by L. L. Foster
His heart hammered as she complied without a word. The steam in the room left her lashes spiky, her cheeks flushed and rosy. He knew well that Gaby considered herself a less than pretty woman. Sometimes she barely acknowledged her own humanity. Her life as a tool to combat gross iniquity had left her with a far from complimentary view of herself.
To him, she was by far the most striking, admirable, and appealing female he’d ever met.
Staring at her breasts, he soaped up the cloth again and started on her slender throat. Just beneath her pale skin, her pulse beat frantically. When he shifted, bathwater lapped at her narrow waist.
Gaby was all straight bones, sleek muscles, and female pride.
Slowly, Luther massaged over her shoulders, her collarbone, down over her nipples. She tipped her head back a little and held her breath.
Dropping the cloth, Luther covered her soapy breasts with his hands.
“Luther?”
“Hmm?” The soap made her nipples slippery, adding a new sensation to his touch.
“You’re not going to get me all excited and then stop again, are you?”
“No.” He teased her nipples with his thumbs, gliding around them, under them, not quite touching her as he knew she wanted. “How did you get shot, Gaby?”
She stiffened, but he’d anticipated that reaction from her, and lightly caught her nipples, tugging, rolling.
Her tension coiled tighter. “Drug dealers,” she managed to say.
Luther held the burgeoning anger at bay, anger at Gaby for putting herself in peril—again—and a hotter rage at whoever had dared to try to hurt her. “What about drug dealers?”
“They were hanging out . . . at a playground.” She covered his hands with her own, but she was too new to this to know what to do, and her hands fell away again.
“You ran them off?”
“No. I disabled them. As a warning.” She breathed faster. “The cops found them where I left them, there near the playground.”
Luther released her and while he gently cupped water over her chest to rinse the soap away, he asked as judiciously as he could manage, “Disabled them how?”
To his surprise, she started to shake.
“Gaby?” Alarm mushroomed. Never had he seen Gaby tremble. “What is it?”
In a sudden rush, she crawled up over his lap, putting her legs around him, with those puckered nipples at eye level. “I had to do something terrible, Luther. I can’t talk about it now. Please.”
Please? From Gaby! Fearing for the worst, Luther caught her hair and pulled her head back so he could see her face. “What happened? What did you do?”
Her quivering lips compressed, and grave sadness filled her beautiful eyes. She looked away. “I had to kill two dogs.”
Jesus. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Tragic, yes, but nowhere near the possibilities summoned by his imagination.
She hugged herself around him. “Help me forget, Luther. Just for a little while.”
Two dogs. His eyes closed in profound relief. But, of course, it made sense. Gaby would always consider children, animals, victims of any kind, to be innocent. If she’d had to exterminate the dogs to protect others, it would be an atrocious burden for her, an albatross of guilt that she’d never lose.
And she had actually asked for him to help her.
Strides, Luther told himself. Great strides.
“It’s all right, Gaby. Let me help you.” He adjusted her just enough that he could lick her left nipple, circle it with his tongue, and then suckle her softly.
Her thighs tightened and she squirmed. He wedged a hand between their bodies and, given her wide-open position around him, easily pressed his fingers to her. Touching her would never be a hardship. He loved touching her.
He loved . . . No, he couldn’t let himself get sidetracked that way. Concentrating on their physical relationship would be enough.
For now.
Within minutes, Gaby was breathing hard and fast, and she moved against him, showing him what she liked, what she needed. Learning her preferences, her body, proved a distinct pleasure.
When she came, Luther held her close, glad that he could share this with her even as his heart broke for the high level of accountability she placed on herself.
Afterward, she lay sprawled over him in the tub, her legs still around him but her spine relaxed, her head fitting perfectly beneath his chin. Her warm breath teased his shoulder, and her injured arm remained out of the water only because he ensured it.
Hating to disturb her, Luther trailed his fingertips along her back, raising gooseflesh, bringing forth a sigh or two.
Several minutes passed, and he thought she might have fallen asleep.
“Sorry, but I need to hear the rest of it, Gaby.” He moderated his tone, treating the obdurate phenomenon of her routine existence as mundane, hoping she would follow suit. “You know that.”
“Yeah, I know.” She shifted a little, maybe tightened her hold on him. “I don’t care that I hurt the men. They were drug dealers preying on kids. One of the guys had so much money on him and so many drugs that I know he had a lot of exchanges planned for the day.”
“But they had dogs, too?”
“Pit bulls.”
Luther couldn’t suppress a shudder of dread. He had to close his eyes to regain his composure. He never blamed an animal for attacking, especially when trained to do so. But he’d had experience with vicious dogs before, and pit bulls were known for their strength and tenacity once they went after a victim.
“We’ve had officers badly injured by that breed.”
Ducking her head, Gaby tightened again. When she spoke, her voice crawled with a level of pain unfathomable to most. “No animal is to be blamed for what monsters force it to do.”
Luther heard repressed tears in her tone, and while it devastated him, the sign of human emotion also offered encouragement. Like the mistreated animals, Gaby had been given few choices in life except to desecrate perceived evil.
He would give her choices, and pray that she adapted.
“No, it’s not,” Luther agreed, determined to reassure her on her decision to put the dogs down. “Unfortunately, an abused dog can be a threat to others, especially to the elderly, and to the small children nearby.”
She nodded. “There were two of them, Luther.” Her free hand fisted against his side. “Beautiful, strong animals, with so much spirit.” Her breath shuddered. “I tried to make it quick and painless for them. I couldn’t . . . didn’t want them to suffer at all.”
He couldn’t bear it. He needed eye contact, to let her see his conviction that she’d done the right thing. “Gaby, look at me.”
She clung tighter, a silent refusal that Luther accepted with subdued frustration.
God, if only he could take some of the responsibility from her. Her narrow but proud shoulders bore the weight for protecting all in her realm. In doing so, she’d had a lifetime of absorbing many inflicted hurts and defensible deaths.
Gaby truly believed in what she did, but that couldn’t make it any easier.
“Tell me about the men.”
After a moment, she collected herself. “All three of the bastards would have still been there when the cops arrived.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes.” Sleepily, as if maiming men mattered little in comparison to killing helpless animals, she detailed the way in which she’d ensured their capture.
She must have mistaken Luther’s palpable frustration for a struggle to accept her, because she straightened her arms to sit up over him.
Luther had a struggle, all right. Gaby straddled his lap, her body bare, wet, and still flushed from sexual activity. And grief lent a softer edge to her usual strident demeanor, making her seem even more womanly, more vulnerable and approachable.
It wasn’t easy to keep altruistic motives at the forefront of his thoughts.
Until Gaby straightened with sharp-edged antagonism. “Yo
u want me to leave now, cop?”
His gaze shot from her breasts to see the unmitigated resignation on her face. Damn her, would she never accept him and what he felt for her?
His own countenance severe, Luther shook his head. “No, never.”
Surprise shifted her expression. “The police will be looking for me, you know.”
“Was there anyone to identify you?”
At his continued equable discourse, she eased. “Some kids.”
He cupped a breast and looked at her mouth. “You protected them. Not just for the moment, but in the long-term.”
“It won’t be enough. It never is.” Her inhalation pushed her breast more firmly into his palm—a circumstance they both noted. “I personally talked to two of the kids, one girl who told me about the drug peddlers burning down her aunt’s home. And there was a boy they had trapped near a fence. I ran him off before I took care of them.”
Took care of them. Because he needed to hear it all, Luther released her. “The kids will talk. And,” he said, trying for a smile that wasn’t entirely feigned, “they’ll tell how vicious the dealers are, and how one of them shot at you.”
“Bogg,” Gaby confirmed, giving Luther a name to research. “He was sort of the head honcho, but I wasn’t impressed much.”
“You never are.” He examined her arm again, thinking of how close that bullet had come to really hurting her. Oh, he’d check into Bogg’s file. And he’d make damn sure the bastard spent his life behind bars.
She put a hand to Luther’s face in the most affectionate gesture he’d ever gotten from her. “I’m impressed with you.”
His smile now was genuine. More often than not, Gaby insulted him with regularity, and at other times, she fought him over everything from murder to bathing. “Yeah? Since when?”
“You bowled me over the day I met you.” She tipped her head to study him. “I saw your golden aura and I knew you were everything I wasn’t.”
He didn’t want her impressed by perceived differences. “We’re more alike than you think, honey. We both care about protecting those who can’t protect themselves, right?”
“Our methods differ by a long shot.”
Unable to refute that, Luther said only, “Our intent is the same.” But he saw the exhaustion in her face and knew she needed to rest, whether she’d ever admit it or not. “Have you eaten?”
“I stopped by to see Bliss.” Her eyes darkened with the memory. “Did you know that Ann is teaching her how to cook?”
“Ann is teaching her a lot of things, all of them good.”
“She made stew.” Gaby looked annoyed by that accomplishment. “It wasn’t half bad.”
Luther secured his hold on Gaby and sat up. He didn’t understand why it bothered her, but maybe her close bond with Bliss made her overly protective. “Between the two of you befriending Bliss, she’ll soon have all the self-confidence she needs to make her own way in the world.” He tipped up her chin. “You do realize that you have as much if not more influence on Bliss than anyone, right?”
That thought didn’t please Gaby. “God, I fucking hope not.”
“Why not?”
Her mouth twisted in a quirk of ill humor. “What I do and how I do it . . . I’m damned good at my duty, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else and I sure as hell wouldn’t want Bliss to see me as an example.”
“With you, Gaby, it’s easy to overlook the grisly effect of what you do for the reasons you do it, and the end results.” With wet tendrils clinging to her cheeks and a pugnacious frown, Gaby appeared as deceptively frail as any other woman. “You know what I think Bliss sees when she looks at you?”
Gaby rolled her eyes. “Is this going to be some sappy shit?”
Luther spoke over her cynicism. “She sees a woman who isn’t afraid to stand up for her beliefs. A woman who makes her own way by her own rules, and who doesn’t let the opinions of others veer her off course. She sees a woman who helps others. A woman who is strong and capable, with a bone-deep core of honor.”
Leaning back, Gaby stared at him. “Damn Luther, your perception is sadly skewed.”
“After the abuse Bliss suffered from people who should have cared for her, she needs your type of influence a lot more than she needs to learn domesticity. And no, I’m not talking about meting out justice. I’m talking about the core of you, your pride and independence, caring and intelligence. By example, you can show Bliss how to overcome obstacles, to make her own way.” He brought her close again. “And before you object to that, I know you’ve shielded her from the more graphic examples of your ability.”
“As much as I could, anyway.” She eyed him. “Besides, who would believe it? You’re the only one who seems to think you know me well enough to understand what I can do.”
“And I would never share your secrets.” Forestalling more arguments from her, Luther brought them both to their feet and reached for the towel. “Now, if you’re not hungry, how about we turn in? I’m not superhuman like you, and I do need sleep.”
New doubt brought a scowl to her face. “I don’t know how this all works.”
That he understood exactly to what she referred showed a new depth to their relationship. “We’ll sleep in my bed,” Luther explained with no room for argument. “Together. Naked.”
She didn’t object, but she did require elucidation. “Sleep as in . . . sleep?”
Striving for physical detachment from the act, Luther began drying her. “Soon, yes.” First, he had a promise to keep.
“No more questions?”
“We do need to talk more, but it can wait until the morning.” He didn’t want to say too much yet, so he summarized with, “I don’t have to go in early, but I’m going to have to work late.”
Gaby’s thoughts remained elsewhere. Puzzled, untrusting in her own impression, she sought eye contact. “This is nuts. You really don’t mind what I did to the drug dealers? I mean, I cut them up pretty bad. I might even have maimed them for life.”
Time for stark honesty. Luther put his hands on her shoulders and met her gaze. “I would have preferred that you call me, to see if I could offer an alternative solution to . . . maiming them. Sometimes, you know, the legal system does work.”
She snorted.
Yeah, he already knew her thoughts on going by the book. “But, Gaby, as I’ve told you many times now, I trust your instincts.”
“So you’re not pissed?”
That she’d chosen once again to handle life on her own terms saddened him, but he couldn’t be angry with her for doing what she could to protect others. He shook his head. “I’m not mad.”
Her brows scrunched down in disbelief. “No fucking way.”
“Way.” Luther pressed a kiss to her frown. “Trusting you won’t stop me from worrying, or from trying to convince you to do things along a more legal path—and we’ll save that lengthy discussion for the morning. But, no, Gaby, I’m not going to lose sleep over cretins who would prey on the vulnerability of children.”
Her chin came up and her small fists clenched. “I could have killed them without remorse.”
“But you didn’t, and I appreciate that.” Showing restraint was new for Gaby, but Luther believed it was more her own sense of right and wrong that kept her from butchering the men. They were bad, but she could handle their immediate threat, and so she did.
He’d come to realize that Gaby annihilated only those she believed posed a bigger menace to mankind, the truly heinous, soulless fiends who, even while imprisoned, would find a way to indulge their immoral debauchery.
“You, Gabrielle Cody, have your own sense of fair play. Besides, having them in custody might help lead us to other drug distributors, buyers, and even pimps. It all trickles down a dozen different ways into society. Like dominoes, if one goes down, the others topple, too.”
He stepped out of the tub and helped her out, then finished drying her legs.
“I don’t understand you,” Gaby said to the top
of his head as he kneeled before her.
“For now, that’s okay.” He stood and patted her pert backside. “I know you haven’t completely unpacked yet, so I have a spare toothbrush if you need to use it.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “My comb is on the sink.”
Taking the hint, she turned to the sink and rummaged through his belongings until she found what she wanted. Seeing Gaby naked at his sink, doing a routine chore like cleaning her teeth, gave him a sense of inevitability.
Sooner or later, Gaby would accept him as part of her life.
When she did a ruthless job attacking the tangles in her short hair, Luther winced and took the comb from her. She had baby-fine hair, inky black and liquid soft as it slipped through his fingers.
Her physical appearance was a stark contrast to her hard-edged personality and purpose.
When her hair lay smooth, Luther kissed her on the top of the head. “Why don’t you wait for me in the bedroom? I’ll only be a minute.”
With a shrug of her shoulder, she agreed and went off to the bed. After Luther drained the tub and picked up their dirty clothes, he gathered the medicinal items he’d need for her arm.
There were many things he wanted to do with her, to her, but her injury precluded those activities. Still, he had told her what would happen if she came home to him, and he couldn’t wait to show her exactly what he’d meant.
Propped against the headboard on top of the covers, one leg straight out, the other bent at the knee, Gaby awaited him. She had one of the DVDs he’d rented and was reading the back.
“Look interesting?”
She turned the movie over and looked at the front. “What is it?”
“A movie. We watch it on the television. I had hoped to watch it with you tonight, but . . . ” His turn to shrug. “You had other things to occupy your time.”
She tossed it onto the nightstand. “Don’t expect me to feel guilty. Not for that. We can watch it tomorrow night, if you want.”
Tomorrow night he’d be at a local rave known for catering to deviants of all sorts, but most especially to wannabe vampires.
“Maybe.” If things worked out, he could get home early enough to crash on the couch with her. He seated himself beside her, causing the mattress to dip. “Let me have your arm.”