by Naima Simone
Beauty in motion. A ballad made flesh.
Gabriel grimaced, glanced down into his glass. Had the bartender added a splash of rum to his soda? He wrote gritty, often violent tales of murder and deception, not sonnets of love, flowers, and warbling birds circling overhead.
Still, that didn’t stop him from hungrily tracking her progress through the room like an animal on the hunt.
She wound her way through the maze of tables, waving as people called out to her, responding with cheery salutes and jokes before selecting a small table near the back of the room. She hadn’t noticed him at the bar. But then, why would she? It had been two years since he’d been there.
Why was she here? He assumed hanging out in a cop bar after leaving the police department would’ve been too painful for her.
The question tumbled in his head as she gave her order to the waitress with a smile. She then pulled a paperback book from her bag and began reading.
Fascinated, he couldn’t tear his gaze from her.
With her ethereal eyes, small, narrow nose, and high cheekbones, she appeared almost delicate, as fey as the tales his mother used to read to him at bedtime. But nothing could be further from the truth. Even as she’d endured one of the most difficult periods of her life with her resignation from the force, she’d dragged him through his own crisis—at times growling and snarling.
The waitress arrived back at Leah’s table, beer bottle in hand. She smiled a thanks and lifted the drink to her lips. As if sensing his intent study, her gaze slammed into his. She held the connection, sipping her beer then lowering it back to the table. Issuing a challenge.
He took up the gauntlet.
Clutching his own glass, he twisted around on the black, duct-tape-patched stool, and rose to his feet. She reeled him in like a one-hundred-and-eighty-five-pound fish, and he didn’t struggle against the line, even realizing he was good and caught. Even realizing as he neared her, he may not be the same when he walked away.
She flipped the paperback down on the table, the spine facing up. A peek revealed the cover of his latest release. A swell of tenderness rolled through him, followed by a spike of pride.
“You didn’t have to buy it,” he commented, pulling the second chair back from the table and lowering to its worn, grooved seat. “I would’ve given you a copy.”
“I know,” she said, a whisper of a smile curving her lips while she warily searched his face. Not surprising considering how they’d parted. “But then I would’ve had to explain why I’m just reading it a year after its release.”
Gabriel inclined his head. “I’d say you’ve been busy.” Busy with the ending of her career, the onset of a new one, and of course, with him. “So you’re off the hook.”
He cleared his throat, set his drink down on the table. After a moment’s hesitation, he stretched across the table, palms up. Leah placed her hands in his, and he curled his fingers around hers. The sight of her slender hands enfolded in his wider, larger ones stirred a longing in him. He wanted to curve his body around her, feel her skin pressed to his, share her heat.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his gaze shifting to meet her eyes. “About today. I didn’t prove to be much help with Catherine.”
“I couldn’t say it in the car, Gabe, but I’m so sorry for the way she treated you,” she whispered. She shook her head, and her grip tightened. “I was so embarrassed and ashamed of her condescension. And the way she referred to Evelyn and Chay…”.
Gabriel released her, leaned back against his chair, and curled his fingers into fists. Either that or give in to the longing to smooth away the frown marring her forehead with his fingertips.
“You were questioning her, Leah. What? Did you think I expected you to rip her a new one for a couple of ignorant remarks?” he asked. “As a cop, how many times have you had to swallow your tongue when a suspect made some off-color remark?”
A corner of her mouth hitched. “A few.”
“See?” He shrugged. “If you’d have told her she was an uptight, old biddy, it would have been a very short interview.”
Leah chuckled. “Uptight, old biddy?”
“Hey,” he shrugged, “I call ’em like I see ’em. So what did you think? Was the drive to Weston worth anything other than discovering that Evelyn and Chay were freeloading bottom-feeders who tainted Richard’s life?”
Leah folded her arms on top of the table, and a curtain of black silk spilled forward over her shoulder. He stared, mesmerized, and could almost feel the slide of the heavy strands over his palm. Her hair would hold the vanilla scent he associated only with her.
“Supposition and unfounded conjecture,” Leah said. “But nothing concrete. It was…unsettling to see her like that. So”—she twirled her hand as if trying to conjure the description she searched for—“spoiled. Damaged. Catherine actually believes Richard was planning to break up with Evelyn, and Chay might have objected to his mother being hurt. I know you believe it’s ridiculous—and so do I, by the way—but I think she’s convinced Chay may be involved with Richard’s disappearance.”
Chapter Ten
Dread crept through Gabriel, dried his throat. He sipped his soda, moistening his mouth. Wetting it for the evasion he prepared to spin.
“Her expression, Gabe,” Leah said, tracing the spine of the open book. “Her expression when she said Richard was dead. God, did you see it? She seemed almost gleeful. Like she would rather he was dead and belonged to her than alive and not with her.” She rocked back against the chair with a frown. “It was…”
“Creepy. Disturbing. Strange as shit.”
A corner of her mouth twitched. “Yeah.” She paused. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why agree to go with me to Catherine’s?” Her gaze pinned him to his chair, and suddenly he knew what an amoeba under a microscope felt like. “You probably knew how she felt about Evelyn and Chay.”
He nodded. “Chay confided in us about how hurt his mother was over Catherine’s refusal to meet her or accept her relationship with her son.”
“So you knew Catherine would most likely not have flattering things to say about them. Why subject yourself to hearing that hatred?”
He fell back in his seat and wondered how to reply without putting his foot in it—it being deep shit. “Like I told Catherine, you’re my friend, and you asked me for help. Nothing more—”
“Nothing less.” She nodded. “Got it.”
It sounded logical, reasonable. Now if only his heart would stop kicking a hole in his chest.
She nodded, the motion slow, measured. “Okay. I’ll give you that.” Her eyes narrowed. “But why do I get the feeling you’re keeping something from me, Gabe?”
Smart woman. “Leah, it was a long time ago. I haven’t thought about Richard or his mother in years,” he lied with a coolness that amazed and scared him. Desperate to change the subject, he tapped a fingertip on the book cover. “What part are you on?”
For a long moment, she didn’t respond. It required every bit of his will to meet her intent scrutiny without squirming like a naughty schoolboy. Finally, she cracked, and a small smile appeared. Translation: You won this round.
He didn’t feel like he’d won a damn thing. Lies. So many lies, and they were a noose strangling him with every second that passed.
She glanced down at the book and smoothed a palm over the glossy black and red cover. “Michael Rice is entering the serial killer’s abandoned workshop.” Her lips formed an adorable moue. “Such a technical word for a torture chamber. That the killer actually regards it as a ‘workshop’ is even more unsettling.”
“You see it as torture; he views murder and mutilation as a talent, a skill to be perfected.”
“I definitely get that. When the story is from his point of view, he’s so analytical and rational I can almost understand his reasoning. But does it lower the ick factor? Not even a little bit.”
Gabriel grunted. “I think a high
ick factor is a compliment.”
“Oh, it is. This villain is your most compelling and disturbing yet.”
“So do you like the story so far?” It stunned him how anxiously he awaited her answer. He wrote what he loved. He cared if his agent or editor enjoyed the books he submitted, hoped others did, but the few negative reviews he’d received over the years hadn’t bothered him. Yet with Leah, he wanted her opinion…and her approval.
When she nodded, he tried—he really tried—but couldn’t hold back the warmth tickling his chest.
“It’s wonderful writing, Gabe,” she said, stroking the book cover as if it were a cherished treasure. “The best book in the series, and that’s saying something.” She paused, her fingers stilling. A wrinkle appeared on her forehead. “It’s more…” She seemed to wrestle for the correct word.
“Just say it,” Gabriel urged.
“Dark,” she blurted. “This book is darker than the others.”
His agent had made the same observation, and he agreed. Though the characters and plot were fiction, the emotions were very real. The book had been released a year earlier but had been completed a year prior to his family’s deaths. How ironic that the rage, bitterness, and grief he’d described on those pages would reflect the true dark morass of pain he suffered months later.
“Yeah,” he said.
Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “And I thought Chay was the Chatty Cathy of the group.”
He grunted and sipped from his now watered-down soda. Leah fiddled with her beer bottle, her scrutiny focused on the glass container as if it was the most important task she would accomplish that night.
“I wonder,” he murmured, placing his forearms on the tabletop and leaning forward. “What thoughts are hiding behind those fairy eyes?”
Her chin jerked up, and she stared at him. In those eyes he glimpsed something raw and tumultuous…vulnerable. Again he reached out for her. He wanted to cup her cheek, stroke his thumb over that lush bottom lip, but he settled for her hand.
“What?” he asked.
“Fairy eyes. That’s two times today you’ve said that.” She shook her head. “It’s been…years since I’ve heard it.”
Maybe he hadn’t used the description in a long while, but he thought it almost every time he looked down into her lovely, exotic face. He’d witnessed those eyes light up in laughter, darken with grief, narrow in anger. He’d yet to witness what they would do in passion. Would the jade brighten as if lit by a flame? Or would they cloud, grow hazy with desire?
He closed his eyes and the image solidified, sharpened in color and detail. Need throbbed with every pulse of his heart, using his veins as an interstate to carry the hunger to every part of his body. More than he craved his next breath, he wanted to experience pushing deep inside Leah, losing himself in her wet, welcoming heat. Somehow he knew the sweet oblivion he used to seek so desperately at the bottom of a liquor bottle could be found in her arms, in her body.
Since sleeping in the refuge of her slim, strong frame the night before, he acknowledged he needed her—needed the peace and forgetfulness her strength, compassion, and sweetness offered. Yeah, he needed her body…but not her heart. Not her affection. He didn’t want to be accountable for her emotional welfare.
Again, he released her hand, exiling himself from her touch.
This—coming over to Leah’s table—hadn’t been a good idea. Not when his gut, his soul, cried out to taste her…to take her.
“I have to go.” He shoved back from the table and stood to his feet, the action as abrupt as his tone. He flagged down the waitress but didn’t wait for her to approach. Instead he tossed more than enough bills on the scarred tabletop to cover his drinks and Leah’s beer, then hightailed it toward the bar’s exit.
“Wait, Gabe,” Leah called after him as his palm slapped the door and pushed it open. The brisk October night enveloped him, cooling his flushed skin. But then the small, firm hand at his elbow shot his inner temperature up to hot as hell. “What’s the rush?” she asked, tucking her arm into the crook of his elbow.
“I have work to do,” he lied gruffly. Her palm and fingers seemed to brand him even through the layers of coat and sweater. Damn. It. Evade. Distract.
“Why did you come here tonight?” he asked, desperate to divert his attention from her touch and satisfy his curiosity from earlier. Killing two birds with one stone. When she glanced up at him, he nodded toward the pub. “This is quite a distance from Beacon Hill. Plus, I would think a cop hangout would be painful for you.”
She studied him for several long moments, silent. Just as he prepared to prod the answer from her, she averted her gaze and stared straight ahead, her dark head at a proud tilt, her shoulders rigid.
“Pride,” she admitted shortly. “To prove to myself, along with everyone there, that I’m not hurt, bitter, resentful, or all of the above, about my injury and walking away from my career. To prove that, at heart, I’m still as much a cop as they are, and that I chose to be a private investigator and didn’t pick it as a booby prize.” She shook her head and let out a short crack of laughter. “To show them—to show myself—that I survived.”
A beat of silence passed between them. Gabriel didn’t utter a word—he had no clue what to say.
“And…” she murmured.
“And?” he prodded gently after several moments of silence.
She inhaled deeply and met his gaze once more. For some reason he imagined a soldier, wet behind the ears, terrified, but still determined to face a battle head-on.
“And it was the last place I spent time with you before the accident. The last place I saw you smile and laugh. The last place I saw you happy.”
Gabriel slammed to an abrupt, hard stop. His heart hammered against his sternum in a wild, staccato beat as his hand shot out and gripped her arm in an implacable hold. She stumbled, but before she could turn around and blast him, he claimed the few steps that brought his chest flush against her back. Instantly, he recognized the mistake he’d made by touching her, but damn if he could regret it or push her away. Not when her confession sizzled through his veins like TNT with a side of petrol. Not when the graceful line of her spine fit into the groove between his pectorals like a puzzle piece. Not when his cock rode the small of her back.
The impact of her words—of her, damn it!—slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. This…this need for her hadn’t lessened in the last six months. No, it had grown big like the most stubborn weed—unwanted but impossible to root out. There were so many reasons why this craving was wrong, why it would only hurt both of them in the end…yet he still pressed closer, still dipped his head to inhale the vanilla-and-sin scent of her hair, still held her even when a shudder coursed through her and vibrated against him.
Desire roared through him like a virus—his skin was on fire with fever, shivers raced over his body, and he ached. God, did he ache.
“Gabe,” she whispered, the sound tremulous, uncertain.
“Shh,” he soothed, and nuzzled her dark, sweet-smelling strands of hair.
She waited, trembling. Fight, he wanted to yell at her. Fight me. Tell me to fuck off. Something. Anything. The plea echoed in his head, rebounding like a crazy game of dodge ball. If she didn’t put up boundaries, didn’t warn him to keep on his side of the platonic line, then they were both screwed.
Each breath carried the scent of her to his lungs, and his willpower took another hit. Soon his control would tumble down like the Berlin Wall, and nothing—not memories of Maura, his conscience, the Richard Pierce investigation, or the malicious plans of a killer—would keep him from finding out if her kiss tasted like those peppermints she popped like pills.
But hell, he swore silently. What can I offer her? One night of sex? As good—as hot—as sex between them would be, she deserved better than a booty call. Yet a momentary fling was all he could give her. He couldn’t commit to give anyone, not even her, what he didn’t have. His heart had been buried two y
ears ago.
His fingers flexed on her arm. Several moments passed. They could have been statues posed in the middle of the sidewalk, the evening pedestrian traffic parting around them like the Red Sea. Then the tension seeped from her body. She leaned back, resting her weight against his chest as if she trusted him to hold her up.
And he would.
He did.
He lifted a palm to the flat plane of her abdomen, his fingers splayed wide. Her stomach rose and fell with each breath she took, and he found the pattern of his breathing mating with hers.
“You are a survivor,” he said, his lips grazing the shell of her ear. “And have nothing to prove to anyone, including yourself. You’re stubborn as hell”—he smiled at her soft scoff—“but that’s what aids you in being a dedicated, great detective, whether you wear a badge or not. And whoever can’t see how valuable you are, how good you are, they are the fools. Fools and fuckers.”
This time her chuckle sounded less bitter, less bleak. “Fools and fuckers? Jesus, Gabe, you are so poetic.”
“It’s why I sell the books, darling,” he drawled, injecting an exaggerated brogue to make her laugh, really laugh, and not that hardened bark she’d emitted earlier.
He received his wish. She chuckled, and he planted a soft kiss to the top of her head before releasing her and stepping back. Turning on her booted heel, she faced him. Her unblinking inspection made him feel like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard, trapped, helpless. Since avoiding the unsettling scrutiny would smack of cowardice, he maintained eye contact, but God, he wanted to glance away before she glimpsed something he couldn’t afford for her to see.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and lifted a hand to his cheek. A latent sense of self-preservation kept him from closing his eyes and indulging in the touch, but it was imprinted on his skin all the same.