“Don’t believe everything you hear.” She lifts her eyes up to mine, and they look troubled. Scared even. “You of all people should know that.”
I sit and stare at her, wondering what she meant by that. I watch her intently as she brings the coffee mug to her lips and takes a sip. The sunlight streaming through the window makes her skin glow. She places the coffee cup down and looks over at me. She has these looks that I can’t quite explain. She looks pissed yet calm all at once. As if she’s fighting a battle inside of herself.
“I hate that I can’t figure out what you’re thinking,” I say truthfully.
“We don’t have to do this,” she says grabbing her purse and stands. I grab a hold of her hand as she goes to walk by and I stand, facing her.
“Do what?” I ask as I stand in front of her.
“We don’t have to pretend to be friends. I’ve known Missy for two years now. I go into Sam’s bakery at least twice a week, yet have never met you until the day you arrested me. We don’t have to pretend to be friends for their sake.” Her words were supposed to clarify, but they were rushed, as if she was uncomfortable. But her eyes, they give her away. They search mine as if she’s begging me to tell her that’s not the truth and we both know it. I wanna know her better and I have a feeling she wants to know me better, too. And if not, too bad. I don’t give up until I win. And there’s not a fight I haven’t won yet.
I reach up and run my hand through her dark brown hair. “What if me wanting to know you has nothing to do with them?”
She licks her lips and my eyes fall to them. I imagine what they’d feel like on my body. Would I get drunk off them? Would she fuck me as hard as she hates me? Would she speak to me in French? If so, would it ruin me for other women? I’ve fucked plenty of women in my life, but there’s always that one that stands out more than the others do. I use them and then throw them away, but her, would she turn the tide around? Would she pull me under and drown me? I’ve always had a fear of drowning.
Her lips are so full and beautiful, but the words that come out of them are vulgar. I like that about her.
I look back up to her eyes before my cock gets any harder. “What happened at the wedding…” I say, but she interrupts me.
“I don’t apologize. And I don’t beg for forgiveness,” she says referring to when she threw cake in my face and wine on my crotch.
I lift my hand expecting her to take a step back, but she stands still. That’s what I find so attractive about her. She’s not gonna back down. She’s not gonna give way. If you want by her, you’re gonna have to walk your happy ass around her.
My hand finds her hair again and I grab a hold of it. Her eyes stare into mine not giving anything away, but her hands come up to rest on my vest. I take that as an invitation. I push my lips to hers. I kiss her. Her lips open and I take that as an opportunity to deepen the kiss. Wrapping my other arm around her, I pull her into me and kiss her deeply. Passionately. I’ve always liked to kiss. There’s something about the way that a woman kisses. Intimately. Seductively. It shows you into their soul. She kisses like she fights. Fiercely. With everything she has. Her tongue works with mine and she lets out a little moan as I pull her hips into mine. Fuck, I’m so hard I would bend her over this table and fuck her for all to see. Wouldn’t be the first time I fucked with an audience.
I pull away and she takes a deep breath. “Neither do I, sweetheart.” And with that, I place my sunglasses over my eyes and take a step away from her, gesturing for her to walk ahead of me. One, ‘cause I need to adjust my achingly hard cock, and two, so I can look at her ass.
She walks outside the front door, and I wave to the guy behind the counter who has been watching us this entire time. “Have a great day,” I holler.
“Uh-huh.” He nods back.
*****
KATHERINE
I allowed him to kiss me. Shit, I even kissed him back. The kiss was great. Amazing, even. But it was just a kiss. And the ride home was miserable. I held my head high and kept my mouth shut, but my mind was going faster than he was driving. He remained quiet as well. And when he pulled up to my house, I thanked him and got out before he had a chance to even put his car in park. Now I lie in my bed and think I’m going crazy. He’s hot. Those dark brown eyes and those big arms. But it’s all superficial. I could use him, though. Maybe the sex will be worth it? I doubt it. Most guys who look like him suck in bed. And why waste an evening on him when I have a vibrator that I can turn on and then off when I’m done?
I know, I think like a man. I haven’t always been this way. I used to be the nice little girl. And then when I was thirteen, I met a woman—the woman who changed my life forever.
I sit on the couch watching TV when I hear the front door open. I put the remote down and turn around to look at the front door. My dad walks into our house with a woman on his shoulder. It’s nothing new. They come over, they play, and then they leave. But this one, she looks different. She looks beautiful. Long black hair that lays straight down her back. She has these heels on that make her almost as tall as him. She has this beautiful creamy skin and dark green eyes. She looks over at me and smiles sweetly.
I panic and turn back around on the couch. I watch them as they walk right past me and into the bedroom. She gives me one more smile over her shoulder. And I politely smile back.
The next night, I’m sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when she comes out of my father’s bedroom. Dressed in another pair of high heels and a simple but pretty, black dress.
“Hello, Katherine,” she says, sitting down next to me.
“Hello,” I say softly, admiring her long hair. “You’re really pretty,” I blurt out and look down at my homework embarrassed.
She laughs softly. “Thank you. You’re very pretty, as well.”
“Thank you,” I say looking up at her through my lashes.
“Your father mentioned that you and he have a father-daughter dance at school next weekend.” I nod. “Do you have a dress?”
My father doesn’t take me shopping often. He just gives me money and I go with my friend and her mother. “No, ma’am.”
She smiles sweetly. “Please, call me Mia.” I nod once again. “Would you like me to take you shopping for a dress? I have plans with your father tonight. But I would love to take you tomorrow.”
I smile and straighten in my chair. “That would be great.” I lean over and give her a hug. “Thank you,” I say excitedly as she laughs.
Mia was an attorney. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with her. My father dated her for about a year. I thought that she would become my new mother, but when you’re thirteen, you don’t understand how relationships work. She took me shopping; she showed me how to fix my hair, and how to put on make-up. But most of all, she showed me what a powerful woman looked like and I looked up to her. I wanted to be her.
As I lie in bed, I try to think like her. What would she do with a guy like Parker? She would eat him alive and spit him out; that’s what she would do.
That kiss, though, it was so soft and yet I liked it. I’m not usually one for softness. I like my kisses to be desperate and my sex rough. I like a man who knows how to handle a woman in the bedroom. And I have a feeling Parker’s the type to just lay there and make the woman do everything as he looks up at her with a cocky smile on his face.
“Geez,” I hiss, rolling over onto my side. Why am I wasting so much time thinking about Parker? It’s because it’s been a few weeks since I’ve had sex. That has to be why.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, needing to get some sleep.
*****
After spending most of my morning with my father, I find myself at work trying to stay awake. I yawn as I sit at the nurse’s station in the ER, and I look up to see Dr. Robert Jones. I smile and then drop my head remembering that he had asked me out. Thankfully, he had to cancel that Wednesday date. Now I’ve been trying to avoid him.
“Hey, Kat.”
“Hey,” I look up at him and give him a fake smile. Please don’t ask me out again.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” he points out with a frown.
Shit! “I’m sorry, it’s just that…”
“I stood you up, I know.”
Not what I was expecting. “No.” I shake my head.
“Well, I had to cancel after we made plans, and I’m truly sorry.”
“No worries. I promise,” I say, and I hear Ashley giggle as she sits beside me filling out charts. If I could reach her with my foot, I would kick her in the shin.
“Well, I wanna make it up to you.” He smiles brightly.
“No need…”
“I’m a gentleman, and that’s what a gentleman does.” He looks over at Ashley with a frown as her laughter grows. “I’m free tomorrow. I have to leave from the hospital so if you don’t mind, I will just meet you there.”
Well, that’s a bonus. “Sounds great.”
He nods. “I’ll see you lovely ladies later.” He turns and walks off.
Ashley throws her head back laughing, and I spin in my chair to face her. “What was that?”
“The guy is totally clueless to how you feel about him.” She chuckles.
“What? He’s attractive,” I say to defend him, even though I don’t know why.
“If you’re into that type of man,” she says with an eye roll. “I mean he probably still has his mother iron his pants for him in the morning.”
“He wears scrubs.”
“So you’re saying you never wear regular pants?” she questions.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. Maybe he’s a freak in the sheets,” I offer. You never know.
“Doubtful,” she throws over her shoulder as she gets out of her chair.
“How did your date go?” I ask, sitting back in mine.
She gives me a big smile, and I know she’s about to unleash all the details. “He was perfect. He showed up and had a teddy bear for her.” She places her hand on her chest. “I almost cried.”
“What does he do again?” I ask.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not falling for that.”
“Is he married?” Is that why she’s keeping it a secret?
“Hey.” She points a finger at me. “I am not the one who has slept with a married man.”
I throw my hands up in the air. “I didn’t know that,” I say defensively.
“It still happened,” she says matter-of-factly, and I sigh heavily.
“Yes, it did.” And it sucked ass.
She looks around the ER before she sits back down next to me. “You can’t tell anyone. Okay?” she whispers.
“Okay.” Geez, is he that important?
“He’s a cop.”
“Oh, please. No.” I shake my head. “Dump him. Dump his sorry ass right now,” I say.
Her face falls. “Why?”
“Because cops are the worst. They’re all cocky and full of themselves.” One cop I know comes to mind. And so does that kiss he gave me. I shake my head to get rid of that thought.
“I haven’t been able to tell anyone because he’s an undercover narcotics officer.” Hmm. That actually sounds like it would be fun. “And he’s on a case at the moment.”
I scratch the back of my neck; my tag from my scrubs always bugs me. “Well, I guess if you’re happy,” I offer with a shrug, and she giggles before she reaches over and hugs me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PARKER
My roommate, Tate, my best friend, Slade, and me are all owners of a security company. Slade came to Tate and me with the idea about a year ago. After we had found Samantha bound and drugged in an old house outside of town, he walked away from his lifelong dream of being a defense attorney to be someone different. He changed his life for his wife and their baby on the way. I couldn’t imagine how hard that decision was for him, but he made it look easy. But after you find out your pregnant wife was kidnapped, bound, and drugged, I guess you look at things differently. The thing was that it had been a cop. A cop in my precinct had been buying and selling drugs right out from under our noses. And Sam’s ex-boyfriend was a part of it. We had found him when we found Sam. We found out who the cop was that was involved, but he had up and quit. Vanished in the middle of the night type of shit. I looked long and hard to find him. And months later, that hard work had paid off.
I still remember the morning I called him to tell him I had the sorry son of a bitch who called himself a police officer.
“Hello?” Slade’s voice sounds rough from sleep
“Slade. It’s Parker,” I whisper. “Were you up?” I look out my cop car window and see the sky is black as night. Of course, he wasn’t up.
“No. What time is it?” he asks softly, and I know it’s because Samantha is sleeping next to him in bed.
“It’s four ten.” I pause. “In the morning.”
“Why would I be up at four ten in the morning?” he growls. “What do you want, Parker?”
I take a deep breath. “I found him. I found Officer White,” I say proudly. The man who’d had Samantha kidnapped and drugged. He was helping her ex-boyfriend pay a debt, and she was the offering.
“Are you sure?” he asks as if I would play with him at this time of night. I can be a kidder, but I would never joke about something like this.
“I’m positive. He’s got himself holed up in a farmhouse about an hour out of town.”
“How do you know it’s him?”
“Because I’m staring right at him through my binoculars,” I growl. “I wouldn’t have called you unless I was a hundred percent sure, Slade,” I say quietly.
“What is your plan?”
I rustle around in my cop car to find the piece of paper I had written the address on. “Well, I haven’t called it in yet. I thought I would give you a few minutes with him.”
“You would do that for me?” he asks sounding shocked.
“Of course, I would. He deserves to know what pain feels like.”
“Send me the address. I’m on my way.” And that is exactly why I called him.
“Now just do one thing for me,” I ask as I eye him up and down as we stand by the side of an old farmhouse in the middle of fucking nowhere. It literally took him thirty minutes to get an hour out of town.
“What?” he asks impatiently.
I sigh. “Just don’t kill him. I can explain a lot of things but death—” I shake my head.
“I can’t promise you anything,” he says truthfully.
“That’s about what I figured you’d say. But I had to try.” I nod as he starts to walk away from my car.
I sit in my car with my guns ready. I have one in my hand and the other tucked into the back of my jeans. I can hear them yelling but can’t really make it out. I curse loudly when I look down to see Tate calling my cell phone. What in the hell is he doing up?
I hang up my phone when I hear a loud crashing noise and a cry of pain; I jump out of my car and run up to the door.
Once I kick it in, I find Slade holding White by his throat. “Slade, let him go,” I say calmly.
He shakes his head. “I can’t do that,” he grinds out. And White’s face starts to lose color. “The bastard deserves to die.”
“Believe me when I say jail will be much more brutal than you just choking him to death,” I respond. “Now, let him go,” I order.
For some crazy reason, he actually lets go, which is good for me. But I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I would have just killed him.
“You deserve to spend the rest of your life being someone’s bitch,” Slade spits out.
I walk over to them with my gun now drawn and pointed down at White. “Face down and hands behind you back,” I demand.
He shakes his head quickly with his hands on his knees still trying to breathe. “I won’t go to jail.” His voice sounds raw. “Cops don’t survive in jail.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that beforehand,” I shout as I continue to
point the gun at him.
“You did hear about Jax, right?” White asks looking up at Slade taking a deep breath as he refers to Samantha’s ex-boyfriend. “I hear he had an accident while in his cell. It’s terrible, really.” He laughs and it turns into a cough. “But I did hear that he got to see Samantha one more time.” It’s true, Samantha had gone up to the jail to try to get information out of Jax. Wanting to know who and why someone would want to kill her. He didn’t tell her much, but he told her enough. The next day he was found dead in his cell. Slade still hasn’t told her.
He then looks over at me. His beady eyes and beer belly hang out from underneath his shirt. “You should listen to Tate more often.” His words send up a chill up my back. “There are dirty cops on the force, and I promise you, you’ll never find out which ones are the good ones.”
“You’re lying.” I shake my head. There’s not. I would know. “He’s just trying to fuck with us,” I tell Slade. “Now quit stalling and lie down and place your hands behind you back,” I say once again. I can’t kill him. I need to know what he knows.
“Fine.” He sighs raising his hands as I start to walk over to him. Just as I pull my cuffs out, White lunges right for me. Both my guns and cuffs go flying as we hit the ground.
I scramble to get to my gun, but Slade beats me to it. But White is up before me and goes running into Slade. They run into the front door and fall down the front steps. I pull myself up to stand and head over to the front door. I pull out my gun from my jeans and point it right at them, but I don’t have a clear shot of White.
They fight for a good thirty seconds before Slade gets away from him. As White pulls a knife out, I aim and fire.
I stand there, ready to take another shot if he moves, although I know he’s dead. I ask Slade, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he manages to say through gritted teeth as he holds his shoulder.
“Thought you wanted him alive?” he asks trying to stand.
“Yeah, well…” I walk down the stairs to help him up slowly. “I didn’t have
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