A Little Harmless Submission 6

by Melissa Schroeder

  May studied her for a second, then two, and then her shoulders relaxed. There was something that moved over her face, but she said nothing about it. “Sure. Rome’s a big boy, he can handle himself.”

  “Speaking of which, I need to get going. We’re supposed to meet up to go over some of this stuff.” She slipped out of the booth. “How much do I owe?”

  May shook her head. “On the house, sistah.”

  “Oh, well…I guess I should get going.”

  With that she fled the restaurant, ready to get back to the investigation and away from May’s probing questions. She didn’t want to ask the questions of herself, so she definitely didn’t know how to answer May. Maria was pretty sure if she spent too much time thinking about what had happened the night before, she might get too upset thinking that she only had a short time to experience Rome.

  · · · · ·

  “What the hell was that all about, May?” Dee asked.

  May was still looking at the door where Maria had escaped. And that was the right word. She had acted as if the dogs of hell were following her out the door.

  “She’s an odd one.”

  Dee snorted. “Fine one to talk.”

  May turned her attention back to Dee. “No, really. Can you imagine having to follow your father around while he hunted up crazy people? That’s no life.”

  “True. But I can’t say much about it considering my family.” She paused. “You worried about Rome?”

  May shook her head. “I was a little worried at first. When you told me his reaction, then what happened last night, I was really concerned. But, I am pretty sure he’s safe from her.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  She thought of the way the woman looked when May talked about Rome. “Did you see the way her face got all dreamy? They only had one night together, and that woman is hooked.”

  “Well, Rome does have a reputation.”

  “Yeah, and one of the things is that he never gets really attached to women. From what you told me about last night, he is very attached to Maria. I just don’t want to see him go.”

  “Go where?”

  “I worry she might lure him back to the mainland.”

  Dee snorted. “You always make it sound like a cesspool, but I seem to remember someone had a very good time in Vegas at her bachelorette party, even if she couldn’t remember it when she got home.”

  May laughed, allowing her worries about Rome to be pushed to the back of her mind. “Well, there are small parts I remember. There was that tattoo parlor Cynthia just had to go to.”

  · · · · ·

  Maria spent all afternoon going over her notes. She found eight of the women had some kind of contact with the law. Her eyes were starting to cross, so she set it aside and opened her laptop to work. Not her real work—her paying job—but while she was waiting for Rome, she figured she could get a few words in for the day. As she waited for the laptop to load, she thought about what her father would think about her writing hobby.

  She laughed, but there was no joy in it. He would be embarrassed that his little girl saw herself as an aspiring romance writer. Maria would never think of herself as an author. She had no plans to even send the books out. True, it had turned into an obsession, but she figured a shrink would tell her that it was her way of coping. Writing had been the one thing she did that kept her sane while she’d been with her father those last few months. It had been her one outlet. Having to watch the once strong and powerful Big John Callahan wither away and die had been almost too much to bear. Writing had been the one thing she could do to keep herself going.

  Since returning to DC after his death, she seemed fixated with getting the word count in for the day. And she was behind since she’d gotten to the island. It had been over a week since she’d had time to sit and write. When she heard the car outside, she frowned. Apparently she wasn’t going to get any words in for the day. Rome was already at the door by the time she started shutting down. The knock sounded just as her PC started to completely turn off. She rose and walked to the door, opening it for him.

  She had known him for three days, and the impact was still the same. Heat hit her the moment she saw him, her body seemingly responding to the fact that he was there. He cupped her cheek and brushed it with his thumb. Without a word, he kissed her, soft, sweet and just enough to have her curling her toes into the carpet. By the time he pulled away, she was ready to beg for more.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice soft.

  “Hi, yourself.”

  She stepped away then, because she needed to. Her body was still humming from the simple kiss. Rome had other ideas. He grabbed hold of her hand and walked with her back to the living room.

  “How was lunch?”

  The question reminded her of the last part of her conversation with Dee and May. She couldn’t think about that. That was personal, and the most important thing right now was making sure they caught this bastard.

  “Good. One thing I’m checking is that two of the women had altercations with the police before they were killed.”

  He stopped walking and frowned. “Really? Huh. I’m sort of surprised it wasn’t noted in their case file.”

  “It was. I looked over it when I got back and it was. Different officers, different issues. One was speeding. The other made a complaint about a neighbor. It was noted, but nothing that big because both of the officers in the incidents were cleared.”

  He pursed his lips. “Still, it’s a connection between the women.”

  “Yeah, and I found six more women who had something in the six months prior to their deaths. Problem is, it doesn’t mean just city, but also state and federal, so it’s going to take me some time. But it could be the way he found his victims.”

  “Where he goes hunting?”

  She shivered. She couldn’t help it. Maria was used to the discussions. She had sat in on a lot of them growing up, but it still chilled her that there were people out there hunting humans. It still felt as if someone were walking over her grave when they said it. Especially in a normal tone of voice. Her father and the other officers always used the same voice to discuss their predators as they did to discuss what to have for dinner.

  “Yes. It could be that he’s a police dispatcher of some sort.”

  “I thought we could go out to my house tonight,” he said in a voice that sounded casual, but it was almost as if he was trying too hard.

  She studied him for a few seconds. “Why?”

  “I thought we could eat there, go over some of these cases.”

  “I thought we’d go to the club tonight.”

  He shook his head. “That would be suspicious. The idea I would take my new sub to the club right after meeting her...people would wonder.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “They would wonder if I didn’t have complete control over you.”

  She snorted. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  His demeanor changed, his body stiffening. He turned to face her and then slowly backed her up against the wall. He let go of her hands and placed a palm on the wall on each side of her head. She lifted her hands to ward him off, but he had other plans.

  “Put your hands against the wall. Do it.” His tone was harsh. This was not the soft lover she had met at the door. This was another man, her Dom.

  She did it without thinking. Even his tone had changed and with it, her body heated. He was an attractive man, one that any woman would want. All hard muscle and dark, delicious skin. Then there were those hazel eyes that seemed to mesmerize her. But it was the way he spoke when he was being a true Dom that got to her. Even now, her body was warming, her nipples tightening against the cotton fabric of her bra. He leaned his face so close, she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  “Let’s get one thing straight, Maria. By the time I’m done with you, you’re going to be the perfect little sub. You’ll know just how to act with your Dom. I’ll be the one who gives you the gift of pleasure, t
he one who makes sure you’re begging for it. Don’t doubt it.”

  She swallowed. Just hearing the dark promise in his words had her yearning. Never before had she wanted anything more from a man.

  “So next time you want to challenge me like you just did, I will make sure you pay for it.” He nuzzled her neck, and she felt the brush of his lips on her pulse point. The feather light kiss had her wanting more, but before she was satisfied, he was pulling away. The satisfied smirk on his face told her that he knew exactly what he’d done to her.

  “I think you can suffer until we get to my house.”

  She frowned at him. His voice had changed, his demeanor also. But before she could ask him, he was walking over to the table by her laptop. “Did you want to save this?”

  “What?”

  He was looking at the screen. “It’s asking if you want to save the document.”

  Crap. Didn’t she shut it down? It had made the shutdown sound. “I’ll take care of it.” Before he could figure out what it was—or at least she hoped so—she stepped in front of him. The document was there, waiting to be saved. She saved it then shut down the computer. “I’ll just grab my purse.”

  “And an overnight bag. I don’t want to have to come back into Honolulu tonight.”

  She raised one eyebrow and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “What happens if I say no?”

  He gave her a sardonic look. “I think we just covered that.”

  Chapter Nine

  By the time they were clearing the dishes, Rome was doing his best not to crawl up the wall. It wasn’t easy. Not with her in his house. He had a lot of little toys he wanted to use on her, and knowing they were just a few steps away, well, it was almost too much to take. He had been systematically touching her, trying to gain her trust in that area. He’d never known such a jumpy woman. Every little brush of his hand had seemed to get easier for her to take as the evening wore on and harder on him. He winced at the word choice. There was a good chance he would end up passing out from lack of oxygen to his brain.

  He set his plate on the counter with a definite clink.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said, slipping a finger down her arm. She shivered but smiled at him.

  “You cooked. Rule in the Callahan house was that the person who cooked didn’t clean up.” She turned the water on and started rinsing off the plates.

  He leaned against the counter and watched her. It scared him how much this seemed normal, as if they had been doing it for years. Standing in the kitchen, the sounds of water hitting the sink, and watching her.

  Rome cleared the lump that had formed in his throat. “And I take it you did most of the cooking?”

  She chuckled, and he tried not to cross his eyes. God, even something as simple as a chuckle had him wanting to howl. Worse, it made him think of the way she sounded when she moaned his name. Dammit, where was his control? She was talking about her childhood, and he was thinking about just how much fun it would be to bend her over the counter and take her from behind.

  She shook her head. “How very chauvinistic of you, Detective Carino.”

  “It’s just hard to see Big John puttering around the kitchen.”

  She glanced at him, amusement dancing in her eyes. “My father was an excellent cook. I know how to make a soufflé thanks to him. Mom was one of the worst cooks put on this earth. Her meatloaf was considered a toxic hazard.”

  She was talking about her father on a personal level, something he had yet to hear from her. The few times she’d mentioned her father, it had been in the context of work.

  “Your parents had a good marriage.” She looked up at him, surprise lighting her eyes. “I could hear it in your voice.”

  “They did. There were a lot of people who thought they didn’t have a good marriage. But, they…clicked. They were so independent, but when they were together, you could see it. With Dad’s job, he was gone a lot, but they never seemed to have anything beyond the usual marital problems. Both of them had high stress jobs but they seemed to make it work.”

  “Your mother wasn’t an FBI agent, right? What did she do?”

  “Heart surgeon. She was considered one of the best in the country at the time. Still. You mention Selena Gutierrez Callahan in some circles and they know her name. A lot of her papers are still studied at the top med schools.”

  He heard the pride in her voice and noted it was different than when she talked about her father. “But you didn’t go that way.”

  She shrugged. “Not my thing. Too icky.”

  He ignored the fact that she was an FBI agent, and she saw lots of icky things. He wanted to know more about her parents, about the people who raised her. “Then your mother died.”

  She looked away and put his dish in the dishwasher.

  “Maria?”

  She looked up at him.

  “What happened to your mother?”

  She sighed. “They kept it out of the papers, but…one of Dad’s old cases. He escaped from a maximum security prison.”

  “And?”

  She didn’t say anything at first. He was almost afraid she wouldn’t tell him, but he waited and was rewarded. “He broke in the house and killed my mother. After that, Dad was never the same. He always saw it as his fault.”

  “Where were you?”

  “One of the reasons Dad blamed himself. We were at a hockey game. We stayed overnight in Vancouver then came back the next morning. It was something we did a lot because he was gone so much.”

  “You two found her?”

  She nodded. “The next morning. Symthson was waiting for us.”

  “Jesus.” Just the thought of the scene she’d seen at the age of twelve sent chills racing through him. And he knew the Symthson case, knew the man had been a sadistic killer. He raped and tortured his victims before he finally killed them. “Your father killed him?”

  “It was him or us. No choice.”

  She said it matter of factly, and that was probably the only way she could deal with it. Seeing something like that would be horrible for an adult, but for her, it must have been horrific. He didn’t really know what to say. As a cop, he had handled all kinds of grief from victims, but this was different. It had never been so personal before. He barely knew her, but he felt the pain of her past as if he had known her at the time. He couldn’t even fathom what it must have been like for the two of them. Her father had been a proud man. To have lost his wife in such a way would have been almost too much to handle. Before he could think of something to say, she broke the silence.

  “I think we need to cross-check all those officers on the cases. Something might click. And we need to look at Lisa’s altercation. It might be a red herring, but you never know.”

  Her movements were brisk and economical, but he sensed the fragility beneath them. He slid his hand down her spine, and she looked up at him with a smile. It reached her eyes, lighting her up from within. He was beginning to realize that he really didn’t understand her. Three days earlier, he had judged her to be cold, but just this little glimpse into her background told him just how fragile she was. The hard exterior was there, but beneath it he knew there was a soft woman lurking.

  “Yeah, why don’t we do that?”

  She turned off the water and walked into the living room, and he followed her. Rome had a strange feeling that he would be doing this for a lot longer than either of them expected.

  · · · · ·

  Maria looked over the next report, then rubbed her eyes. The words were blurring together, and she couldn’t seem to make them make sense.

  “What’s the matter?” Rome asked.

  She glanced up at him and then back down at the report. “Just starting to get a headache.”

  He smiled as he set down his papers and laptop and then slid onto the couch beside her.

  “Turn.”

  She realized she’d played into his hands, but she wasn’t going to fight it. Not when the reward was so wonderful. He settl
ed his hands on her shoulders and started to rub her aching muscles.

  “You sit bent over too much. I bet it has something to do with your height.”

  She closed her eyes and relaxed fractionally. “How do you know that?”

  “I have a younger sister almost as tall as you. When she was younger, she always hunched, but my mom always griped at her about it. When she’s tired, like you are, she resorts to it.”

  Maria’s aching muscles relaxed under his ministrations.

  “Why don’t we take a break?” he asked.

  “What kind of break?”

  “A hot bath. I’ve got this huge tub, and you could take advantage of it. Soak away some of these aches.”

  “What would you be doing?”

  He chuckled. “I’ll stay out here and work.”

  That smacked of special treatment, and she could feel her spine stiffen. “That’s okay.”

  He leaned forward to press his mouth on the side of her neck. “Maria, no one doubts you’re a top rate agent, at least not me. But you’ve been working on fumes since you arrived on Oahu. You need to take a moment, gather your thoughts. It might even lead to a breakthrough.”

  She wanted to fight him. In the years she had been an agent, and basically since her mother died, she had always done her share. It was her way. Her father couldn’t handle everything himself, and he’d needed her. She’d had no choice when she entered the FBI. Any kind of slacking on her part would make her stand out in a bad way. She was not the kind of woman who sat by and let others do work. But even as she thought it, she knew she was already losing the battle. Inch by inch, she eased back against him as he spoke.

  “Okay. Let me get my toiletry bag.”

  He stood then held out his hand. She looked at it for a second. She was unaccustomed to such behavior. Rome might be a tough cop and an even tougher Dom, but he had the manners of a gentleman. It was as if he treasured her in some way she couldn’t comprehend. She didn’t think she would ever get used to him. She took his hand and let him help her up. He brushed his mouth over hers, humming as he did it. The vibrations tickled her lips and sent tiny little pulses of heat dancing through her blood. Then he was moving away.