The Kindred

Chapter 2

Frustration decimated Luther’s last ounce of patience. The ferocity of the storm didn’t help, hampering everything that needed to be done, inhibiting the forensic work. More than two hours passed before he could get Gaby into his car to take her home.

All the while he’d given orders—overseeing the nearly wasted body into an ambulance, assigning a few uniformed cops to keep watch, directing others within the old house—and at the same time, tried to help Gaby. Unsure of how she might react, he hadn’t wanted her out of his reach. That meant the only way to get her out of the rain was to take her just inside the house.

She’d sat in a dusty corner, eyes unfocused, pulse racing. Fear held her as securely as the chains held their victim.

Even like this, in a state of sheer panic, she remained untouchable by most. Ann had tried to speak with her, but got no response. Only when he could put aside his duty and touch her did she show any sign of comprehension.

How someone could live with such a debilitating fear, he couldn’t imagine. For someone of Gaby’s dominating character, it’d be the worst of handicaps. She was a doer, someone who wanted and needed to help others. When fear held her back, it would be unbearable.

Was her phobia of storms due in part to her many years under foster care? Not that Luther could entirely blame people who’d only wanted to help a little girl and instead had gotten a preternatural child with immeasurable abilities few would ever understand or accept.

Seeing the barren perception in her eyes twisted Luther’s heart. Only the very certain belief that Gaby would resent herself more if he hadn’t done his job had kept him from removing her from the scene earlier. But he had fulfilled his duty as a detective and now he wanted to concentrate on her.

When they were both safely ensconced in his car, he kicked on the heater and rubbed her thigh. “Gaby? We’re going home now.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed, but she didn’t reply.

He drove away from the scene. Rain drenched her clothes and he realized he needed to get her warm and dry. She shivered in misery—and so much more.

“The guy we found . . . he was as close to death as I’ve ever seen anyone.” Why he kept talking, Luther wasn’t sure, but he wanted her to know how she’d helped. “Thank you for leading me to him.”

A shiver ran through her, but she didn’t reply.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Luther said, “so I don’t know if he’ll make it. But if he does, he has you to thank.”

Gaby frowned a little, either in disagreement, or in surprise that she’d heard him, that his voice had registered beyond her palpitating despair.

Understanding Gaby as he did now, he could easily guess how she’d hate her inability to act. He felt a desperate need to reassure her. “I know how hard this is for you. But you got him help, Gaby. You pushed past the fear and made sure we knew about him.”

Her lashes fluttered, her mouth tightened the tiniest bit.

“You’re the most courageous person I know, and that’s saying a lot, given the honorable men I’ve worked with.” He glanced at her, rubbed her leg again while steering one-handed. “I don’t know if we got to him in time, though. I’ve never seen anyone so white or weak. Another hour and he’d have been dead.”

He took her left hand, lifted it to his mouth and let his warm breath soothe the iciness away. He saw her eyelashes flicker again, and her tongue came out to moisten her bottom lip.

That encouraged Luther. “He’s an addict, Gaby, like the other, with plenty of track marks. But I saw nothing to say he’d been deliberately bled.”

Her struggle to focus left her voice raw and deep. “He was.”

“Okay.” Thrilled to hear her voice, Luther squeezed her fingers. “I believe you.”

The car grew almost uncomfortably warm, but he didn’t turn down the blower. The fact that she’d spoken proved that some of her abyssal terror had waned. “Once the doctors have looked him over, they’ll call me. We can confirm things then.”

“They won’t know where to look.” Her expression pinched in pain, and she closed her eyes a moment to concentrate. “You’ll have to insist.”

Again he said, “Okay.” He couldn’t help but smile a little, mostly with relief. Bossiness crept back into her manner, reassuring him that she’d be her old self in no time.

With her free hand, she toyed with the choker he’d bought her, the choker she never removed. “I fucking hate storms.”

“I noticed.” Her grumbling delighted him; her acceptance of his gift thrilled him more. The choker was the only jewelry she ever wore. “It’s better now that we’re in the car, out of it?”

She nodded, and turned her face away.

Though she remained too tense, and far too pale, Luther let it go, content to touch her as he drove cautiously along the roads until he finally turned into his driveway. “Want me to pull into the garage?” He usually didn’t, but if it’d make things easier for Gaby, he didn’t mind.

She stared out the window, filled her lungs with a very deep, fortifying breath, and—without replying—opened her door and got out.

A gigantic lightning bolt ripped apart the sky and crackled along the ground. Deafening thunder shook the air around them.

Gaby froze again.

“Damn it.” Luther rushed around to her, gathered her close, and led her inside. She’d again retreated into herself, into some safe haven where he couldn’t reach her. Luther wanted to howl at the storm for doing this to her, and he wanted to go back into her past and find everyone responsible for ever hurting her.

“Come here, Gaby. Let me help you.”

When he tugged on her arms, she moved as directed, but with a zombielike void of comprehension. On the tile entry, they both dripped puddles. Luther locked the door and turned to her. Her colorless lips trembled.

A tidal wave of emotion rose to choke him.

Luther hugged her close, rubbed her chilled arms, and kissed her throat. She didn’t thaw at all. He needed to get her warm, and fast, but he couldn’t. Not while she wore cold, rain-soaked clothes.

Kissing her made him feel better, and even now, with her being so emotionally wounded, the taste of her satisfied something deep inside him, something he’d never experienced with any other woman.

Though Luther’s ardor grew, Gaby didn’t make a single sound, and he hated that. “To hell with it.” He knew what he wanted to do, knew the best way to reach her.

Leaving her for only a moment, he went to the adjacent living room and closed the drapes, and then turned on the television. Maybe if she couldn’t see and hear the storm, it wouldn’t bother her so deeply.

Gaby stood frozen where he’d left her as he went down the hall to the guest bathroom to gather up a few towels. When he returned to her he smoothed her dark hair away from her face. With his heart pounding, he kissed her mouth and, little by little, her icy lips thawed.

“Gaby.” His mouth still touching hers, he looked at her, and then covered her left breast with his palm.

Her eyelashes fluttered, so he kissed her again, deeper this time, as he cuddled her breast.

It appalled Luther that he was turned on while she stood paralyzed by terror. Maybe it was seeing her quiescent for a change instead of defiant, maybe it was that for once she didn’t scald him with her acerbic disdain.

Whatever logic he applied, he shook with wanting her. Lust roughened his voice as he spoke. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes and warmed up.”

For most women, what he was about to do would be unethical in the extreme, even illegal. But for Gaby, it was the only way he knew to help her.

Her shirt stuck to her skin as he wrestled it up and over her head. It hit the tiled foyer with a sodden plop. Luther looked at her, at her small breasts and her nipples drawn tight by cold, and knew he was a goner.

Using one of the towels, he squeezed excess water from her hair and then dried her torso. And because he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her again, on her soft, pale lips, her nose, her chin.

“I’ll have you warm soon, I promise.”

The waistband of her loose, worn jeans curled outward from her thin frame, exposing her narrow hip bones and a tantalizing navel within a concave belly. Around her waist, Luther saw the thin leather belt that held her lethal blade in a sheath concealed at the small of her back. The stark reminder of who Gaby was, and what she did, didn’t faze him. He knew her, and he accepted her.

Cautious, because Gaby could be unpredictable at the most unexpected times, Luther unfastened and removed the sheathed knife from her person. Her lips firmed and her brows pinched, proof that even while in a stupor, she didn’t like losing her knife.

Keeping his gaze on her, he placed the weapon on the hall table for safekeeping. “It’s okay. No one is here but us. The knife’s not going anywhere, I promise.”

The suffocating fear had such a stranglehold on Gaby that she offered no further challenge or protest. Now, at this particular moment, she looked small and feminine and vulnerable when normally those terms could never be applied to her.

The chilly room gave her a shiver, and Luther’s gaze again went to her exposed breasts. For only a few seconds, he covered each breast, cuddled her, gave her his warmth. Then he forced himself to keep his brain on task.

Yes, he planned to pay plenty of attention to those pert breasts, but not yet. First he wanted her more comfortable, and that meant removing the rest of her clothes—and his.

Going to one knee, he slipped off her sandals, thinking to himself that with the cooling weather, she’d need some different, warmer outfits.

When she’d moved in, she insisted on having her own room—not to be apart from him, but for privacy of other matters.

What those matters might be, Luther didn’t yet know. Gaby would tell him in her own good time.

To accomplish his plans of getting closer to her, he’d gladly given her the spare room. Refusing his help, she’d carried in a few small boxes and a larger trunk that held God only knew what. She’d stowed it all in the room. Maybe she had some warmer clothes in there.

After she came around, he’d ask her.

Her soaked-through jeans, even a size too large, proved tricky to get down her hips. But once Luther had them to her knees he discovered her lack of panties.

Damn. He’d forgotten her rush in dressing, and her general lack of modesty. Gaby gave no more notice to her body than she did her attire. She lacked any real grasp of her sexual appeal.

He was only a man, and he wanted her, had wanted her for a long time. Seeing her naked again, her fair skin teased with goose bumps, tested his control.

On his knees in front of her, Luther reached around her body to palm one firm cheek. He wanted to kiss her belly—and more—but Gaby made a small sound that jerked him back to reality.

Standing in a rush, he grabbed a towel and dried off the rest of her body, lingering on that sweet ass, and over her belly, between her thighs. By the time he wrapped the towel around her, he had enough heat to warm them both.

Naked except for the towel and choker, Gaby stood there before him and did nothing.

“Hang on, honey. Let me get rid of my clothes, too, and then we’ll get . . . comfortable.”

Saying it caused his dick to flex, to stiffen, but he couldn’t help that either. He’d made up his mind and it was the only way he knew to break the spell.

He stripped his clothes with swift urgency, putting his badge, gun and holster, cell phone, radio, and wallet on the table by her knife. Seeing the items side by side gave the differences in their lives a harsh reality.

He had everyday items used by most of society to stay in touch with others, to label him as a cop, and to defend. For Gaby, there was nothing to identify her, nothing to communicate with; she had a honed blade meant to kill, period.

Luther refused to ponder the contrasts.

Leaving the soppy pile of clothes in his entryway, he took Gaby’s arm and drew her to the couch with him. He drew her down onto his lap and covered them both with a soft throw.

Gaby was a tall woman, willowy in build, sleek with muscle. In comparison, he topped her by three inches in height and at least a hundred pounds. As he settled them both, her head fit under his chin, her hand rested over his heart. Holding her felt as right as anything he’d ever done in his life.

Luther stroked up and down her back, sometimes going over her hip, sometimes her waist. He kissed her shoulder, the side of her neck around the choker he’d bought her, the choker she never removed. Soon he forgot his own motives. He was a man on the make, pure and simple.

Little by little, Gaby relaxed. She even tipped her head to give him better access to her collarbone.

With a soft groan, Luther leaned her back and put his mouth over her breast, drawing on her nipple.

Her fingers knotted in his hair, thrilling him with the sign of life, of response—and of willingness.

The pulled drapes left the room dark, shadowed only by the flickering light of the television. Luther could still hear the raging wind and rain battering against the window, and he heard Gaby’s breathing as it deepened.

He lifted back up to take her mouth in a voracious kiss that consumed them both.

She gave a heavy shudder, then suddenly clutched at him, encouraging him without words.

“Gaby . . . ” He slid his hand along the inside of her thigh.

After a fractured moan, she scowled at him. “You’re doing something to me.”

“Yeah.” He nuzzled her face and smiled. Finally the fear had left her tone. She sounded accusatory, and angry. She sounded like the Gaby he adored. “I’m seducing you.”

Color flushed her cheeks and turned her mouth rosy. Blue eyes bright, tone once again commanding, she said, “Are you going to have sex with me?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

She opened her mouth to protest that, and Luther pressed one hand between her thighs and found her warmer, softer.

She went mute, and, slowly, her eyes sank shut.

“Just relax now, okay?”

Thunder clattered, and she stiffened. “Luther . . . ”

He was so horny he hurt. “I’m right here.” He stroked over her, opened her, and pressed one finger deep inside her.

The storm lingered overhead, jarring the house with flash and rumble; the television went off with a snap, leaving them in utter darkness and a silence broken only by the fury of Mother Nature.

Gaby barely noticed. After a small flinch, her hips lifted and she squirmed against his hand. “The things you do to me . . . ”

“I know.” He kissed his way from her throat to her mouth. “Kiss me.”

She did, without reservation. Though he’d kissed her many times now, he’d be her first, so she was far from experienced. But she showed as much gusto for sexual matters as she did for hunting wicked beings.

Her fevered enthusiasm soon had them both panting.

He’d gotten her off like this once before, in an open parking lot where her savage screams had echoed across the concrete. Now he had her alone.

Now he could finish this as he wanted.

While Luther found a rhythm she liked, he kissed her everywhere, bit her gently, nibbled on sensitive peaks and licked sensual hollows.

Gaby clutched his wrist, keeping his hand against her as if refusing to let him stop. But stopping was the last thing on his mind.

“Luther.” She bit his shoulder without the gentleness he’d shown her. “Luther.”

“Right here, honey.” He felt her strong muscles tightening and looked at her face. Never one to be timid, her gaze locked on his, magnifying the intimacy, sharing everything she felt. He watched the extraordinary shifting of her features, the sharpening of her expression. Gaby changed in infinitesimal, subtle ways when she embraced the acute pain of her duty—and when she gave herself over to extreme physical pleasure.

From now on, Luther planned to immerse her in pleasure.

Just as he saw her eyes darken and go vague, he felt the bite of her fingernails on his flesh and inhaled the scent of her desire.

She came with the same primitive abandon she’d shown once before.

As her climax faded, she went limp, and then dropped back onto the couch, sprawled inelegantly, her legs over his lap.

In breathless wonder, she said, “Holy shit, Luther.” She kept her eyes closed and she didn’t smile. “That rocked.”

Outside the wind whistled, but inside, warmth generated by their bodies, scented by their lust, filled the room. Need, satisfaction, rose up to glut Luther. Emotion permeated his soul. He stroked Gaby’s calf, over the arch of her foot.

He’d never really noticed before, but she had narrow feet with a delicate arch. Graceful feet—feet that could deliver a kick deadly in intent.

“Hey.” She remained still, her chest barely rising with her slow, even breaths. Luther kissed her ankle, just to get her attention. “You’re not going to sleep on me, are you?” He had a boner that demanded immediate attention. He would never rush her, but he hoped Gaby’s natural curiosity would see their relationship finally, fully, consummated.

“I’m not tired.”

Of course she wasn’t. Gaby never seemed to show the same weaknesses as others. “Then why so quiet?”

Her sigh was part repletion, part frustration. “Just thinking.”

That worried him. “About what?”

Capable hands rested loosely over her pale belly. Baby-fine, tangled hair fanned out behind her head. She shifted one shoulder and didn’t quite look at him. “About how much I detest cowards.”

She meant herself, and Luther knew it. As the need to reassure her crowded in, sexual urgency took a backseat.

For now.

But it wasn’t easy with her lying there nude, relaxed, soft and feminine. Using one finger, he drew a circle on her inner thigh. “People can’t help the things that scare them, Gaby.”

“Nothing scares you.”

His short, sharp laugh corrected her error. “Losing you terrifies me.” He bent and kissed her belly. “Too much.”

“I don’t know why.” She tangled her fingers in his hair and brought his head up so she could look him in the eyes. “I’m fucking pathetic.”

“No.”

“You don’t need me.”

“But I want you.” He thought about that, before adding, “And I do need you.” He pulled her fingers from his hair and, moving up and over her, pressed her hand above her head. The full-body contact almost stole his thoughts, but this was too important to sidestep. “You, Gabrielle Cody, are intriguing, and frustrating, and sometimes foolhardy. You’re an enigma, and an angel on earth.”

“An angel?” She made a rude sound—and stared at his mouth. “Sex must fuck with your head if you believe that crap.”

He hushed her with a quick, soft kiss. “You care more than anyone I’ve ever known. Despite what you do or how you do it—”

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t verify the many ways she served her unique brand of justice.

“—it’s always out of caring. I know that.”

With her free hand kneading his shoulder, she shifted under him. “There’s a world of difference between what you think you know, and the bloody truth.” Before he could reply to that, she wrapped her legs around him. “We’re naked, Luther.”

“Believe me, I’m well aware of that.” He caught her other wrist and brought that hand above her head, too. “I want to be inside you, Gaby.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

Tacit in her statement was the fact that she could stop him if she wanted to, and they both knew it. Gaby was more capable, more physical, than any person—male or female—that he knew.

Bypassing that truth, he kissed her again, light and easy and full of hunger. “Knowing it’ll be your first time, that you’ll only be with me, is making me nuts.” He drew in a big breath. “But I need to know that you’re okay now. It’s still storming—”

“Is it?”

Her teasing made him smile. It was so unique for her to show any lightness at all. She never laughed, never joked, and only at the rarest of times had he ever seen her smile.

That she’d tease now gave Luther hope for progress. “It is. And the way that it affects you breaks my damn heart.”

“I won’t whimper like a baby, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She pressed her hips up and gave a grudging truth. “Having you close blunts a lot of extraneous influences.”

Sometimes the things she said boggled his mind. But she’d said it before, crediting him with the power to soften the harshness of her life. “I’d love it if you told me exactly what that means.”

Her brows scrunched as she pondered her explanation. “It’s a little weird—but then everything about me is, right?” She didn’t give him a chance to correct or reassure her. “Somehow, Luther, you filter the call to duty, and in the process, my neuroses. They’re still there like a live beat inside my bloodstream, but your nearness keeps them tamped down and . . . manageable.”

Hope, and guilt, stirred in Luther’s heart. If he could give her any relief, he’d be thrilled. But at the same time he knew that what she did—and why—was important. The most important thing, at least to her.

“The calling, too?” Was he keeping her from tracking down a bloodthirsty psycho?

At the moment, did he care?

She gave a tentative tug on her wrists, and when he didn’t release her, she relaxed again, her expression lazy, cocky as only Gaby could be. “I can get free anytime I want, you know.”

Rather than acknowledge that claim, he said, “I would let you—if I thought getting free of me was what you really wanted.”

She considered that, and let it go. “He’s out there, Luther. A monster in our midst. A sickness of humanity. He’ll torture, bleed, and kill innocent people, again and again. He won’t care how they scream or beg. He enjoys that. Catching him won’t be easy.”

Luther sighed. In his line of work, he’d dealt with the criminally insane, and the just plain evil, many times. “It never is.”

“It’s easier if you don’t interfere with me doing my duty.”

Not her job, but her duty. How burdensome it must be to feel that the safety of others relied on how well you performed your duty—a duty that involved heinous, bloody deaths?

For him, it was different. He was a cop who took great pleasure in seeing justice served. But Gaby’s form of justice would never fly in a court of law.

She didn’t apprehend evildoers; she eradicated them.

Using that awesome blade, and miraculous speed, agility, and cunning, she wasted the bogeymen.

“I don’t want to get in your way, Gaby. I only want to help you.” And protect you, as much from yourself as from a society that would condemn you.

She tilted her head to study him. “Are you going to fuck me?”

Though he was used to her coarse language, Luther’s brain almost exploded. It was damned difficult, but he managed to say “No.”

Anger flashed in her eyes, and she started to pull away in earnest. “Jerk.”

He fought to hold her still. “I want to make love to you, Gaby.” A soft kiss to her pinched mouth stilled her struggles. “I’m going to show you that there’s a difference.”

Curiosity lit her eyes. “Yeah?” Her chin jutted. “Tell me, but do it fast. Having you like this makes me achy. Inside, I mean. I feel almost . . . liquid.” Some of the antagonism faded as she admitted, “I’m not used to this stuff yet.”

No, as a pariah to society, an outcast in her own mind, Gaby wasn’t used to any affection at all. In twenty-one years of life, she’d managed to isolate herself so thoroughly that she was by far the most innocent woman he knew.

Until very recently, Gaby had never allowed others to touch her: emotionally, mentally, physically.

Definitely not in sexual exploration.

But now, with him, her life was changing. Luther remembered when he first saw her, how something about her had struck him hard, laid him low, and drawn him to her irrevocably. After that meeting, he would never be the same.

And he planned to see to it that she wasn’t either.

Now he only had to ease Gaby into that reality.

With her pinned beneath him asking for sex, he was off to a good start.

It was so novel to see Gaby like this, sexually aroused, disgruntled with physical need. Her normal demeanor was balls-to-the-wall brazen, gutsy beyond common sense, so daring and determined that she risked her life without reserve.

He liked both aspects.

He liked her. Too much.

Luther stared into her eyes as he released her wrists, reached down between their bodies, and positioned himself. Thanks to her recent release, the head of his cock entered slick, moist heat.

His muscles bunched and his heart expanded painfully in his chest.

Her breath caught, then released on a low, shuddering moan.

And a knock sounded on the door.