L.L. Foster - The Acceptance

“Not this time.” He caught her hand and pressed money, wrapped around a note, into her palm.

“What’s this?” Gaby started to separate the cash from the slip of paper, but Luther’s hand curved over hers.

Leaning close, he breathed into her ear, “You’re in disguise as a hooker, if you’ll remember. Well, I’m just keeping up appearances.” His hand tightened. “You should do the same.”

Heady with the richness of his scent in her nostrils, Gaby took a moment to gather her defenses against his effect. When Luther separated from her again, she looked at his face, and saw too much.

No one could call her a dummy. Aware of Luther’s urgency, Gaby smiled. “Sure thing.” She stuck the cash and the note in her pocket. “Let’s walk.”

His body didn’t budge. “I thought maybe we’d go to your room.”

“You thought wrong.” Her eyes narrowed. “And the next time you go poking around up there, I’ll have something to say about it.”

Luther went still, decided against subterfuge, and shrugged. “How did you know?”

Gaby couldn’t say for sure, but when she’d first returned to her rooms, she’d sensed that someone had been there, snooping around. The door hadn’t been disturbed, so no one had entered, but only because she’d made it so difficult to do so.

“I’m astute—and you’re far from stealthy.” She looked behind her at a noisy duo of men haggling price with Jimbo. “Now do you want to get away from here, or what?”

With a strange sort of affection, Luther said, “You are so damn difficult.”

Still watching the prospective johns, Gaby shrugged. “Not to people who leave me alone.”

“And that,” Luther said, taking her hand, “is something I can’t do.”

Gaby shot him a look, but he’d turned away and was determined to take her with him.

Did he infer an affection, or duty to his job as a cop?

She gave token resistance as Luther, maintaining his hold, towed her down the dark stretch of roadway, but they both knew if she wanted loose, she’d be loose, and he’d be hurting.

At least, she knew it.

Luther persisted in the farcical theory that he could hold his own against her.

And usually he could—because usually she hesitated to hurt him.

“You can let go now,” Gaby told him.

“I don’t want to.”

His big hand swallowed hers, warm and secure in an extrinsic way. Gaby rolled in her lips, fought with herself, and said, “Okay.”

The night breeze carried the cries of a baby. Somewhere nearby, glass broke. A car alarm went off, adding shrill stridency to the chronic bedlam.

Fingers entwined, they walked on.

The mood was nice—and deceptive.

With her left hand, Gaby retrieved the note and read it. Her innards churned. A prostitute has been murdered. I have to talk to you.

So, after seeing the body on the riverbank, Luther had rushed to her? Why? Did he suspect her of mutilating that poor girl, or did he hope to grill her for information on it? She’d covered her tracks, so surely he couldn’t know she’d already been there, that she was the one who’d called it in, that she—

“I was worried, Gaby.”

They were two blocks away and around a corner. Thoughts stalled with his admission; Gaby scowled at him. “Worried about what ?”

“You.” Before she could react to that, he held her face in hot palms, his long fingers tunneling into her hair, and he kissed her hard and fast. “Sick with worry.”

Damn, but every time he put his mouth on hers, he tasted better. Hotter.

She was fast becoming addicted.

Confused, and a little turned on, Gaby had to remind herself to be cautious. Luther couldn’t know she had prior knowledge of Lucy’s death. “Is kissing your answer for everything? Anger, worry, lust—”

“Around you, yes.”

“Huh.” Mouth twisting, she said, “That’s kinda sad, Luther.”

He laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in the low, rumbling chuckle. “Somehow, in some indefinable way, you’re irresistible, whether you want to admit it or not.”

Cocking a brow, Gaby looked down at her long, lanky, curveless body. “You’re so tired, you can’t see straight. Is that it?” He did sound exhausted. And strained.

“I’m fine.” He nodded at the note in her hand, then gestured her toward a bench where they could talk. “Let’s sit down.”

“I could use a rest.” Gaby sauntered past him and slouched onto the bench. Legs straight out, arms folded over her middle, she examined the toes of her boots. “So you were worried, huh? Wanna tell me why, or were you just planning to smooch?”

Luther sat beside her, but he didn’t relax. Elbows on his thighs, his hands hanging between his knees, he looked defeated with concern. “I know you have enemies, Gaby.”

“Yeah, who doesn’t?” She couldn’t be sure, but she assumed everyone, even normal folks, had others who detested them. Human nature wasn’t forgiving or accepting. The most pious in society were generally also the most harshly judgmental.

Turning his head to look at her, Luther said, “You read the note.”

“Yeah.” Gaby chewed her upper lip. “So a hooker was murdered, and you’re talking about it to me . . . why?”

“She was cut up real bad. Beaten. Probably tortured.”

Gaby knew all that, and still, hearing it from Luther’s mouth, seeing the turbulence in his aura, pained her.

“Who was she?”

He studied her in silence for several long moments. “You know her, Gaby.”

Trying to hide her reaction, Gaby drew in a breath. “One of the girls in my motel?”

His smile quirked. “So now it’s your motel?”

Annoyance pinched her face. “No. But I stay there. That’s what I meant and you know it so stop being an asshole.”

He sighed. And he took her hand, cradling it on his thigh, offering an unfamiliar comfort. “I’m pretty sure she stays there. She was out front the other day when I came around asking about you.”

Eyes widening, Gaby asked, “You did what?” She tried to pull her hand back, albeit without much determination, and Luther held on.

“Her body was dumped in the river, but she was dead before that.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “I’m sorry, Gaby, but when I got on the scene and realized where I’d seen her, all I could think about was that maybe it was a warning.”

Caution kept her temper in check. “To who?”

Luther slumped, holding her knuckles to his forehead. “Carver wants revenge on you.”

Alarms shrieked throughout Gaby’s system. “What the hell do you know of that?” More frantic now, she tried to free herself. They ended up in a real struggle that brought them both off the bench.

Luther locked his arms around her, squeezing the breath from her lungs. Gaby knew she could head-butt him, knee him in the crotch, any number of moves that’d get her free real quick.

But oddly, his need for the embrace quelled her more violent tendencies. “Luther?”

“I hate this, Gaby.”

“This?”

In a sudden turnaround, he thrust her back from him, and began to vociferate in a mean snarl, “Fearing for you, because you’re too goddamned stubborn to fear for yourself. Trying to protect you when you fight me every step of the way. Wondering how to get through to you, if I ever will, or if eventually I’ll show up only to find you—”

His pain and frustration became her own.

Which meant his lust became hers, too. After all, he’d taught her what she knew of the volatile, volcanic emotion. For her, Luther and lust were synonymous.

Gaby threw herself against him and plastered her mouth to his. His hands clamped on to her shoulders as if to push her away; instead, he crushed her closer.