by L. L. Foster
As she passed Luther, he said, "Thanks, Ann. I appreciate it."
"No problem, sweetheart. This is my chance to prove I'm more than a pretty face."
"I never doubted it."
Gaby took in the exchange with a scowl. The woman flirted with him, but Luther took it in stride.
Without seeing Gaby, he used the towel to dry his chest and shoulders and started in her direction. Arm raised, he rubbed the back of his neck and Gaby could see his armpit, the bulge of an impressive biceps, and…
A gold cross hanging around his neck.
She was on her feet before he reached her.
He drew up short. "Gaby?" After glancing around to see if anyone had noticed her, he moved closer. "What are you doing here?"
She snatched up the cross hanging from the short chain. "What the hell is this?"
The backs of her fingers touched against his damp, heated chest. She felt his body hair, crisp but also soft. She could smell him—man and sweat and… Luther. Her heart thumped harder.
Sneering, she said, "You're kidding, right? You think this will help anything?"
He studied her, and without her realizing it, he'd curled his big hand over hers. "Come here, Gaby." He pulled her hand from his cross and led her away from the basketball court to the other side of the street. "Sit down."
The hell she would. "Don't give me orders."
He eyed her. "Are you pissed for any particular reason, or just as a way of life?"
Damn it. She hadn't been pissed. Not until she saw the woman with him. And the cross.
But mostly the woman.
Not that she'd ever tell him so. If she did, she'd really feel like a moron.
Changing the subject from her mood to his bling seemed a good idea. "That's nothing more than an icon, you know. It's not going to ward off evil."
"It was a gift from my grandmother, who has since passed away. I loved her, so I wear it."
How dare he continue to sound so levelheaded and calm in the face of her growing ire? "That's all there is to it?"
"I'm not worried about vampires, if that's what you mean."
Her shoulders straightened, but still she felt about two feet tall. "Sorry."
"Wow." A smile teased his firm mouth. "You almost said that like you meant it."
Pressing her fingers under her sunglasses, Gaby rubbed at her eyes. "Look, I didn't hunt you down to argue with you."
"Could have fooled me." He slung the towel around his neck, "How did you hunt me down?"
"I went to the station, and was told it was your day off. I asked if anyone knew where I could find you, and someone sitting in there—not a cop, but someone else—"
"Gary Webb? Twenty-one-year-old kid with too much energy?"
"Maybe. He told me to check here."
"All right. And you hunted me down because… ?"
Gaby looked around the area. "Is there someplace I can buy you a Coke?"
"No." He folded his arms over his chest. "But I can buy you one if you feel like walking a block."
"I can walk."
In strained and silent agreement, she went with Luther to his car where he stowed the towel and then dug out a white T-shirt and slipped it on. He finger-combed his sweaty hair away from his face and retrieved his sunglasses. "Ready?"
"Sure." They started down the street.
At a convenience store, he went inside, and Gaby followed. There was no air conditioning, but a squeaky fan stirred the humid air, offering a modicum of relief.
"Get what you want," he told her, so she chose a cola and a candy bar. He grabbed a sport drink and two traveler's packs of aspirin.
"Head still hurting?"
"A little. I'm fine." But he opened both packs and popped them into his mouth, washing them down with the cold green drink.
"You were probably supposed to take it easy today, huh?"
"I had other things to do besides taking it easy." He paid and they went back outside. "This way."
There were no benches nearby, so he led her to a grassy spot beneath a tree, and together they sat.
With each passing second, Gaby felt more like an idiot. The man had barely had time to sleep, much less do as she'd asked. And he was hurt, so probably shouldn't have done anything at all anyway.
Luther stared at her, waiting.
"I wanted to talk to you for a couple of reasons. I was going to tell you how I cut my arm—"
"Let's start with that."
She shook her head. "In a minute." She indulged in a long drink of her cold soda, and then on impulse she stretched out on her back in the grass. "I guess you've been too laid up to check into the hospital stuff like I asked, huh?"
He stretched out too, but on his side, propping himself up on an elbow so he could watch her. "Actually, I did that before I left the hospital."
She turned her head toward him. "Really?" Wow, so maybe he'd listened to her after all.
"They've lost twenty patients over the last two years."
"Is that a lot?"
"Not according to them. Not for the cancer ward."
Gaby put an arm behind her head and stared up at the sky. "Doctors usually visit more than one hospital. Check the other ones that Dr. Marton goes to, too."
"Okay."
She scrutinized him. "Did you check on that place where the indigent patients go?"
"I got an address, but I haven't been there yet. I did some research, though, and nothing fishy turned up."
Gaby nodded. "Visit it anyway."
"I planned to."
He was so agreeable, so easy, that somehow the words just slipped out. "I stabbed a man last night."
In the middle of taking another drink, Luther halted. He didn't blink. He didn't say anything. He just froze.
Gaby rolled her lips in, worked the words around in her mind, and then plunged on. "He'll live, I think. Without giving my name, I called the cops so they could take him to a hospital or whatever. You'll probably hear about it at the station, and I didn't want you to start suspecting me of anything."
Plus she figured half-truths would throw him off a more dangerous course of supposition. And she had some questions for him, questions that Mort had refused to answer.
Still Luther said nothing.
His silence spurred her to say more. "See, Mort and I were out and about… just walking. He was sort of shook up after that blood in the stairwell and even after we cleaned it, the smell was awful, so we took in some fresh air." She'd already cued Mort, and if Luther questioned him, he damn well better lie convincingly.
"When we were heading home, we saw this man assaulting a girl in an alley."
"A hooker?"
Gaby gave him a sharp look. "Does it matter?"
"Not to me. But I want details."
After taking off her sunglasses, Gaby turned her face toward Luther. "She might have been a hooker, but she was still a kid and the guy was forcing her."
"And?"
"I stopped him."
Luther sat the sport drink aside. "With your knife?"
She nodded. "I told him if he ever hurt her again, I'd castrate him."
Small muscles flexed in Luther's face, taking him from fear to anger to rage and back again. "Where did you stab him, Gaby?"
"In the shoulder. I threw my knife first, to stop him." She felt compelled to honesty. "I have very good aim."
A big breath expanded Luther's already impressive chest.
"But then he tried to charge me, so I sort of pulled it out of him and put it to his balls and told him what would happen if he didn't change his ways."
Luther twitched.
Gaby felt the need to rush through the rest of her explanation. "He was making her do stuff to him, Luther. Really ugly stuff. She was crying and she was sort of beat up—"
"Where is she now?"
That his first thought would be concern for the girl warmed Gaby. More than ever, she saw the white aura surrounding him. "I don't know. She ran off after I stopped the atta
ck."
Luther fell to his back. "I don't fucking believe this."
"I didn't tell the cops who I am and I don't think that guy will, either."
"If he lived."
"Well, yeah. But I think he will. I mean, sure, he was bleeding a lot and everything, but it was just a shoulder wound."
"Unless you nicked something else."
Did he have to sound so morbid? "I guess."
"I'll ask around about the incident. I can find out who was on call last night, see how the man fared after your unique sense of justice."
Gaby didn't like the accusation in his tone. "He deserved it, Luther."
"From what you said, I'm sure he did. But you should have called the police, not taken it on yourself to deal with him."
"By the time the cops got there, who knows what else he might have done to that poor girl?"
"Who knows what he might have done to you, Gaby, if your aim had faltered a little. Did you ever think of that?"
"No, because my aim doesn't falter."
He muttered several steaming curses before saying, "I can't believe you're bragging about this."
He looked really put out, ready to shut down on her, but tough. She had questions and he most likely had answers. Mort sure as hell hadn't wanted to talk to her about it. "I suppose now isn't a very good time to ask you stuff?"
To her surprise, he put an arm over his eyes and appeared to relax. He took two deep breaths and let out the last one in a long, slow exhalation. "All right. What stuff?"
Well, that was better. Calmer anyway. "The man had the woman on her knees and he kept pushing her face into his crotch."
Luther froze again.
"It was like he was screwing her, but not where he should be."
"Gaby," Luther choked out. "Shush."
"I know there's a lot of deviant stuff out there and that men pay women to do a lot of weird things. But like I told you, I don't watch television, and whenever I hear music playing on the street, I don't really pay much attention to the words. I don't really know what's normal and what isn't. What that guy did didn't look normal, but I wanted to know—"
"Give me a minute here, okay?"
"Just tell me what he was doing and if it's acceptable or not. The girl sure didn't seem to think so. She hated it. Hell, he'd had to beat her up to make her do it."
"I don't believe this."
"The thing is, Mort was upset that she was hurt, but he didn't seem confused about what the jerk did or anything."
In one swift movement, Luther was over her. Now he looked angry. "Are you playing with me?"
Flat on her back? In the sun? In the middle of the community?
"No." His blond hair, still damp from his exertions, went wavy in places. That seemed very at odds with such a rugged male. "I never have time for playing. You should know that by now."
"Don't start with the confusing talk, Gaby. I want a straight answer." His hands gripped her shoulders. "You honestly don't know what oral sex is?"
"Oral sex," She supposed that sounded right for what she'd seen. It was definitely sex of some sort. "You want plain speaking? Fine. I've seen the prostitutes jerk guys off. I've seen them bend over stuff and let Johns do them from the back, like a dog."
Luther's eyes widened a little more with every word she spoke.
"I've even seen them—"
His hand smashed over her mouth. "Jesus, woman." Additional heat darkened his high cheekbones. "Do you spend all your time watching hookers at work?"
He'd silenced her, so she shrugged. She'd have a tough time avoiding seeing it where she lived. Every time she stepped out of the apartment, the whores were there, sometimes doing their business in a parked car, sometimes in an alley.
Sometimes in plain sight, if that's what the John wanted.
Luther's hand shifted. His fingers touched her mouth. Lightly. Caressing. With one finger, he parted her lips.
"Gaby, I want to kiss you."
Could have fooled her. "You look more like you want to strangle me."
"That too." He continued touching her mouth. "Do you think it'd be okay if I kissed you?"
She had to think about it. It wouldn't be smart, would in fact be idiotic—"Yeah."
Luther bent down, hesitated, then came closer. He brushed his mouth over hers. He didn't do much, just hovered there, teasing her. His mouth barely touching hers.
Gaby felt his hot breath as it accelerated. She felt his building tension and her own anticipation.
Then she felt Luther's absence.
She opened her eyes and saw him sitting up beside her. She waited, and he looked down at her with accusation, need, and so much more. "You are one dangerous little girl, Gabrielle Cody."
Chapter Thirteen
"You just figured that out?"
He plucked a blade of grass, then another. Looking away, he said, "I haven't figured out anything. Around you, nothing is clear."
"I know." She was an abnormality of the first order. How could a nice, normal cop like Luther Cross ever understand her, when she didn't entirely understand herself?
"So." He tossed the blades of grass aside. "Rather than splurge on a cheap radio, you watch the local streetwalkers for entertainment." He looked at her. "Or is it edification?"
If he wanted to snipe, she could snipe right back. "Given your pinched-up look and the way Mort dodged the topic, it's pretty obvious that if I don't watch the hookers on occasion, I'm not going to learn much."
He turned coldly austere. "Anything you need to know, you can't learn from them."
"Can't learn it from you either, apparently." She sat up and brushed dried grass and dirt from her hair. Luther hadn't moved that far away, but she now felt a definite distance between them that hadn't been there a few moments ago. "I'm so dangerous, you're suddenly afraid of me?"
Luther pulled up one knee and crossed his arms over it. "Truth is, Gaby, I'm more afraid for you than of you. You're the strangest girl I've ever met. At times, there's this awful vulnerability about you that makes me damn near want to cry. Then you make me so hot that I can't breathe. Then you calmly tell me, a detective, that you played vigilante and stabbed someone."
Hurt, Gaby pushed to her feet. "I guess you would rather I hadn't helped her." Why had she hoped that, like Mort, he'd be impressed?
Stupid.
Mort was sad and lonely. Luther Cross was a shining advocate who likely had an abundance of close friends and family backing him.
He stood too, and though he was only three inches taller, he seemed much bigger in every way. One shaky hand reached out to cup her face. "I'd rather you didn't put yourself in danger."
Yeah, she'd rather that, too. But more often than not, she had no choice. "Sorry."
His mouth lifted. "Now that sounded sincere." His thumb brushed her cheek. He dropped his hand from her face to lace his fingers with hers. "Come here."
"Where are we going?"
"Someplace more private." He started walking, his pace urgent, towing her along. "Someplace where I can explain a few things to you."
"Like?"
"Oral sex. The difference between what hookers do and what I'd like to do with you."
"Me? And you?" Her heart started that odd staccato thumping again. "Forget about it. I already told you that I can't—"
"I know. One of these days, you'll tell me why. But I would never force you, Gaby."
Obnoxious jerk. "I wouldn't let you."
"I'd never even try."
He towed her into a smelly alley and backed her up against a damp brick wall. Her thin T-shirt did nothing to protect her shoulders from the rough face of the broken bricks.
But Gaby didn't care.
"Hookers do what they do for money, without emotion and without experiencing a single pleasure. Not because they want to, but because they have a habit to feed, or an empty stomach, or an insistent pimp."
As if he'd been running, Luther breathed hard and fast. His fingers caught her wrists and raised her
hands to his shoulders. "Because they consent, it's different from actual rape, and from what you say you saw last night. But in my view, not by a whole lot. Any man who uses a woman, who takes advantage of her desperation, isn't much of a man."
"It looked ugly," Gaby agreed, glad to have some real light shed on it all. "Like evil."
"And to you, evil, like cancer, is a live entity?"
She hated to tell him, but… "It is, Luther. Very alive."
He didn't laugh at her, didn't argue or try to dissuade her. "Rape is both ugly and evil." He looked at her mouth. "But when two people are willing, anything goes, and what might look unpleasant otherwise becomes… very nice."
"You'll understand if I have my doubts." But that wasn't entirely true. With Luther, she could imagine most things would be nice. Even being pinned against a dirty brick wall.
"Now, Gaby, I'm going to kiss you, and I want you to open your mouth for me."
"Why?"
"Consider it an exercise in oral sex, why it's pleasurable and why men and women do it."
Her skin went all tingly. And deeper down, inside herself. "Yeah, okay."
"Wait." He touched her lips. "Promise you won't bite me."
Bite him?
"Just promise me, Gaby. Your reactions are not all that trustworthy and I don't want to lose my tongue."
His tongue. The tingling turned to a warm energy filling her whole body. "I won't bite you."
The second the words left her, his mouth covered hers. When his tongue touched her lips, Gaby remembered to part them. He dipped in, just a little, and the slick feel of his tongue, the taste of him, did crazy things to her.
She liked it. A lot.
Her hands clenched on his shoulders.
Continuing to tease her, he licked his tongue over her lips, her tongue, her teeth.
Deeper.
They were both breathing hard when he drew back and whispered, "Now, when I put my tongue in your mouth, I want you to suck on it."
Wow. Gaby nodded, and gladly accepted his tongue back. As instructed, she sucked—and it was wildly exciting. For both of them.
Who knew?
The kissing grew hotter, deeper. Both of Luther's hands held her face. He pulled back yet again. Eyes dark and hot, he stared at her, studied her.