Oblivious to the peril lurking, a young woman stepped out next. As she kept her back to the alley to lock the door, Gaby approached her. Standing only a few inches behind the woman, Gaby asked, “Anybody else inside?”
The woman jumped and let out a small screech. Pivoting to face Gaby, a hand at her throat and her other arm laden with a large satchel, she took in Gaby’s looming proximity with barefaced terror. “Who are you? What do you want?”
A shroud of bitter disappointment settled over Gaby.
Accepting defeat—for now—she moved back a step. This woman had no audacity. At a very young age, Gaby had learned not to judge people by appearances.
The rankest immorality could exist beneath the most angelic veneer, just as hideous, distorted features could conceal a heart of gold.
Gaby rather admired this girl’s appearance. She decorated herself in a way designed to draw attention: ornate tattoos colored her throat, one shoulder, and her collarbone, while her pierced ears, eyebrows, and one nostril sported silver jewelry. Despite outward appearances, she carried a grayish blue aura of timidity, defensiveness, and fragility.
“Who else works here?”
The girl’s dark eyes blinked fast in a display of nervous fatalism. She expected abuse, but wasn’t used to it.
Hugging her purse to herself, she tried to press backward into the locked door. She was so worried about surviving the moment, Gaby knew she wouldn’t lie.
“There are five of us who take shifts. I do bookkeeping only, but we have two tattoo artists and two body-piercing specialists.”
None of those hit a chord with Gaby. Even standing on a step below the girl, she looked her in the eyes. “Who else?”
“There . . . there’s the owner, Fabian. It’s his shop.”
Fabian. Gaby tasted the name in her mind, let it bring forth a vision, and knew he was the one she wanted.
“When will Fabian work again?”
Fear had the girl glancing left and right before offering a response. “He, uh . . . he’ll probably be in tomorrow. Usually midafternoon.”
Gaby smiled. “You can tell him to expect me.”
Breath expended, it took the girl a moment to realize the import of those words—that she’d have to live to relay the message. “Oh. Yes, yes, I will. I swear.”
Taking a step back before her quarry fainted, Gaby asked, “One more thing.”
Voice tremulous, she asked, “Yes?”
Gaby pulled up a sleeve and dragged aside the bandage covering her wound. “How soon can I get a tattoo around this?”
Chapter 6
After stowing her car a few blocks away in an area unnoticed by most, Gaby started walking and found herself in front of Luther’s house. No way could she have parked her disreputable looking Ford Falcon amidst the middle-class family sedans visible in driveways and along the curb.
Primer in key places, dents and scratches aplenty, led most to believe that the car was a junker. That ruse had allowed her occasional transportation to blend into the neighborhoods where she’d always lived.
It wouldn’t blend in here.
Hiding it nearby would have to suffice; if she needed the car, she could get to it fast.
Now she had nothing more to do than to turn in for the night. But where?
Undecided on her welcome, she gazed at Luther’s cozy, clean home, making note of the normalcy, the lived-in, welcoming feel of it. Yearning pulled at her, urging her forward. Sick at heart, she dug in and held back.
Uncertainty was a new affliction for her, and she didn’t like it worth a damn.
Trying for reason, she reminded herself that Luther had told her to return, had all but pleaded with her. But now . . . did he still feel the same?
Had he heard about the drug dealers? If not, she’d have to tell him, and that would surely negate any hospitality he had extended.
Darkness shrouded the house.
Had Luther gone on to bed? Was he, even now, sound asleep?
And did she, a paladin who fought evil without fear, have what it took to go in, climb those stairs, and disturb him from his rest?
Gaby clenched her jaw, despising indecision as much as she did vulnerability.
Maybe she should just curl up on the porch. God knew she’d slept in worse places. Then she and Luther could sort things out in the—
Her thoughts shattered as the front door opened and Luther filled the space. He stared right at her as if he’d known, as if . . . he’d been watching and waiting for her.
Gaby’s sharply inhaled breath burned her lungs.
The sudden furious pounding of her heart made her sway.
Even from the street, with only the faintest yellow glow of a streetlamp that barely reached him, she could see that Luther wore nothing more than unsnapped jeans. He didn’t shiver in the cold breeze that ruffled his already untidy hair.
It didn’t take a paladin’s acute vision or limitless intuition to read his dark mood. Relief, rage, and something so much softer, all churned the bright aura limning his powerful, seductive, and comforting presence.
For an indeterminate amount of time they remained that way, separated by space but connected just the same, each unwilling to make the first move. The longer Gaby delayed, the more she hurt. Not the pain of a devout calling, but pain from sharp need, a need she’d seldom experienced before Luther had forced his way into her melancholic life.
A need she had long ago denied existed.
“Fuck it.” Gaby took one step, then another. Her heartbeat and the racing of her pulse sent a cacophonous echoing through her brain. Each step grew harder, faster—and she saw an infinitesimal relaxing of Luther’s broad shoulders.
The closer she got to him, the more she convinced herself that she had more reason to be disgruntled than he did.
Hadn’t he left her high and dry earlier that day, after getting her all hot and bothered? Sure he had to work. She understood that.
But knowing he might have to leave, he’d still gotten her primed to experience new depths of sensuality—and then he’d walked away from her.
Because of her anger, he’d left her with a promise, a carnal tease about intimate matters to be completed.
And, by God, she would demand he fulfill that promise tonight.
Carried forward by resentment, Gaby bypassed the walkway and stomped over the dew-wet lawn. A stiff, cool breeze moved through the heavy branches of the trees in his front yard, shaking loose raindrops to dampen her hair and skin.
Gaby didn’t feel the chill.
Focused only on Luther, her gaze locked on his, she marched up the porch steps and to the open doorway where he waited with crossed arms and copious macho attitude.
Close enough that their breaths mingled, she stopped. He stood there in austere inflexibility, his brown-eyed gaze locking onto hers with such strong, conflicted feeling that her knees went rubbery.
Today, she had been forced to kill two beautiful animals.
Today, she had seen misery in a young girl’s face and learned the intended fate of an innocent child.
All in all, it’d been a super-sucky day.
Gaby didn’t want Luther to start chastising her. She didn’t want to argue with him. The past few hours had been so fraught with fears and disappointments that she wanted only the unique, opulent contentment he could give.
He didn’t reach for her, but so fucking what?
She was used to taking matters into her own hands. And this time, she would do so . . . literally.
Luther felt every punching beat of his heart as forcefully as he felt Gaby’s resolve.
But resolve to do what?
His lungs labored for air, but a pressure on his chest kept the deep breath at bay.
“I came home,” she told him with her chin in the air and a sour tone of accusation.