Chapter Fourteen #2
Katie takes a step back from our handiwork, her hip cocked with the nail gun hanging loosely in her hand by her leg.
A toothy grin fills her face, and I stand next to her, holding out an uncapped beer for her to take.
She grabs the bottle, and I clink the glass against hers, a satisfying clunk ringing out between us.
“Thank you,” she murmurs before taking a pull of her beer.
“It was worth it.”
“To get me to call you ‘sir?’” she smirks, turning to me now, but I keep looking at the wall.
“Nah.” I pause, swallowing. “I just haven’t seen you smile like that in a long time.”
She watches me, perhaps trying to check if I’m being sincere.
But I keep staring at the damn wall, thinking about what we need next, avoiding the suspicious look in her eye.
Placing my beer down, I set about looking through her other materials.
As expected, most of it is in logical order, piled together in the next steps we need.
It’s when I feel Katie come up behind me cautiously, wrapping her arms around me, her cheek flat against my back.
I place my hand over hers, squeezing her fingers before turning to face her. Her forest-green eyes, framed by her long lashes, swim with cautious optimism. Her red hair is almost golden in the late afternoon light shining through the window.
“You’ve helped me a lot in the last week or so,” she whispers, tilting her chin up toward me.
I shrug as if it’s nothing, but it’s not true.
The last ten days have happened so fast. I don’t know what I’ve been doing all these years, wasting my time aggravating her when I could have been making things easier for her.
It kills me that I’ve been adding to her stress. “It’s nothing. I’m glad I can help.”
She scowls a little. “It’s not nothing to me. I’m grateful, and I’m . . . I’m glad you’re working this case with me.” Her lip quivers before she bites down on it, my hands roaming up the backs of her arms.
“Did you ever think we would be here?” I ask, unsure of how to ask what I really want.
“You helping me build my wall and helping me solve a murder?”
“Murders now.”
She laughs, placing one hand on my arm and another on my chest.
Holy shit.
Katie is touching me of her own volition.
She’s smiling.
She’s happy I’m here.
The eight-year drought of Katie-smiles is over, and now I’m being rained on.
Thank God. It’s like I’ve been in a desert, desperately searching for an oasis.
Licking up drops of her where I can get them, mostly in the form of snark and spite.
But now, the smiles are coming, and it’s like a dam has burst.
I cannot mess this up.
I can’t do it. I’d die if I lost her friendship again.
Her tongue darts out, running along her bottom lip, and she whispers, “Jacob . . .”
“Yeah, princess?” My voice is breathy. Dangerously close to begging her to call me by my first name again.
“What are we doing?”
I swallow. If I tell her I want to fuck her so bad my balls are aching, she’s going to retreat behind enemy lines.
If I tell her I want to kiss her so much I’d throw on a tool belt and fix up the rest of her house with her just for a taste of her lips, she’d run again, and I’d be playing Scrabble with some new stand-in schmuck at the next dinner club night.
I need to get a handle on this situation.
“You told me the other day that I couldn’t give you what you need. What did you mean by that?”
Her face falls before her lips flatten into a straight line, her lush, breathy pout long gone, and internally, I’m kicking myself.
She steps back, but I tighten my grip, my fingertips digging into the fleshy part of her arm.
Her lips part again, but instead of anger in her eyes, I see lust. Her pupils dilate, her lids close a fraction as her muscles soften. I test the waters, applying more pressure to her arm, and a small whimper escapes her. She doesn’t try to get away. She leans in.
“Answer me, princess,” I demand, lowering my voice.
She pauses before responding, her eyes flitting between mine and my lips. “My tastes have changed recently. What I’m looking for, I don’t think many people would be willing to offer,” she breathes out.
“Are you gonna stop fucking around and tell me what it is that you need, Katie?” I bite out. “Because I can’t give it to you if I have to tiptoe around you, guessing what it is that you like.”
She watches me, the cogs turning in her mind as if to calculate the risk versus reward of telling me, the man who, until recently, was the closest thing to an enemy that she had.
I will my face to remain neutral. To give her a calm and collected look that tells her nothing could scare me off.
I’ve seen shit when I was away with the army; I’ve heard worse from soldiers I work with when they return from active duty.
Life is no picnic—I know this. I try to rack my brain to think if there is anything she could say that would scare me off, and nothing springs to mind.
She could ask me to dress up as Willy Wonka and fuck her in a chocolate vat, and I’d say yes.
“I like it rough.”
“Okay . . .” That doesn’t seem too out of the norm.
She winces and instinctively looks away, avoiding my gaze. “It’s more than that, though. It’s hard to explain. But I want . . . I want to feel scared. Like I’m being hunted.”
My brain whirrs. Hunted . . . scared . .
. and this has all been since she worked the Thomas Vale case.
Is this linked? Has she fantasized about him doing this to her?
The revulsion creeps up my throat at the thought of her being in love with a serial killer.
They spent a lot of time together. Is that what this is?
“This is why I didn’t want to say anything. That look on your face,” she says, her face pinking as she pushes her shoulders back, preparing herself for a reprimand.
I soften the scowl on my face and wet my lips. “I just want to understand what you mean. What you’re asking for isn’t uncommon. It’s a normal kink to have, but I want to know your reasons behind it. I don’t want you to be thinking about some other man if I’m the one fucking you.”
“Some other man?” She frowns before realization sets in. “Thomas Vale. You’re not the first one to assume.”
“Assume what?”
“That I fell in love with him.”
My mouth flattens into a thin line. It’s not like I hadn’t thought about it as well.
This seems like it’s where this conversation is leading up to.
I just want to give myself a few more seconds before confirming.
A few more seconds of existing without knowing Katie Murphy, the smartest person I know, fell for a serial killer, and that’s why she’s so messed up.
God, is it because he’s locked up that she’s so unhappy?
Is it because she feels guilty? Because I will strap her down and therapy the shit out of her if so.
I’ll stage an intervention if I have to.
Before I can ask my next question, a knock at the door interrupts us.