The Acceptance Read online

  Clean. Organized. Masculine. Everything about his home, a real home, felt nice, smelled nice.

  So inappropriate to the likes of her.

  That Gaby could hear Luther in the bathroom finishing up a hot shower was the only salvation, the only measure to fight the staggering call. It dragged at her, commanding acceptance, gnarling her muscles, relentless in its claim on her.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and thought of Luther, remembered his pleasure as she’d capitulated to his demands.

  Demands to join him, to try for a normal life—to give them, as a couple, a chance.

  He was a fool. She was a fool for accepting even the slightest possibility of a normal life, a real relationship.

  Before excusing himself for the shower he’d smiled at her, thrilled to have her in his home, anticipation bright in his eyes. Luther thought he’d gotten his way. He thought he had Gaby where he wanted her.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Another shaft of pain pierced her. It was always this way—the bid to fulfill her duty was a wrenching agony she couldn’t fight. Whenever she’d tried, the pain had grown insurmountable.

  As it did now.

  Sweat trickled down her temple to soak into Luther’s pillow. Already she soiled his fine home. If she stayed, she’d turn his entire existence black with depravity.

  Her breath caught as the shower turned off. Luther would not expect to find her in his bed. No, he thought she was downstairs, waiting, where she should have been, where he’d left her. He wanted to go slow, to give her time.

  But God knew, time wasn’t always something she had.

  Tonight, right now, her time had run out before she’d even begun.

  Damn her plight. Damn her duty.

  For so long now, Detective Luther Cross had tried to worm his way into her dysfunctional, psychotic life—and she’d resisted.

  With good reason.

  No matter his claims of “knowing” her, of “accepting” her and her strange eccentricities. He might think he had an inkling of what she did and why. But he didn’t, not really. He couldn’t.

  Why had she come here?

  Tears, salty and hot, trickled along her temples, mingling with the sweat. Her body strained as she tried to find just a few minutes more, just enough time to have Luther. Once. A memory she could keep forever . . .

  But the relentless pull and drag on her senses, the encompassing pain that twisted and curdled inside her told her to stop being fanciful.

  Should she leave without telling him? Make a clean break of it and let him wonder, let him worry?

  Let him give up. On her.

  On them.

  Or should she try trusting him?

  No, no, never that. She couldn’t.

  The pain lashed her, impatient for obedience, and Gaby knew she couldn’t resist it any longer. As she sat up, she cried out—and the bathroom door opened.

  Luther stepped out, buck naked, tall and strong and oddly beautiful for a man. That stunning golden aura swirled around him, bright with optimism, with promise of all that was good.

  All that was the opposite of her.

  Seeing her, he drew up short, stared for a moment. His hot gaze moved over her body, but not with lust as much as concern. “Gaby?”

  “I was waiting . . .” She gasped, nearly doubled with the physical torment of the calling. “For you. I was willing, Luther. I was anxious. But . . .” She staggered to her feet, unseeing, choked with the need for haste. “But now I have to go.”

  He remained strangely still, watching her. “Where?”

  How could he remain so composed, so . . . detached, in the face of what she was, what she had to do? “I don’t know yet.”

  She fumbled for her shirt and dragged it on.

  Words hurt. Leaving felt like death.

  But she was a paladin, and being interested in a man, even a man as good as Luther, didn’t change that.

  Luther didn’t ask any more questions, he just dried with the speed of a man on a mission. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Don’t be fucking stupid.” She stepped into jeans, almost fell, and had to stop, had to gnash her teeth and squeeze her eyes shut in an attempt to contain the overpowering draw. But she knew the only relief would be to give in. And she would— once she was away from Luther. “I work alone.”

  “Not tonight.” Already dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, he reached for her. His hand touched her face, smoothed back her damp hair, and some of the awful, distorting agony dissipated. Almost sad, definitely accepting, he whispered, “Not tonight.”

  He’d always affected her this way, bringing clarity in the midst of the blind calling, easing her misery, calming her heart.

  With the short reprieve, Gaby slapped his hand aside and pushed her feet into casual shoes. “I’ll say it once, Luther. Stay out of my way.”

  And then she gave herself over to her duty.

  Once accepted, it lashed through her, shocking her body, rolling her eyes back, straining her spine. In the peripheral of her senses, she felt Luther there, not touching her, not deterring her, but keeping pace as she moved forward, out of his bedroom, out of his house—and into the hell that was her life.