Without awareness, she moved backward until the far wall halted her progress. She tried to think, to figure out what she should do. Her brain stuttered and got nowhere. She needed to call someone. Thursday night was her parents’ bowling league, so they were busy. Though Malcolm hadn’t quite given up his apartment, he pretty much lived with Darcy in Ann Arbor, a full hour away. M.J., her other big brother, would be busy with his wife and kids, plus he’d never struck her as the protector type. He’d tell her to call the police, but she didn’t want a bunch of strangers swarming around her home, especially if she was just going a little crazy from stress.
She swallowed her pride. Keith lived less than ten minutes away, and he wouldn’t look at her like she was insane if it turned out to be nothing.
Using extreme caution, she crept to her kitchen, grabbed a huge knife and her cell phone, backed into a corner so nobody could come up behind her, and dialed his number.
He picked up immediately. “Hey, Kat.”
“Keith, I…I think someone’s been in my condo.” A small pop drew her attention to the right. It could have been the coils on the refrigerator, but her nerves were too on edge for it not to scare the crap out of her. Beyond that appliance was the hallway to her bedroom and the guest room. Had she left the door to the spare bedroom open or closed the last time she’d been in there? What if the intruder was waiting to attack? She dropped her volume and whispered. “Or they could still be here.”
“Where are you?” His voice took on an urgency she’d rarely heard him use.
“In the kitchen. I have a knife.”
“Stay in the corner where your counters come together so nothing is behind you. I’m in my car right now, and I’m on my way over. Talk to me, Kat. Tell my why you think someone is in your condo.” He spoke a bit harshly, but she needed that to keep her from panicking.
“The lamp from my guest room is now in my bedroom, and I didn’t put it there. I went to toss my clothes in the laundry basket and knocked it over. The laundry basket is gone. It…it just had whites in it. I was going to do my whites tonight.” That had been her intention when she got up in the morning, but she would have let it slide because she was too tired and there were still several pairs of clean underwear in her drawer.
He blew out a breath. “Any chance your mom might have come over and done your laundry? Maybe she moved the lamp?”
While her mother had done things like that in the past, she hadn’t tried to help out unasked in months. “Why would she move that lamp? She didn’t like it either. We both thought the color was ugly.”
“And here I thought you liked green.” He was teasing, trying to set her mind at ease. Not only were they both MSU fans, his eyes were green.
“Not that shade. It doesn’t go with anything.”
Another noise distracted her. This time it didn’t sound so much like the refrigerator. The air-conditioning kicked on, and the soft whirr of the fan filled the silence of her apartment.
“I’m at the door, Kat. It’s locked. Come down and let me in.”
Keeping the knife raised, she inched around the island counter dividing her kitchen from the dining area and hurried down the stairs. Too afraid to stop and check through the peephole, especially if the intruder was still in her condo, she twisted the dead bolt and opened the door.
Keith stood on her porch in the fading evening light. He wore a pair of camouflage cargo shorts and a washed-out blue cotton shirt. Everything about his attire was casual, which made the gun in his hand stand out even more. He adjusted her grip of the knife, changing it so that the blade pointed upward. “Always stab upward. Aim just under the sternum.”
He thrust her back out of the way, closed and locked the front door, and headed up the stairs.
She followed closely. There was no way in hell she was going to let him out of her sight.
He moved carefully and methodically through her rooms, checking any place large enough to hide a person, and all the windows. Nothing seemed out of place, but when they got to her bedroom, her heart stopped cold.
The lamp was gone. Her laundry basket was back in its spot next to the door, and her wadded-up work clothes were on top. She left Keith, rushing to the guest room to see if the lamp was back in that room. It mocked her from the far corner.
“I…I don’t understand.”
Keith gazed at her with an inscrutable expression. He checked the windows in the guest room, and then he returned to her bedroom and checked the slider that led to the small balcony. It wasn’t locked. He looked back at her. “You left it open?”
She shrugged. The balcony overlooked a wooded area. The only thing back there was her neighbor’s front door and patio. She sat out there on nice days and read or worked on her cases. But she had been too busy to use it recently. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember unlocking it.”
He slid the bolt into place. “I’m going to go downstairs and talk to your neighbor. What’s his name?”
“Her name. Mrs. Hill. I don’t think she’s home. She has bridge on Thursday nights with her girlfriends.” Mrs. Hill was approaching eighty, and she had more of a social life than Katrina did.
She followed Keith back into the living room.
“Stay here.” He threw the order over his shoulder as he descended the stairs. “I’ll check the basement.”
In five minutes he returned. She could tell by the expression on his face that he’d found nothing. She sank down onto her sofa, dumbfounded, and set the knife she’d gripped so tightly on her coffee table. She felt stupid.
“I can talk to your other neighbors, see if anyone saw anything.” He gave her a long look. “I want you to lock the door after me. Don’t let anyone in until I get back.”
Katrina shook her head. She was sincerely losing her mind. She had a few vacation days coming. Aaron would help cover her cases while she took some time off and got her mental house in order. “That’s not necessary. I’m sorry I called you over here.”
He knelt on the floor and took her hands between his. The soft affection shining from his eyes nearly undid her. “Kat, you don’t need a reason to call me. I’m not upset with you.”
Jerking her hands free, she jumped to her feet and moved away from him. “You think I made this up to get you over here? I’m not desperate. You’re not the only Dom out there, you know. I know what I saw. I know what…” Talking to him was pointless. “Just go. I’ll lock the doors and be more careful.”
For a second he looked like he was going to say something. He opened and closed his mouth. He scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “I could stay. Or if you don’t feel safe, you can pack a bag and stay at my house. I have plenty of room.”
“No.” No way in hell she was going to take his pity. She would approach Jordan next. He was a little scruffier and younger than she liked, but he was a good man and an experienced Dom.
At last Keith nodded and headed for the stairs. “Follow me down. Lock the door after I leave.”
__________
Friday dawned stiflingly hot. The still air seemed to ripple with waves of heat. Michigan had a handful of days like this each year. Being outside, just for the walk from the parking garage to her air-conditioned office, made her clothes stick to her body in uncomfortable ways. That irritation joined with her lingering feelings of idiocy from last night. After Keith had left, she’d checked the apartment again. Everything was locked. She ate popcorn for dinner, had ice cream for dessert, and slept with the knife on her bedside table. She briefly considered getting a gun, but then she rejected that idea. What if she came home to find someone in her condo pointing her gun at her?
To make matters worse, she had a string of depositions today. The second person on her schedule was Keith. The third was Dustin. Perhaps she should have consulted her work schedule before humiliating herself with two men in one week.
Keith arrived on time, as always. His dark blue suit emphasized the emerald of his eyes, and she melted inside at how handsome he looked. I
n all her life she’d never seen a more attractive man. It wasn’t from lack of searching. She’d even scoured online dating sites.
When he saw her, he smiled warmly, but she wasn’t able to muster enough positive feeling to return the sentiment. She strived for polite, and she was relative certain she achieved her goal.
“Interview six is open.” She headed in that direction, confident he would follow.
Keith watched her sexy ass sway slightly from side to side as she made her way down the hall. All week he’d been haunted by visions of her, what she’d look like naked, tied with that fine bottom in the air, her legs spread and red handprints all over her luscious flesh. She’d cry out for more and beg him to fuck her hard.
His dick throbbed, and he chastised himself for the slipup. After so many years spent forcing himself not to think of her that way, one kiss had knocked away his control. One kiss and one request. “Train me.” Her soft voice haunted his dreams.
Nothing would make him happier. But she’d ultimately grow tired of his need for constant and total control, and she would leave. Kat wasn’t cut out for that kind of life. Even he questioned whether he could have a real relationship with someone who consented to letting him control every aspect of her life. He didn’t need a therapist to tell him he had issues with authority and letting women get close to him emotionally.
No, she was better off not knowing how completely his head was fucked up. He’d already hurt her. And last night… He didn’t know what to make of it. Kat wasn’t one to play those kinds of manipulative games.
He entered the little room and closed the door. A legal secretary sat at the long table, ready to record every word he uttered. It was better to keep things professional. Eventually their relationship would return to normal. She’d be back to teasing him and treating him like an older brother in no time.
She assumed her seat and regarded him with cool brown eyes. He recognized that she was upset, and it nearly killed him to know he had caused it. The urge to take her in his arms, to kiss her and hold her close, was proving more and more difficult to beat down. It would diminish his acute yearning, but it wouldn’t solve the problem. He had yet to figure out how her behavior the night before played into anything.
It was possible someone had climbed onto her balcony and accessed the condo that way. In order not to make a ton of noise, the person would need an extension ladder, and those things were unwieldy. After she’d kicked him out, he’d looked for evidence outside, but he’d found nothing. The entire incident just didn’t make sense.
In the hallway by the elevator an hour later, she greeted Dustin Brandt with the same lack of warmth. He watched the pair, his senses attuned to find the smallest tells. The stiffness of her posture. Her plastic smile. His overly solicitous manner. What had happened between them to make Kat so formal and Brandt so apologetic?
They disappeared down the hall and into room six. Keith had other business in the building. No reason he couldn’t swing by later and touch base with his buddy.
And find out what else had happened to suck the joy from Kat. Malcolm’s words echoed in his head. “Take risks…put yourself out there… You’ll never know if you don’t try…”
She’d said he wasn’t the only Dom out there. Did that mean she was going to ask someone else to train her? Did she plan to ask Brandt, or had she already done it? Son of a bitch. He breathed to control his rage.
__________
An hour later, the door to interview room six was still closed. It didn’t open for ten excruciatingly long minutes. From down the hall, he watched Kat exit the room first. Dustin followed close on her heels. He grabbed her arm. From the way she responded, Keith figured he’d said her name too.
Kat might have turned back to face Dustin, but her gaze remained downcast. Dustin lifted her chin with one finger, an intimate, dominating gesture that set Keith’s blood to boiling, and he spoke to her.
The expression on her face softened. Dustin’s finger fell away, and a small smile lifted the corners of Kat’s mouth. She nodded, and the pair embraced. When they parted, she turned and continued down the hall away from Keith.
Dustin came toward him, lost in thought.
Keith stood directly in his path and forced the man he’d thought was a friend to stop and focus on the moment.
“Rossetti. What are you doing back here?”
“I thought I’d take Kat out to lunch.” Though their paths crossed frequently as part of their work duties, Keith had only asked Kat to eat with him a handful of times. His schedule wasn’t usually so liquid.
Dustin frowned. “I think she has plans with Buttermore.”
Until that second, Keith hadn’t formed an opinion about the lawyer. The assistant attorney seemed nice enough, and he knew the man was friends with Kat. Keith took a minute to remind himself that he couldn’t go around punching her friends just because he objected to their gender.
Still, he threw a petulant statement at Dustin. “And you’re okay with that?”
His buddy shrugged and smirked. That snarky kind of expression seemed to be at complete odds with Dustin’s clean-cut appearance, but Keith wasn’t fooled. He’d seen Dustin do lots of things that were counter to the boy-next-door image he projected. “I don’t see why it’s any of my business.”
Keith inclined his head down the hall, though Kat was long gone. “I saw you top her a minute ago. How can you say it’s none of your business?”
That smirk grew. “I wasn’t topping her. I was talking to her about a private matter between the two of us. That doesn’t give me the right to dictate who she has lunch with or any other thing she might decide to do. She’s an adult, and she has a good head on her shoulders. She can make her own decisions.”
“Touch her and I’ll kill you.” The threat was out before Keith could quell it, and he felt a little sick inside to realize he meant it. He’d kill any Dom who laid a finger on Kat.
Dustin had the sense to drop his smirk, and his entire demeanor changed. The hint of danger that hid so well beneath Brandt’s exterior surfaced. He poked a finger at Keith’s chest. “It sounds like she made the same request to you that she made to me. My advice? She’s determined. If you don’t step in and take care of her, somebody else will. I’m not saying it would be me. But she’s an attractive woman. Eventually she’s going to ask somebody who’s outside your reach.”
The warning made perfect sense. Somewhere deep down, he’d assumed she wouldn’t have the courage to repeat that request to another person. He thought she’d made it because she knew he needed his lover’s submission. He hadn’t thought she actually craved the submissive experience. The idea of her on her knees, head bowed in subservience, in front of another man, made his vision swim in shades of red. It was one thing for her to have a happily-ever-after with a vanilla man. This was different. This meant they were as compatible as he’d fantasized, at least on some level. He’d never wanted to punch something so badly.
Dustin’s firm grip on his arm brought him back to the present. He inhaled and exhaled, using one of the exercises he’d learned in combat training, and got his temper under control once again.
“Come on, buddy. You can’t see her like this. She hasn’t done anything wrong, and you’re about ready to go all primal on her ass. Let’s hit the gym. I’ll practice kicking some sense into you under controlled circumstances.”
__________
Katrina threw her briefcase into the backseat and sighed to welcome the end of another draining day. She wanted to go home and curl up with a bowl of her mother’s homemade ice cream and a Sandra Bullock movie. If she couldn’t be happy, then at least she could watch the evolution of someone else’s happiness. As long as it was fictional, it wouldn’t compete with the sad state of her life.
She started the engine and turned the air-conditioning to full blast. Her blouse clung to her damp skin, so she pulled it away and leaned forward to let the cool air blow down her shirt as best she could.
A series
of chimes from her phone let her know that her mother was calling. Her jacket, which she had shed for the walk to the parking garage, lay on top of her briefcase. The phone was in the pocket. By the time she got to it, the thing had gone to voice mail. It was probably for the best. M.J. and his wife were heading out of town this weekend, and their parents had the grandkids for the weekend. No doubt they wanted Katrina to come over and relieve them from the rambunctious duo. No, thanks. Katrina hadn’t yet vacuumed out her car from the last time she’d spent time with her nephews.
While her standards of cleanliness and behavior might be higher than her brother’s, she didn’t think they were impossible to achieve. She loved her nephews, but she liked them best in small doses.
She shifted the car into reverse and froze. Something wasn’t quite right. With a frown, she glanced at her passenger seat. Empty. The cup holder that divided the two front seats held her cell but was otherwise unoccupied. She could have sworn she’d left an empty bottle of iced tea there. A quick survey of the backseat confirmed her suspicions. While nothing had been vacuumed, it had definitely been cleaned up.
It was unsettling to know someone had gone into her car and cleaned it out without her permission or knowledge. This threw last night’s scare, which had faded from her mind in the course of the busy day, back into the spotlight.
Nobody else had keys to her car. They’d spent the day with her purse, locked in her desk drawer. The extra set hung on a rack in her kitchen.
An eerie feeling crept up her spine, crawling with agonizing indolence and caramelizing into a bone-chilling fear. Who the hell had cleaned up her car, and why?
Lists of people ran through her mind, but she could think of nobody who would do it. She’d complained to Aaron, but he’d laughed at how uptight she was about those things. Keith knew she didn’t like a mess—neither did he—but he didn’t know she had one in her car. Did he? No. And he didn’t play head games. He wouldn’t do that to her, especially not after seeing how freaked out she’d been the night before.
Re/Paired (Doms of the FBI Book 2) Page 5