He hesitates. “Yes.”
Well, that’s honest.
He holds out his hand, and I take his phone. The video is looping on the screen. I tap the corner of the app, and the volume comes on.
Yep, that’s Gerome’s yacht all right. I know it well enough. And there’s the President of the United States, before he was POTUS, sprawled out on a couch, a young woman probably not even old enough to be called a woman on his lap.
“I could be in this video,” I admit. “I’ve been at parties like this.”
“But not this one?”
“I don’t think so. It’s past my time in his social group.”
“Have you ever been in a situation like this with Victor Best?”
I hesitate. “I don’t think so.”
“But you aren’t sure?”
“Gerome likes his girls to be high.” My stomach threatens to purge itself, but I keep going. “There’s a lot I don’t remember.”
Luke’s jaw flexes, his eyes sharp and unwavering. “How long have you been clean?”
I bristle. I can’t help it. There’s a limit to my openness and being accused of being a junkie is past it. “Excuse me?”
“Let me rephrase.”
“Please do.”
“He forced you to do drugs?”
“Yes. It was never something I used outside of his company. I’m lucky to not have an addictive personality, I guess. It’s my only redeeming quality, though, so it doesn’t count for that much.”
“You have many redeeming qualities. When was the last time you…”
“Years ago. Gerome also likes his girls to be girls, or at least to play at that. There’s nothing innocent about me, as you know.”
“I don’t know that at all,” Luke says, his voice silky. “I think in many ways you are too damn innocent for your own damn good.”
“Are you mad at me?” I glare at him, because what the fuck?
“Fuck no.”
Okay, so that’s both of us on edge and angry now. But not at each other.
“Come here.” He takes my hand, his fingers warm and strong, and leads me downstairs. “Do you want a drink?”
“No.”
“Tea? Coffee?”
“Any chance you have the makings of a banana split?”
He laughs. “Sorry. But you—Ms. Turns Her Nose Up At Everything—love banana splits?”
“Rude. And yes, of course I do.” I roll my eyes. “What’s not to love about them?”
He shakes his head. “You surprise me at every turn.”
He stops in the living room, and we curl up on the couch. He cups my face in his hands. “We all have stuff in the past. It’s how far we are from it now that is worth judging.”
“Let me guess. You were a Boy Scout, and now you get the stink-eye from your federal law enforcement counterparts for playing fast and loose with the rules, so you get it?”
He ignores my sarcasm. “Exactly. Look how far I’ve come with my understanding that it’s more about what feels right inside than what the letter of the law says.”
My bristle softens a bit further. Tell me more about what feels right inside, Detective Vasquez.
“Dinner?”
“Mmm. Yeah. But can we check the news first? It’s a fine balance between ignoring it because it doesn’t matter, and staying on top of the chatter because it’s even worse to be caught flat-footed.”
He hands me the TV remote, kisses the top of my head, and stands up. “I’m going to finish cooking. Knock yourself out, but turn it off if it gets upsetting. Deal?”
“Deal.”
I take a deep breath before turning the TV on. It’s the headline story on the first news channel I find.
“The video was sent to all the major news networks, using a digital encryption that protected the sender. It seems to depict President Best in the company of a young woman. Billionaire Gerome Lively, who has had many brushes with the law over the last few years, is visible on the boat, and it is believed that if this is authentic, that it is his yacht, pictured here in an undated photo…”
They drone on, repeating the same facts over and over again. They have a guest on to talk about video manipulation software, and if it is possible for someone to have fabricated this video to embarrass the first-term president, who is embattled against a Republican Congress who want nothing to do with his protectionist rhetoric.
How far we’ve come with video scandals. Nobody questioned whether or not mine was authentic.
As if I had conjured the subject change with my mind, the news anchor pivots. “The last time video was leaked of this nature from the executive branch, it was a salacious sex tape, recorded by the former Vice President’s mistress, the much younger Taylor Dashford Reid, a Washington socialite—”
I turn off the TV. “Cram it all in there, guys.”
But if that’s the extent of the ways they’ll cover me, then it’s fine.
I go into the kitchen. “My name hasn’t been released to the press, has it? About the bomb attack?”
Luke looks up from the salad he’s making. “No. Were you worried about that?”
“It’s weird timing that this video would leak. Why would the Secret Service—” I cut myself off, but he doesn’t miss it.
“How do you know it came from the Secret Service?”
“I assumed. Who else?”
“Anyone else on that boat? A hacker? Your brother-in-law or any of his cohorts, who are all obsessed with bringing down Lively?”
“Because he’s a bad person and has committed an insane number of crimes, none of which your cohorts have been able to nail him for.”
“Don’t change the subject. You knew the Secret Service leaked this. How?”
“How did you know?”
His jaw cracks to the side as he looks at me, once again livid. Great. Finally, he exhales. “Your brother-in-law is the one who sent it to me.”
“Cole?”
“He thought you should know the context in which it was being leaked.”
Damn it. The Horus Group needs to coordinate their messaging, so I don’t land flat-footed with the good detective. “Okay.”
He shoves the salad bowl aside and prowls toward me. “So how did you know about the Secret Service?”
I turn red. “Uh…”
“Taylor.” He catches me by the wrist and pulls me close, his other hand trapping my chin.
The truth spills out. “Wilson gave me a pager. He promised he wouldn’t use it to violate my privacy, and I believed him.”
“What the fuck?”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. You have a pager here after I expressly told you no electronics?”
“If it’s from 1993, does it really count?”
“Yes.” He glowers at me. “You are fucking lucky that Cole seems to genuinely have no idea where you are.”
“Good.”
“Go get it for me.”
“It’s—”
He lets me go and points upstairs. “You need to get me that fucking pager right fucking now.”
I run, my feet slipping on the stairs. My heart is pounding, out of control, but as I rifle through my bag to get it, I realize I’m not scared.
Luke isn’t going to hurt me, no matter what I do.
I’m upset because I’ve disappointed him. He’s shaking mad because he thought he could trust me, and he was wrong.
Stricken, I take the pager to him.
He clicks on the button. “Where are the messages?”
“They delete after they’re read.”
“And he gets a digital read-receipt of that, I’m guessing?”
“Something like that.”
“Does it have a GPS tracker in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Do you care?”
“No? I don’t, I guess. I also thought…this was a way for him to kind of know that I’m okay.”
“He’s a hacker.”
&nbs
p; “And you’ve never met a principled crook before? He has a code. Hurting me is not in it.”
Luke turns the pager over, then takes it apart, carefully looking it over for any electronic additions. Finally, he puts it back together and hands it to me. “There you go.”
“You aren’t going to smash it to bits?”
He shakes his head. “It’s fine. You need a little tether to that world. That’s fine. You don’t trust me. That’s fine, too.”
“I do trust you.”
“Really?”
“I’ve told you more about my past than I’ve ever told anyone, Luke. Yes, I trust you. And it’s fine if you don’t trust me. I’m used to that. But this is my life that’s on the line, not yours. So I also trusted Wilson, and you’ll just have to deal with that.”
“Is that so? I’ll just have to deal with it?”
Now I’m pissed off again, too. “How much of your anger is jealousy?”
His jaw flexes. Ah, my old friend the angry tick is back.
I lean in, my breath dusting his cheek. “You worried I’ll have to fuck him to pay for this protection?”
Before I know what’s happening, I’m pressed up against the wall, Luke heavy and big against me. “I would kill him if he tried,” he growls. “Nobody forces you to do something like that ever again.”
“Except you?” I push against him, wanting him to push back. Wanting him to kiss me and take me, show me that I haven’t ruined everything between us with my secrets.
But it’s the wrong thing to say.
The absolute worst thing, because I’m the worst person.
His face goes white. “No, Taylor,” he grounds out as he pushes away from me. “Fuck.” He turns and heads for the hallway.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” he tosses over his shoulder.
Worry twists ugly in my chest. It doesn’t go away even when he stops and slowly turns. The look on his face is inscrutable, but not good.
“You’re right. I am jealous. And that’s not okay. I’ll be back, but I need to do some thinking on my own right now.”
I stare after him as he leaves, arming the security system on his way out.
Well, fuck.
27
Luke
I don’t go very far. I feel so fucked up right now that driving would be a bad idea.
On the one hand, I know it’s just a pager from a trusted friend.
On the other, that trusted friend is one step removed from being a criminal, part of a vast international conspiracy ring to manipulate governments. To people like them, Taylor is completely disposable.
Why would she put her trust in them?
Why wouldn’t she put her trust in me?
But she didn’t know me a few days ago. When we went to Washington, I was a stranger who judged her for everything she was and everything she’d done. Of course she grabbed on to any small crumb a known element could give her.
I head up the canyon behind my house, climbing the path that leads to the open hills. There’s a rock up here that I sit on sometimes, to go and think, to talk to the memory of my dad, or to be alone. Today it’s the last one. No good thoughts come to me. I don’t know what I’d say to my dad, either.
Sorry I held a woman against a wall. You would have taught me better than that. You’d kick my ass for that.
I’m coiled up tight. Restless. There’s something not right about this video leak. The timing is suspicious, Parker was right about that. She trusts them.
Maybe I need to read the dossier they have on Lively. Maybe I need to ask if they have one on President Best.
And now we’re getting into dangerous territory.
The kind of territory that can lead to charges of treason.
I pull out my phone and call McBride.
“How’s vacation?” she asks. Then laughs. “That never gets old.”
“I’ll return the favor the next time you pretend to take time off. Are you at the station?”
“I will be soon, just on my way back from the gym now. Ram is grabbing us dinner. We’ve taken over the conference room and are going to pull an all-nighter, going over all the murders from the beginning. See what we’ve missed.”
“Text me when you’re done in the morning. I’ll meet you for coffee on your way home.”
“Is everything okay?”
No. My whole world has been upturned. “It will be.”
When I hang up on her, I call my sister’s house. Everyone is there for dinner, and I just want to hear their voices for a second. A familiar chaos, instead of this out-of-control mess. “Ma,” my sister shouts as she answers the phone. “It’s your baby boy!”
She doesn’t even greet me, just hands over the phone.
“Luke,” my mother says in my ear, her voice warm and soft. “What is it?”
“Nothing, Ma. Just wanted to say hi since I couldn’t make dinner.”
“Are you on a case?”
No. Yes. Sort of. “It’s complicated.”
“What does that mean?” She laughs. “Is it a woman?”
Yes. No sort of about that. “Maybe, yes. I thought about bringing her to dinner, but it didn’t work out.”
“Maybe next week.”
Except she might be out of my life by next week. If everyone does their job, hopefully she will be.
And the restlessness in my chest gets worse.
The thought of losing Taylor disturbs me. Twists hard in my chest and threatens to shatter bones.
“We’ll see, Ma. I love you.”
“Love you, too.” She laughs as a kid climbs into her lap and demands the phone. “Uncle Luke has to go, baby. Next time.”
Next time. So many promises of next time. I’ve missed more family dinners than I’ve made over the years. Never really committed to any kind of relationship that would give me children, a spouse, a partner to bring with me on the regular. Someone who would get to know my family and learn to love/hate the chaos just like I do.
The call gets disconnected at the other end. I put the phone away and stare up at the late day sun, still hot on my skin.
Then I glance down the hill to my house—and see Taylor sitting in the backyard, watching me. I can’t even be mad at her for being outside when it’s daylight.
Fuck.
I stand up and wave, then make my way back down the path.
She’s back inside when I return, finishing the dinner prep I’d abandoned.
“I didn’t run away,” she says, keeping her back to me.
“It was my turn to do that.” I lean against the door jamb. “I’m sorry about grabbing you earlier. I shouldn’t haven’t have done that.”
“When?” She turns, looking genuinely confused. Still a firebrand, still full of fight, but I’ve tripped her up.
“When I pushed you against the wall.”
“Oh.” She blinks. Then shrugs. “I goaded you into that.”
No. Fuck. “Even if you tried, I should have walked away. I know how to de-escalate situations. I don’t know why I can’t with you.”
“Maybe I make you feel things you don’t like.”
“The problem is that I like them too much.”
Another shrug.
“Don’t tell me you don’t feel it, too. This out of control chaos, the chemistry that fucks with your head. Or is it just me? Do you think it’s better to be numb? Frozen?”
“You tell me.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re pretty chill, too. Are you frozen?”
Fuck. That’s not what I meant. “Can I touch you?”
She frowns. “Why?”
“So I can show you that I’m not.” I move closer. Close enough to touch, to grab, to pin hard against me, but I don’t. I wait for her to turn.
When she does, I reach for her hand, asking her to give it to me. I press it to my chest, where my heart is thumping painfully. “Do I not feel hot-blooded to you? I have to keep my feelings contained, but—”
“Do you?”
“You’d rather I explode?”
“You can’t tell me that you get to be battened down and I don’t. Numbness is a coping strategy, and I think we both use it.”
She’s not wrong.
In my arms, she goes soft. Sweet. “We are a product of our lives. Everything that has happened has made us who we are. I just need you to remember that it’s as true for you as it is for me.” She exhales gently. “Don’t push me any harder than you let me push you, okay?”
“That’s pretty fucking smart.”
“Three years of intense therapy and training to be a counselor. I’ve put the work in.”
“And it shows.” I kiss her temple, then her cheek, and finally her mouth. Soft and sweet here, too. Giving. Warm.
We’re both hot-blooded in all the ways that matter.
Feelings are overrated.
“Do you want to eat?”
“I’m not hungry for food right now,” I growl.
She tugs at my shirt, wanting me naked. The feeling is mutual, and I strip her out of her t-shirt, baring her breasts. For my hands, my mouth. I lift her onto the kitchen counter then cup her perfect swells, pushing them together so I can go back and forth, sucking on one peak and then the other, until she’s grinding against my cock. Making helpless noises and begging me to do all the filthy things to her.
“Fuck me, Luke.”
Those magic words. I’ve said no enough. Held her at bay enough. We still need to talk about kink boundaries, but right now, I just want to be inside her. Simple. And oh so complicated, in so many ways safe words and the like could never touch.
I tangle my fingers in her hair and tug, manhandling her just enough to keep that edge. She gasps as I move her back, so we’re looking each other in the eye.
“I want to take you to my bed. I want to hold you tonight.” I’m asking for a lot. I’m asking for more than sex, and if she says no, that’s fine. I’ll deal.
She goes still, then nods. “Okay.”
I surge forward, grabbing her under her ass and behind her back as I lift her into the air. I don’t want to waste another second. She clings tightly as I mount the stairs, and doesn’t let go until I lay her down on my bed.
As I strip down and grab a couple of condoms from the bedside drawer, she shimmies out of her leggings. And finally—fucking finally—I have Taylor naked in my room. Naked and ready for me to do my best and worst to her.
Wicked Sin Page 16
