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“A fight could really do some good around here,” I tell him, yanking out of his hold. “Boost morale or some shit.”
“It’s not going to doyougood, and that’s what worries me.” Devan’s strides are so much longer than my own. Today he’s dressed like he’s about to grace the runway of men’s fashion week with a tailored blazer in a camel color that offsets his dark skin. Tight blue jeans taper down to polished black boots, and a pair of glasses decorate the crown of his head.
He’s pointedly not looking at me.
Which is never good.
I start to unwrap tape from my hands and I don’t need to look down to know I’ve bruised myself. “When I need your help, Dev, I’ll ask for it. I know how to handle those two wimps. They’re all bark and no bite.”
Except theirbitchcomment has me thinking about Gabriel again and my thoughts circle right back around.
To the man who holds the leash.
To the way he pushes my boundaries.
And the sensation of his tongue sliding inside of me.
“I beg to differ,” Devan replies with forced calm.
I’m half a step behind Devan on the stairwell and making sure each footstep is a loud thud, just to piss him off.
He’s probably right, though. If I let a thug like Gabriel Blackwell maneuver me into a vulnerable position, then what else am I going to allow? I’ve been so good until now to only experience sex and anything associated with it on my terms. It’s why I’m a Dom.
Blackwell is a killer. He might also be the prime suspect in my case, which makes him my target. Yet I let him pry my legs open and go right to town, to dominatemerather than the other way around.
Note to self: call therapist and ask for extra days. I clearly need it.
“You’re not even paying attention,” Devan is saying when I tune back in.
“Of course I am,” I argue automatically.
He glances over his shoulder at me. “Then what did I say?”
We reach the top of the stairs and I take a left, pushing past him. “That’s an asinine question and you know it.”
“L, your temper is going to get the best of you when you’re in real trouble and I won’t be there.”
“Here’s hoping,” I retort.
Immediately regretting the cheap shot, I soften. I didn’t mean to say it but I’m too mad to take it back. I’m just like him—my father. The way he used to lash out at me. The way I knew when he drank too much because he started ranting and blaming me for my mom’s suicide.
Devan trails me into the office that used to belong to one of the secretaries of the company who owned the warehouse. The Empire Bay police picked it up at an auction for cheap, considering it needed so much work, and except for the gym space downstairs, detectives who chose to were able to claim the offices above for themselves.
It’s a shitty place to work but it’s ours.
When my partner and I need to work through things and get away from the noise and tangible frustration in the bullpen, we come here.
Today he closes the door gently behind us and I stand in the middle of the room between the two desks. A giant moveable whiteboard takes up much of the left side wall, and on the opposite wall we have a corkboard with pictures from our cases and crime scenes. While I stalked Blackwell at the club, Devan has been busy. He’s taken down the information on the board that belonged to our last case and replaced it with everything we’ve got on the dead hookers, including print-out sheets of their information.
“You’ve been busy.”
I should have been here.
“I also have a lead,” he tells me. He perches on his desk and folds his arms over his chest. “Security footage from a nearby Greek restaurant shows our latest vic leaving the place with someone I think is the last man who saw her alive.”
I push my guilt so far down it barely exists when I turn to face him. “Have you gone to talk to him yet?” I ask. I already know the answer.
“Not yet. I was waiting for my absentee partner. Good thing I found her right before she exploded.”
