by Nancy Warren
“I’m glad I caught you alone. I want to talk to you.” After his breakthrough last night he’d been longing to have this conversation. Something of his urgency must have come through.
Her bright smile dimmed. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. Everything’s fine. I want to talk to you, that’s all. Let’s sit down.”
“Do you want some coffee?”
“Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen and while she bustled around making the coffee, he took the time to organize his thoughts.
When she put his perfectly prepared brew in front of him and a plate of her homemade peanut butter cookies between them, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about Dad lately. Maybe because I’m in the same field. Mom, he worked for the force for thirty years and he barely rose in the ranks. But he was our hero at home. You always made us feel that not getting ahead was more noble than, I don’t know, being ambitious.”
She took a slow sip of her coffee. Put the mug down on the table. Then she raised her gaze and said, “Your father is a wonderful man.”
“I know.”
“And I love him very much.”
“Know that, too.”
“He was the kind of police officer who is the real backbone of the force. Loyal, brave, decent and honest. There should be more like him.”
He nodded.
“However, fairly early in our marriage I began to see other men being promoted. Smarter men, more political, more ambitious, better educated and better connected perhaps, but they moved up in the ranks and your father barely made lieutenant by the time he retired. I have spent my life supporting him emotionally and reassuring him that I think he’s wonderful exactly as he is.”
“Do you think I’m getting above myself?” He thought of his recent promotion to detective. How he’d liked not only the raise in pay grade but also the knowledge that he was doing more interesting work. He was beginning to realize that part of his ambivalence about success was rooted in guilt over getting ahead of his father.
His mother looked genuinely stunned by the question. “Why would I think you’re getting ahead of yourself? I could not be more proud of you.”
“But you always put me down and pump up Dad.” He realized how childish he sounded the second the words left his mouth. His mother didn’t call him on it, though. Merely frowned while fiddling with the handle of her mug, as though she were trying to bend it to her will.
“But—but you were born a success. You were always the biggest child in the class, the strongest. You were a good student, a talented athlete, popular. I sometimes wonder how Dennis and I ever managed to produce such an amazing son. I suppose I worried that you being such a gifted person would make Dennis feel bad, so perhaps I overcompensated.”
She looked so distressed he wanted to comfort her.
“It’s okay, Mom. I know you and Dad love me. I’ve had a great life. But somewhere I got it into my head that it’s wrong to have too much success. I think it’s been affecting my performance.”
She put down her cup sharply.
Drilled him with her Mom gaze, the one that made him feel ashamed of himself even before she told him what he’d done wrong.
“Adam,” she said, “you are thirty-five years old. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped worrying about what your mother says?”
He grinned at her and rose. “Yes, Mom. I do.”
And he walked right around the table, hauled her out of her chair and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, Adam. So much. Go and be the success you were meant to be.”
* * *
SOMEHOW ADAM KNEW that his choking problem wasn’t going to be automatically solved simply because he understood one aspect of his family dynamic. But he felt in his gut that he was on his way to figuring out how to get comfortable winning hockey games when they mattered most. He suspected he’d need a few more sessions with Serena for that to happen. Just thinking about her made him relive the passion they’d shared last night.
He needed a few more sessions with her, all right. A lot of sessions, in fact.
They fell into a sort of routine. He’d drive her to work in the morning, walk her to her office in spite of her protests. He’d make sure that Mark was already there and he and the security expert would have a quick handover meeting. Then he’d head to the precinct. At the end of the workday either he picked her up—his preference—or if he was unable to get away, then Mark would drive her home and get her into her apartment. Mark would have stayed with her until Adam arrived but she’d flipped out so badly the one and only time he’d tried it that, reluctantly, they’d agreed that she could remain inside her locked apartment alone.
He didn’t like to think of her being there by herself, not when the perp had already breached her locked door once, but he was in a tough spot. He had other cases. Other work. He couldn’t shadow Serena 24/7, as much as he’d have liked to. So he tried to get back to her place as quickly as he could when he knew she was alone.
Once there, his anxiety immediately lifted. He trusted his instincts and training. Nobody was going to get to her. Not on his watch.
Most nights they ate dinner together. Neither one was a gourmet cook, and she preferred a healthy low-fat meal while he was more into throwing a big juicy steak on the grill, teaming it with a fully loaded baked potato and maybe some mushrooms fried in butter to add a vegetable.
However, he’d discovered she wasn’t a purist by any means. If he’d suspected she’d eaten pizza with extra cheese at his place only because she’d been traumatized, he soon discovered his mistake. Serena Long ate healthy because it was, well, healthy. But in her heart of hearts, she was a big-plate-dinner kind of gal.
In the interests of balance, he’d agreed to let half of the meals they shared be as healthy as Serena desired while she agreed to spend the other half pigging out with him. Perhaps their meal plan was unorthodox, but so was the entire arrangement they had going, and it was working.
Especially at night when they moved on from sharing a meal to sharing a bed. He’d been blown away by her wild sexiness their first time together and none of their subsequent encounters had changed his opinion. The woman was cool on the outside and molten sex on the inside. An irresistible combination.
The downside, if you could call it that, to all this togetherness was that their stalker had gone silent.
Not a note left at her residence, not a text, not so much as an email. It was as though the man had vanished.
Tonight’s routine was no different from that of the past couple of weeks. When Mark brought her home, Adam was already there. The two men nodded at each other. “Anything?” Adam asked.
“Not a thing,” Mark replied.
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
When the other man had left, Serena stomped into the kitchen, her eyes snapping, her expression stormy. “What are you doing?”
“Making a salad. I figured I owed you for the chicken and ribs I brought home the other night.” They’d been so greasy even he couldn’t finish them.
“I don’t want salad.” She scowled.
“Okay.” He had no idea what had got her panties in a twist but he decided to keep cool and hope he figured it out soon. “We’ll do something else. Get some takeout.”
“I don’t want something else. I don’t want takeout.”
“You want some wine?”
“No! I don’t want wine. I want my life back.”
She continued to scowl. He continued making salad. “I am being completely unreasonable. Just so we’re clear, I am perfectly aware that I’m being a bitch.” She glared at him. “Deal with it.” She stomped back out of the kitchen and he heard her moving around, muttering to herself.
Deal with it? H
ow, exactly, was he supposed to do that?
He went back to chopping cucumber. At least the mindless task gave him something to do and a reason to stay in the kitchen. If she wanted to seek him out or avoid him, she knew where he was.
He’d purchased a fillet of salmon at the market on his way home and decided to go ahead and grill it in her fancy oven. Maybe when she calmed down she’d want some.
After a while she came back into the kitchen wearing a pair of faded jeans and a white T-shirt. She’d pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail and put fuzzy slippers on her feet.
He glanced at her warily.
She pulled up one of the designer kitchen stools at her granite breakfast bar. Leaned over and filched a chunk of cucumber from off the top of the salad.
“Nothing’s happening, Adam. In two weeks nothing has happened. I’m tired of feeling a sick kind of dread every time I check my email and text messages. And then when there’s nothing, I feel a perverse annoyance. What is the point of all this security if the guy’s moved on to someone else or started taking his meds again or is in jail or something.”
“We’re being careful.”
“I am sick of careful. I feel like you and Mark are following me all the time. I have no privacy, no life of my own. I’m sick of reporting to you on all my movements and having either you or Mark go with me whenever I’m not locked up at home or secreted in my office. I’m starting to feel like you two are the ones stalking me.”
He raised his brows at her.
She grabbed a cherry tomato off the counter and popped it in her mouth. “And yes, I know how nuts that sounds. This whole thing is making me nuts.”
“Let’s give it another week,” he said. “If nothing happens in seven more days, then we’ll reevaluate.”
“Seven days is a long time.”
“It’s seven nights of hot sex with a partner who can’t even watch you steal tomatoes without getting hard.”
She snorted with laughter, as he’d hoped she would, then reached for a tomato and, holding his gaze with her own, sucked the red globe into her mouth.
He’d only been kidding about getting hard. Now the joke was on him. He was harder than that cucumber.
Did she think she was the only one who hated this? This waiting? She might think her stalker had moved away or lost interest but Adam did not share that belief. He was certain the guy was playing with them. Lulling them into a false sense of security. He must know by now that she had protection both at home and at work. Perhaps he was planning to wait them out. Wait until Adam and Mark had moved on. And then he’d pounce.
But Adam did not intend for that to happen.
He had a very personal interest in making sure that Serena was safe.
Even with the combined resources of the cops and Max’s security firm trying to track him down, the stalker was as elusive as a puff of smoke. As Adam had suspected, the emails were untraceable. The text messages had come from the type of phone popular with drug dealers. It was cheap and, with the addition of an over-the-counter calling card, could be used once and then tossed.
Whoever was behind the harassment was not only crazed but also smart and careful. Adam didn’t like the combination.
And he didn’t like waiting, waiting for the guy to make the next move.
16
“HOW IS MARCUS DOING?” Serena asked Lisa as their workday was drawing to a close.
“He’s doing really well. He’s going to Toastmasters.”
Serena blinked. “Are you kidding me?”
“No.” Lisa was clearly proud of her client—and herself. And rightfully so. Serena couldn’t believe how well it was working out having Lisa on board as a junior partner. Very soon they were going to have to hire another admin assistant so that Lisa could take on more clients and have more flexibility to get out of the office.
“How did you convince the world’s most fearful public speaker to join Toastmasters?”
“I enrolled both of us. And because Marcus wants to be with me all the time, he has to come to the meetings. He can talk for a whole minute without sweating. He’s getting there.”
Serena chuckled. “Well, it’s unorthodox, but whatever works, so long as you don’t plan to date all your clients.”
Lisa blushed lightly. “No. Only Marcus. He’s... Well, he’s pretty special. Once you get past the introvert issue, he’s fascinating. A gaming genius, obviously. He knows a ton about history and mythology and he’s really interested in psychology. He’s a Freudian and I’m more of a Jungian, so we never run out of things to talk about.”
“And—” Serena glanced out her door to make sure there was no one in earshot and dropped her voice even though Mark was too far away to hear. “I shouldn’t even ask, but the sex?”
Lisa’s tiny satisfied smile told her everything she needed to know. “Let’s just say there’s something about a man who’s spent his whole life playing games.”
She chuckled. “Um, speaking of games, do you know anything about being a dominatrix?”
“Not those kind of games.”
“Oh, no, not for you. For me.”
Lisa blinked at her. “You want to be a domme?”
“Not for real. It’s a kind of a gift to Adam. I’ve been a little snarly and unreasonable lately. I feel like doing something nice for him.”
Lisa was looking at her as though she’d completely lost her mind. “You’re going to show your appreciation to Adam by tying him up and spanking him?”
“I feel like there must be more to the dominatrix gig than that. But yes, sort of. He told me that when we first met I reminded him of a dominatrix he once arrested. Turned out they sort of worked together. The way he talked about her I got the feeling it’s a bit of a secret fantasy of his. But obviously I don’t want to hurt him.” She shuddered.
“I’d be more scared of laughing.”
“I know. That too.”
“Well, I think there are a lot of female characters in gaming who are pretty much dommes. Must be a common male fantasy. You could use them for inspiration. They dress sexy and act all tough and badassy. I think it’s about confidence.”
“Good point. Thanks.”
Lisa gathered her things. “Well, good luck tonight,” she said as she left.
“Thanks,” Serena replied absently. She was already looking up dominatrix on Google. And trying to figure out how she was going to explain their shopping stop on the way home to Mark.
* * *
“WHAT DID YOU do today?” Adam asked when Serena showed up at his place after work. They’d started switching nights between his place and hers. He liked having time in his own house, and he thought getting a break from her own space was good for Serena. He had his legs stretched out in front of him and was reading the newspaper.
“A little shopping at a specialty mall.”
Something about her tone interested him even though she’d used the words shopping and mall in the same sentence. “Oh, yeah? Where did you go?”
“A sex store.”
The newspaper crackled as he snapped it into a rough fold and put it down on the table. “You don’t say.” He glanced at the bags in her hand, which she was shielding as best she could. “Looks like you got a lot of stuff.”
“I did.”
He liked the barely suppressed excitement he could feel coming off her. Caught it from her and felt his own body grow excited. “You going to show me what you got?”
She seemed to consider the idea. “Probably.”
He narrowed his gaze at her. “And did you remember to buy batteries?”
“No batteries required. That’s what I have you for.”
He settled back, enjoying himself. “What might a fine upstanding member of local law enforcement have to do to get a peek a
t what’s in those bags?”
“First he’d have to go into the bedroom and close the blinds. Then, when the room is completely private, he’d turn out all the lights.” She ran her fingertips across his chest. She’d had them painted. Bright blood-red and the tips were filed to points. Interesting look. “Then he’d take off all of his clothes, lie down on the bed naked and wait.”
She was turning him on all over the place with her sexy commanding tone, the sharp nails now caressing his jaw, the sense he had that she was intensely aroused.
“Oh, he might, might he? And what would his girl be doing while he’s getting butt naked all by himself?”
She chuckled, a dark sound. “You’ll see.”
He had no idea who this woman was in his house but he kind of liked her. Enough to do what she said. He figured whatever she had in mind, being naked for it was going to be a good thing.
He felt a little foolish following instructions in his own home, but he closed the wooden blinds so no crack of light could enter the bedroom. Then he switched off the light on his bedside table. Finally, he stripped off his clothes. He was completely turned on, eagerly anticipating whatever she planned. He was surprised how dark it was in the room. As he lay on his back on the bed, a minute ticked by. Another. He heard rustling noises coming from the living room. A soft curse.
He was so aroused he felt as though the air had texture, as if it were touching his naked body. He thought about yelling to her to hurry up but decided she’d only go slower if he signaled how impatient he was. Instead he imagined all the things he planned to do to Serena when he got her here beside him, as naked as he was.
He wondered what she’d purchased at the sex store. Pictured red lace or maybe silk since Serena was always classy. Maybe some massage oil. When he thought about how her hands would feel on his body all slick and slippery, he nearly groaned.
At last the door opened. Of course, since she’d made him turn out the light, he couldn’t see a damn thing except the silhouette of her body, dark and somehow mysterious in the doorway. “Did you do as I asked?”
