Page 9 of Cruel Vows
I feigned some mild disinterest, tilting my head like a fucking dog. "Half-eaten? I thought gators finished their food and cleaned their plates."
"Not the time for jokes, Lil—Miss St. Clair." The chief was clearly in a mood. Perhaps he'd missed his morning coffee run.
I could help with that, maybe. "Excuse me, where are my manners? Chief, would you like something to drink? I've got a premium roast in my lounge."
The police chief shrugged and made to step forward to follow me as I turned to re-enter my room, but his subordinate, Keehn, reached out a hand to stop him. "Not a good idea, Chief. We're here on business, and Miss St. Clair is very much like a Venus fly trap—she's beautiful and mesmerizing to study but dangerous when you get too close and comfortable."
I let my hand flutter to rest on my collarbone, playing the offended and flattered southern belle. "Why, Mister McCoy, how nice of you to recognize my ratherpeculiartalents. I daresay they're my finest feature."
The gentlemen stood in my doorway, pretending for all the world not to be afraid of little ole me. But I knew better. I could smell the fear on them. See it in the way the sweat beaded on the chief's forehead, or how Keehn postured himself with that hand over his gun, like he might need it at the drop of a hat. It was in the way they both stared at me as if I might strike them at any moment. And how they still searched for an escape route, knowing damn well there was none.
Yes, these boys were frightened of me. Of this whole place. The asylum had a way of doing that to any normal person who stepped through its doors. The atmosphere was one thing;to willingly walk in knowing you were entering a den of liars, killers, and sadists?
Stupid.
This new chief wouldn't last, but perhaps he could be molded to suit our needs.
"So, Chief," I said airily, letting the unspoken invitation hang in the air, knowing full well they wouldn't take it, thanks to Keehn and his cautious streak. "I can't say I know what you're talking about, as far as those bodies in the swamp." I strode over to my coffee brewer, leaving them in the doorway, as I poured a mug of my very expensive, imported brew. "Sugar? Cream?"
The chief seemed to forget he had turned it down, and I could hear the smile in his voice as he answered me. "Just a little cream, thanks."
I didn't speak another word as I poured a second mug with the familiar blend of cream and sugar that I'd brought to Keehn for the entirety of our relationship, and some time after that. When I returned to the gentlemen, I handed each a mug with a soft, disarming smile and watched as they lifted them to their lips, taking a hearty drink, assuming I would never harm them in their own town.
They'd be wrong, but at least this time, there was no poison in that coffee.
The chief downed his in one go, clearly parched or sleep-deprived, one of the two. Keehn sipped his more slowly, a delightful contrast to the man at his side. He'd always appreciated the value of a good cup of coffee, brewed from fresh-ground, imported beans. His leader looked at him, then me, then made a decision that would make my day infinitely more interesting.
"Keehn—you and Miss St. Clair seem to be already acquainted with one another, I assume from the time before I transferred in. Perhaps you can finish up here and meet me backat the station." He didn't wait for an answer; he just handed me back the mug, now empty, with a polite nod and a smile. "Thank you for the coffee, madame. Perhaps on the next occasion we have to meet, it will be under better circumstances."
"Perhaps," I acquiesced. "Keehn, since you'll be staying, perhaps you'd like to make yourself comfortable in the parlor while I put on something more presentable."
When the door to my suites closed, his gaze lit on my robe as if he could see straight through it. "I've already seen everything you're hiding under that terrycloth monstrosity." His gaze darkened, and that feral smile that he used to wear right before we had sex alighted on his lips, making my mouth water. "No need to hide it from me."
I turned away from him with a cackle. "You fucking wish, Keehn. That part of our lives is over, and I, for one, have no intention to return to it."
But I did let the robe slide from my shoulders to pool on the floor. The sound of his quick intake of breath was enough to make my body sing. I so loved to get one over on him, and by letting him watch my bare ass walk away, I had the upper hand, and he knew it. We both knew it.
I slipped into my bedroom and tugged an old favorite friend from the side drawer of my dresser—it was a little black thing, barely big enough to fill my palm, and came with a Bluetooth remote that currently sat in the middle of my bed. I'd already set out a dress for the day and slipped it over my head with a sigh, the soft silk caressing my skin when it drifted into place over my delicate frame. Before I walked back out there, though, I hiked a leg up on my bed and grabbed the little black thing, slipping it inside myself with a soft sigh of pleasure. I didn't bother to slip on panties—I'd only get them wet. And Ihatedthe feel of wet clothes against my body.
With the discreet little toy perfectly tucked away inside me and the remote now in my hand, I marched right back out to the parlor, pleased to find Keehn rubbing his neck in agitation, a sure sign he was just as affected by me as I was by him. Except one of us had matured and grown, evolving into somethingmore.
And one of us was still a low-level detective, working the same beat he'd walked since the day he joined the force.
"I see you kept the dress I bought you for your birthday," he drawled, swallowing thickly as his eyes cut to the hem of said dress, where I'd ripped off the stupid lace the day he gave it to me. He'd laughed at me then, but later, when I wrapped it around his throat and led him around like a dog, he'd barked.
For me.
"It's hardly good form to throw out a masterpiece like this, you know." I lifted a shoulder and offered him my hand. "Want to go for a walk?"
He let me lead him to the door, but the second I put my hand on the knob, he spun me around and slammed me up against the hard wood, one of the only doors in this damnable place made out of something other than metal. His body crowded me in, and I flashed back to that insecure girl off the streets, facing her first possible arrest, offering her body to a man who had no problem flexing his power over her.
For the first time in forever, I realized what he'd always been—an abuser—a cretin, using me for his own pleasure, exploiting a girl in a vulnerable state. Any lingering attraction I'd had for him dried up in that moment, and I wrenched myself out of his grip before he could follow through and plant those thin lips on mine in a mockery of a kiss.
"Get fucked,Detective McCoy,"I spat, yanking the door open to march out into the hallway and toward the stairs.
I could hear him following me, but even he wasn't stupid enough to try anything when I stepped into the crowded foyer, slipping between the mass of bodies in an attempt to put some distance between us.
How ironic, then, that I realized belatedly I'd dropped the fucking remote to my vibrator in my scuffle with Keehn.
