Page 5 of Liaising Kai

“Boss?” Austin Beck said. His more-than-usual morning peppiness made her want to punch something.

“Yes, what is it?” She quickly calculated the odds of her telling him to take care of it while she went back into oblivion and discovered that she just couldn’t shirk her responsibility…certainly not for a freaking hangover from hell.

“Ah, we caught a case, and…ah…we expected you about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Oh, shit,” she said, low and vicious. With effort, she focused on the time and groaned. “I’m on my way. What is the case?”

“A petty officer’s been murdered, and it’s not the run-of-the-mill murder, ma’am.”

“Okay, text me the address.” When her phone chimed right in her ear, she gritted her teeth at the fresh wave of pain. She looked down at her text and discovered, luckily, the crime scene wasn’t more than ten minutes away. “Get started and I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

Something tried to break through the fog of pain and remorse in her brain. Through the grief and the loss, she’d gone to Halloran’s dressed to entice a man into her bed. Alcohol and sex had been her choice to get through Alissa’s birthday. She would have turned twenty years old, but there wasn’t going to ever be any presents, or cake, or celebration for her daughter.

Fresh grief and agonizing pain rushed through her, settling in the pit of her stomach, lodging in her chest and her throat. Kai groaned, levering herself up on her elbow. Her hair was obscuring her face as she gently rose, pushing back the heavy strands and the covers. Standing, she wavered a moment, reaching for her equilibrium. She had a job to do, and she needed to get her butt in the shower.

She shuffled across the bedroom and into the bathroom, wishing she could infuse a cup of black coffee right into her veins.

She grabbed a glass and turned on the tap, then opened her medicine cabinet for painkillers. Drink plenty of fluids and take some aspirin before you go to bed.

What the hell? She blinked at the good advice that she had neglected to take. Who had told her that? The night was nothing but a jumbled-up puzzle.

When she closed the medicine cabinet, she groaned at her reflection. She looked like death warmed over with her ashen skin, black tracks of mascara on her cheeks. She didn’t question why she’d been crying. She turned the water on blessedly hot to revive her. She needed her wits for this investigation. Her crack team was always on top of things, but she was their leader, and she didn’t want them to think she was…ah, human? No, fallible.

She washed and scrubbed until she was clean, then got out and was much more pleased with the reflection in the mirror. She looked better, not quite there, but ready to take on a case, especially when she had a cup of coffee in her.

She dried her long fall of hair, applied some makeup, and that helped to hide her ravaging pain and hangover from the night before. Damned scotch.

She froze. The night was quickly coming back to her in bits and pieces like broken glass. There was a reason she hadn’t woken up in a stranger’s bed. It’s because…oh, so help her God…Davis Nishida had brought her home and they had kissed. No, she had kissed him.

She lowered her face into her hands. Her heart was breaking, breaking into a thousand jagged pieces. She hurt so badly, but she couldn’t deny that deep inside her blood was rushing faster and a small spark of hope had flamed to life, because Davis Nishida had cared.

She should have shut him down last night like she had in the past, but she was so tired and so alone, and she wanted the warmth of a man who at least knew her a little. She’d just wanted to breathe without it hurting in her chest but kissing him had worked and she’d let another barrier fall away, opened herself up a little more, just to take him in, just to get closer to his heat.

Everything about him turned her on, which was such a relief. She hadn’t been sure she would still function. Then he’d gone all noble on her and everything had gotten so screwed up.

Everything.

So damned screwed up.

Another surge of panic sizzled into her veins when she thought about how he had kissed her back, and every fantasy she’d ever had about him paled in comparison to the flesh and blood man. His words still echoed in her throbbing head. I’m just not that guy. I’m never going to be that guy for you.

He had been locked onto her like a heat-seeking missile, and so help her God, all she wanted was more…of him. He soothed something deep inside her. She hadn’t wanted him to back off, and it crossed her mind that if she just kept at it, just kept pushing, he would loosen up, just give in and do what she needed him to do. Make her forget.

She let the memories fall through her mind and fall into place, revealing to her turbulent snapshots of brief memories. Kissing him, mauling him, and just plain throwing herself at him. Slapping him when he wouldn’t comply.

Oh, crap. She froze, pretty much horrified by her last train of thought. She’d slapped him and he’d taken it without protest, almost as if he thought he deserved it. Now she had a full-blown panic attack jacking her heart rate up into the danger zone. She had slid off the deep end last night right into nowhere, and she remembered she’d felt that if he let her go, something terrible was going to happen. She didn’t know what. She just knew it would be terrible. Talk about being freaking irrational, she was afraid it was already too late for her. Undeniably, she owed him one hell of an apology.

The truth was, it had been a long time since she’d even felt she wanted a man, and what she’d done hadn’t seemed at all stupid or crude at the time. It was wonderful. Touching him had made her feel warm all over and hot inside, and so very alive—which she realized was why she’d always run in the opposite direction. She hadn’t been sure she wanted to return to being alive.

Gathering her still-damp hair back into a ponytail, she pushed all of that to the back of her mind, and rushed out of the bathroom, throwing on some clothes, and snatching her cell phone from the bedside table. Thank God she had enough presence of mind to charge it.

She stopped in her office to unlock the safe where she kept her weapon and clipped on the holster. In the foyer, she grabbed her keys, and her badge, shoving money, her driver’s license, and a tube of lipstick into her pants pockets.

She took a hard breath as she froze for a minute, the memory of standing there galvanized her. She’d kissed him deeply, hungrily, desperately, striving for mindless pleasure to chase away all the hollow loss from her daughter’s death. Sliding her hand down his belly, cupping his erection in her palm and stroking him through the denim of his jeans. He was already so hard and ready, and she needed him in ways she couldn’t define. Physical release was what she thought he would give her, but she’d been wrong, and he’d been more man than she’d expected, stirring up more emotional chaos swirling within her and making her feel as though her carefully guarded life was spinning out of control.

In the car minutes later, driving carefully, she decided she didn’t have a choice but to endure from one minute to the next. Marines…devil dogs didn’t give up, and she was a devil dog to the core. She’d found that out the hard way, learned it at the young age of eighteen. But that wasn’t all the wisdom she’d accumulated in her young life right up until she’d enlisted in the Marines. No, she’d lived a lifetime before becoming one of the few, one of the proud.

Pulling up in front of the petty officer’s home, she saw that Austin, Amber, and Derrick were all there along with the local cops. Kelly pulled up behind her. The moment Kai stepped out of her car, Austin was there with a white bag and a cup of coffee.

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