by L. L. Foster
“This is getting out of hand.” But she offered up her arm and then watched closely as he applied a healing ointment, a clean strip of gauze, and fresh surgical tape. Though the wound was still raw, Gaby never made a sound.
“You’ll get used to me caring for you.” He hoped. “It’s what a man and woman do for each other when they’re . . . ” A proper word to explain their relationship eluded him, so he settled for, “involved.”
Forced to scoot over as he slid into the bed, Gaby again went quiet as she assimilated the new suggestions.
“If you’re saying I should pamper you, too, you’re bound for disappointment.”
That made Luther grin. Gaby didn’t have it in her nature to hover over anyone. But she did, in her own unique way, show extra care when needed.
“It’s different for men.” He tossed the covers to the end of the bed. “Right now, pampering me means letting me pamper you. And no, I won’t explain that tonight because there’s something else I want to do.”
Her eyes went smoky with interest. “What?”
Catching her hips, he pulled her flat to the mattress. “You’ll see.” And with that he started kissing her—her throat, her shoulder.
She tipped her head to give him better access. “I don’t know why that feels so good.”
Luther smiled against her skin. “Women have lots of sensitive places on their bodies.” He licked the inside of her elbow, then moved over to her ribs.
Her hand knotted in his hair and she brought his face up. “Listen up, cop. I don’t want to hear about you with other women.”
“I wasn’t going to go there, I swear.” He had to fight his amusement. A jealous Gaby could be deadly, so he shouldn’t provoke her. “Just saying that’s why you like it.”
She let him go, but continued to scowl. “It sort of makes me shiver.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Holding her waist, he kissed his way down to her navel, then a hip bone.
Gaby let out a soft sound of pleasure. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes.
“You remember my promise, honey?” He urged her thighs farther apart and moved between them. “I told you how I’d kiss you.”
“Where you’d kiss me.” Her hands knotted in the sheet. “I’m ready.”
Like a sacrifice, she braced herself. Damn, but everything about her pleased him, most especially her sexual willingness.
Luther took a minute to toy with her, to tease with his fingers until she squirmed, until she tightened all over.
When he knew she was tense enough to break, he used his thumbs to open her, licked over her distended clitoris, and then drew her into his mouth.
Her long, broken groan rewarded him for his patience.
“Oh God, Luther . . . ”
To keep her still, he flattened one hand on her stomach. With the other, he pressed two fingers deep into her, withdrew, pressed in again.
She cried out, already on the edge of a climax. But he wanted to be with her, so with one last leisurely lick, he rose up over her.
Her parted lips and heavy eyes proved her need. As fast as he could, Luther rolled on a condom, lifted her hips, and drove into her hard and fast.
With that first deep stroke she started coming, her legs tight around his waist, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
She was wild, hot, and so damn perfect for him.
Arms straight, Luther stayed over her, watching her face, loving the way pleasure contorted her features. It pushed him past his own restraint and he felt his own burning release.
Afterward, he collapsed atop her. She hugged him, her legs still around him, her soft mouth touching his neck. When he started to move, she squeezed him, so he settled back to her and just held her.
“I’m not squashing you?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Damn it, even an insult from Gaby, at such a special time, could make him smile. He rolled to his side but brought her with him.
“I need to get rid of the condom.”
She smoothed a hand over his sweaty chest. “It’s crazy how much I enjoy your body.”
“Ditto.” He kissed her, and then eased from the bed. When he returned only moments later, Gaby was just as he’d left her. She looked to be asleep. All in all, this was turning out to be easier than he’d first expected.
He settled back into bed with her, pulled her in close, and closed his eyes.
Then out of the blue, she turned her face up to his. “I meant to ask—what’s Viagra?”
Chapter 8
Humming to himself, content to transport his cargo, Fabian drove along the serene streets until he found a neighborhood offering what he required. Beneath scant moonlight and the occasional streetlamp, garbage cans and lawn bags waited at the end of each driveway.
The houses were spaced far apart, and the denizens had turned in already, leaving the area dark and quiet. Not even a dog barked.
Perfect.
Ensuring that no one loitered near a window, he dimmed his car lights and coasted up to the curb of a tidy upper-middle-class home. Snickering to himself, thinking of how easy it was to dispose of the unused body parts, he released the latch to his trunk and put his car in park, but left it running.
Donning surgical gloves, he dragged a weighty bag from his trunk and dropped it next to those already near the street, waiting for garbage pickup early the next morning. It blended right in.
Snickering to himself, he gave a furtive check up and down the street, got back in his car, and maneuvered without headlights to the next block. As soon as he turned the corner, he turned his lights on, and, whistling, drove toward another house.
In a fit of whimsy, he’d decided to scatter the body parts. Imagining the police trying to piece them together like a grisly jigsaw puzzle filled him with macabre amusement.
Every time he drank, each time he feasted off another, his intellectual superiority expanded and his physical attributes grew more youthful, more dynamic. He possessed a sagacity and elite taste that exceeded those of everyday man.
The police couldn’t stop him; they couldn’t even name him as the culprit.
Through careful design, he’d re-created himself as an omnipotent leader. No one would uncover his select lifestyle unless he deemed it so.
Soon, his agile calculation would manifest the ultimate sacrifice due him, a succulent meal that he’d bestow on the others. As a unit, they would commit the ultimate depravity.
All he needed now was to find the perfect target.
But first, he needed to finish ridding himself of the waste.
* * *
Dry-eyed, skin rippling with chills, Gaby stood naked, staring out the window. Fear was so new to her that she couldn’t fathom how to cope.
She didn’t want to awaken Luther . . . but then again, she did. Fuck. In a very short time she’d become a needy, whiny fool.
“Gaby?”
Closing her eyes, she swallowed and attempted to regulate her voice, to hide the repulsive despair. Too much depended on her being a paladin.
Without looking at Luther, she said, “There’s more that I should tell you.”
A heavy pause preceded Luther’s calm concern. “Why don’t you come back to bed and we’ll talk?”
No, if she got back in bed with him, she’d want things she shouldn’t. Like respite from duty. Like . . . normalcy. “No, Luther. I can’t.” An odd constriction in her throat made it difficult to squeeze the words out. But the import of her words demanded voice. “It . . . it’s eating me up inside until I feel like I’m going to . . . I don’t know. Explode. Destroy something.”
She heard the creaking of the bed, then felt Luther’s arms come around her. And oh God, it felt good.
Too good.
“You can tell me anything,” he whispered, “and somehow, we’ll figure it out.”
That he believed such nonsense only added to her agitation. Some things, like her purpose on earth, would never be so easily divined.
Breath
ing hurt, but then, she’d hurt for so much of her life, what did that matter? Pain kept her sharp, in senses and in body. She needed the pain now.
Pain she could handle.
It was the invasive weakness that would be her undoing—and still she turned into Luther’s comforting embrace, holding him so tight that her arms ached.
She shouldn’t share her appointed onus with anyone, much less someone as pure as Luther. It wasn’t fair to burden him.
But he’d changed her, and she no longer had the internal fortitude to bear it all alone.
Unable to face him as she detailed the awful, ugliest of possible crimes, Gaby told him about Bliss’s vision—and her own.
“Your bloodsucker is still on the loose, Luther.”
As if to soothe her from her worries, his hands rubbed up and down her back. “I know that. We’ll get him, Gaby. I swear. It might take some time—”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately time is something you don’t have. Hate to break it to you, cop, but your guy isn’t just a bogus bloodsucker.” She had to take several quick, shallow breaths before giving him the truth. “The sick fuck also likes the taste of human flesh.”
Luther stiffened. The ugly word barely squeezed past his abhorrence. “Cannibalism?”
Gaby nodded. “Not just a cannibal, fucked up as that is.” Sick to her soul, she whispered, “He wants something special now. He wants . . . fresher meat.”
With each word, Luther grew more rigid, until now, it was his hold that crushed.
Gaby didn’t mind, though. Somehow, for whatever inane reason, being held by him made the possibility for resolution more plausible.
* * *
Careful not to hurt her arm, Luther levered her away from him. At her disclosure of what she believed, what she had considered keeping from him, what she had thought to fight alone . . . Oh God.
Fury and fear rolled together to obliterate his control.
He struggled to keep his temper concealed from her. He knew Gaby, and if she suspected he wanted to lock her away for her own safekeeping, she’d leave him and never come back and everything they’d shared wouldn’t sway her one bit.
His fingers bit into her shoulders, but he couldn’t help it, and she didn’t seem to notice. “I understand about Bliss. This isn’t the first time she’s claimed to have a strange foreboding about things, most often with morbid circumstances.”
“And she’s been right every time.”
Did that mean Gaby considered Bliss right in proclaiming them an item? According to Bliss, they were meant to be—and Gaby knew it.
He let that go to tackle a bigger, more monumental question. “What I don’t understand is your vision.” He managed one leveling breath, and then another. “Care to explain?”
She shivered, and then in a burst of energy she shoved him away. “I fucking hate this.”
“This?”
“Feeling this way.” She pressed a fist to her belly. “I’m cold, Luther. I’ve never been cold a day in my life. Other than thunderstorms, I don’t even notice the stupid weather.”
He had no idea how to console her. Never had he known her to be susceptible to the cold, so she was changing. He’d already sensed it, and understood how hard it was for her.
And still he relished it.
But changing wouldn’t be an easy thing for Gaby to advocate.
Her gaze sought his before she stepped away, putting a deliberate physical and emotional distance between them.
“Always, every second of every day, there’s been this awful yawning pit inside of me. It’s been a part of me for as long as I can remember. It’s bleak and hungry and sick, but it’s buried deep where I can’t change it, and so I ignore it. It’s there, but I’ve made it unimportant.”
“You’ve learned to function with it.”
“I had no choice, damn it.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eye sockets. “Jesus, Luther, I want that awful, indifferent pit back.”
Hurting for her, Luther stepped closer. “Because it’s familiar? Or because it was replaced with something that’s worse?”
“Because now I can’t compartmentalize things.” She dropped her hands, but only to slug him in the shoulder, to close in on him with aggression and urgency. “You fucked it all up. You’ve got me confused and . . . and fucking cold.” Her trembling bottom lip was stilled only by the harsh compression of her mouth. “And needy.”
She swallowed, but he heard the tears in her voice.
“And . . . scared.”
That admission cost her, sending savage emotion to wrack her body. She swallowed again, convulsively, but the tears still glistened in her sad, wounded eyes.
He’d never seen Gaby cry and, God Almighty, it ripped him apart.
If he touched her now, she’d resent the compassion, and it might send her over the edge. No matter how badly he needed to hold her, he couldn’t do that to her.
Going to his closet, Luther found a flannel shirt and draped it around her. Holding the collar together under her chin, he put his forehead to hers and wished for a way to ease her turmoil.
As a detective, the only way he knew to proceed was to get all the details he could. “Tell me about your vision, Gaby. Let’s start with that.”
Angrily, she shrugged into the shirt, and then swiped a hand over her eyes. “Why not? It’s all so screwed up anyway.”
She marched out of the room and down the hall to the spare bedroom she’d appropriated. Going to her knees, she bent at the waist and dug under the bed.
Good God. Even now, with foul talk of a cannibal, she threw him off guard with her manners.
The shirt barely covered her hips. And with her in that position, he saw . . . well, everything.
Lounging in the doorframe to keep from touching her, he said, “You know, Gaby, most women feel vulnerable when they’re naked.”
She dragged out a box without looking at him. “Why?”
The question threw him. “I suppose because many men are spurred by lust at the sight of a woman’s body. Some men, idiots I guess, can lose control.”
“So?”
Right. Why would Gaby be concerned with a man’s loss of control? She’d flatten anyone who tried to take advantage of her. “Very few women are as capable of fending off rape as you are.”
“Interesting. But I’m not naked, so does any of this really matter?”
He felt sweat on his forehead. “Jesus, Gaby, you’re mostly naked and you just flashed me an invitation that was damned hard to resist.”
Flipping the lid off the box, she slanted him a distracted frown. “Are all men so unflagging then when it comes to sex? I mean, seriously, Luther, I figured you’d want some downtime by now.”
She damn well didn’t need to know how other men dealt with sexual overindulgence, because she wouldn’t be with anyone other than him—but telling her that now wouldn’t be a smart move. Especially not when she was so open to him for a change.
Stepping forward, Luther went to his knees and joined her on the floor. “With you, Gaby, I don’t think I’ll ever get enough.”
Unconvinced, she turned away and lifted out . . . a manuscript. She set it on the floor between them and just waited.
Luther knew in his guts what she’d just revealed. For some time now he’d suspected that Gaby created the popular, underground graphic-novel series Servant. The vividly depicted stories of a female paladin on earth had an enormous cult following.
And through secretive sales and hidden identities, only Morty had it available.
In fact, Servant kept Morty’s comic book store in business. As Gaby’s closest cohort, whether she’d ever admit that or not, Morty got the privilege of presenting her work to the world—or at least as much of the world as his small shop could reach.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
Her hands flexed over her knees. “And you. And everyone I’ve met. Everyone I’ve . . . eliminated.” She glanced up at him. “Usually I use the writing and artwor
k as a way to exorcise the ugliness of what I’ve done, what has to be done.”
“It’s cathartic to get it out on paper?”
She nodded. “But on occasion, when I’m working, things show up that I didn’t yet know. Clues to the future, direction on what to look for.”
“Me?”
She smirked. “No way, cop. You came with no warning. If I’d had even a clue how much you’d invade my life, I’d have steered clear for sure.”
“As I recall, you tried to do just that.”
Her mouth twisted. “Yeah. A lot of good it did me, huh? You’re not very good at accepting rejection.”
“About as good as you are at accepting affection.” Luther scooted around to sit next to her, letting their shoulders bump, their hips touch. “So what in the manuscript makes you think a child will be a victim?”
“The little girl is an intended victim. But no way in hell will I let it happen.” She turned the pages around, flipped aside a few, and showed Luther an eerie ink representation with stark details and fearsome impressions. “There. Do you see her?”
Peering from behind a dark-skinned woman in the throes of consummate terror, Luther saw the child’s face. The woman had already been attacked, but the child appeared unharmed.
“It’s too late for the woman?”
Agitation took Gaby to her feet. “I don’t know.” She sliced a hand through the air. “Probably.”
Luther studied the incredible artwork with new attention to detail. Gaby possessed not only phenomenal physical ability, but astounding artistic talent. “Does Mort know that you’re the—”
“No.” Her shoulders bunched as she paced, not in dejection, but in profound thought. “Only you. And it better stay that way.”
“Because . . . ?” He wanted to hear her say that he mattered more than anyone else.
Instead, she shook her head. “Around you, especially whenever you touch me, I’m not as effective. Since I guess you’re not kicking me out . . . ” She paused, waiting for affirmation.
“Definitely not.”
“Then I guess we should try working together. When my elevated perception fails me—thanks to you—you can maybe step up and fill in some of the gaps.”