L.L. Foster - The Kindred

“They were hanging out . . . at a playground.” She covered his hands with her own, but she was too new to this to know what to do, and her hands fell away again.

“You ran them off?”

“No. I disabled them. As a warning.” She breathed faster. “The cops found them where I left them, there near the playground.”

Luther released her and while he gently cupped water over her chest to rinse the soap away, he asked as judiciously as he could manage, “Disabled them how?”

To his surprise, she started to shake.

“Gaby?” Alarm mushroomed. Never had he seen Gaby tremble. “What is it?”

In a sudden rush, she crawled up over his lap, putting her legs around him, with those puckered nipples at eye level. “I had to do something terrible, Luther. I can’t talk about it now. Please.”

Please? From Gaby! Fearing for the worst, Luther caught her hair and pulled her head back so he could see her face. “What happened? What did you do?”

Her quivering lips compressed, and grave sadness filled her beautiful eyes. She looked away. “I had to kill two dogs.”

Jesus. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Tragic, yes, but nowhere near the possibilities summoned by his imagination.

She hugged herself around him. “Help me forget, Luther. Just for a little while.”

Two dogs. His eyes closed in profound relief. But, of course, it made sense. Gaby would always consider children, animals, victims of any kind, to be innocent. If she’d had to exterminate the dogs to protect others, it would be an atrocious burden for her, an albatross of guilt that she’d never lose.

And she had actually asked for him to help her.

Strides, Luther told himself. Great strides.

“It’s all right, Gaby. Let me help you.” He adjusted her just enough that he could lick her left nipple, circle it with his tongue, and then suckle her softly.

Her thighs tightened and she squirmed. He wedged a hand between their bodies and, given her wide-open position around him, easily pressed his fingers to her. Touching her would never be a hardship. He loved touching her.

He loved . . . No, he couldn’t let himself get sidetracked that way. Concentrating on their physical relationship would be enough.

For now.

Within minutes, Gaby was breathing hard and fast, and she moved against him, showing him what she liked, what she needed. Learning her preferences, her body, proved a distinct pleasure.

When she came, Luther held her close, glad that he could share this with her even as his heart broke for the high level of accountability she placed on herself.

Afterward, she lay sprawled over him in the tub, her legs still around him but her spine relaxed, her head fitting perfectly beneath his chin. Her warm breath teased his shoulder, and her injured arm remained out of the water only because he ensured it.

Hating to disturb her, Luther trailed his fingertips along her back, raising gooseflesh, bringing forth a sigh or two.

Several minutes passed, and he thought she might have fallen asleep.

“Sorry, but I need to hear the rest of it, Gaby.” He moderated his tone, treating the obdurate phenomenon of her routine existence as mundane, hoping she would follow suit. “You know that.”

“Yeah, I know.” She shifted a little, maybe tightened her hold on him. “I don’t care that I hurt the men. They were drug dealers preying on kids. One of the guys had so much money on him and so many drugs that I know he had a lot of exchanges planned for the day.”

“But they had dogs, too?”

“Pit bulls.”

Luther couldn’t suppress a shudder of dread. He had to close his eyes to regain his composure. He never blamed an animal for attacking, especially when trained to do so. But he’d had experience with vicious dogs before, and pit bulls were known for their strength and tenacity once they went after a victim.

“We’ve had officers badly injured by that breed.”

Ducking her head, Gaby tightened again. When she spoke, her voice crawled with a level of pain unfathomable to most. “No animal is to be blamed for what monsters force it to do.”

Luther heard repressed tears in her tone, and while it devastated him, the sign of human emotion also offered encouragement. Like the mistreated animals, Gaby had been given few choices in life except to desecrate perceived evil.

He would give her choices, and pray that she adapted.

“No, it’s not,” Luther agreed, determined to reassure her on her decision to put the dogs down. “Unfortunately, an abused dog can be a threat to others, especially to the elderly, and to the small children nearby.”

She nodded. “There were two of them, Luther.” Her free hand fisted against his side. “Beautiful, strong animals, with so much spirit.” Her breath shuddered. “I tried to make it quick and painless for them. I couldn’t . . . didn’t want them to suffer at all.”

He couldn’t bear it. He needed eye contact, to let her see his conviction that she’d done the right thing. “Gaby, look at me.”

She clung tighter, a silent refusal that Luther accepted with subdued frustration.

God, if only he could take some of the responsibility from her. Her narrow but proud shoulders bore the weight for protecting all in her realm. In doing so, she’d had a lifetime of absorbing many inflicted hurts and defensible deaths.

Gaby truly believed in what she did, but that couldn’t make it any easier.

“Tell me about the men.”

After a moment, she collected herself. “All three of the bastards would have still been there when the cops arrived.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.” Sleepily, as if maiming men mattered little in comparison to killing helpless animals, she detailed the way in which she’d ensured their capture.

She must have mistaken Luther’s palpable frustration for a struggle to accept her, because she straightened her arms to sit up over him.

Luther had a struggle, all right. Gaby straddled his lap, her body bare, wet, and still flushed from sexual activity. And grief lent a softer edge to her usual strident demeanor, making her seem even more womanly, more vulnerable and approachable.

It wasn’t easy to keep altruistic motives at the forefront of his thoughts.

Until Gaby straightened with sharp-edged antagonism. “You want me to leave now, cop?”

His gaze shot from her breasts to see the unmitigated resignation on her face. Damn her, would she never accept him and what he felt for her?

His own countenance severe, Luther shook his head. “No, never.”

Surprise shifted her expression. “The police will be looking for me, you know.”

“Was there anyone to identify you?”

At his continued equable discourse, she eased. “Some kids.”

He cupped a breast and looked at her mouth. “You protected them. Not just for the moment, but in the long-term.”

“It won’t be enough. It never is.” Her inhalation pushed her breast more firmly into his palm—a circumstance they both noted. “I personally talked to two of the kids, one girl who told me about the drug peddlers burning down her aunt’s home. And there was a boy they had trapped near a fence. I ran him off before I took care of them.”

Took care of them . Because he needed to hear it all, Luther released her. “The kids will talk. And,” he said, trying for a smile that wasn’t entirely feigned, “they’ll tell how vicious the dealers are, and how one of them shot at you.”

“Bogg,” Gaby confirmed, giving Luther a name to research. “He was sort of the head honcho, but I wasn’t impressed much.”

“You never are.” He examined her arm again, thinking of how close that bullet had come to really hurting her. Oh, he’d check into Bogg’s file. And he’d make damn sure the bastard spent his life behind bars.