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She didn't have to ask him why. Because the job couldn't break your heart, not if you learned how to detach yourself at the right moments. There was no detachment to this, not if they wanted the full prize.
"Nevertheless," his eyes glowed in the dark, making her tingle in warm places. "You've invited me in, and the only way to shut me back out is to tell me to get out. And I might need to remind you, I'm not the type of sub who always obeys his Mistress."
But he was hers. For the time being, he was hers.
She slid out of bed for a minute, went and switched off the light in the hallway. She came back into his arms in the protective anonymity of darkness.
"You said," she paused, searching for the right words, "you didn't know you'd given up on finding it. There was more than that. Tell me what else was in your heart. I know you said you couldn't, but I want you to try. For me."
His face was a quiet silhouette in darkness for several moments, his hand lying on her stomach, the fingers moving in an absent caress. "I don't know," he said at last. "I've tried all sorts of rationalizations, but I just have two things in my gut that I know for sure. That I have to be a cop, and that I've been looking for something in a woman all my life... I didn't figure out the submissive part of it until about ten years ago. Didn't accept it at first, but even after I did, I knew there was something more. Sort of like it was the means, but not the end. There was something about it just out of reach, like that climax that goes only so high, so that you know something's missing. Something I didn't know..."
Her breath clogged in her throat. He chuckled, but it was a strangled, nervous sound. "Forget it, I--"
She found his face in the dark, touched him with insistent urgency. "Mackenzie, I order you to say what you were about to say. Now. I mean it."
His body moved into hers, a man so large he filled her bed, his eyes burning with desire. "It was something I didn't know, didn't understand. Not until I met you. I was looking for you. My Mistress. Mine," he said fiercely. "It's you. You're the beginning and the end of it all for me. The reason for it. I know it doesn't make sense after less than a week. But I know it. I just do."
She brought her hand to his neck, drew him down to her. He could have closed the distance himself, but in this moment she knew he would wait for her to do it, to show that she accepted his admission. Because it was his nature to wait for her bidding. Not any woman's bidding. Hers.
But once she gave him that acceptance, the rebellious sub she knew took over. He yanked her up to him, brought his mouth hard down on hers, his other hand cradling the back of her head, holding her tight against him, letting her feel his need and strength, what he could offer her, what he was offering. Her body gave up its own strength, let him hold her, consume her, and it wasn't until she felt his lips move to her cheeks that she realized that they were wet with her tears.
Her eyes had adjusted so she could see his startled expression in the dim light, and she smiled at him. "Did you think you were the only one affected by what's between us?" she asked thickly, reaching up to touch his face with trembling fingers. "I've never been as terrified or happy or...anything, as I've been since I met you."
"You broke me down. I told myself that I couldn't afford you."
"So leave." She smiled as he snorted.
"I can't." There was a long pause, but she could feel him gathering his thoughts, so she stayed still against him, waiting.
"It was never supposed to be about... what's between you and me. You were right. I knew what I was, but I didn't believe it, not all the way down to my soul. I was afraid to, because I thought it was about strength and power."
"It isn't."
"I know. I just don't know what it's about now, but I guess it doesn't matter."
"It matters. And I know what it's about, Mac." She brought her lips to his. "It's about surrender. For both of us."
Chapter 16
He stayed to make her breakfast. And to give her information. While she watched him make muffins from the scratch materials in her kitchen, he told her about his case. She had heard about the two murdered men, but he gave her a high level of detail so she could offer her opinion, complimenting her instincts in a way she could not miss or deny being flattered by.
"You're moving in the same circles as the murderess," he explained, "and you're trained. The more you know, the more likely you'll remember something you saw, or you'll see something that will help. " He hesitated. "I brought pictures of the victims. I thought you might want to take a closer look, see if you remembered them."
She examined them, the family-provided photos next to the gruesome remains of those smiling portraits. "They must have come on different nights from me." She tapped Rodriguez's face. "This one is familiar, but I didn't know him at The Zone. Most of us have a regular schedule when we go, and those of us with day jobs can't come as often or stay as late. Did they have memberships in other clubs?"
"None in common except The Zone."
"Well, why even have that commonality?"
"She wants the top of the line, the ones who are obsessively careful and well established. She's saying something by killing them."
"Well, if that's the case, and she's as smart as you say, I'm willing to bet she finds her mark at The Zone, but she approaches them and picks them up elsewhere, so she's never seen with them at the place that they had in common." Violet slid the photos back in the envelope.
"Possible," he agreed, rising to put the case file away. "It's an angle we're investigating now."
Violet rubbed her stomach, eyed the steaming blueberry muffins. Her brow drew down over her forehead.
"I don't have fresh blueberries."
