DutyBoundARe

by Sidney Bristol

  Lisette’s cries rose in volume. He clapped his hand over her mouth and thrust. Her eyes fluttered open wide and her squeal leaked out, for his ears alone. She bit down as her eyes squeezed shut and her body rippled under him.

  Fucking beautiful.

  His climax hit him like a load of bricks straight to the forehead. It tore up through him, wiping away any idea he might have had about this being a fling. His world seemed to shift a little and as he sagged forward, sucking in a deep breath, he knew the truth was looming over him.

  He removed his hand from Lisette’s mouth and she gasped, turning her face toward him to nuzzle his cheek and plant a kiss. He gathered her to his chest and hugged her close, unsure if he was ready for this. Not yet.

  Instead, he focused on her. He removed the belt and rubbed her wrists, enjoying how she smiled at him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. The way she kissed him. For a little while he hadn’t been sure she’d speak to him again, but he was lucky.

  “You okay?” he asked, loath to move away from her yet.

  “Better than okay,” she replied.

  Her smile sent tremors through his chest. Did he deserve happiness with her? No way.

  Gator scratched at the bedroom door and they both glanced away. If he didn’t reassure the dog soon, he’d start to bark. And that meant ending this moment. But it had to happen eventually. His cock couldn’t live inside her forever.

  Mathieu pulled out and they both held their breath. He hissed as a fresh wave of sensation rocked his body.

  “Damn,” he muttered and straightened. He hadn’t even managed to get out of his boots and jeans before they’d gone at it.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and picked at the laces. Lisette rose from the bed and strolled into the bathroom. As soon as the door creaked open Gator dashed around, his nails clicking on the floor.

  Mathieu could hear her talking to the dog, the sound of the tap, normal noises. She’d lost the shyness she’d once had about sex. Oh, he’d warmed her up to the idea of it, but she was more confident, more self-assured than she’d been back then. And he liked it.

  By the time he’d stripped out of his boots and jeans, Lisette was out of the bathroom. They edged around each other, smiling like idiots, but he felt good. Maybe too good. Tomorrow he’d face the truth swirling in the back of his mind, but for tonight, he’d cherish what they’d shared.

  He hung his things up to dry and did a quick clean up before making the rounds in the living room to turn everything off. When he stepped back into the bedroom, the only light on was the bedside lamp. Lisette lay curled up on her side, Gator across the foot of the bed.

  There was no way he deserved this, but he wasn’t walking away from it now. He slipped in behind Lisette and pulled her against his chest, tucking her head under his chin.

  “Do you—ah—want to talk about it?” His voice sounded too loud in the darkness. Awkward even.

  “No.” She kissed his hand, where she’d bitten him earlier with no apology. “Good night.”

  He kissed her temple, but held his tongue.

  In the dark, with her in his arms, there was no denying the truth. It wouldn’t even wait for the morning.

  He loved her. And it terrified him.

  Lisette let Mathieu’s touch ease her to the brink of sleep, but her mind would not shut off. How could it?

  She’d just had sex with her first love.

  Gator scratched and his collar chimed, the tags clanking together with a musical quality. Outside the rain splattered against the windows, and the hum of city life seeped through the cracks. Her awareness of each element, even the way the room still smelled slightly of vanilla after the scene last night, bled away in her single-minded desire for him.

  Oh, she’d been ticked at him earlier. But sitting on the couch, really thinking about what he meant to her and where she was at, she hadn’t been able to deny that either this twisted relationship they had must evolve, or she had to leave.

  The choice hadn’t been difficult. If Mathieu broke her heart she figured she was better off mourning that than Seth. Mathieu was the kind of man she should have fallen for. Or had she fallen already? Her heart ached for him, but her mind knew better than to give him all of herself. The problem with that? She knew she was halfway in love with the man.

  Here’s hoping I don’t break anything in the fall.

  She turned in his arms, sighing as he moved with her, allowing her to settle closer to his chest so she felt the beat of his heart against her ear. She couldn’t get close enough. But skin-to-skin would have to be fine for now, because she didn’t think he was ready to offer her anything else.

  chapter Fourteen

  Surprises

  Mathieu snagged a donut from an open pastry box as he walked past the receptionist desk at the precinct.

  “Look at you. You’re almost whistling. What’s up with that?” Odalia poured herself a cup of coffee from the communal pot.

  “Just had a great morning is all.” He paused at her side, noting the dark circles under her eyes. “Rough night?”

  “Yeah, it’s not been exactly pleasant.” Her nose wrinkled and she rolled her eyes. “Had a guy run from us.”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah, I finally have a patrol partner again. Guess they hired enough new people to fill us back up. You’ll probably have a new partner before too long. Anyway, he’s alright. Transfer from Shreveport, so at least I’m not with a rookie.”

  Mathieu nodded as he chewed a bit of the confectionary goodness. He’d been without a partner for going on a year due to cutbacks in budget. About time, too. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to hide his side project from someone he worked with so closely.

  “What is this?” Odalia grabbed his wrist and narrowed her gaze, studying his hand.

  “Hey.” He pulled out of her grasp. There was no way she could make out anything. His skin was too dark, so it hid bruises just fine and Lisette hadn’t broken the skin.

  Odalia’s brows rose. “This your college “friend” staying with you?” She leaned in closer and sniffed. “That’s a woman’s shampoo. Who is she?”

  “What the fuck?” He glanced around. Who was the detective here?

  “I’m not saying anything.” At least nothing kinky. Odalia glanced over her shoulder and groaned. “Here’s my partner. Got to go. But you? You’re filling me in later.”

  Mathieu watched Odalia head out of the glass doors with a middle-aged Caucasian man who looked like a TV cop, to be honest. Mathieu shoved the rest of his donut in his mouth and stalked to his office.

  How had she put all the clues together in a matter of seconds? He studied his hand, turning it this way and that. Was it a little swollen? He didn’t see any teeth marks, least nothing that stood out to him. He flexed his hand. Okay, so maybe it was a little swollen.

  “Detective Mouton.”

  Mathieu stopped in the doorway of his office, startled to find a man sitting at his desk.

  A man with blond hair cut in a military style, camo-green shirt and jeans. His combat boots rested on top of his cold cases, which were not in his files. A glimpse of chain around his neck looked like dog tags. There was a bulge in the man’s pocket, like he carried some sort of bulky object with him, but no sight of a gun.

  “Can I help you?” Mathieu drawled. He had to force himself to casually shuck his jacket and pretend this was normal.

  As if killers like Seth Bishop routinely visited him at work.

  “Just thought I’d pay my admirer a visit. Heard you’ve been looking for me. Thought I’d drop by to say hello.” He clicked a pen as he spoke. The movement jostled a silver chain bracelet with a plaque on it. Like the kind people with medical issues wore for first-responders.

  “And you are?” Mathieu spread his hands and leaned a hip against his guest chair, one hand on the back. Just a few inches from his gun.

  They were in the precinct. Hundreds of New Orlean
s’ finest were inches away. And Mathieu had nothing that would stick to this man. Why was he here?

  Lisette.

  Had Seth followed him? Did he mean to follow him to find Lisette?

  “Oh come now, Mouton. You know who I am.” The man’s gaze was trained on Mathieu alone. If he made the slightest movement, Seth would see it.

  Mathieu’s heart beat a little faster, pumping the kick of adrenaline through his veins. The buzz of the office faded away. Nothing else mattered except the man fucking with him.

  “I don’t rightly know you.” He spread his hands in supplication and laid his accent on thick. He didn’t know Seth. He recognized him, but there was nothing about the man that Mathieu would identify as human.

  “Oh, I think you do.” He took a crisp, white business card out of his pocket and flashed it at Mathieu. “Seth Bishop.”

  “Well, Seth Bishop, I don’t rightly know what you heard but. . .”

  “No, no, no.” He shook his head and sat forward, letting his feet drop to the ground and placing his forearms on the desk. “Don’t play the stupid bayou detective routine on me now.”

  There was something about the man’s gaze, how his eyes never wavered or flicked to someone else. His entire concentration was on Mathieu. It felt as if he were a bug on a pin, unable to get away.

  “We both know you’ve been looking into me. Now, the only reason you’d be doing that would be if you’d spoken to Lisette. I’m not much of a betting man, but I’m willing to put money on the fact that you’ve seen her.” Seth tilted his head to the side and for the first time shuttered his gaze. He inhaled deeply, nose wrinkling. “I remember that shampoo.”

  His gaze cracked open and the way it sliced through Mathieu would have left a lesser man trembling in fear. All he wanted to do was put a bullet through Seth’s head. But there was no physical evidence. Not yet.

  “You know where she is.” He didn’t ask questions he already knew the answers to. “I’m going to warn you now. Stop looking into my past. Or tell whoever you have doing it to stop. You won’t like the consequences.”

  “Oh yeah? That sounds like you’re threatening an officer,” Mathieu replied. If he could draw Seth’s focus away from Lisette, he was fine being the target in her place. Whatever it took to protect her, he’d do it.

  He stood, straightening out to his full height. They were about eye-to-eye. Maybe Seth had an inch on him, but Mathieu was wider, bulkier. “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess the backwater detective routine isn’t a fake then. A smart man would know a threat when he heard it.”

  “That’s not very smart now, coming in here and threatening a man in his own home.” Mathieu shook his head, clinging to a façade of calm.

  “Good day, Detective Mouton.” Seth placed the card atop his cold case files, littered with dirt from his boots now. “Hopefully I don’t hear from you again.”

  “I wouldn’t mind it.” Mathieu shrugged.

  They faced off, maybe six inches apart, each gazing into the other’s eyes, measuring the other against an arbitrary ruler of worth. This close, it felt as if oil skated over Mathieu’s skin and something dark lashed out at him. The core of Seth Bishop was evil.

  He nodded and the two slid past each other, Mathieu into his office and Seth into the flow of people going back and forth. Mathieu watched him until he disappeared around a corner. How had he gotten this far back in the building without an access card or anyone stopping him to ask questions? There were at least two different doors where Mathieu had to wave his ID badge over a panel to just get to his desk. This little interlude should not have happened.

  He dug his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in his sister’s direct number at her office.

  “Hello?”

  “Ça viens?”

  “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Lola’s voice curled, as if she smiled on the other end of the line.

  “Seth Bishop just paid me a visit. He shouldn’t even know who I am.”

  “Oh no…”

  “Who have you been calling about him?” Mathieu clenched his phone.

  “Just a few people. I had to verify Lisette’s story.” The morning cheer was gone, instead she sounded as worried as Mathieu felt, except he didn’t have the time or the leisure to indulge in worrying. He needed to act. Now.

  “Fuck. That’s what you shouldn’t have done.”

  “I was just supposed to trust that story?”

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. I needed the facts.”

  “The facts have led a killer straight to my doorstep.”

  “Did he find you at your apartment?”

  “No, my office. But I’ve got to get Lisette out now. Fuck.” He stalked around to his desk and glared at the offending bits of dirt. If this were TV he could scoop the specks up, give them to a CSI team capable of magic and have probable cause for several murders by the end of the day. But real life wasn’t a sixty-minute crime drama.

  “She can come stay with me,” Lola offered.

  “No, he knows our name now. I’ve got a place she can go.” He sighed. More questions.

  His desk phone flashed with an incoming call. He recognized the extension immediately. Amber.

  “Lola, I need to go.”

  “Call me. . .”

  He ended the call without another word and picked up the handset.

  “Tell me something good, baby girl.” He needed to hear positive things after this morning.

  “Uh…good morning to you, too,” Amber stammered on the other line. “I don’t have good news unless good is having no doubt your guy attacked another college girl last night.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “She expired at the hospital a few hours ago. I’m just seeing the pictures now. The marks on her neck—they’re the same.”

  “Fuck.” He cradled his head in his hands. How many could he attribute to Seth’s hands now? The truth was Mathieu couldn’t count them. “I need more to go on. Any physical evidence?”

  “Not much to go on, but the strangulations are drawing interest. I think someone’s going to peg your guy as a serial.”

  “Amber, I need to catch this guy. Now.”

  “Okay. Let me put together some stuff for you. There’s got to be a pattern. I’m an analyst, I should be able to figure it out.” He could hear the sound of papers being shuffled, maybe something being knocked over. “I’m going to have something to you by noon. We’ll catch this guy.”

  “Thank you, Amber. Really.”

  “Just catch him. I don’t want another girl to die.”

  “Me either.”

  He hung up and sighed, his shoulders sagging. What did he do? How did he protect Lisette and catch Seth? He couldn’t do both at once, no matter how much he’d like to believe he could. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he muttered a few curses. Lisette had come to him for help and now he and Lola had probably just put her in danger. As much as he wanted to do this on his own, he knew he couldn’t.

  Mathieu dug his phone out of his pocket and punched his speed-dial. This was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

  “What’s her name?” Odalia said on the other end of the line.

  “Lisette.”

  “Holy fuck. I did not see that coming.” Odalia whistled.

  “You know, women do find me attractive,” Mathieu said with a twist of his lips.

  “Oh, not that. I mean, you actually told me without having to twist your arm or anything.” The sounds of the radio filtered through the phone, reminding him that they were both on the job. “So, Lisette, huh?”

  “Yeah. And I need a favor.”

  “Uh…okay.”

  “I just got paid a visit by her ex. In my office. She needs to get out of my place right now. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, but. . .”

  “She can stay at my place. As long as she likes dogs.”

  “I’m pretty sure Gator would trade me for
her in a heartbeat.”

  “I like her already. But the boyfriend? Is he trouble?”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his face again. This was not going to go over well with Odalia.

  “Are you going to tell me any more?”

  “I’d prefer not to. Least not while I’m here. If Lisette wants to, that’s her business, but there’s more she doesn’t know. Like, she doesn’t know her ex is in New Orleans.”

  “Mathieu, this doesn’t sound good.” Her disapproving tones tugged at him. But she didn’t know Lissy. Odalia didn’t know Lisette’s strengths. The things she’d been through.

  “I know how it sounds, believe me. I thought it was Amanda Part Two. But she’s not. It’s different. Will you just go get her? Please? If it’s not okay for her to stay there I’ll. . .”

  “She’ll stay with me, but I want to know what the hell is going on.” Odalia sighed. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be over there soon. I was going to swing by and check on Creature before my shift ended anyway.”

  “You’re a gem.”

  “Yeah, you might not be saying that when I’m done with you.” With an attitude like that it was hard to see Odalia as a sexual submissive, but she was. Tough as nails on the outside with a warm, gooey center.

  “Bring it,” he replied.

  “Fuck you.” Odalia hung up, getting the last word. This time.

  Their sibling-like relationship had begun when Odalia was assigned as his patrol partner. He felt as if she was the little sister he was always meant to have. But it had never been anything more than that. There wasn’t another person he’d trust to keep Lisette safe.

  Lisette peered through the peephole and chewed her lip.

  The woman on the other side knocked again, the wood door reverberating with the vibrations.

  “Open up, it’s me,” the woman said.

  Lisette turned the deadbolt, none too excited about facing this person. She opened the door and froze.

  She was beautiful. Stunning. Tanned skin. Long black hair. Piercing eyes. And tattoos.

  “Uh…hi,” Lisette said as the woman gave her a head-to-toe once over.