Five #4
What they didn’t know was that I was very familiar with speaking to law enforcement.
At the beginning of my relationship with Sam Kage, as well as after, it had been a frequent experience.
And lately, since the kids had come into our lives, things had changed, but I still knew how to handle myself and what to say and how to say it.
I went over the facts, told them about realizing that the man was on the balcony, then about texting Sam—using the code we had set up years ago, the 911 that let him know I was in danger—and how all I could do was clutch my children to me.
I told them what the man had said, how I was in fear for myself and my kids and how quickly Sam had responded.
“Is that all?” Ibarra asked me.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Did you see anyone else?”
“No.”
“Did your husband fire more than once?”
“Absolutely not.”
He nodded.
“Is there anything else that you––”
“He told you everything,” Duncan stated, his words clipped. “All of it follows what you’re looking at; the crime scene guys agree, so don’t try and jam up a––”
“We’re not trying to jam up anybody,” Sykes assured him. “We just want to make sure that Mr. Harcourt didn’t see anyone else. We’re looking for leads to explain all this, Stiel.”
“I think Supervisory Deputy Marshal Kage already explained to you what this is.”
“Yeah, but––”
“It’s an ongoing criminal case that he’s in the middle of that Mr. Harcourt can share no further insight into, as he is not involved, in any way, with said investigation.”
“We would be remiss if––”
“Talk to Supervisory Deputy Marshal Kage. He’s the one with the answers,” he directed them.
Ibarra leaned back on the coffee table he was sitting on. “We’re going to need your weapon, Detective Stiel.”
“I didn’t fire my gun, and your crime scene people already confirmed that, so, no, you don’t get my gun. I’m on vacation, man, just passing through. If you’re looking to mess with me, call my boss in Chicago.”
Both detectives thanked me for my statement, then said that I might be required to go down to their office and make another more formal one.
“No,” Duncan told me once they walked away. “That’s bullshit. You don’t have to do that. Your part in this clusterfuck is over.”
I moved out from under his arm, turning to look at him. “Thank you so much for being here, for planning to take me to look for Sam, and then for being his backup.”
“Of course,” he said softly, smiling at me.
Handsome man, tall, the same six-four that Sam was, and built with a similarly powerful physique, but whereas Sam moved fluidly, Duncan Stiel moved like a bull.
He had light-blond hair and gray eyes. They were not Dane’s gray, not charcoal and flecked with silver, but more gunmetal and ringed in black.
He had sharp, chiseled features and a great smile.
I had no idea how Pat could not say, when asked, what precisely Duncan Stiel looked like. He was absolutely memorable.
“Now, you sit tight, and I’m gonna see if I can extricate Sam from everyone so you can talk to him.”
But they hadn’t even moved the body yet. I knew it would be hours.
Getting up, wrapping myself in the blanket, I returned to my room and lay down beside my kids, comforted as I watched them sleep. I didn’t even remember closing my eyes.
When I was gently shaken awake, I opened my eyes to find my husband standing over me.
Checking the digital clock on the nightstand, I saw that it was just after three in the morning.
I got up, and he steadied me, still with the lightweight blanket around me as he steered me out the door of the room, closing it behind us.
He walked me to the living room, which now only had one lamp on, casting the room in an amber glow, and then turned me to face him.
“I thought about letting you sleep, but I know you want to know things as soon as I do and not the next morning.”
I nodded.
“So, first off, you protected the kids, and you didn’t get yourself hurt in the process. That’s fuckin’ amazing.”
My eyes went down to my socked feet.
“I was more than mad, I was furious. You scared the fuck out of me because you would have been eaten alive if you had stepped foot in that damn bar. You can’t be the one riding to my rescue, J. You have to depend on other people now. You have kids.”
“So do you,” I breathed out.
He stepped in close to me, and his hands went to my face, gently, tenderly, and when he lifted my head so I would look at him, I saw how scared he was.
“Sam?”
He took a shaky breath as my hands closed over his wrists. “I didn’t think I’d get here in time. I thought … and you and Kola and Hannah …” He squinted, but I saw how red his eyes suddenly were. “I can’t lose any of you. It would kill me. Just … I’d be done.”
“I feel the same about you.”
I was grabbed so tight, crushed against the mountain of muscle that was Sam Kage.
“Did Duncan leave?”
“Yeah.”
“It was very nice of him to sit with me while the detectives were questioning me.”
“Well, he’s a caretaker at heart. He just doesn’t get the opportunity to be one very often.”
“Why not?”
Softly, slowly, he related Duncan’s story to me.
It was a sad one, about how he couldn’t come out, not at work, not to his family, how his last relationship with an English professor had ended because Duncan was in the closet, and how he was currently cruising bars and picking up one-night stands.
I felt bad for him, but by the same token, Sam Kage had come out to everyone he knew, both personally and professionally.
It had been hard for him, and friends had been lost along the way, but for him, it was all he could do.
Sam was not the kind of man who lived a secret life for anyone, and the fact that Duncan was made me feel terrible for him.
But as Sam quietly reminded me, we all had to live with what we were comfortable with.
Sometimes, being brave was not an option.
Not everyone had the same support system or safety net.
“He really liked you,” Sam assured me. “But everybody does.”
“That’s not true at all,” I argued. “And you were mad earlier.”
“Because you took ten years off my life, just thinking about you running around without me.”
“I would have had Duncan with me, and he looks terribly capable.”
“Does he?”
I was about to defend my new friend, but Sam kissed me before I could get a word out. It was rough, the mauling he gave me, opening my mouth, his tongue tasting and tangling. He pressed me to him, devouring me until I had to tear free before my head exploded from lack of oxygen.
“Sam,” I gasped.
He knotted his hand in my hair and shoved my head back so he could bend to my throat, suck the skin into his hot mouth, and nibble down to my collarbone. The hickeys would be dark against my skin in the morning. Just the thought of him marking me brought a guttural moan from deep in my chest.
As I stood there, shivering and panting, he lifted me with strong arms, corded with muscle, arms that I loved to be in, and walked backward, carrying me, sucking my neck as I tilted my head sideways so he could reach as much of me as he wanted.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he chanted as he licked up behind my ear, his big hands digging into my ass as he shoved me roughly up against the wall, pinning me there, recapturing my lips, and kissing me again, hard and deep.
He smelled dangerous, the mixture from the bar still clinging to him, smoke and acrid perfume, but there was sweat in there, too, and the taste of scotch on his tongue. I tried to wiggle closer, undulating in his grip, rubbing my now-leaking cock against the rock-hard abs.
My legs tightened around his narrow hips as he levered off the wall, turned, and manhandled me down onto the couch.
“Don’t fuckin’ move.”
I did as I had been told, and he was back in minutes from the closet outside the bathroom with extra sheets. He also had the bottle of lube from where I had stashed it in the armoire.
He spread a sheet on the couch and then put another one over him, draping himself—as he was now gloriously naked—from head to toe.
“What are—”
“The kids could wake up and come out.”
The man was always thinking.
“And what are you planning?”
He grabbed me—which answered my question—and dragged me to the floor, flipped me over onto my stomach, and told me to get on my knees.
I hurried, shucking out of my belt and dress pants and briefs as fast as I could.