Jaid Black

by One Dark Night

  Nikki’s gaze darted over to stare at his chiseled profile. She smiled. “Thank you,” she murmured. “You’re pretty okay, Cavanah.”

  “You’re pretty okay too,” Thomas drawled. His eyebrows shot up. “For a pistachio thief.”

  “Fuck,” Thomas swore under his breath, “are you sure?”

  “Yeah, man,” Ben O’Rourke said on a sigh through the phone line. “I confirmed it with Chief Williams himself. I’m sorry, buddy.”

  Thomas closed his eyes, pain ripping through his gut. He glanced over to where Nikki stood two rooms away emptying their groceries into the refrigerator. He kept his voice low.

  “This doesn’t make James guilty,” he rasped out, “but between that report turning up missing, the conflicting stories between him and Vincent Pinoza, the feral-blue eyes, and now this . . .” He ran a punishing hand through his hair. “Shit, O’Rourke, I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

  “I’m having a hell of a time taking it all in myself.”

  “Amy,” Thomas choked out. “She trusted him. I trusted him near her. Christ.”

  “Don’t do this to yourself, man. Do you hear me? We don’t know the full story yet. Although I have to admit it’s starting to look pretty grim.”

  Thomas ran a hand over his stubbly chin. “One more time, bro. For my peace of mind . . .” He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly. “You are positive—one hundred percent without any shadow of doubt positive—that William Merdino was never hospitalized?”

  Ben sighed. “I’m holding the fax from the hospital in my hands,” he said softly. “What’s more, I took the fax straight out of the boss man’s hands. I’m sorry, Cavanah, but yes, I’m positive. What do you want me to do?”

  Thomas closed his eyes. His partner. His own goddamn partner. “Put out an APB on his license plate,” he said, his stomach muscles clenching. “Then go to Judge Johnson with what we’ve got and get a search warrant. I’ll phone Chief Williams and bring him up to speed.”

  “You coming back or staying put?”

  Thomas’s intense gaze flicked over to where Dr. Adenike stood. “I’m staying here,” he murmured, his jaw tightening. “I failed Amy. I’ll be damned if I fail Nikki, too.”

  Thomas hadn’t been exaggerating, Nikki thought as she stood in the kitchen peeling potatoes. They were holed up in Cincinnati in an apartment the police department owned, but as secluded as they were from the rest of the world, they might as well have been in the Ozarks. She sighed as her gaze sought out Thomas.

  He’d been acting somewhat strangely for a few hours now, but extremely strangely ever since he’d hung up the phone. She knew he had to be exhausted, but he still hadn’t gone to rest in one of the two bedrooms. He’d been sitting in a chair in the living room instead, staring at nothing for the better part of an hour.

  “Hey,” Nikki said, her eyebrows drawing together. She set down the potato peeler, wiped her hands on a towel, and slung it over her shoulder. “Why don’t you go get some sleep?” she suggested as she padded out into the living room. She came to a halt in front of the chair in which he was seated. “If you’re hungry, I’ll wake you up when dinner’s ready.”

  Thomas’s dark gaze slowly inched up, lingering at her breasts. Her cheeks suffused with heat, having forgotten she was wearing the same tell-all top.

  “I’m not tired,” he muttered, his gaze moving up to her face. He ran a hand over his jaw when she frowned. “Okay, I’m a little tired. But I think I’ll wait until we eat.”

  “Are you all right?” she asked, her eyes searching his face.

  His jaw clenched. “Just go cook,” he growled, settling back in the chair.

  Her nostrils flared. “Fine,” she bit out, turning away from him. “Excuse me for caring.”

  An hour later they sat down to eat in the small but functional kitchen. Nikki pretended obliviousness to Thomas’s presence as he wolfed down three hamburgers and enough fried potatoes to feed a small country. She picked at her food, not particularly hungry, her feelings still smarting from earlier. She didn’t think he’d noticed, so was surprised when he sighed and offered an apology.

  “I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” Thomas admitted. “It’s just been one hell of a shitty day.”

  Nikki nodded. She rose up to her feet and started carrying dishes to the sink. “It’s okay,” she said. “I guess my feelings get hurt a little too easily.” She smiled from over her shoulder, then turned back to the sink. “Go ahead and get some sleep,” she said as she lowered the dishes into the awaiting soapy water. “You look like you could use some—”

  “I think Lucifer is my partner, James,” he murmured.

  “What?” Wide-eyed, Nikki whirled around on her bare-foot heel. “Your partner?” she breathed out. “Oh my God. No wonder you’re . . . oh my God.”

  Thomas sighed, his eyes briefly closing. “We don’t know for sure, but let’s just say the evidence is strong enough to get a search warrant for his place.”

  She studied his haggard face. “He killed someone you loved, didn’t he?” she whispered.

  He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t need to. His expression said it all.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Thomas shook his head. “I can’t,” he answered, his gravelly voice low. “I’m sorry.”

  That feeling she could understand all too well. Everyone from Kim to Megan to the chief of staff at the hospital had been trying to get Nikki to open up and spill her guts since the night of the attack, but all she had wanted to do was retreat and be alone with her wounds.

  She walked over to where he sat, her expression concerned. “Come on,” she said, holding out her hand. “Let me help you up. You need to get some sleep.”

  His gaze flicked up to her breasts again. Only this time, against her volition, her nipples stiffened in reaction. She blushed and glanced away.

  Thomas’s hands found her hips and drew her in closer. Her eyes rounded, her heartbeat kicking up. “What are you doing?” she breathed out.

  “Just looking,” he said thickly, his eyes heavy-lidded. “Can I touch?”

  Nikki swallowed. Impossibly, her nipples tightened even further. “They’re not much to look at,” she said dumbly, arousal at war with nervousness.

  He settled his hard, callused hands at her neck just below the throat. “I disagree,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  Her breathing hitched as Thomas’s hands slowly, ever so slowly, pressed against her upper body and began feeling their way down. Down below her throat, over the swell of her breasts, then lower. By the time his palms ran over her aching nipples, she was so aroused that she gasped.

  “So sexy,” he said thickly. “So damn sexy.”

  His hands continued their slow journey until they found her belly. Nikki shuddered as he ran his palms under the edge of her top. He pushed the cotton garment up, inch by anticipatory inch, slowly revealing her naked breasts to his intense dark gaze.

  Resting the bottom of her shirt over the swell of her bosom, Thomas was able to let go of it without it falling back down to shield her. He stared at her naked breasts for a long moment, his gaze flicking back and forth from one pierced nipple to the other.

  “Your nipples are long and thick,” he murmured, his heavy-lidded eyes narrowing a bit more. “My favorite. And these gold rings have got to be the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.”

  Her breathing grew more and more labored as she watched him watch her, then hitched once again as he palmed her breasts. “Oh, wow,” Nikki said shakily.

  His tongue snaked out and latched around one jutting pink nipple. She gasped, shuddering as he drew it into the warmth of his mouth. She instinctively threaded her fingers though his short, dark hair as he closed his eyes and sucked on it.

  Thomas took his time with the nipple, rolling it around in his mouth, flicking the tip with his tongue, working her up into a fevered pitch of arousal. By the time he released it with a small pop
ping sound and latched his mouth around the other one to repeat the process, her knees felt ready to give out.

  She wanted him so badly. Her head lulled back against her neck as her eyes closed. She pulled his face in closer to her breasts, a slight moan escaping from between her lips as he sucked on her nipples like candy.

  Thomas licked them, sucked them, flicked them back and forth with his tongue, made her moan and gasp as his large hands palmed her buttocks and squeezed. And then he did something she’d been hoping he wouldn’t do. He stopped.

  “I’m so tired I can barely see straight,” he rasped out, his dark head rising from between her breasts. His gaze found hers. “When I take you, I want to take you right. I want it to last all night long.”

  Nikki swallowed, roughly, her breasts still heaving a bit from the arousal as he pulled down her top and recovered them. “Go get some sleep,” she said, her voice slightly shaky. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Chapter 18

  Tuesday, July 22 10:10 A.M.

  Thomas awoke the next morning feeling rejuvenated. An hour, a breakfast, and a shower later, he was ready to search for more facts, ready to hypothesize and analyze. But for the first time in his career as a detective, that wasn’t to be. He had to play bodyguard instead.

  Not that he minded guarding Nikki’s sexy body. In fact, he thought with a frown, he could get rather used to having her, and it, around. He didn’t want to feel that way about her, though, because he was fairly certain that when this was all over she’d ditch him faster than a bad attitude.

  A detective and a surgeon. He’d heard of stranger couplings, he supposed. Then again, he mentally grumbled, thinking it over, he hadn’t.

  Unfortunately, telling himself to keep an emotional distance from the object of his affection, lust, and admiration was working about as effectively as a screen door in a submarine. The door might want to keep the ocean out, but in the end there was no stopping the torrent of water.

  Problem being, he’d been attracted to Dr. Adenike from the moment she’d glared daggers at him in his office. Stealing his nuts had made her only that much more appealing. Spending time with her and finding out that she was as wonderful as he’d imagined her to be was only adding to it.

  He sighed as he ran a hand over his freshly shaved jaw. He really needed to concentrate on work. Call it avoidance, call it whatever—he needed it. Switching on the cell phone, he pounded out the chief’s number.

  It took a whopping five minutes to ascertain that there had been no strange goings-on at the Cox estate, James still hadn’t been located, and the search of his partner’s house hadn’t rendered anything in the way of evidence—yet. “I’ll keep you posted,” the chief had said. “Until then, hang tight and watch Dr. Adenike like her life depends on it. Because guess what, it probably does.”

  As if watching Nikki were a hardship, Thomas thought, scowling. He had an iron-poker erection ninety-nine percent of the time and he wanted to mount her more than he wanted to breathe, but being with her wasn’t exactly a hardship. A hard-on-ship, but not a hardship.

  Women. Ah, who was he kidding? The problem here wasn’t women, per se. The problem here was woman, as in singular.

  “I made some pistachio ice cream,” Nikki said on a smile as she breezed into the living room. “I figured we had it coming to us.”

  Thomas frowned.

  Her face fell. “You don’t like pistachio ice cream?” Her cheeks colored a bit. A damn adorable habit she had whenever she got to feeling unsure of herself. “I didn’t know,” she said, turning around and walking back into the kitchen. “Well, I guess that leaves more for me, then.”

  He grunted, then stood up. “Give me a damn spoon,” he muttered, following her into the kitchen.

  Her eyes lit up as she whirled around to face him. “You like pistachio ice cream, too?”

  And that was another thing. Most women got their feelings hurt when he snapped and growled at them. It had taken Nikki all of twelve hours to accept that he was just a bit gruff by nature so not to take his attitude personally. She was getting under his skin, he thought grimly.

  “Yes, I like pistachio ice cream,” he growled. “Do I look like a communist to you?”

  Nikki grinned. “Hey, it’s your turn to make dinner tonight,” she said as she turned around and started scooping out heaping helpings of one of his favorite desserts. “I’m game for just about anything.”

  How about being ridden hard for about ten solid hours?

  He shook his head and sighed, plopping down into one of the two kitchen seats. He needed to distract himself. Otherwise he was going to end up making a fool of himself here.

  She was wearing jeans and a Cleveland General T-shirt this morning, her recently shampooed hair in a topknot on her head. No bra again, he thought with an inner smile. Then again he’d seen to it that none had been packed. Probably a dumb move on his part because every time they jiggled, a certain part of his anatomy saluted them.

  Sucking on her nipples last night had been . . .

  He blew out a breath as he dug into his ice cream. Best not to think about that, he conceded, shifting in his chair.

  “I want to talk about the emails you exchanged with Lucifer,” Thomas said gruffly.

  She shifted her gaze from him as she sat down in the chair across from him. “Oh,” she mumbled. He could tell she was a bit embarrassed. “What about them?”

  His eyebrows drew together. “I want to understand,” he said honestly.

  She cleared her throat, still not making eye contact. “The attraction to him or the attraction he feels toward the women he verbally seduces?”

  “The attraction to him.” Thomas was quiet for a moment as he considered things. “I understand—I think—why he chose the women that he did. He likes to bring down strong women. Powerful, professional women.”

  One of her eyebrows rose as she looked at him. “I thought I recalled reading somewhere that not all of his victims had been career women.” She shook her head. “I must have been wrong.”

  “There were two,” he confirmed, “that weren’t high-powered career women. Two out of seven—eight, if we count you.”

  Nikki blew out a breath. “I’d rather not count me,” she mumbled before shoving a spoonful of ice cream between her lips.

  “Understandable.”

  “So how do you account for the two?” she asked, putting her spoon down. “When I talked to Dr. Horace she mentioned that organized serial killers tend toward the ritualistic. Lucifer is definitely organized. Why break his own pattern?”

  Thomas sighed. “Lisa Pinoza . . . I still don’t know. She remains the one mystery victim, the one I can’t figure out the why to.” His jaw tightened. “I feel like this case would break wide open if I could answer that damn question.”

  Nikki was quiet for a moment as she studied his face. “And the second victim?” she asked softly, fairly certain she already knew the answer.

  His nostrils flared as he looked away. “To get to me. She was a toy to him, a way to punish me for working his case. A way to fuck with me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  Thomas’s faraway gaze was reflective for a moment. He shook his head and sighed. “Anyway, back to you and the letters . . .”

  She picked up her spoon. “All right. For the record, I find this conversation embarrassing and uncomfortable. But,” she muttered, “if you think it’ll help, then I’m willing to talk.”

  He didn’t know if it would or wouldn’t. Thomas mentally convinced himself that it could, not wanting to deal with the fact that his true motivation was a desire to know more about Nikki.

  “Why him?” he asked softly, his dark gaze raking over her features. “You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman,” he said, inducing her cheeks to color just a bit, “so why go looking for someone online?”

  “You’ve read the emails,” she mumbled, shoving her spoon into the ice cream. “You know what I was looking for.”


  “Fair enough. But why?”

  Nikki sighed. She left the spoon suspended in the ice cream as her green gaze found his. “There were lots of reasons.”

  “Like . . .”

  “Like career pressure.” She smiled a bit, trying to make him understand. “I love my job, I really do, but it’s a job that requires an extreme amount of self-discipline and control. If I have a headache, or an upset stomach, or am feeling a bit down over a petty argument with a friend . . . none of these things matter. I have to detach and completely block them from my mind as if they don’t exist.”

  Thomas slowly nodded. “I’m in touch with that feeling.”

  Her eyes slightly widened. “I hadn’t thought about that, but I guess you would be.” She threw a hand toward him. “You know what it’s like to play God in people’s lives. You decide whether or not they will live as free men and women or go to jail and spend their lives behind bars. I have it a bit worse in that I decide if they will live or die.”

  “Gotcha,” he murmured.

  Nikki shrugged. “Don’t you ever get tired of being in control? Don’t you ever fantasize about letting go of the power and giving it up, if even for a few minutes, to a person you can trust?”

  His gaze locked with hers. “No.”

  Her eyes rounded. She chuckled. “Somehow, coming from you, that does not surprise me.” She shook her head and grinned.

  Thomas found himself grinning back. “Okay, so career pressure. We’ve established that. What else?”

  Apparently this was the harder part, for Nikki got that flustered, red-cheeked look about her again. He really did find that adorable, he decided.

  “It’s just . . .” She sighed. “Emotional vulnerability, I suppose.”

  His eyebrow quirked. “Emotional vulnerability. What does that mean?”

  Nikki shrugged, glancing away. “I’m afraid this will sound a bit corny. Childish even, maybe.”

  “Hey, we’ve all got aspects like that about us. There’s no such thing as perfect except for in books or movies, sweetheart,” he growled. “Go on.”