He grunted, then stood up. “Give me a damn spoon,” he muttered, following her into the kitchen.
Her eyes lit up as she whirled around to face him. “You like pistachio ice cream, too?”
And that was another thing. Most women got their feelings hurt when he snapped and growled at them. It had taken Nikki all of twelve hours to accept that he was just a bit gruff by nature so not to take his attitude personally. She was getting under his skin, he thought grimly.
“Yes, I like pistachio ice cream,” he growled. “Do I look like a communist to you?”
Nikki grinned. “Hey, it’s your turn to make dinner tonight,” she said as she turned around and started scooping out heaping helpings of one of his favorite desserts. “I’m game for just about anything.”
How about being ridden hard for about ten solid hours?
He shook his head and sighed, plopping down into one of the two kitchen seats. He needed to distract himself. Otherwise he was going to end up making a fool of himself here.
She was wearing jeans and a Cleveland General T-shirt this morning, her recently shampooed hair in a topknot on her head. No bra again, he thought with an inner smile. Then again he’d seen to it that none had been packed. Probably a dumb move on his part because every time they jiggled, a certain part of his anatomy saluted them.
Sucking on her nipples last night had been . . .
He blew out a breath as he dug into his ice cream. Best not to think about that, he conceded, shifting in his chair.
“I want to talk about the emails you exchanged with Lucifer,” Thomas said gruffly.
She shifted her gaze from him as she sat down in the chair across from him. “Oh,” she mumbled. He could tell she was a bit embarrassed. “What about them?”
His eyebrows drew together. “I want to understand,” he said honestly.
She cleared her throat, still not making eye contact. “The attraction to him or the attraction he feels toward the women he verbally seduces?”
“The attraction to him.” Thomas was quiet for a moment as he considered things. “I understand—I think—why he chose the women that he did. He likes to bring down strong women. Powerful, professional women.”
One of her eyebrows rose as she looked at him. “I thought I recalled reading somewhere that not all of his victims had been career women.” She shook her head. “I must have been wrong.”
“There were two,” he confirmed, “that weren’t high-powered career women. Two out of seven—eight, if we count you.”
Nikki blew out a breath. “I’d rather not count me,” she mumbled before shoving a spoonful of ice cream between her lips.
“Understandable.”
“So how do you account for the two?” she asked, putting her spoon down. “When I talked to Dr. Horace she mentioned that organized serial killers tend toward the ritualistic. Lucifer is definitely organized. Why break his own pattern?”
Thomas sighed. “Lisa Pinoza . . . I still don’t know. She remains the one mystery victim, the one I can’t figure out the why to.” His jaw tightened. “I feel like this case would break wide open if I could answer that damn question.”
Nikki was quiet for a moment as she studied his face. “And the second victim?” she asked softly, fairly certain she already knew the answer.
His nostrils flared as he looked away. “To get to me. She was a toy to him, a way to punish me for working his case. A way to fuck with me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Thomas’s faraway gaze was reflective for a moment. He shook his head and sighed. “Anyway, back to you and the letters . . .”
She picked up her spoon. “All right. For the record, I find this conversation embarrassing and uncomfortable. But,” she muttered, “if you think it’ll help, then I’m willing to talk.”
He didn’t know if it would or wouldn’t. Thomas mentally convinced himself that it could, not wanting to deal with the fact that his true motivation was a desire to know more about Nikki.
“Why him?” he asked softly, his dark gaze raking over her features. “You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman,” he said, inducing her cheeks to color just a bit, “so why go looking for someone online?”
“You’ve read the emails,” she mumbled, shoving her spoon into the ice cream. “You know what I was looking for.”
“Fair enough. But why?”
Nikki sighed. She left the spoon suspended in the ice cream as her green gaze found his. “There were lots of reasons.”
“Like . . .”
“Like career pressure.” She smiled a bit, trying to make him understand. “I love my job, I really do, but it’s a job that requires an extreme amount of self-discipline and control. If I have a headache, or an upset stomach, or am feeling a bit down over a petty argument with a friend . . . none of these things matter. I have to detach and completely block them from my mind as if they don’t exist.”
Thomas slowly nodded. “I’m in touch with that feeling.”
Her eyes slightly widened. “I hadn’t thought about that, but I guess you would be.” She threw a hand toward him. “You know what it’s like to play God in people’s lives. You decide whether or not they will live as free men and women or go to jail and spend their lives behind bars. I have it a bit worse in that I decide if they will live or die.”
“Gotcha,” he murmured.
Nikki shrugged. “Don’t you ever get tired of being in control? Don’t you ever fantasize about letting go of the power and giving it up, if even for a few minutes, to a person you can trust?”
His gaze locked with hers. “No.”
Her eyes rounded. She chuckled. “Somehow, coming from you, that does not surprise me.” She shook her head and grinned.
Thomas found himself grinning back. “Okay, so career pressure. We’ve established that. What else?”
Apparently this was the harder part, for Nikki got that flustered, red-cheeked look about her again. He really did find that adorable, he decided.
“It’s just . . .” She sighed. “Emotional vulnerability, I suppose.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Emotional vulnerability. What does that mean?”
Nikki shrugged, glancing away. “I’m afraid this will sound a bit corny. Childish even, maybe.”
“Hey, we’ve all got aspects like that about us. There’s no such thing as perfect except for in books or movies, sweetheart,” he growled. “Go on.”
She smiled. “True.”
“Then go on,” he again prodded, though gentler this time.
“I wanted, just once in my life . . .” Nikki looked away again, a reflective expression on her face. “I wanted to be everything to a man. The center of his universe. Just once.”
Thomas listened but said nothing.
“Growing up, I never had a father. He died when I was fairly young, so it was just me and Mom. Mom . . . she loved me, I know she did, but she was very . . . how do I put it? Stoic, I guess. She was a stoic, emotionally withdrawn person.”
“Didn’t show much affection?” he asked softly.
Nikki shook her head. “No. Never.” She forced a smile as she met his gaze. “But she loved me and I loved her. She didn’t have to tell me for me to know, but it would have helped, if that makes sense.”
He inclined his head.
“I think,” she said in the way of self-analysis, “that as a result of that and various other events, I stored up all of these incredible feelings that I didn’t know how to show others. Feelings that have all been laying in wait for that one lucky guy”—she wiggled her eyebrows—“or unfortunate guy, depending on how you look at it.”
Nikki chuckled, trying to keep the conversation light. “It’s funny, too, because I can’t count how many men I dated when I was younger—before I gave up!—who described me postrelationship as a cold fish, an ice queen. Little did they know I had all of these intense emotions buried beneath the ice that I was waiting and hoping a man would care enough to crack and claim.”
Thomas’s gaze flicked over her facial features, studying them, memorizing them.
She glanced away, her smile fading. “But that never happened,” she said quietly. “And before I knew it, I quit hoping.” Nikki sighed. “Anyway, I don’t really remember how or when I happened upon my first e-book that revolved around Domination/submission situations, but I do recall being hooked as soon as I read one.”
Something in Thomas stilled. “E-books?” he softly asked.
Her eyebrows drew together. “That’s an electronic book,” she explained.
“I know,” he said, running a hand over his jaw. “Was it one publisher in particular you read?”
Nikki’s eyes rounded when she realized the direction his thoughts were going in. “Yes,” she whispered. “Do you suppose there could be a correlation?”
Thomas shoved away from the table and stood up. “I don’t know,” he said, the adrenaline kicking in. “Let’s go find out.”
“I want you to see if the e-book publisher will willingly
cooperate and hand over their records first,” Thomas said to Ben through the cell connection. “If not, then we try to get a warrant.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “Shit, I hope it doesn’t come to that. We don’t have enough to go on to obtain one.” He frowned. “Nah, it’s just a hunch. Well, not even a hunch, really. Just something worth looking into.”
Nikki watched Thomas pace back and forth, her gaze mesmerized by the sight of him. Certainly more enthralled than she wanted it to be. Especially considering the fact that he hadn’t made any mention today of last night or even behaved as though anything noteworthy had transpired between them. A thought that depressed her more than it probably should have.
Here she was, holed up in an apartment in downtown Cincinnati, where she could be another anonymous face in a crowd, in hiding from a sadistic serial killer who fantasized about raping, torturing, and murdering her in particular, and all Nikki could think about was whether or not Thomas was as attracted to her as she was to him. The irony was not lost on her.
Having Thomas as her bodyguard made her feel invulnerable to attack, which no doubt explained why she hadn’t given Lucifer as much thought as the sicko probably hoped she’d been giving him. The detective had a solid, loyal quality about him, a dependability most men, and most people for that matter, lack.
Nikki couldn’t decide if he was more handsome clean-shaven, as he was now, or sporting the five-o’clock shadow that partially concealed the lower half of his face most of the time. He looked a bit sinister either way, she supposed. He looked undeniably masculine and handsome either way, too. Even wearing jeans and a T-shirt as he was today, he personified rugged, elemental masculinity.
“Well,” Thomas said, making her blink, “Ben’s on the case. Now all we can do is sit back and wait to see if anything comes of it.”
She nodded. “I’m not sure I understand what it is you’re hoping to find, but whatever it is, I obviously hope you find it.”
“I’m not looking for anything in particular,” he said as he strolled into the kitchen. “And very well might not find anything. That’s the best way, if you ask me. If you look for something in particular, you tend to overlook the million other things staring you right in the face.”
“Good point.”
He grunted. “Well, for both our sakes I hope Ben finds something. I’d like to get the hell out of here and go back to Cleveland to work.”
Nikki’s heart fell, something she conceded it had no right to do. “Yes,” she said quietly, “I can understand that.”
Thomas’s head poked through the kitchen door. “Hey.” He waited for her to look at him before continuing. “Don’t go reading shit into things I say.” He frowned. “I say what I mean and I mean what I say,” he grumbled before disappearing back into the kitchen. “There ain’t any lines there for you to read between, Doc.”
She held back a smile. In more words or less he had just salvaged her pride, letting her know he wanted to return to Cleveland so it was easier to work, not so he wouldn’t be obliged to spend more time with her. Nikki blew out a breath. If Detective Grouch kept doing nice things like that, she was going to be head over heels in love with him before they left Cincinnati.
“I was thinking,” Nikki said a bit loudly to make sure Thomas heard her from the kitchen.
“Oh, great,” he muttered. “Three words no man wants to hear from a woman’s lips.”
“Knock it off, I’m being serious.”
He grunted. “So am I.”
Nikki rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Anyway,” she said pointedly, standing up and walking into the kitchen. “You have a laptop, right?” she asked, leaning against the door-frame.
Thomas glanced up from where he was making sandwiches. “Yeah. You like pastrami?”
“Yes,” she said absently. “With mustard, please. Anyway, if you have a laptop, why don’t we . . . I don’t know . . . try to catch Lucifer ourselves?”
He stilled for a moment. He glanced up at her. “I have to admit the thought did cross my mind.”
“But?”
He shrugged. “Leon Walker, our computer expert over at the CPD, already put approximately ten dummy ads in. So far he hasn’t even gotten a nibble. There are thousands of ads on
Dom4me.com
. What are the chances of Lucifer reading the one we put in when he hasn’t taken any of Leon’s bait?”
“A bit more mustard, please.” Nikki considered that.
“Well, have you thought about the possibility that Lucifer can smell a trap? Or that Leon isn’t using the right trigger words? He is a man after all.”
Thomas frowned. “Yes, I’ve considered that. But Dr. Horace is a woman, and she helped him create the ads. Do you like pickles?”
“What am I, a communist? Okay, granted Dr. Horace is a woman, and a brilliant one at that, but perhaps she is missing that element of vulnerability Lucifer’s victims, myself included, shared in common. I bet if we created a fictional ad for a woman in the Cleveland area who has the same professional and
emotional
attributes as me . . .”
He was quiet for a long moment, a thoughtful look etched into his profile. “Go boot up the laptop,” Thomas muttered. “I’ll get us some chips and pops.”