By the time I’m in the file room, walking between two rows of files again, Jacob is back by my side. We don’t speak, and he follows my lead to the rear exit of the precinct. It’s not long before we’re a few blocks away, and inside a semi-vacant subway train. I claim a pole and Jacob is immediately at it with me, despite having two others he could use. He sets the box on the ground and grabs the pole, our hands now stacked but not touching, that push and pull between us thick in the air, the reasons I shouldn’t touch him, many. The reasons I should, in my mind right now, just as many.
The train begins to move, and both of us instinctively stick a foot to the box to hold it in place. We do a lot of things alike, to be so different. I want to understand that and him. “Where exactly are you from?” I ask, deciding it’s time to be a detective with this man.
“You didn’t read that in my file?”
“I want to hear it from you,” I counter.
“Long Island,” he says.
“Tell me about your sister.”
“I don’t want to talk about my sister, but before you read into that, there’s nothing scandalous there. I just don’t talk about it.”
Like I don’t talk about a lot of things myself. I don’t like it, but I get it, so I move on. “Why did you get out of the army?”
“I told you,” he says. “It was time.”
“Your entire life was based around the Army and it was just time?”
“Everything ends,” he says, his tone a bit haunted. “If anyone understands that the way I do, you do.”
He’s right. I do. Too well. And for that reason, among others, I don’t doubt the attraction between us. I don’t doubt that chemistry bouncing between us like a ping pong ball is real. It is. But just because something is real doesn’t mean it can’t be used against you. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be used to hurt you. Anything this powerful and immediate can be dangerous. Anyone as skilled as Jacob King is dangerous. And he’s who I chose to affect me. He’s who I’ve let work himself beneath my surface and make me want and need. He’s the person I wanted to trust until he reminded me that I cannot.
The train stops and my body lunges toward the pole, while Jacob’s stays steady, aligned with it, and now with me. He catches my hip, steadying me too, while that familiar jolt that is every touch with this man hits me hard this time. I don’t look at him, or reach for him, but I can feel him all over, everywhere he’s touching and even where he’s not. My nipples are hard. My breasts heavy. My sex tight. I do want him, and he knows it. But ultimately, he’s trying to control me and I’m trying to control him. That kind of game between us is actually liberating. I can get naked with him and there is no fear that I’ll fall under a spell and fall for him. Because I don’t want to fall. I don’t want to care for anyone ever again.
The doors open and his fingers flex at my hip as if he doesn’t want to release me. My gaze lifts and find his, and with that connection, I see the same in his eyes. He doesn’t want to let me go, and the truth is, despite how angry I am with him, I have never wanted a man the way I want this one: so instantly, so intensely. But he does let me go. His hand slides away and he grabs the box. Not long after, we’ve done the trudge through the station, and we’re on the sidewalk above, walking in silence toward my apartment, the anticipation of a confrontation between us, that may or may not be resolved while naked, pulsing between us. For my part, I’ll confront him about Jesse Marks. For his part, he’ll expect it. He’ll try to shut me down.
We reach my gate and enter, walking up the sidewalk and then the steps. I turn to key in the code, when my gaze falls to the dark corner of the wall that no camera could capture, with the certainty that something is lying in the corner. “What is it?” Jacob asks, stepping closer.
“I don’t know,” I say, opening my leather case at my hip and pulling out a plastic bag. Sticking my hand inside it, I bend down and scoop whatever it is up. Turning the bag inside out to cover it, I stare at the item, freezing with the sight of a pink paper umbrella, which one might find in a cocktail, but it’s not in a drink. It’s here and it’s here for a reason. For me. It’s here for me.
I stand up, shaken enough that I don’t turn and look at Jacob. I stick the bag in my case and key in the code. Jacob opens the door and the instant we’re on the stairs, he asks the inevitable. “What does it mean to you? And don’t tell me nothing. I’ve been with you around the clock now. This isn’t nothing.”
“I’m trying to figure that out,” I say. “I need to think.”
“What do you think it means?” he presses.
“I’m trying to figure it out,” I repeat, a ball of emotion in my chest that I hate I’ve let this bastard playing with my head create. I have to get it under control. I have to get myself under control.
We reach the door and I open it, and without waiting on Jacob, I enter the apartment and head to the island. Jacob is the one who flips on the lights, but by that time, I’m already headed up the stairs to the library. Once I’m there, I flip a switch and a lamp splays light over a cozy room just big enough for an overstuffed brown couch framed by two bookshelves right and left, while black and white abstracts fill the wall above it. I like black and white. I see enough of the wrong colors in my job.
I pull off my bag and set it on the floor, then walk left to the bookshelf. Locating what I am looking for, I grab the memory album I made several years back but haven’t opened since. The front reads: Martha Carpenter’s life. My mother’s life. I’d made it as part of the healing process and inside I have memories that range from her childhood to the end. I flip to a photo of my mother standing in front of her bakery, holding one of the pink umbrellas she sold in her bakery. A photo that was in a well-published advertisement, so it would not be hard to find. It was public knowledge, but it’s still a countdown to me, a list in order of those who have died in my life. It’s meant to get my attention or my father’s, but it feels like me. The message seems to be leading to my uncle, and then me.
Jacob’s footsteps sound on the stairs behind me and I stick the book back on the shelf and turn to watch him join me on the landing. And just that fast, the already tiny room is smaller, and he is bigger, and not in size. This man consumes me when he is near, and I both resent that reaction he stirs, and crave more of it—of him. But what I want and crave isn’t the issue. Not now. Not with all I have going on in my life, not with my duty in the forefront. “What does that umbrella mean to you?” he asks, his voice managing to be low, but still a rough demand.
“What does Jesse Marks mean to you?” I counter.
“Tell me about the umbrella,” he says, closing the few steps this room allows between us, and stepping toe-to-toe with me, that spicy wonderful scent of him filling the room. He fills the room.
“So you can make it a public service announcement?” I demand.
“You knew that the Walker crew knew about the butterfly. They were all looking through the security feed. Tell me about the umbrella. I need to know and you need me.”
“You know, I’d decided that I needed you. As my Lieutenant said, this is personal. I’m objective enough to know that affects my judgment. I’m too close to this. But then you sideswiped me. You made me look bad to my boss.” I poke his ridiculously hard chest. “You made me feel like it’s me against the slayer and you.”
He stares down at me with one of his hard robot looks on his stupid handsome face.
“Cat got your tongue?” I demand, when he is slow to answer.
“Every move I’ve made,” he replies tightly. “I’ve made to protect you.”
“Is that right?” I challenge, not liking where this is leading me. “Then that means you kissed me to protect me?”
“I told you—”
“That you wanted to send a message to those watching me and us. Got it. You made the move to protect me. How many women have you kissed to protect? How many did you kiss to shut them up, like you did me? How many—”
He steps into me, one hand on my hip, while the other tangles into my hair. “I have never kissed a woman I protected, ever. You were the first.”
“And how do I know that?” I demand, my hand on his chest, his heart thundering beneath my palm. “Your heart is racing. That could mean a lie.”
“I don’t lie. I have never kissed a woman I was protecting,” he repeats.
“Then you just kissed me to shut me up.”
“I kissed you because—”
“You wanted to.”
“Yes. Because I wanted to. And I have never wanted to kiss any woman as much as I do you right this minute and that is the God’s honest truth. But tell me. What do you want? That is what you said this visit to your apartment is about, right? You getting what you want?”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s exactly why I brought you here.”
“Then I repeat,” he says. “What do you want, detective?”