by Lexi Blake
Of course, if it lasted too long, they should just move. Her place was cramped. He needed an office. They should look at two bedrooms closer to the station. He hated to have to drive to work. No more than two stops away would be ideal.
He stopped because he wasn’t moving in with Karina. Fuck. He was getting comfortable with a woman he knew damn well wasn’t good for him. He was making all the same mistakes again. He’d put up with Maia because it was easier than doing the hard thing and taking the hit.
Although Karina was turning out to be so different than he’d expected.
“Derek?” Maia huffed a little. “Are you going to join us?”
“I was thinking.” About anything but the fact that someone was stalking Karina. “Little Tag and O’Donnell can’t watch her the way I can.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Derek. You’re acting like she’s a civilian. She’s not. She can handle herself. Slap a bug in her tits and get her out there. I want this guy brought in. I am not going to wait six months for my case.” She stood up, her face a bright red. “And I will use my influence to have you pulled off the case if I have to because don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. You’re behaving in a wholly unprofessional fashion.”
“Yes, because fucking on the job is so out of fashion in your world.” He was glad Karina wasn’t in here now because she likely would have been embarrassed. He just expected Maia to lash out when things weren’t going well.
She stared at him. “I can handle it, Brighton. I can handle it because I would never let it affect my work. She’s fucking with your head. What are you doing? Do you even know?”
“I’m doing my job, which is to make sure she doesn’t get killed.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s your job to catch this fucker, but you seem to have forgotten that. You should remember or you’ll find yourself off the case.” She stormed out in true Maia fashion.
Harris sighed and sat back. “It’s like watching a soap opera. It’s kind of beautiful. She’s the villain by the way.”
Yeah, he didn’t need anyone to tell him that. “You’re not exactly the hero yourself, Harris.”
The little shit grinned in a way that let Derek know he’d just fallen into a trap. “Oh, I don’t know that I’d say that. Did you realize Karina has a couple of e-mail addresses she doesn’t check very often? There’s the address for her business and she has a personal address, but seriously there’s almost nothing on that one. She’s all business, although surprisingly huggy for a tough private investigator. I was expecting her to go all Mickey Spillane on everyone, but it’s mostly hand holding and shit.”
He should have known someone would dig into her e-mail. “Is there a point to this?”
“She has an account from a few years before.” He frowned a little. “Interesting stuff. Let’s say she had some seriously unsavory contacts back in New York. And her record. Yeah, gotta love a chick with her issues. I’m going with the Ice Queen on this one. That girl can handle herself.”
Record? Karina had a police record? “What are you talking about?”
“Harris, you say another word and I’ll fire you myself. Those records were sealed for a reason and they have nothing to do with this case,” Watts said, his eyes narrowing.
“Firing him would be too much paperwork.” Hill’s words came out with lazy menace.
“I hate it when they do that. It really freaks me out. Fine.” Harris frowned. “I won’t spill on her deeply interesting youth, but I am going to talk about her e-mail. Our boy isn’t as patient as we thought. He’s sent her two love notes.”
A chill went across Derek’s skin. He wanted to protest and say that any goddamn record of Karina’s was relevant as hell to him. Sealed records. There were only a couple of reasons for them. She was underage when she’d committed the offense or she’d made a hell of a deal.
“Let me see the note he sent.” It didn’t matter. Her secrets were hers and he didn’t give a shit. Except he’d told her his secrets. He’d lain in bed with her and talked about Afghanistan and all the shit that happened to him there. She wouldn’t even talk about her marriage. He still had no idea what had gone wrong because he’d made the decision to live in the now. The past didn’t matter. They had no real future. He’d wanted to indulge in the intimacy of the moment, but even that was coming back to bite him in the ass.
Harris passed over his tablet.
Hello, bitch. Did you think I wasn’t watching? I see all the whores. All your perverted ways are open to me as you will be open to me when I take you into the final judgment. You will be bound and found guilty of your sins. I’m watching. He can’t save you from me. Tell your friends, I’m coming for them, too.
He took a deep breath to banish the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Derek?” Eve held out her hand.
He passed the tablet and sat back. Somehow the danger surrounding the case had seemed a distant thing until that moment. It had been quiet, peaceful even. “How would he have found that e-mail account? And why now? He didn’t send notes to the others.”
Eve sent the tablet down the row, giving everyone the joy of reading the fucker’s message. “He’s reacting to stimuli. He’s obviously noticed something is different and he’s upping his game. Or perhaps he truly wants her and us to understand why she’s going to be killed.”
“You just said he was patient. This doesn’t seem patient to me.” Sometimes Derek hated the whole profiling thing. He understood the need, but it was a little like reading tea leaves in his opinion.
“He can be both,” Eve replied. “And this is a good thing. The more data he gives us, the better chance we have to figure out who this is.”
And the quicker he would have to make a serious decision. If there was any decision at all to be made. They had agreed to take it easy. Once the case was over there really wouldn’t be any reason for him to stay at her place except the sex. If she could go back to Sanctum, would she want him anymore? Or would she go back to playing around with the Doms there?
Would he be able to watch her? Would she be under Simon Weston’s flogger the minute he got back from England?
And what the fuck had she been arrested for?
He hated not knowing. He hated the fact that the Rangers knew more about her than he did.
Fifteen minutes later, they were breaking up but there was still no sign of Karina. She’d walked off to look for O’Donnell and now his brain was playing a nasty game with him. They were comfortable together. She was far more comfortable with O’Donnell than she was with him.
Alex McKay shook the hand of Tyler Watts as he was the last one to leave. Eve had led them out and through the glass windows of the conference room, he could see her talking to them.
“How are you holding up?” Alex leaned over the conference table, gathering his notes.
“I’m fine.”
“I heard you moved in with Karina.” Alex was only a year or two older than him, but Derek suddenly got the feeling this was going to be more of a big brother talk.
“I didn’t move in. It’s a long-term stakeout and protection gig.” The last thing he needed was a bunch of gossip. When this was over, he didn’t want the members of Sanctum doing a postmortem on his non-relationship with Karina.
He didn’t want them talking about how it was more of a relationship than he’d had in years. It was work and a little casual fun.
“So you’re sleeping on the couch then.”
Yeah, Alex was definitely in big brother mode. “That’s really none of your business. That’s between me and my sub.”
Alex’s eyebrow rose. Shit. He was a mess. He wasn’t thinking about what he was saying. “Your sub? I thought this was a job.”
Derek stalked to the window, wishing like hell Alex had just walked out and left him alone. “We agreed to play together for the duration of the assignment. I thought it was best she not be left alone at night. We both realized it would be hard to keep our hands off eac
h other, so we made a mature decision to enjoy the time we have.”
“Yes, mature. Nothing about this is mature, Derek. Look, Ian should be the one having this talk with you, but he’s living out his fantasy in a giant floating dungeon in the middle of the Baltic, so it has to be me.”
“I’ve already gotten the lecture from O’Donnell and Little Tag. I don’t need another one.”
“Yeah, Li and Sean are going to come down on Karina’s side because they don’t know you the way Ian and I do. I’m worried about both of you, but mostly you.”
Derek frowned and turned around. “Why the hell would you worry about me?”
“Karina’s going to be okay in the end because if you break her heart, she’s going to go to her friends and she’ll cry it out and lean on them. You will go back into your shell and pretend nothing is wrong. You’ll go right back to the club and keep searching for your dream cipher and we’re all praying you don’t find her, though there is a bet that one day you’ll show up with a blow-up doll from Japan and the two of you will be very happy.”
“Fuck you, McKay.”
Alex held up his hands. “I’m being honest with you.”
He was sick of this argument. “I don’t understand how knowing what I want makes me the bad guy here. I know what didn’t work. I know I don’t want to go through that again. I don’t want to put anyone through that again.”
“Karina isn’t Maia,” Alex said softly. “Not even close.”
“Yeah, well, Maia wasn’t fucking Maia when I married her. What do you know about Karina’s arrest record?”
He shook his head. “I know that Ian likely has the whole story but if he hasn’t told me then I don’t need to know.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I trust him. At the end of the day, I trust her, too. She’s proven herself to me. Look, I don’t have to know every single thing about a person to know who she is. I know all the facts about Eve. I know every single thing that’s happened to her. I know her stories, and there is a core to that woman that I won’t ever truly understand. She’s a beautiful mystery. We’ve been in bad places, but somehow we figured a way to grow together. Everyone changes. The key is to love her enough to change with her. If you get this dream sub who mindlessly obeys you, you’ll never change at all. You’ll never change for her, never truly sacrifice, and then you will never really love her.”
Did Alex think that hadn’t gone through his head? He’d been over and over it and he’d decided Karina was another one of life’s traps. He would love her, worship her, and she would be okay with that until she found something better. Or worse. She would expect him to join her corral of former lovers. “I tried the love thing before. It didn’t work.”
Alex chuckled but it was a frustrated sound. “Because it wasn’t love. Not really. You were a kid when you married Maia, and then you were pretty much broken and you still haven’t put yourself back together. If you think this perfect sub of yours is going to be the one to do it, you’re smoking something a cop shouldn’t smoke. Karina is smart and strong and if you play your cards right, she’ll be a partner to you. Not like Maia was. You’re judging marriages by your own. Maia is an out of control top who likes to play at being submissive. Karina is a sub in desperate need of a Master who loves and appreciates her strengths and protects her from her weaknesses.”
“From what I can tell, Karina has no weaknesses.” It bugged him. Beyond the dust bunnies she allowed free range of her place, she was perfect. She could handle him physically. Her clients seemed to think she walked on water. Everyone loved Karina. She didn’t really need him.
“Oh, watch her. Stop looking at the surface and get to the real woman underneath. Take off your poop-colored glasses and see things as they really are. If you do, you might figure out that the perfect sub has been standing in front of you all along. And that’s all I’m going to say.”
He sighed with relief. At least the detectives under his command never tried to give him love advice. “Thank god.”
Alex laughed, this time a purely happy sound. “You’ll be on my side of the table one day if you’re lucky and some sad sack just like you is going to need advice. And you’ll give it to him. Take care of her.”
Alex started for the door, and Derek tried really hard to let him go. Really hard. “Alex?”
“Yep?”
“How do I handle the jealousy?” It burned through his gut. It was wrong because god knew he’d been with plenty of women, but what Maia had done to him had left a hole a mile wide that he wasn’t sure how to fill in. Maybe everyone was right and he was interested in a twenty-four seven relationship because he thought it would make him safe.
He wanted Karina. It was time to be honest with himself. He didn’t want to walk away, but he wasn’t sure he could stay.
“Why would you be jealous?”
Was the man going to make him say it? “Look, I know it’s normal to have casual sex when you don’t have a permanent partner. I’ve done it myself so it makes me the bad guy to say this, but it bugs me that Karina hangs out with the guys so much.”
Alex shrugged. “She works with us, man. Are you jealous because she used to play with Liam?”
“And Sean a couple of years back, and now it’s Simon. I know she’s played with Ian.” He kind of hated every single man who had ever touched her. This was why he shouldn’t get too close to her. She made him feel things he never wanted to feel again.
“Yes. Ian still scenes with her when she needs a partner. Charlotte understands Karina’s needs and encourages Ian to work with her. Look, I don’t know why, but Karina needs to scene a couple of times a week. There’s nothing more to it. If you would top her, I think you would find as long as you were around she wouldn’t want anyone but you.”
“And when I’m not? I’m just supposed to be okay with that? I’m supposed to let Simon or Big Tag fuck around with my sub because she needs it?”
Alex’s eyes went wide. “What? Maybe we need to get on the same page here. We’re talking about scenes. Not fucking. We’re talking about flogging and spanking and the occasional whipping if she wants it. Do you honestly think Ian’s screwing Karina? Have you met his wife? First, she would seriously take off his balls and second, she would likely throw down with Karina.” A little smile came over Alex’s face. “Of course, if we could get them to do that in a vat of Jell-O, it might be worth it.”
Was he the only one who saw it? “She goes to privacy rooms with O’Donnell. She disappears with Simon sometimes.”
“I believe you’ll find that all they do is talk. Li likes her. So does his wife. And Simon gets a lot out of aftercare, but I would bet my life that he doesn’t have sex with her. Trust me, that man has more problems with Chelsea than he can handle.” Alex put a hand on his shoulder. “Like I said, take off the glasses you’ve been viewing the world through for the last several years and see her. See who she really is and then if you still want that sub who will never argue with you, never challenge you, I’ll make it my mission to find her. And let the crap Harris talked about go. See Karina for who she is now, not who she used to be.”
Alex patted his shoulder in an almost paternal move and then Derek was alone, the door closing behind McKay. Derek stared out the window, the Dallas cityscape in his vision, but all he could see was Karina. He could see her lying beside him, the early morning light caressing her skin. He could stare at her for hours because she was exactly what Alex had called Eve. She was a mystery.
He took a deep breath and let himself be still for a moment. Years had passed, but he suddenly wondered if he’d ever really come home. He’d held himself apart. He’d let himself go numb because it was better than feeling the pain, better than really healing because if he healed he would have to make the decision to go on living.
The week with Karina had shown him he might want more, but he had to know. He had to know what she was hiding before he could make any decisions.
And if she wouldn’t
tell him the truth, then he was a man who knew how to walk away. Even when it hurt.
* * * *
Karina’s cell phone trilled and she glanced down. Damn. Her brother-in-law. She stared at it for a moment. Somehow she didn’t want to answer. Her life seemed damn near perfect and he was threatening that. She didn’t want to think about the past. Just the now. And the now included another cup of coffee.
She touched the button to send the call to voicemail.
“Yes, the doctor said she’s fine. Tristan is doing great. He’s so damn cute, Jake. You have to see him.” Adam Miles walked into the break room with a tablet in his hand. He was talking into it and it looked like he was using Facetime. “He’s gaining weight. He’s up to twelve pounds. He kicks those little legs all the time and I can’t keep him in bundling to save the kid’s life. Our boy’s an escape artist.”
His baby. Tristan. The little guy was eight weeks old and so cute Karina could hardly stand it. He did kick his little legs and push on his blankets until they were gone. He also sucked on an imaginary nipple in his sleep. So freaking cute.
She nodded Adam’s way. Jake was in Europe. They shared a wife. Serena. She wrote romances. Karina liked her books. She gave Adam a smile and he winked her way as he talked into his tablet. “Don’t worry about us. The baby’s fine. Serena’s already working up a storm. We’re cool. Just do your job.”
“I will. I just wish I was with you guys.” Jake’s voice came over loud and clear. “How did the checkup go?”
Adam looked up and winked her way. “Can you hold this for me? There’s something I need to show Jake.”
She was game. She took the tablet and sure enough there was Jake’s face staring back at her. “Hey, Jake. How’s Europe?”
“Shitty. When I think of a cruise, I think of sunshine and warmth. It’s fucking cold in the Baltic. And Big Tag is pretending this is his honeymoon or something. I can’t walk into a room without catching sight of him on top of Charlotte. I’ve seen more of his junk in the last couple of days than in all our years at Sanctum. And Simon and Chelsea are still circling each other warily. Jesse took his training on making towel animals to a new level. He just leaves towel penises in everyone’s rooms. You know, the usual stuff.”
