Carl had always said, Being honest with yourself is harder than hearing the truth. It's a strange statement. But if you think about it, it's very true. It's actually pretty easy having someone point out the facts. But verbalising your own faults is downright hard.
Now I had to face mine.
Hennessey, the department shrink, said I had a self-destructive tendency in my personal life. Professionally, the doc had said, I was more inclined to sacrifice myself. He'd asked me which I thought was better. It was a trick question, I knew that now.
There was no right or wrong answer. Both fucked up your life. And I'd fucked up mine. Then Carl had left.
I've asked myself a million times whether his disappearance from my life prevented me from healing. From forgiving Damon. Now I know the real question should have been, had Carl's death caused me to miss the truth? Helped me to ignore the signs?
She'd looked like him. I remember that now. He'd held her fragile hand, but not in a passionate way. It had been comforting. She'd been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy, snot had glistened beneath each nostril. And Damon had been wearing what I'd last seen him in. A crinkled HEAT t-shirt, faded jeans and scuffed up boots. He hadn't dressed up. Hadn't even made an effort.
You try for a new date. You don't for your sister. Yet I had chosen to ignore all of that and concentrate on the lie.
What brought him out that night when he'd been planning to stay home? A sister relapsing perhaps?
If only I'd known. If only I'd asked. If only I'd let Damon say his piece.
I didn't deserve a second chance. Hell, I'd thought I didn't deserve the first one. But I sure as hell owed Damon an apology.
I always acknowledge my mistakes, but this one might just cripple me.
I rolled over slowly, listening to Damon's even breaths at my side and blinked the sleep from my eyes. The sun hinted behind the curtains. I hadn't closed them, Damon must have. I don't remember much after making it to bed.
Other than the fact that Damon had finally told me who he was with that day.
I watched his chest rise and fall softly, his face in gentle repose. So relaxed, so beautiful. His lips curved downward slightly, while a dream had him furrowing his brow. Then with the next deep breath his face smoothed out again. He had shadows under his eyes, but not as bad as they had been when I first laid eyes on him again after nearly six months. He'd played the game well at that car boot fire. Pretended we didn't know each other intimately in a former life.
That's what I'd wanted. That's the tone I'd set and Damon had dutifully followed. Carl knew we'd been closer than inter-service colleagues, but only because he knew me so well. Pierce had probably suspected, but every time HEAT was brought up I'd inevitably growl, so his natural assumption was a short liaison gone wrong.
I let my eyes trace the stubble that had thickened overnight on Damon's cheeks. I reached up and wrapped a dark curl around my finger, then released it and watched it spring back into place. Damon had gorgeous hair. And lips. I watched them curl up in a smile, even if he was not yet awake his body had somehow registered my touch in his sleep.
With a heavy sigh I wondered why he hadn't rushed to tell me the woman was his sister. He could have blurted it out. He could have shouted it through my closed front door. But he didn't. He kept saying it wasn't how it looked, but he wouldn't divulge what it actually was. So why now? Why finally break the code of silence now?
Part of me was still angry, and that small unanswerable "why" fuelled the anger a little more. Sure, I wouldn't have wanted to listen, but if he'd just come out with it, I wouldn't have been able to ignore it either. We were both to blame. Me too stubborn and scared. Him... what? Protecting Carole?
I shook my head and Damon's eyes flickered open. He went from relaxed and expressionless, to tense and wary. Bloody hell, was I that much of a ticking time bomb?
"Hey," I whispered and he let a long breath of air out.
"Hey, yourself," he whispered back.
We held each other's gaze, neither willing or able to say the next words.
Come on, apologise. Open the dialogue up. Say something. Me or him, I don't know.
"You didn't dream," he whispered, still not wanting to break the tenuous impasse.
I shook my head.
He nodded his.
Silence and tension, both of them feeling like physical entities, settled between us.
"What's next?" he asked, and somehow the familiar phrase he'd used throughout the investigation made it a little easier to breathe.
I sucked in a large lungful of air.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. He knew immediately what I was talking about.
"You weren't listening."
"I wouldn't have had a choice if you'd have tried."
"You were hurting," he added.
"I was angry."
"It's one and the same for you."
"But Damon, you didn't try."
His turn to suck in a deep breath. "No, Lara. I didn't." He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. "You want to know the truth?" he asked, directing the question to the roof it seemed and not me.
"I think we've reached that point," I offered. He semi-smiled, it was more a grimace than a grin.
"You're a hard woman to contain." Pardon? "Your work always comes first. If Carl phoned, you'd drop everything. Even sex."
"What?"
"You don't remember?" he said, turning just his head to look at me. "My place. It was a Friday. We'd had half a bottle of wine between us and made out on the couch in front of some God awful movie I can't even recall. We'd just gotten up, still tangled in each other, to head to the bedroom. And Carl phoned. You had a distinctive ringtone set for just him. We both knew who it was even though your cellphone was on the coffee table, several feet away from where we'd stumbled to."
I remembered the night. I didn't want him to go on. I knew what happened next.
"You broke away. I asked you not to answer it. You told me..."
"Carl will always come first. No matter what," I finished his sentence for him.
"Carl will always come first. No matter what," he repeated.
What a bitch.
"I knew then I'd always play second to your job," he went on. "I told myself that it was OK. I still had you. But when you saw me with Carole and leapt to the wrong conclusion I put up a wall. I'm not even sure why. By the time I realised I didn't want that wall there Carole had attracted some very dangerous interest that needed my absolute discretion. I couldn't give you a reason, so I just asked you to trust me."
"What sort of dangerous interest?" I demanded.
"See. You are always the cop first. You think you have a right to know, because you think only you could solve the problem."
"I am the law, Damon. What the hell did you do? Beat the crap out of them until they passed out?"
And that just proved how much of a bitch I could be.
He sat up and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "This is not going at all how I planned," he said.
I covered my face and said through my fingers, "Ditto."
He huffed, it could almost be considered amused.
"Carole asked that I keep it all from you," he finally added. "Made me swear or she would cut me out of her life and go off with one of the main dangerous parties interested in her. I was desperate to get her out of that lifestyle. I'd not long ago had to rescue her from Zero. I knew she'd go straight back if I didn't comply. I did manage to make her agree to a stay in rehab as part of the negotiations, though."
"So, your sister forced you to pick family over girlfriend."
"My sister forced me to pick family over the Police," he countered. "You'd picked your side already when you told me Carl would always come first."
Oh, what a fucking mess.
Neither of us said anything for several long moments.
"How is she now?" I eventually asked.
"Better. No longer dependent. Living a quiet life out at Piha Be
ach."
"Lot of druggies out there," I pointed out.
"Lara," he said on a defeated sigh.
"I can't turn it off," I admitted, sounding a little desperate myself.
"I don't expect you to," he replied, moving closer and reaching out a hand to take one of mine. His was large and slightly calloused. The perks of being a fireman. "Otherwise I wouldn't have made a play for you again. I'm not a glutton for punishment," he joked, trying to lighten the moment. "But I also can't seem to get you out of my system. Believe me, I tried."
"So, what do we do?" I asked, letting him entwine his fingers with mine.
"Work together as much as possible?" he said on a grin.
A smile finally reached my lips. "Ever thought of becoming a detective?"
"Ever thought of becoming a fireman?" he shot back.
"We could just stick with inter-service investigations."
"Would you want to?" he asked, and the question was posed in all seriousness.
I stared back into deep, dark and intense eyes. My heart wanted to say yes. My head wanted to say, back up the dumptruck and think about this.
"My shrink said I idolised Carl," I admitted, instead of voicing the many myriad of other, better thoughts going through my head.
"Hennessey?" Damon asked. I nodded, letting out a sigh. I never spoke about my sessions with the department's clinical psychologist. Never. This felt wrong.
I was talking before I registered I'd already made my choice. Damon. The past few days had taught me something, or flicked a switch that had been set the incorrect way. I hadn't watched Damon from afar as he said he'd watched me. But I sure as hell read every HEAT memo that crossed my desk penned by him. My ears would prick whenever HEAT was mentioned at CIB. I always asked how the team was going when I met up with one of the HEAT guys; codeword for how was Damon?
I haven't dated in six months.
But as soon as I saw him at that car boot fire I knew. I refused to put it into words, as such. But my body, my heart, knew. I was still in love with him. It still hurt to look into those mesmerising eyes. My body still thrilled whenever he was near. Even in the pitch black of night I felt the heat of the sun as it flared.
"It was an unhealthy idolisation," I whispered, admitting something the shrink had never said in words, but I had come to realise as truth. Psychologists, especially clinical ones, are there to help you recognise the triggers that set you off and give you the cognitive tools to combat them. They don't judge and they don't often diagnose with medical terms. So, Hennessey had never said my worship of my CIB partner was unhealthy, he'd only led me to that conclusion; a discovery I needed to make myself.
"Carl taught me so much, you see," I went on, and Damon just held my hand, offered his full attention, but didn't interrupt. "He showed me what I was capable of. He gave me confidence in myself. He..." I frowned, realised I was squeezing Damon's hand quite painfully and so immediately released my grasp.
He reached back over and took my hand, lifting it palm up to his mouth.
"I'm tougher than I look," he whispered, lips brushing my sensitive skin as he talked.
I watched him kiss my palm, his eyes on mine, then let him settle our entwined hands in his lap.
"I had a lot to live up to," I murmured, getting back to my story. "My grandfather was a well respected detective. My father is Superintendent of South Auckland Police." Damon would have known all of this. It wasn't a secret, anyone dealing with Auckland City Police would be aware of Ethan Keen. "He's a hard man to please," I ground out. "But that's a story for another day. I guess, what I'm trying to say is, I'm a little bit more aware of what I do and maybe why. A little bit more aware of how it can sometimes..." - I struggled for the right word - "...dominate my focus."
My eyes lifted to his, from where they'd inadvertently dropped to the cover on the bed.
"I've noticed," he said softly.
"You have?"
"Sure," he said easily. "You wouldn’t testify against me."
"I was a bit slow to come to that conclusion," I mumbled.
"Lara," he admonished. "It'll get easier. I promise."
"What will get easier?" He was losing me. Did he mean breaking the law? I cocked my head and frowned at him. He just smiled back, his eyes darting all over my face, my sheet wrapped chest, my hair.
"Loving me," he finally answered. "Letting me all the way in here." His fingers touched my head. "And in here." He covered my chest above my heart with the flat of his hand.
A grin was the only warning I received.
"And in here," he growled, leaping forward and trapping me under the sheet, his palm cupping between my thighs suggestively, over the top of the bedding. "This is the one I'm really focused on right now," he said, wiggling his eyebrows at me, hot breath washing my lips. "I think we should take a breather from the deep and meaningful stuff, we both know you love me and I love you and we're never going to let someone else come between us again." Do we now? "So, how about we get hot and heavy instead?"
"You're incorrigible."
"But I'm your incorrigible."
"That's not a correct sentence."
"Lara!"
"Yes?"
"Kiss me, love."
Oh, all right.
My lips melded to his effortlessly, the pull too hard to deny. I nibbled and licked and offered little kisses all around his mouth until he growled low and pushed me back down on the bed, laying his larger frame over mine. He deepened the kiss, stealing my breath, laving me with fire and passion and everything I had known was good with Damon, but for some reason felt even better now.
Clearing the air had been cathartic. A little painful, but well worth the discomfort in the end. He wasn't prepared to give up on me, and that said a hell of a lot in my book. I could be determined, single-minded, waspish on occasion, and saw things often as only black and white.
But I was learning. Carl had given me the foundation. Something solid and truthful to work from. Now I just had to mould it into my foundation. No longer exclusively Carl Forester’s outlook on life, but Lara Keen's. Knowledge learned from the best of them, but expanded on by my own experiences and views on life.
And as I let Damon prove just how much he could focus on a certain part of my anatomy, I accepted that he had his faults too. He could be argumentative, overprotective, used a brick wall on occasion to hide behind, and often acted in an extremely demanding way. But he was learning too.
Maybe together we'd find common ground.
"Damon," I moaned as he licked his way up my centre.
"Hmm, you taste good," he purred against the crease at the top of my leg, then returned his attention to the apex of my thighs.
A finger dipped in, crooked, and then flicked a certain spot. My hips jolted off the bed, he placed a flat palm over my lower stomach to hold me in place and then really got to work.
Oh, he was good at this. Mind blowingly good. It took a matter of seconds before I was moaning and begging and writhing beneath him, and then as he reached up under the sheet and pinched my nipple, in that hard way he has, combining that with a soft bite in just the right spot below, I fell apart. Washed away on a tsunami of an orgasm, blinding me briefly, synapses sparking erratically inside my brain, my cry lost to lack of air.
"Perfect," he whispered, crawling up the length of my replete body. "Lara Keen, you are perfect in every way."
"Mmm," I managed, but meant really? Every way?
"I was attracted to the detective," he whispered in my ear, I think seeing my thoughts written all over my face. He wrapped me up in his arms as he kept talking. "I fell for the woman. I will always regret letting you walk away." He kissed my temple, my cheek, the side of my neck. "I'm sorry," he added, holding me tighter still.
I found my voice at last. Rolled over onto my side to face him and cupped his whiskered cheek.
"I'm sorry, too," I admitted, meaning every word.
"Start over?" he asked.
"Sure," I said easi
ly. His eyebrows raised at the use of his previous words and tone. "But this is what I'm really focused on right now," I added, wrapping my hand around his thick arousal.
He groaned, fell back on the bed, and said, "Have at it, sweetheart."
I made a disgruntled sound as I moved down his body. If it was the last thing I did today, I'd get him to call me something other than sweetheart.
Six minutes later I won.
"Lara! Fuck! Oh God yes, Lara! Ah, Love."
Now that's how you start a day. And I hadn't even had my coffee yet.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
"Expect the unexpected, Sport. Then they can't use your surprise against you."
"Where do we start?" Damon asked, coffee mug to lips, dark eyes on the large case box I'd just brought in from the hallway where he'd left it last night.
"We go over each murder with a fine tooth comb," I replied, taking the lid off and chucking it unceremoniously onto my dining room floor. We'd set up at the large rectangular teak dining table, which was halfway between my open-plan kitchen and lounge. My house wasn't as impressively designed as Damon's, but it was comfortable and well worn.
"How fine are we talking?"
"Every report written, every piece of evidence collected, every statement made, every profile created. Then we cross reference."
"Have you got a whiteboard?" he asked.
I jumped up from the table instantly. "Good idea."
"I'm full of good ideas," he quipped.
"Don't I know it," I yelled from the hall. He'd proven just how good his ideas were this morning; in bed; in the shower; at the kitchen bench while the coffee brewed. Working remotely had never held such appeal before.
I even felt optimistic about finding a heretofore hidden vital piece of evidence in amongst the plethora of files in that wretched box. For now, that's all we needed. I hadn't met with any more informants, and Pierce, probably via Hart, had suggested I stay locked down for now, to give us time to reassess what we had.
The sex club case had thrown us, put us well behind the eight ball. We needed a moment or two to catch up. I only hoped the killer would remain on form, not deviate from what we had come to expect.
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