Chapter Fourteen
Juliet
The grocery store lights are interrogation-level rude. The air smells like cold tile and artificial strawberries.
Offensive.
I’m trying to bask in the afterglow of first kiss innocence.
Vitaly should be home in nine minutes.
His tracker said he waited until my taillights disappeared before he even started his engine.
Fucking precious.
Mine.
But now?
We’re out of a few things.
And it’s important to make sure my men never doubt they are loved while I’m securing the newest family member.
So. Orion needs those disgusting protein bars he takes to his adrenaline hobby group.
They’re zip lining month.
Noah’s almost out of granola.
Elliot’s pretentious goat cheese that smells like Satan’s ass but apparently pairs with his soul.
And Callum. My beautiful disaster, is down to three sad nuggets of Cookie Crisp. Unacceptable.
His eating habits are the only innocence he has left.
I indulge my men.
I reach for the sacred blue box.
An arm brushes mine.
“Excuse me.”
That voice.
Low, rough, like gravel dipped in vodka and sin.
My fingers twitch.
Everything else just stops and listens.
He plucks a random box off the shelf. Doesn’t even look at it.
Because he’s looking at me like he’s already fucked me six ways on this linoleum and is deciding which position to repeat.
It’s him.
Mall Man.
Here.
In my fucking playground.
The way he stares. Like I’m already naked, already bent, already his.
It should terrify me.
It doesn’t.
It makes me wet and furious in the same heartbeat.
My nipples go traitor, demanding his tongue, his teeth, anything he’ll give.
“Did you get my picture?” The question slides out calm, confident, obscene.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
Juliet Lovelace, professional lunatic, speechless in the cereal aisle.
He shelves the box he never wanted. Leans in just enough that I smell musk and gunpowder.
“My gift,” he says, lips barely moving. “Your move, Juliet.”
Then he smiles. A lethal little thing. Smug as hell and walks away.
Motherfucker.
Gorgeous.
Reckless.
Mine.
I stand there clenching a box of Cookie Crisp so hard the cardboard threatens to surrender.
I pull up my phone.
Open the picture I absolutely didn’t worry my men with.
The one of me at the farmer’s market.
He was there?
He was that close?
Gift?
What fucking gift?
I toss the cereal in the cart. And hurry toward checkout.
He’s gone.
Third time I’ve seen him.
He let me.
Each ding as the checkout woman rings my shit pisses me off.
Because I never saw him at the market.
And here.
How many times has he watched me shop?
Watched me bend over freezers?
My move?
Oh, darling.
You just declared war with your dick, and I’m already planning how pretty you’ll look on your knees begging to be kept.
I pay, wheel the cart out, pulse hammering between my legs.
But does this mean he loves me, like I loved my men?
My thighs clamp shut with the tensile strength of a hydraulic press.
Because if he’s stalking me the way I stalk them?
If he’s this obsessed, this patient, this good?
Then he’s not a threat.
He’s a soulmate.
And I deserve to be worshipped like this.
I deserve all of it.
Game on, Mall Man.
Run.
I’m the better hunter.
And when I catch you, and I will, you’re never leaving.
My thighs are still trembling when I load the bags. Not from fear. From the promise of ruining him completely.
My move.
My mind races as fast as I do.
Home.
Groceries shoved in the fridge.
Men debriefed in the date, distracted with dinner and pretending they’re not checking the Vitaly tracker every thirty seconds.
Perfect.
I pull out the pathetic little notebook I started the day I saw him at the mall.
Page one: his license plate and some random notes.
Page two: blank.
I’ve been too busy collecting Vitaly to give this one proper attention.
Until now.
I flip it open and the world tilts.
Tucked between page one and two, is the exact pair of panties I was looking at the first time I spotted him.
They’re folded neatly.
My breath stalls.
Because written in glitter pen?
My glitter pen?
You missed something. I take my coffee black. And I like to be watched too. - R
He was in my house. In my bedroom.
That’s not casual stalking.
That’s soulmate-level commitment wrapped in felony breaking-and-entering.
My pulse is hammering so loud I almost don’t hear my own moan.
I flip the notebook shut, open my laptop with shaking hands, and punch his plate into the runner.
I type the numbers.
Hit enter.
Wait.
Results load like a striptease.
Name: Reid Calloway
Address: Some shithole apartment in the city
Occupation: Detective, Major Crimes Division
Badge #: 4782
Status: Active
Notes: IA investigation 2021: excessive force. Case closed. Charges dropped.
IA investigation 2022: evidence tampering. Case closed. Lack of evidence.
There are more.
All closed.
Translation: filthy, dirty, gorgeous cop who gets away with it.
I zoom in on the badge photo.
Same cheekbones.
Same dead eyes that light up when they land on me.
Same mouth I want wrapped around my…
I stare until the screen blurs.
He’s not just a cop. He’s a cop who plays on the same side of the line I do.
A cop who’s been watching me watch my men.
A cop who broke into my house, left panties as a fucking proposal.
A fucking cop who’s been stalking me harder than I stalk Sunday brunch plans.
That’s not professional interest.
That’s foreplay with a warrant attached.
My clit actually throbs. Once. Hard.
Because this isn’t a red flag.
This is a neon sign that says: WELCOME HOME, SOULMATE.
He’s not just good.
He’s sanctioned to be this good.
He has access to every database I drool over.
I slam the laptop shut before I start humping the desk like a teenager.
Options:
Let Callum put a bullet in his skull for fun.
Ghost him, move cities, spend the rest of my life bored and unsatisfied.
Seduce a detective and teach him that the real crime is not letting me sit on his face while he reads me my rights.
I open his notebook again:
Carries cuffs.
Professionally and, pray to God, personally.
Knows exactly how crazy I am and hasn’t run.
Probably has a big… gun.
Must be taught that protect and serve applies to my clit first, city second.
Breaks into houses for foreplay.
Has panty fetish.
Dirty enough to fit right in.
Going to look so pretty wearing my teeth marks over that badge.
Twenty minutes later I’ve summoned my pack to the table and detonated the cereal-aisle confession right in their faces.
“A cop?” Orion growls, cracking his knuckles.
“We end him now,” Callum says, like it’s item three on today’s to-do list.
Elliot lifts one finger. “We’re already balls-deep in Oksana and Dmitry. Adding law enforcement is a whole new tax bracket of fucked.”
“Name,” Callum snaps.
“Reid Calloway,” I say, tasting it. “Dirty as they come.”
Callum freezes.
Then barks a laugh that could strip paint.
“Reid fucking Calloway? Yeah, I know him. For the right envelope he’ll make a body cam catch amnesia and an evidence locker sprout legs.”
Orion’s eyes narrow. “So you’re already on a Christmas-card basis with the new guy?”
I can’t help it, I laugh, low and filthy.
“So he’s useful,” I purr.
“Hard-ass with a hero complex,” Callum says, grinning like a shark. “Picture my moral code, Orion’s trigger finger, and Elliot’s patience on a day he’s medicated.”
Noah pouts dramatically. “So nothing like me?”
“You’ve got Sweet Boy Vitaly for the sunshine-and-rainbows slot,” Callum says, leaning over to smack a loud kiss on Noah’s cheek. “Let the adults have their corrupt cop fantasy.”
Noah shoves him off, cheeks pink. “So is Reid useful for the Oksana situation?”
“We’re handling Oksana,” Orion cuts in. “Juliet decides if the cop is housebroken. Last thing we need is him chewing the furniture or pissing on my boots. Or worse, leaving wet towels on the goddamn floor.”
I open my mouth to eviscerate him, but Elliot taps the table with his pen. Three sharp knocks that shut everyone up.
“Priorities,” he says. “One: Oksana and Dmitry stay breathing, under surveillance until we decide it’s safe to move. Two: Juliet decides if the dirty detective gets a collar or a shallow grave.”
“Hey,” I say, mock-offended. “I do not collar men.”
Four voices in perfect unison: “You absolutely fucking do.”
“It’s an Olympic event at this point,” Callum adds.
“With medals,” Noah whispers, “and breeding categories.”
I sit back, cross my legs, let the smile go full predator.
“If Reid wants in,” I say, voice honey over razor wire, “he’ll have to prove he can heel.”
Callum snorts. “And if he bites?”
I shrug, sweet as cyanide. “We crate-train.”
The table erupts.
Groans, laughter, threats, someone’s hand already sliding up my thigh under the table.
My phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
One photo.
Me stepping out of Vitaly’s car tonight, lips swollen from that kiss, dress riding high enough to flash lace.
Taken from the shadows across the street.
I turn the screen around so they can all see.
“Oh, boys,” I breathe, wet and wicked, “he really does play dirty.”
Five sets of eyes go black at once.
Orion cracks his neck. “Bring him home, baby.”
Callum’s already loading a magazine with a grin that would make lesser men shit themselves.
Noah whispers, “We’re gonna need a bigger bed.”
Elliot just smiles. The rare, real one that says someone’s about to learn a very painful lesson in ownership.
And I sit there in the middle of my beautiful, broken monsters, thighs clenched around the ache Reid just gifted me.
Welcome to the family, Detective.
You just poked the hornet’s nest with your dick.
Hope you’re ready to get stung.