by G. G. Andrew
She met Bette’s eyes again. “Scott and I are just spending some time together,” she said, an edge to her voice. “That’s all.”
The woman raised an eyebrow, a smile playing on her lips. “Oh, is that all?”
“That’s all.”
“Hmm.” Bette took a sip. “You make a good cup of tea, but you’re a bad liar.”
Kim’s cell rang then, and she was grateful. She slid it out of her pocket and answered after the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Kim?” A young woman’s voice was on the other end. Kim didn’t recognize it.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Destani Jenkins. I need to meet with you.”
Kim recalled the girl at the computer store, her strawberry-blond hair and the look on her face when Kim told her she’d probably been harassed.
“You were right about the stuff online,” Destani said. “And I think I know who did it. Can you meet me Saturday morning?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Scott
Maybe it wasn’t responsible, but Scott insisted Kim stay over at his place the next three nights. She hadn’t protested. Even though he assured her that Viktor Antonovich was probably far away, he didn’t like not knowing the suspect’s whereabouts. He and Carter Morales were continuing to search for leads on where he might have fled to, but nothing had panned out.
Of course, he hadn’t demanded she stay in his bed, but that’s where they’d ended up anyway. Wednesday night she’d fallen asleep in his arms, exhausted from the day, and Thursday and Friday nights she’d waited up for him to get off work. Seeing Kim Xavier naked between his sheets was about the best damn homecoming he could ask for, and he was getting used to it. Even his pillows were starting to smell like her.
Saturday morning he would’ve been in favor of sleeping in, but Kim slid out of bed early, even when he reached out an arm to drag her back. Dodging him with a smirk, she put on a pink shirt and a pair of jeans that fit her curves.
“What’s the hurry?” he asked.
“I’m meeting someone for coffee.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
“In a public place, right?”
She stopped and looked at him. “Of course.”
She’d relaxed since the day they’d identified Viktor as the man who’d threatened her, but he noticed she didn’t go out more than necessary, which was okay by him. She must be feeling even calmer if she’d agreed to meet a friend.
“Wait,” he said, “is this one of those women?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
She sighed. “She told me she didn’t want her name out. She’s nervous for some reason. But we’re meeting at the breakfast place in West Haven, on Campbell Avenue. Okay?”
He grunted in response, not exactly thrilled with the idea. “You have time for pancakes beforehand?”
She smiled softly. “I always have time for pancakes.” And then, because there was a God, she jumped on top to straddle him, and gave him a long kiss.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Mm,” he said, drawing her close. He was already stiff, not only because it was morning, but because she could get him there with a snap of her fingers.
But she wiggled out of his grasp. “Nuh-uh,” she said, laughing. “If we do that, we won’t get around to pancakes for another hour, and I’ll miss my meeting.”
“That was part of my strategy,” he admitted. He grudgingly let her get off the bed before moving the sheet off himself to pull on pajama pants. With how many times they’d been together the past week, he was surprised how much he still wanted her. His body and brain were pretty clear on that front.
He snuck out of his room first, and he was glad he did, because Lily was exiting her room at the same time, her fair hair rumpled from sleep. It probably wasn’t a wise parenting move to have these sleepovers, but they’d tried to keep Lily from seeing that Kim was staying in his bedroom. He’d told his daughter that Kim was staying with them for a few days, like she was a visiting relative or something. Luckily, she hadn’t asked many follow-up questions. Mostly she seemed thrilled at the prospect of her favorite person being around all day.
“Good morning, Lily.”
“’Morning,” she said sleepily, a box of crayons clutched to her chest. “Where’s Kim?”
“Uh, I think she’s still waking up,” Scott said vaguely. “Do you want to help me make pancakes for breakfast?”
At this, her little face became more alert, eyes brightening. “Pancakes? Really?”
Scott smiled. He loved how Lily was still excited about things most adults would find ordinary. He was trying to appreciate these moments, because he knew they wouldn’t last forever, especially if she had any of her mother’s DNA.
“Yes, really,” he said. “I’ll dump stuff in and you stir.”
It was a system they’d perfected, and they were halfway through the ingredients when Kim entered the kitchen.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Hi, Kim!” Lily called. She stood on a stool next the counter, mixing the batter while Scott cracked a couple eggs into the bowl.
“Hey, Lily.”
While Lily returned to her stirring, Scott smiled at Kim and they shared a secret look above the girl’s head.
He was surprised to see Kim hadn’t put on any makeup. She was naturally beautiful and didn’t need any—her brown eyes large without the eyeliner, her lips drawing his gaze without the added color—but he’d rarely seen her go without, save the times it’d washed away during some incredible shower sex. He wondered if she’d forgotten or left it off intentionally. She seemed to enjoy wearing it and he liked teasing those ruby red lips, but he had a suspicion that Kim took such pains with her appearance partly because it gave her a sense of control she didn’t have elsewhere in her life, and an ability to at least maintain some of her image in a place where people took what they knew about her and extrapolated the rest. He was glad that, whether consciously or not, she hadn’t felt the need to do that with him, if only for a few minutes.
“How can I help?” Kim asked.
“Um, you can put these eggs away,” Scott said, nudging the carton in her direction.
“Sure.”
“Lily, I think we’re ready to cook up the batter,” he said. “Can you get the plates on the table?”
“Okay.”
The girl carried a stack of plates, napkins, and silverware over while Kim leaned a hip against the kitchen counter, biting her lip and watching him ladle the batter onto the sizzling pan. Even without a lick of makeup, she was damn distracting as usual.
“Are you trying to make me burn these pancakes?” he said under his breath.
“No,” she whispered, her hand fluttering to her chest. “Why would I ever do such a thing?”
“You’re giving me a look.”
“What look?”
He flipped a pancake as the scent of fried batter filled the kitchen. “A look like you regret not taking me up on my offer this morning.”
She smiled, her voice quiet but dripping with insinuation. “Well, if that offer still stands tonight—”
Lily interrupted from the table. “Daddy?”
He cleared his throat and looked over. “Yes, Lil?”
“If grandma can’t walk good, who’s going to take me to my tea party?” She was standing by the table, creatively arranging their silverware on napkins by three places.
Scott stopped flipping and squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, shoot.”
“Tea party?” Kim asked. “Like with bears?”
“No, like with a thousand little girls and their mothers,” he said. “Bette was going to go with her. It’s next Saturday. It slipped both of our minds with everything going on.” He turned to Lily and raised his voice. “Sweetie, I’m not sure Bette will be up to it. I’ll get off work and take you.”
Lily stuck her bottom lip out. “You can’t. It’s just girls. You have a penis
.”
Kim snorted. “She’s got a point. You do have a penis.”
He narrowed his eyes at her but spoke to his daughter. “It’s fine, Lily. The other girls will understand.”
The little girl’s eyes grew large and mournful at him, like he’d just announced this was the last time they’d be eating pancakes. He knew he was being played, but he sighed, handed Kim the spatula, and walked to his daughter. She was a mastermind, yet she was his mastermind, baby blue eyes and all.
“Ah, Lil,” he said, kneeling down next to her. “Won’t it be cool to be the only one there with your dad?”
Lily scrunched up her nose like it wouldn’t be cool at all. Damn. Were they coming to this already?
“Can someone else take me?” she finally said. “Someone who’s a girl?” She glanced at Kim, as if the thought just occurred to her. “Can Kim take me?”
So this is what she’d planned. Scott shifted his position and shot a look at Kim. “I’m not sure that’s—I’ll have to talk to Miss Kim about—”
“Please, Daddy.” Lily turned her theatrically large eyes back on her father. “I want Kim to take me.”
“I’ll go.”
Scott met Kim’s eyes. “You sure?” He couldn’t imagine her at one of those class parties—her crimped hair and attitude around all those young moms with their Pinterest accounts. Hell, he himself would never fit in. Plus, she and Taylor Stiles hadn’t exactly seemed friendly when they’d met in front of the Xaviers’ the other day, and she was hosting. Sure, Taylor had been polite, but the undercurrent had been pure upper middle class feminine aggression, like jabs with a rhinestone-studded blade.
“I’m sure,” Kim said. “I’m pretty qualified. I don’t have a penis.”
He stood, exhaled, and mouthed thank you at her. He’d talk to her later, make sure she was really okay with it and wasn’t just a victim of Lily’s theatrics.
The cooking completed, they ate together at the table, drizzling rich maple syrup over their pancakes and gulping down cold glasses of milk with it.
Afterwards, he made Lily help Kim carry the dishes to the sink. Sensing more chores might be coming, Lily zoomed out of the room.
He waited a beat until he heard her happily playing before he dragged Kim close and wrapped his arms around her.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “I could’ve gotten off work. She would’ve adjusted to me coming.”
Kim shrugged. “I know. She was playing you. Pretty good, too. You’d better watch out for when she hits thirteen.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I think she wanted me to come because I’m cooler.”
Scott smirked. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
He tugged on her ponytail. “You’ll regret that once you go to this thing. Have you ever been around two dozen five-year-old girls before?”
Kim pursed her lips. “Nope.”
“It’s like Lord of the Flies but with pink cupcakes, stickers, and more subtle relational aggression.”
“Stickers I can do,” Kim said. “And cupcakes are pretty much a lifestyle for me. If the cupcakes are good enough, I can deal with the aggression part.”
Scott laughed. “I owe you one.”
“You totally owe me one.” She squirmed closer to him and his head dropped to kiss her on the neck. “Because if you think I’m the type of person who doesn’t keep score in a relationship, you got another think coming.”
“Relationship?” Scott mumbled into her skin.
They both froze. Even with sleeping together over a week and her staying in his house these past few days, they hadn’t put a name on what they were doing. Probably because they’d been too busy having sex.
“I just mean,” Kim rushed to add, “we’re two people, and we relate to each other, so we have a relationship in that we’re relating...”
Scott raised his head. He swallowed. “I think I’m okay with the word.”
Her eyes widened. “You are?”
“Yeah.” His heart had kicked up. He played with her ponytail again and watched her face carefully. “Are you?”
“Maybe. Okay.” She smiled tentatively, and something warmed between them, something he hadn’t felt before. They’d had hot moments, but they hadn’t had too many of these, times where she stood in his kitchen—no makeup, no pretense—and he was just a man, not a cop who knew her police record, and she was a woman who’d sat down to pancakes with him.
“Scott—” she began.
His hand slid to her lower back. “What is it?”
Her eyes travelled to the doorway to the living room, then back to his. “Where’s Lily’s mother?”
“Oh.” He sighed. “Spain, I think. Possibly Portugal. It’s always changing.”
Kim’s head tilted. “Is she…”
“We never married,” he said, answering one of the questions she undoubtedly wondered, then a few others. “We were together for a brief time, and we conceived Lily. I’m not sure Alexa ever wanted to be a mother—she was kind of irresponsible, to be honest—but she liked to collect new experiences.” He glanced at the threshold and lowered his voice in case Lily could hear. “I don’t think she was prepared for the intensity of motherhood when it came. She just never cottoned to it. She’s a travel writer. She has trouble staying in the same place for too long. Or with the same people.”
“I’m sorry.” Kim pressed her lips together.
He shrugged. “It probably wouldn’t have lasted, anyway. We hear from her from time to time. Bette, too—she’s her mother.”
She nodded. “I heard.” Her lips parted, but it took a moment for the words to come. “Do you still have, you know, feelings for her?”
“Alexa?” he asked, taken aback by the question. He felt a kindling of pleasure in his gut. Was Kim Xavier jealous on his behalf? He kind of liked the sound of that. But he shook his head. “No, not anymore. We had a few intense months, but then we were getting ready for the baby and soon after we had Lily. The sparks faded and we had to deal with reality, like you do. The reality was she didn’t actually want to have a family.” His voice grew husky as he added, “And that little girl in the next room soon became the world to me.”
Kim blinked, and he was surprised to see her eyes wet. He wanted to lighten the moment, and also assure her she had nothing to be jealous of. He pulled her flush against his body, his hand reaching up to bring her face to his, just their noses touching. “You know that thing we did last night?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” she whispered.
“Alexa and I never did that,” he said.
“Poor Alexa,” she breathed, and they kissed.
He’d just cupped her chin to deepen the kiss when she jerked back.
“Wait. Whose house is this at?”
“What?”
“The tea party. Who’s the host?”
“Oh.” He exhaled. “Taylor Stiles.”
“Shit. Speaking of relational aggression.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll understand if you want to back out. Seems like you guys weren’t exactly best friends back at private school?”
She laughed. “Yeah, definitely not. She’s never been a fan, and she knows my history. Whenever I see her around, she always says these really passive-aggressive things, like ‘Oh, I didn’t realize you were out of jail, Kim’.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear, you steal a girl’s boyfriend in the middle of prom, and you end up paying for it the rest of your life.”
Scott raised an eyebrow. “Let me make it up to you.”
She looked skeptical. “Pancakes every morning from now on?”
“Better.” He put his mouth to her neck again, grazing his lips against her soft skin. She shivered under his touch. “Keep score at the tea party, because when you get home, I’ll make it have been worth your while.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Every time a little girl squeals, I’ll do this.” He kissed her on the neck.
“Mm, okay,” Kim said. “I like
where this is going.”
“Every time some kid gets frosting on you, I’ll do this.” With his free hand, he cupped her breast and was rewarded with a sharp inhale. He ran his thumb over her nipple, just to drive the point home. She pressed her lips together and emitted a low moan.
His mouth found her ear. “And for every nasty word Taylor Stiles says to you,” he whispered, “I’ll…” and the thing he said under his breath made her smile like she was now looking forward to the tea party about thirty times more than she’d anticipated.
Chapter Thirty
Kim
Kim barely left Scott’s in time to meet Destani in West Haven.
They had planned to meet at a dingy coffee franchise in the smaller city adjacent to New Haven. It wouldn’t have been her pick as a place to meet anyone, but she could tell the girl wanted to meet somewhere out of the way. She hadn’t wanted to say what she knew, but she’d told Kim not to tell anyone.
“I have this friend,” Kim said on the phone. “He’s a cop, and he’s trying to help. I trust him.”
“I don’t trust him,” Destani said quickly. “I don’t know him.”
“Okay,” Kim acquiesced. She didn’t like keeping something from Scott, not after she’d started opening up to him. But maybe once she met Destani face-to-face, she could convince her to go to the cops.
She’d taken a break from approaching more women since Viktor had been identified as the guy harassing her. She’d felt too shaken up, though when she grabbed the list to bring that morning, the urge had struck again. Those women, she had to warn them. Especially since who knew where Viktor was or what he was doing? Maybe he was in a hotel right now, uploading these women’s pictures on porn sites. It made her sick.
Yet she wasn’t thinking about Viktor now. As she drove to meet Destani, the sun shone through her windshield, its rays warming her skin. She hardly noticed. May would be here soon, but Kim was caught in another kind of euphoria—or maybe it was confusion masked as bliss. They’d been screwing around the clock and still she’d had trouble pulling away from Scott’s kisses that morning. Maybe she had an addictive personality, because she couldn’t stay away from Scott Culpepper—his mouth, his strong hands. The way the water slid down his muscles when he’d banged her against the shower tiles. Their bodies had slipped against one another as a deep, hard pleasure made her body clench around him, the sound of the streaming water not quite covering her screams. Afterward, he’d carried her to bed like she weighed nothing, and held her like he wouldn’t let go.
