“Excuse me?” she demanded.
“I know it’s none of my business, but… Well, I mean… Lockhart… you know who he is right?”
Kristin pushed her tongue up under her front teeth.
“Yes,” she said irritated. “He’s my old neighbor.”
“No,” Jonny laughed and pulled her by the forearm to one side. “He’s more than a bit dangerous, Kristin…”
“I’m sure I can handle him.”
“Well, I’m not,” he said seriously.
“Jonny… He’s a client, I’m just doing my job.” She tried to move past him, but he kept his grip on her arm.
“All I’m saying is guys like him don’t need lawyers… even when they are up for murder… Keep your wits about you.”
Kristin stopped and took in what he had said.
Murder.
She took a few deep breaths and nodded her head.
“Like I said, he’s a client… This is business… I’m just here to advise him today.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Jonny said as he opened the door to the interior cells where the interview rooms were. “There you go, door five.”
Kristin stared down the hallway and saw the two cops flanking the doorway.
“Thank you,” she smiled, and then she turned and began her slow walk down.
***
The door creaked open and she stepped into the cell. Dan Lockhart stood with his back to her. She couldn’t see his hands so she knew they were probably handcuffed in front of him.
“Dan?” she said quietly as she walked forward.
“No one’s called me that in years,” he said.
He was taller than she remembered, and his shoulders were broader. He looked like a great hulk of a man in that room, his head almost skimming the ceiling. He began to turn slowly, and Kristin held her breath.
His eyes caught her first. His deep blue eyes that had always made her weak at the knees. She was instantly floored that they hadn’t lost that effect. The scars on his face had faded, but they were still there. Instead of making him look mean, they added to his raw sexiness, creeping along his skin in crisp, faded lines. The tattoos had extended up his neck and across his knuckles. He smiled at her from beneath his floppy dirty blonde hair and it lit up the room. He didn’t look like the sort of person who would smile that way, but it instantly pulled her in.
“It’s good to see you, kid,” he said and he took a step toward her. “Now are you going to get me out of here or what?”
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Kristin found herself putting a hand on her hip.
“Set up,” he said as he lit a cigarette. A cop entered the room and motioned for him to extinguish it, but he brushed him off and stuck up his middle finger.
“Set up?” Kristin asked as she pulled up a chair and took out her Dictaphone.
“Yeah, I didn’t fucking do it.”
“Okay…” she said as she crossed her hands on the table in front of her. “So, can you tell me everything that happened?”
“Naw,” he exhaled and started to laugh, “I didn’t do it, that’s all you need to know, now post my bail and get me out of here.”
“You’re not taking this seriously,” she snapped.
“Because I don’t fucking need to,” he said, leaning forward with a smirk.
“Well, then why did you call me?” She was already packing her things away. “I came here to help you, thinking you were in trouble… which you clearly are… And now you’re just making a joke out of wasting my time.”
“Spoke to my mom for the first time in years last week and she told me about you being a lawyer,” he said coolly. “Just had to see it for myself. I don’t need your fucking help.” He lit another cigarette and clamped it between his teeth.
Kristin stared at the man in front of her. He looked wild and intense. His danger had been turned up a notch and for the first time, she felt frightened of him. Genuinely frightened.
“Always knew you were a good girl,” he said as he exhaled a plume of smoke across the room. “Always got me going, too.”
Kristin swallowed and got to her feet.
“I don’t think I can be involved in this,” she said, “It’s not appropriate.”
“Sure,” he took another drag, “I didn’t expect you to. I was just interested, that’s all.”
Kristin walked to the door and looked back over her shoulder.
“Take care of yourself, Dan,” she said.
“It’s Locke,” he smirked. “Just call me Locke.”
“Well then, take care of yourself, Locke,” she smiled and then let the door close behind her.
As she walked back out to the reception, Jonny was behind her and calling for her to stop.
“What happened?” he asked as he placed a hand on her shoulder.
“You were right,” Kristin admitted. “He’s dangerous… I’m not getting involved.”
“Good choice!” Jonny called after her as she burst through the front doors of the station and disappeared out onto the street.
4.
When she got home that evening, she had to pretend like it hadn’t bothered her. She had foolishly and blindly gone over there out of curiosity and stupidity. Her teenage self had ruled her adult head. She had made a fool of herself in front of Locke and now she was going to have to hope that he wasn’t mad and going to come looking for her. Jonny had been right… He was like something else completely above the law and frightening. She double locked all of her doors and went upstairs. In the bathroom, she turned off all of the lights before she lit scented candles around the room and ran a deep bath filled with oils. She needed to unwind more than ever, and she knew she only had a short window of opportunity before Pete came back and ruined the tranquility.
He had texted her when she was on her way home from the station, saying that he and the other partners were heading out for drinks after hours. As usual, she hadn’t been included on the memo, and even though Pete was being liberal with the information, he too didn’t extend the invite.
She slipped into the water and closed her eyes. She was livid with him but she wasn’t going to add to the emotions she had experienced since that morning. The added stress of Locke’s call had provided enough drama for one day. She rubbed her plump, soft skin and massaged in the oils. They made her feel silky smooth and weightless as she floated in the water. She sunk down even further and breathed in deeply. They smelled so divine, she could have easily been at a spa.
She thought about Locke’s hands. They were so big…so masculine…so rough. She traced her fingertips up her side and up to her breasts and imagined that they were his. She bit her lip and slipped down further into the water. She opened her legs slightly and imagined him sliding between them. His huge frame opening her up and pinning her back against the porcelain. She gasped and opened her eyes. She couldn’t fantasize about Locke… if she did, she knew there would be no way she would be able to stay away from him.
A bang downstairs snapped her out of her daydream. She could hear Pete cursing and jingling keys as he tried to get in through the front door. She smirked as she remembered that she had double locked it.
“What the fuck,” he called up the stairs. “Did you lock me out?”
She rolled her eyes and pretended she hadn’t heard him.
His footsteps came pounding up towards the bathroom door, and he shoved it open before entering the room with a cloud of stale smoke and booze. It cut through the scented oils and made her wince. It simply didn’t smell sexy on Pete… Not like it did on Locke…
“Skipped out the office early today, huh?” he asked as he undid his fly and lifted the toilet seat.
Kristin covered her eyes with one hand and sighed. “Do you have to?” she asked, unimpressed.
“Are you serious?” he slurred. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
He started to piss and Kristin wished he would just vanish into thin air. She was so done with him, s
he didn’t know how much longer she could pretend to tolerate him.
When he left the room, he left the seat up and the bathroom door swinging open. As he passed, he knocked one of the candles and the wax extinguished it. A smoke trail filled the room and stung her eyes. She pulled the plug, stood up and wrapped herself in a towel. By the time she walked through into the bedroom, Pete was flat on his back in the center of the bed snoring and still fully clothed. Instead of helping him undress and into bed she left him where he was and made her way to the spare room. She turned on the side lamp and crawled into bed with a book. She looked up at the ceiling and made the decision…
Tomorrow, you’re asking him to leave, she told herself, and if he won’t, you’re going to pack up his things and throw them out onto the street.
She rolled onto her side and propped up the book on the pillow. As she read she didn’t take anything in. All she could think about was Locke. The words morphed into his face and in the end she threw the book down onto the floor and turned out the light.
5.
The following evening Kristin sat at the kitchen table, nervously waiting for Pete to get home. He had never even moved in officially. One day it just seemed like most of his things were there and he never went back to his own place. He had a penthouse apartment on the other side of the city and it was a long drive. Kristin’s house was closer to the office, so after a while it just seemed to make sense that he spend the majority of his time there. Even if she hadn’t specifically consented to it.
She heard his keys in the door and braced herself. He came inside, hot and flustered, his hair windswept and greasy from the day before. She’d heard him that morning and knew he hadn’t showered. He’d rolled out of bed late, spritzed himself with cologne and changed his shirt before heading out of the door.
“Fucking Clarke,” he said as he threw his briefcase down on the table in front of her, “Wasting my fucking time…”
Kristin didn’t respond, hoping her silence would break him out of his self-obsessed drama.
“What’s the matter with you?” he looked up finally and snarled.
Kristin breathed in and got to her feet.
“I don’t want an argument, but I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few weeks, and I don’t see this going anywhere.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited for the backlash.
He curled his lip and sneered.
“Shut up,” he turned his back on her and walked over to the refrigerator. From all of the responses she had been expecting, that certainly wasn’t one of them.
“I’m being serious Pete,” she said, “I want you to leave. Now.”
He stopped in his tracks and cricked his neck before he turned back to her with rage in his eyes.
“I told you to shut the fuck up,” he spat. “Now move out of my fucking way before I open the door with your face!” He shoved past her and Kristin fell into the kitchen table. She was shaking and the tears welled in the corner of her eyes.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
She didn’t know what else to , so she reached for her purse with shaking hands and pulled out her cell. She furiously hit “dial” and held the phone up to her ear.
“Jonny,” she said as she heard him say hello, “I need you to get me Dan Lockhart’s phone number… fast.”
***
When she called him, she didn’t know what she expected, but Locke was a lot different to how he had been at the police station.
“I’m glad you got in touch,” he said as he sat opposite her in a park on the edge of town. He was clad in leather and big heavy boots, sitting on top of his motorcycle and smoking a cigarette.
“I need your help,” Kristin whispered as she looked around her.
“How the tables have turned,” Locke raised his eyebrows and exhaled with a grin.
“Look, I don’t know what happened the other day, but with my job and everything I really shouldn’t be getting involved with you.”
He lit up another smoke and offered her one. She declined.
“I need you to scare someone for me… Someone I work with who I may have dated for a while… He’s causing me some trouble.”
“What happened?” Locke sat up straight and instantly looked annoyed.
“I tried to break up with him and make him leave my house and he threatened me,” she said. “If you help me, you know, scare him a bit somehow… I’ll help you in any way you want with your case.”
“I’ll do it for nothing,” he said, exhaling a plume of smoke over his shoulder. “I don’t want you to be my lawyer, I told you that.”
“Well then why did you call me?” She was genuinely confused.
He smiled and moved closer to her.
“I never stopped thinking about you… When I heard what you were up to, I just got curious, made me want a good influence in my life… It was the only way I knew how to get your attention.”
Kristin shook her head and turned away.
“Well, congratulations, you got it,” she laughed. “I’ve thought a lot about you too over the years… wondered what you were up to… where you’d been.”
“I’m sure how you’ve spent the last decade is completely different to how I’ve spent mine…” he said as he looked off into the distance.
Kristin watched him and found her eyes instantly drawn to the scars running down the side of his face. They really did make him look sexier. She had never thought of how something so violent could add appeal to a person. She bit her lip and averted her eyes. She was starting to get worked up.
“I’ll get rid of him,” Locke said as he started the engine on his bike and revved it. “You won’t hear from him again.”
“Wait,” she called, “Don’t hurt him… I just want him out of my house.”
Locke leaned over and pulled her to him. He stared at her deep in the eyes and wrapped an arm around her base so he was holding the base of her spine. He leaned into her and kissed her forcefully on the mouth. His lips were red hot and full of passion as his tongue parted her lips and slipped inside, massaging against hers. Kristin melted in his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck. She had thought about kissing Locke since she was a teenager, and now there they both were, him thirty and her in her late twenties, finally breaking down that boundary.
Kristin pulled back and stared into his eyes.
“I’ll get rid of him,” he assured her. “Just go home, pack his stuff and put it outside.”
“Okay,” she said with a nod.
Locke rode off with a huge roar which made Kristin’s skin tingle. She had no idea what she was doing, but it just felt so right. She walked back to her Mercedes and got inside. She looked in the mirror and noticed that his stubble had worn against her delicate skin and her lips were on fire. She reached up and touched them and a squeal of delight escaped. She had finally kissed the bad boy of her dreams.
6.
As the day wore on, she didn’t hear anything from either Locke or Pete, and her anxiety started to kick in. She found herself pacing the halls of her home and obsessively looking out of the windows. She had done what Locke had asked and placed Pete’s packed bags on the driveway. She must be crazy, asking a potential murderer to come and get rid of an abusive and annoying boyfriend, but she was so past her limit with Pete she didn’t see another choice.
She had already decided she was also going to leave the firm. She didn’t want to be surrounded by those awful men any longer. After reconnecting with Locke, she had a new-found confidence. She realized that if he had gone from boy next door to fully fledged badass, then she could become anything she wanted. And what she wanted was to quit law and find her true calling. She had never been one hundred percent happy with her career choice. She had fallen into it almost accidentally. She wanted the nice cars, to be well paid, to be able to afford a good home and support herself financially without the help of a man. But when she got all of that, she realized she hated the job. It wasn’t for her. She didn’t like the
people she had to be around and that was just the clients, so when the other partners started to make her feel like shit, she knew it was time to call it a day.
Locke was a small complication now. He had come along at a time when she was impressionable and open to suggestion. Everything about him seemed so exciting, and it made her feel like she was seventeen again. If he could scare Pete off and promise her his arrest was a mistake, then she was his. Hell, even if he was a murderer at this point she was so hot for him, she didn’t know if she even cared.
She pressed her palms against her bedroom window and looked out across the street. She could see a man in the distance walking towards her and dragging his leg as if he was hurt. With horror she realized it was Pete. He was coming down the street without a car, limping in a ripped suit.
“Oh God,” she said aloud.
She watched him limp slowly up to her driveway. His suit was ripped up one leg and exposing his shoe and sock, and he had a blood patch on his knee and a little trail coming from his nose. His eye was beginning to swell. The guilt hit her all at once, like this was her fault, but she stopped herself from going down to see him because she knew if it hadn’t been him in that state, then it would have been her. He had been prepared to hurt her if she went against him. Kristin smiled smugly at the thought of Locke beating the shit out of him and watched as he struggled to lift his bags over his shoulder and drag the rest down the driveway. He didn’t once look up or try and see if she was inside. He simply walked back down the street, looking like he was about to collapse, and disappeared into the distance.
When he was gone, Kristin flopped down on her bed and stretched out. She had her home and her life back. She grinned and rolled over and picked up her cell phone. Her next item on her agenda was telling the firm that they could shove their job. She was quitting and she never wanted to set foot in the building again.
Shifter Romance: BODHI (LOST CREEK SHIFTERS NOVELLAS Book 4) Page 79
