Slave to Love (10 page)

The trick was to recognize him when you saw him.

“We'll call you with the morning list before we knock off,” Brady said, and waved.

Mick trotted away toward Mountain Ave and the main loop of his circuit. His thigh muscles were screaming and sweat poured off him by the time he'd powered around the Arroyo Seco to the Rose Bowl and back to his own red brick apartment building in a transitional section of Old Town.

Behind schedule, he didn't bother to make coffee before he stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower. As he turned on the taps full-blast, he put his fingers to his nose and breathed in the lingering pleasures of the previous night one last time.

And wondered how the hell he was going to get through the day without pushing her into a closet somewhere and reliving them firsthand.

***

Caroline woke up with a smile on her face and a sweet sting between her legs. She hadn't felt this well and thoroughly fucked since...well, since ever. Mick McGraw was a wizard with his cock, and fiendishly inventive to boot. Oh, man. She didn't think she'd walk for a week. If she was vaguely embarrassed by her wanton loss of control under his wicked coaching, it had been well worth it. The man had fulfilled every fantasy she'd ever entertained about him, and several she would never have thought of.

Without opening her eyes she reached across to where she expected him to be sleeping, as replete and exhausted as she. But the other side of the bed was empty.

“Mick?”

She hoisted a droopy eyelid and scanned the bedroom. Silence hung about the room, as thick as the scent of sex in the air. No sign of her demon lover. No jeans on the floor. No strong, naked limbs buried in the pillows scattered across the top of the rumpled bed, other than her own. His phone, his gun, even the condom packets they had littered the floor with were gone.

He'd left her.

She let out a curse. Then another, in reaction to the first.

Hell.

She gave herself a swift mental kick and strangled the irrational emotions that threatened to swamp over her at his desertion. Stupid feelings, of hurt and betrayal.

She took a deep breath. It was all cool. There was no place in her life for a man, she reminded herself. Especially McGraw. He was her
boss
for chrissakes. Talk about the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life! She didn’t even want to think about the possibility that he’d just been using her. Priming the pump, as it were, to make them more believable as a couple at Brimstone. That would be too damn mortifying.

On the other hand, who gave a damn? She was not interested in a relationship, and she’d told him that. Particularly not with a man who could sink her hopes and dreams, career-wise, with a single word. And if he could sink her, she had equal power over his continued employment. Yeah, she could handle Mick McGraw. By making a precipitous exit, he had only done what she wanted. What was best for both of them.

So why was she so damn frustrated? Feeling like, just once in her life, she'd like to meet a man who had the balls to defy her wishes. Someone who knew what
he
wanted and wasn't afraid to demand it of her. Who would reach into her heart and rip it out, if need be, just to get her to feel something. Someone stronger, meaner and tougher than she was.

Someone like Mick had been last night.

Fuck him for making her think he really wanted her.

Scowling, she glanced at the clock. If she tried to get up now she'd probably collapse. Tonight they'd be at Brimstone until all hours. Surely he wouldn't dare say a word if she came in a little late from getting an extra hour's sleep—considering it was his fault that she hadn't gotten any to begin with. She turned over and slammed her eyes shut. And if he didn’t like it, that was just too damn bad.

***

At ten o'clock, she walked into the task force room and looked around for an empty desk. She felt jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Memories of the scandalous things she and Mick had done in her bed last night swirled into a giddy dread of seeing him. How would he treat her, now that they’d become lovers? Would he look at her with that special, sexy light in his eyes she'd melted beneath so many times last night? Or would he not even remember her name this morning...?

“You're late, Officer Palmer.”

His crisp, chilly observation cracked across the room, lifting heads all around. It was all the answer she needed. Last night had meant less than nothing to him, judging by the censure on his face. Recoiling from the involuntary hurt, Caroline felt her heart curl into a tight ball and creep back into the recesses of her innermost self. Back to where it had resided for most of her life.

Screw him.

Who needed the lying jerk anyway? She could handle this assignment much better without the complication.

She made herself stand straight and tall, unwilling to back down. As she had every time she’d confronted her father. “Since we'll be going undercover tonight, I thought—”

“We're all pulling twelve hour days, Palmer. You can put in your overtime just like everyone else.”

Her father had never given an inch, either.

“That will make an eighteen hour day, in case you have trouble adding,” she gritted out.

“Deal with it. I needed the daily update an hour ago. Get on it.”

For a split second the temptation to deliver a smack on his overbearing cheek nearly overwhelmed her.

“Yes,
sir
,” she said instead. He would
not
goad her into giving up this chance in Homicide. She might have made a colossal mistake last night, but she wasn’t the only one. If he thought by fucking her he could intimidate her as well, he had another think coming.

With deliberate calm, she set her purse on an empty desk and took the stack of individual reports he thrust at her. And for the rest of the morning she ignored the bastard.

At lunchtime she slipped out from the tense camaraderie of the task force as the other members organized sandwiches and sodas from a nearby take-out place, and went downstairs to SIS.

“Hey,
querida
!”

Julio met her with a big hug, which she happily returned. Now, here was a man who knew how to treat a woman right. Just figured he was gay.

“Yo, Palmer! How is it working for the Iceman?” called Lieutenant Bridger from across the room.

“Better check me for frostbite,” she returned sardonically. But something in her eyes must have betrayed her, because Julio peered into them suspiciously.

After parrying a few more teasing remarks from the squad, she let him lead her back to their desk in the corner.

“What's happened?” he murmured and put his arms around her. “And don' tell me nothin',
chica
,” he said in his smooth Hispanic lilt.

She shook her head, not wanting to go into the gory details. “I fucked up, Jul. Big-time.” She reached up and pulled the strings of his shark-tooth bolo tie. “Why don't I
ever
listen to myself?”

He studied her for a second, then his jaw dropped. “
Ay Dios
! You slept with him!”

She let out a humorless chuckle. “Actually, there wasn't a lot of sleeping involved. At least not for him. When I woke up he'd already gone.” 

“The cad,” Julio muttered with a deadly expression. “And this morning I suppose he's back to treating you like a peon, or you wouldn' be down here moping.”

“I am not moping. I came to see you.”

His expression softened. “You're a terrible liar, you know.”

“Am not. So, how are
you
?” she asked pointedly.

“Me?” He shrugged, apparently going along with her change of subject for the moment. “You mean aside from having another knock-down drag-out with Barry?”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Oh, Jul. I'm so sorry.”

He pulled her close. “Thanks. I don' know what to do. He stayed out all night. Again. I'm sure he's found someone else.”

“He wouldn't dare. Doesn't he know he's got the best man in the country?” She held him for a moment, then gave a humorless chuckle. “Jeez, what a pair we are. Sure you wouldn't consider going straight?”

He laughed, kissing her nose. “For you,
querida
, I just might give it a try.”

From the door, Mick's voice cut through the air like a whip. “This how you spend your time in SIS, Palmer? It's a wonder you ever close cases.”

“Well, if it isn' the ever-tactful Detective McGraw,” Julio observed dryly. “Qué pasa, Detective?”

“What are you doing here?” Mick asked Caro stonily.

“It's lunch break,” she answered evenly, disentangling herself from Julio’s comforting embrace to turn and face McGraw. Her partner’s arms remained supportively around her.

She leaned back onto his chest and leveled a gaze at the man she'd spent most of the night under. And had to catch her breath. How he managed to look so fresh and unrumpled and sexy on the amount of sleep he'd gotten astounded her.

He closed in on her and the chiseled angles of his clean-shaven jaw grew sharper. “We usually spend lunch brainstorming task force strategies. Everyone is expected to participate.”

She crossed her arms against the unwanted erotic pull of his nearness, against the sensual familiarity of his every feature up-close, luring her to reach out and touch him.

“I'm sure no one noticed I wasn't there.”

His eyes narrowed. “
I
noticed.”

“Well, maybe you should have told me.”

“I'm telling you now.”

She bit back a retort, resenting the way he obviously expected her to jump to his command. As she had last night. The difference was, last night she’d been temporarily blinded by lust. She gave him a cool smile. “What's the matter, McGraw? Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

Mick's ice-blue eyes drilled into hers. “No.”

“Maybe he just got up too early,” Julio offered into the tight silence. “I hear gettin’ up too early can mess with a man's temper. An’ his good judgment.”

Ignoring him, Mick stated, “Agent Woodruff will be here in a few minutes to help interview the friends of the victims and go through the Brimstone employee files. I don't like having to chase after my people. Don't make me do it again.”

With that, he stalked to the door and waited. The whole squad turned to see what she'd do.

“Better go before he blows a gasket,” Julio muttered, giving her a quick kiss behind the ear and a little swat on the butt.

“Traitor,” she hissed beneath her breath, batting at his hand for smacking her ass, which he knew she hated. Nevertheless she did what he suggested, clamping her jaw against saying something she might regret.

When they got to the elevator, Mick stabbed the button and emptied his displeasure on her full-force. “What the
hell
was that all about? You
told
him?”

The elevator opened and she was herded in like a recalcitrant mare by a stallion.

“I didn't have to,” she said, turning on him, suddenly strangely composed. “What’s the matter, McGraw? Worried?”

She stepped close and stroked down his tie, slowly continuing the path down his abdomen with her hands. She’d show him what the hell this was all about.

“Caro...” he warned.

“Hmm?”

She kept right on going and slid a hand between his thighs, cupping the weight of his balls in her palm. She was gratified when he sucked in a breath, his eyes flaring momentarily in shock.

“Afraid I'll tell everyone how much you like being touched—” she twirled them gently in her hand, stroking the sweet spot right behind with her middle finger “—like this?”