Her lips part again, but instead of anger in her eyes, I see lust. Her pupils dilate, her lids close a fraction as her muscles soften. I test the waters, applying more pressure to her arm, and a small whimper escapes her. She doesn’t try to get away. She leans in.
“Answer me, princess,” I demand, lowering my voice.
She pauses before responding, her eyes flitting between mine and my lips. “My tastes have changed recently. What I’m looking for, I don’t think many people would be willing to offer,” she breathes out.
“Are you gonna stop fucking around and tell me what it is that you need, Katie?” I bite out. “Because I can’t give it to you if I have to tiptoe around you, guessing what it is that you like.”
She watches me, the cogs turning in her mind as if to calculate the risk versus reward of telling me, the man who, until recently, was the closest thing to an enemy that she had. I will my face to remain neutral. To give her a calm and collected look that tells her nothing could scare me off. I’ve seen shit when I was away with the army; I’ve heard worse from soldiers I work withwhen they return from active duty. Life is no picnic—I know this. I try to rack my brain to think if there is anything she could say that would scare me off, and nothing springs to mind. She could ask me to dress up as Willy Wonka and fuck her in a chocolate vat, and I’d say yes.
“I like it rough.”
“Okay...” That doesn’t seem too out of the norm.
She winces and instinctively looks away, avoiding my gaze. “It’s more than that, though. It’s hard to explain. But I want...I want to feel scared. Like I’m being hunted.”
My brain whirrs. Hunted...scared...and this has all been since she worked the Thomas Vale case. Is this linked? Has she fantasized about him doing this to her? The revulsion creeps up my throat at the thought of her being in love with a serial killer. They spent a lot of time together. Is that what this is?
“This is why I didn’t want to say anything. That look on your face,” she says, her face pinking as she pushes her shoulders back, preparing herself for a reprimand.
I soften the scowl on my face and wet my lips. “I just want to understand what you mean. What you’re asking for isn’t uncommon. It’s a normal kink to have, but I want to know your reasons behind it. I don’t want you to be thinking about some other man if I’m the one fucking you.”
“Some other man?” She frowns beforerealization sets in. “Thomas Vale. You’re not the first one to assume.”
“Assume what?”
“That I fell in love with him.”
My mouth flattens into a thin line. It’s not like I hadn’t thought about it as well. This seems like it’s where this conversation is leading up to. I just want to give myself a few more seconds before confirming. A few more seconds of existing without knowing Katie Murphy, the smartest person I know, fell for a serial killer, and that’s why she’s so messed up. God, is it because he’s locked up that she’s so unhappy? Is it because she feels guilty? Because I will strap her down and therapy the shit out of her if so. I’ll stage an intervention if I have to.
Before I can ask my next question, a knock at the door interrupts us.
Chapter Fifteen
Katie
Jonesy has been grumbling since the knock on the door interrupted our conversation two hours ago. Even though he is the one who invited the dinner club over to help me work on the house. Now that Lottie, Caleb, Alfie, and Mia are here, we’ve barely said more than a few words to each other, and I’ll be honest, I do feel a teeny-tiny bit bad for leaving him on such a cliffhanger. But not bad enough to pull him to one side and put him out of his misery.
The girls and I have been painting the hallway whilst the boys work on finishing the drywall on the newly completed wall on the far side of the kitchen. Once that was done, Jonesy had them learn how to tile the backsplash behind the stove, fitting each tile meticulously as if they would be graded at the end of it. I even caught him slapping Caleb’s hand away when he tried to move it slightly, telling him he needed to get his eyes checked.
The girls have been flitting between me andthe kitchen, where the boys are, for the last hour and forty-five minutes, and I’ve thought of every possible conversation topic to avoid the one I know is on the tip of their tongues.
“Right, I’ve told you everything you could know about working with Lottie, my leg is healing nicely, thank you very much, and yes, I had another run-in with Alfie’s dad because he found out it was me who sent him a glitter bomb in the mail,” Mia whisper-shouts. “So, if no one’s going to bring it up, I’m just going to have to ask.” Her fists rest on her hips, her arms akimbo. “What’s the story with you and Jonesy?”
Lottie swivels, her long blonde hair braided into plaits for this evening’s activities. “Oh, boy.”
Brilliant input. Thanks, Lottie.
“No story. We’ve just been working the case together, that’s all.” I run my paintbrush over the wall.
“Okay, then, why did we all get summoned here under pain of death by bickering?”
“What do you mean?” I frown.
She drops her paintbrush into the paint tray, pulling me and Lottie in so our heads are close together, and I can feel her breath tickling the end of my nose.
She looks behind her toward the kitchen before turning back to us. “His message said that if we don’t show up within the hour to help you get some renovations done, he would amp up his competitiveness at the next dinner club,” shesays, eyes widening.
I look at Lottie, and she looks a little sheepish. “He’s already out of control when we play games. But we all do want to be here. It’s not just to avoid him having a meltdown.”
