yet more proof that she’d had too much to drink. If she’d been sober, she would’ve been either slamming the door in my face or cussing me out.

  “Tomorrow morning, you’re going to feel pretty stupid for yelling at Isaac the way you did.” I shoved all ten fingers through my hair. “He’ll forgive you for it. The Huxleys are good people that way.”

  “I wouldn’t have said any of it if he had just kissed me back.” Her tone was petulant.

  “I think, tomorrow, you’ll be glad he didn’t.” My voice was tight. “You should really go sleep it off. Alone.”

  She made a sound that I, belatedly, recognized as some sort of laugh. Not the real laugh I’d heard before. This one was filled with a lifetime of bitterness. I didn’t like it.

  “It’s none of your damn business who’s in my bed. Just like it’s none of mine who’s in yours.”

  “What?”

  She reached out like she was going to shove my shoulder but missed, throwing her off balance. I reached out automatically to help her, but she smacked away my hands. Somehow, she managed to regain her balance, and she looked even more pissed than before. Repeating my question was probably a bad idea, but I did it anyway.

  “What did you mean?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I guess that answers the question if she fucked your brains out.”

  My jaw dropped as I connected the dots. I didn’t know how, but she’d seen Antoinette in my cabin.

  Was that why she’d gotten drunk?

  Did it matter?

  The problem was, the answer to both of those questions was the same.

  I didn’t know.

  Four

  Nyx

  I shouldn’t have said that.

  Shit.

  I’d known kissing Isaac was a bad idea, but I hadn’t realized it was going to send everything else down the crapper. Of course, Bradyn had to do what he’d been doing from the moment I first arrived in Savannah. He just showed the fuck up.

  “When did you get back?” he asked, an intense expression on his face. “You were here earlier, weren’t you?”

  I shook my head, then regretted the movement as it nearly knocked me off balance. “Doesn’t matter. Like I said, not my business.”

  I should’ve just gone straight inside when I got here. Ignored Isaac and just gone to bed.

  “I’d like to know how you saw what you did, but I don’t think that’s the most important thing right now.” Bradyn took a small step toward me. “Look, nothing happened.”

  “Right.” I
pointed at him as he became two people, then came back together into one. “Cuz a naked woman answering your door while you’re in the shower doesn’t scream ‘just had sex.’”

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “No, Nyx. I didn’t have sex with her.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “You do.”

  Dammit.

  “Her name is Antoinette Houston. She’s my ex. Really ex.”

  I must’ve looked like I didn’t believe him – I didn’t – because he kept talking.

  “Look, we started dating in college. I was a senior, she was a junior. We were serious.” He scratched at his cheek, an absent gesture that, for some reason, annoyed me. “A little over a year after she graduated, she and my dad started having an affair. It was nearly six months before I caught them.”

  My eyes widened, my drunken brain still functioning well enough to remember what I’d found in my investigation. Something about Bradyn leaving his father’s campaign and an affair Clancy Traylor’d supposedly had.

  “She’s the reason you left your father’s campaign.”

  His mouth tightened. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

  “I’ve been doing my job, actually.”

  Shit, I was losing some of my buzz. That was the last thing I wanted, especially around Bradyn. If I got sober, I’d be relieved that he hadn’t slept with Antionette, and that would be a bad thing.

  “Yeah, we’ll need to talk about that job of yours, but not now. In the morning, after you’ve sobered up.”

  I glared at him, even though collapsing on my bed right now sounded like a good idea. I didn’t need him telling me what to do. I didn’t need anyone for anything.

  “Fuck you.”

  He took a step toward me, and I barely stopped myself from backing away. “Is that a fuck you and the horse you rode in on, or is it a I want to fuck you six ways from Sunday?”

  I swallowed hard and tried to remember that I was pissed at him. Except I couldn’t really remember why I was supposed to be pissed at him. The naked woman thing wasn’t what I’d thought, and what I’d assumed about him and his family might not have been what it’d looked like either.