The Kindred

by L. L. Foster

  Still visibly struggling, he gave a stiff nod. “But do not start calling me that again. Use my name, damn it.” He turned and started the bathwater.

  Gaby crossed her arms and stared at the gorgeous muscles in his back. “I prefer a shower.”

  In a carefully moderated tone, he asked, “Have you ever had a nice long bath?”

  “Well . . . ” She looked at the steam rising from the water as it filled the tub. The thought of soaking in that heat, relaxing, made her muscles go weak. “Not really, no.”

  “Why?”

  Most times, cautious of being caught off guard, she rushed through even her showers. “Showers are quicker.”

  “You’re telling me you don’t have enough free time to indulge in a bath?”

  “It’s not about having free time. It’s about being preoccupied.” When he still didn’t understand, she made a face. “I can fight naked if I have to, but it wouldn’t be my first preference.”

  He paused, turned to stare at her, and then: “What?”

  “Lounging around in a tub is a good way to be taken unawares.”

  He seemed to droop before shoring up his determination again. “You’re safe enough here.”

  “Yeah, right.” Her tone reeked of disdain. “No one is truly safe anywhere.”

  “Right.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I guess that explains the steel door and all the locks where you used to live, huh?”

  Where she used to live—because he thought she had completely moved in here. Gaby relented . . . a little. “I suppose that once the water is off, we’ll be able to hear if anyone breaks in.” She lifted her chin. “I have superior hearing, you know.”

  “You have superior everything.”

  He said that with visual attention to her too thin, too lanky body.

  She shook her head. “You’re deranged.”

  “Only with you.” Luther opened his jeans and stepped out of them. He folded them and placed them on top of her clothes. “I’ll join you in the tub, if that’s okay.”

  They’d both be naked in there? Together? Gaby made up her mind. “A bath it is.”

  Chapter 7

  Luther swallowed all his demands for details until after he’d gotten Gaby settled in the steaming water in front of him. He positioned her with her back to his chest, her injured arm resting on the side of the tub, out of the water.

  Though she hadn’t elaborated, just knowing that a bullet had caused the blood-crusted, burned furrow filled him with rage. That bullet had no doubt been meant to hit something more vital. Only Gaby’s quick reflexes had saved her from more serious injury—or even death.

  And Gaby treated it as a trivial nuisance.

  Any other woman, and most of the men he knew, would be popping pain pills and pampering that gruesome injury.

  But not Gaby. Hell, she barely acknowledged it.

  Lifting her wrist so he could examine the wound more closely brought a wave of guilt over Luther. His throat tightened. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” She snorted as if he lacked the ability to do so, then thought to ask, “When?”

  All around the area where the bullet had abraded her, the swollen flesh felt hot to the touch. “When we were”—he started to say making love, but to keep from alarming her anew, he changed it to—“having sex.”

  “God, no.” She tilted the back of her head to his chest and looked at him upside down. “That was great.”

  Even in the face of his staggering worry, Luther gave a small smile. Knowing he had satisfied Gaby went a long way toward keeping him on course with his plans.

  He kissed her wrist. “That was what we call a quickie.” He fetched a washcloth and the soap. “Sit up a minute.”

  “Why?”

  Gaby never gave over easily. Life with her—which he was aiming for—would be one struggle after another. “I want to take care of you.”

  Half turning to face him, she gave him a speculative glance. “Like . . . sexually again, you mean?”

  She looked so hopeful that he almost relented. “No, I meant that I want to wash you. Then I want to bandage your arm again.”

  Her scowl showed what she thought of that plan. “I’m able to wash myself.”

  “Trust me, Gaby.” He smoothed aside her wet hair and, using the sudsy washcloth, started on her nape. It took a few minutes, and he was working the cloth halfway down her spine before she relaxed and let her head drop forward.

  “That is . . . nice.”

  He wanted to care for her always. And somehow, he would. After using the cloth to massage her back and shoulders, he put it aside and used both hands to rinse her. “Get on your knees and turn to face me.”

  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 act
ually 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. “You 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 s
ure 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.