Page 17 of Only for Him
Someone slashed the tires!
“Looks like you’ll have to walk home, Detective,” he whispers, mouth close to my ear. “I told you it’s dangerous for a pretty cop like you to be here alone at night.”
He releases my shoulder and delivers a smack to my ass hard enough to sting as he shoves me into the night. Before I can react, the door slams in my face, and I hear the lock engage.
I stand there as the cold wind off the ocean cuts through my uniform. Serena’s earrings seem to slice into my lobe like a warning. And on the other side of the door, Ivan must be laughing at how easily he humiliated me.
The frictionof Ivan’s hand still burns on my ass when I pull out my phone to call an Uber. And as if to top off an already shitty day, my phone flickers and dies the moment I bring it out.
Just great.
I tuck the phone into my back pocket, grit my teeth, and walk for the nearest subway station.
The street is empty, but not quiet. There’s a tremor beneath every shadow, a vibration that might be the ocean or the city’s digestive system at work. The elevated tracks over the highway roar in steady intervals.
And I feel it again.
The sensation I’m being watched.
I check the darkness behind me once, twice, and three times for good measure. Each time I do, my hand brushes the grip of my gun. Someoneisfollowing me. I catch the glimpse of a shadow melting into the night.
But whether it’s those blue eyes that have haunted me since last night or something else, I can’t tell. So, I keep my hand on my gun.
There’s no use lying about it.
I’m scared.
Scared enough to speedwalk to the subway station. Speedwalking makes everyone look stupid, myself included. Looking stupid makes me feel pathetic and small and Ihatewhoever is behind me that’s making me feel this way.
But Ivan’s words echo in my ear as I walk.It’s dangerous for a pretty cop like you to be here alone at night. And I can’t forgetthe way his grubby fingers dug into my flesh, the way his leery eyes gazed down my uniform, or the way he licked his lips as he raped me with his eyes.
Anger soaks into my flesh, and everything goes tense. It has nowhere else to go, nowhere to release, and it keeps winding up inside me until everything stretches to a breaking limit that never comes.
The Q train platform is a mortuary slab. An old man slumps on the bench, reading a worn-out newspaper soundlessly. Mysterious liquids bleed from the base of the black trash can chained to one of the light posts.
I tell myself that if anyone wanted to kill me, they’d have better luck on the street than here. But the feeling of being watched—being followed—doesn’t leave.
I stand at the center of the platform, body loose but alert. Up here, the wind is colder, and it’s something of a relief. The lights overhead flicker. A train that isn’t mine goes by, and no one gets on or off.
But something else changes.
And somehow I know.
He’s here.
A massive man stands in the shadow near the stairwell on the opposite platform, hands in his pockets, feet wide and casual. He’s dressed for anonymity—black hoodie, black pants—but the angle of his chin is arrogant, like he’s waiting for the world to come to him.
At first, I can’t see his face. The lights strobe in a rhythm that hides and reveals, and I get only flashes: the sharp hinge of his jaw, the blade of a nose, a curl of hair falling across his forehead.
Then he shifts, just a fraction, and the hood slips back.
Our eyes meet.
Blue.
The cobalt of a bruise blooming beneath skin. The man from the gala. The one I’ve been thinking about, dreaming about, andfeelingnonstop.
I freeze, exposed by the brightness of the platform, every cell screaming at me to either run or shoot. Buthedoesn’t move, and his stillness commands me to mirror him.
