Internal Affair (8 page)

Don’t look. Don’t look.
That didn’t work. It was like telling someone to not think of the word elephant. Her gaze skittered over his fly, and yes, at least one part of him appeared to like the idea of getting closer to her. Thank God, he had more sense than she did, though. He pulled the chair next to hers away from the table so that he wouldn’t be sitting very close. She did her part by angling her netbook in his direction so that he could see the screen better.

“What am I looking at?”

“I created a spreadsheet of all of the cops who graduated with your father.” When she looked at him, he raised his eyebrows. “I needed to look at all of this from a fresh angle, so I decided to use your father as the centerpiece of my investigation and that meant going back to the beginning.”

She pointed to the various columns with her forefinger. “Then I tracked them to see what happened to them over the years. I haven’t finished, but I made a good dent.” She pointed to a particular column. “Here’s where you see who’s died, who left the force, who is actively wearing the badge.”

Daire whistled in appreciation. “That’s a lot of work for one day.”

His praise warmed her, and she beamed back at him, feeling both stupid and proud. “I’m good with tracking down details, although like I said, I’m not finished. For those that I do have info on, I also included how the dead met their end and if any are off the force involuntarily.”

Daire leaned in closer for a better look. The moment he did, her body temperature started to climb. A flush lit up her cheeks and her skin prickled. Pushing her netbook closer to his part of the table, she sat back to put more distance between them. She wrapped her hand around the sweaty, yet still cool, bottle of soda and took a good swig of it. If she could have gotten away with it surreptitiously, she’d have run the thing across her hot brow.

This close, she could appreciate for the first time how muscular the man was. His suits and dress shirts had so far hidden that fact. Now, with his pants stretched tight across his thighs and a bit of chest peeking out from his open collar, she noticed the power as well as the grace in which he carried his bulk. And although the cut of the pants made it hard to see, she thought she glimpsed a scarily bulky package between his legs.

Her breasts tingled and her pussy throbbed. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Hadn’t she just ruminated over his masculine aura? His having actual physical power was all part of the package.

Too bad she hadn’t met him on a dating site or some other modern, yet appropriate social avenue. Not that she looked for men in those ways. Part of her was too old-fashioned and would have welcomed meeting a man through family or friends. A murder investigation didn’t count. They both needed to keep their focus on the job, especially when any doubt over the existence of a ring of bad cops and the desperate measures they’d go to had died along with Forrester.

Parker forced her head back in the one game that counted right now. “I don’t have any stats to back this up, but it seems to me that there is an unusual number of people from your father’s graduating class who have died in, let’s say, less than natural causes.”

Daire stared intensely at the screen. “I really have no idea if you’re right about that. Do you have a list of how these guys died?”

“Oh.” She hit the tab to show him what she had.

“Line of duty, car accident, suicide.” He glanced her way. “Suicide is topping the list number-wise. Police officers do have a relatively high rate of suicide, or so they say.”

“Correlations between profession and suicide are murky.” Yes, she was a geek in her own way, always capable of pulling some weird statistic out of the back of her head. This one mattered, however. “It’s going to be hard to tell if we have a statistical anomaly here.”

Daire sat back with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, and I’m not sure what it would mean anyway, except that this group might choose to take out malcontents and other liabilities within their own ranks.”

“Like O’Malley.”

He nodded. “Like O’Malley.”

Neither of them said anything more for a few seconds. As much as she hated herself for it, she thought
like your father?
She didn’t voice the question, of course.

Daire must have read it in her expression anyway. “Not like my father. He was taken out because he’d figured out what was going on and their obviously willing to do anything to keep their operation going.”

Parker looked him square in the eye. She’d allowed him in on her investigation because he agreed to go wherever it led them. Her growing interest in him as a man couldn’t cloud her judgment, not now, not ever. Besides reminding him of the deal might just kill whatever interest he had in her as a woman. If it did, it would be for the best. That’s what she told herself, anyway. “I agree that’s one of only two possibilities, sir.”

He scowled back at her, although whether it was her reminder that the jury was still out about his father or the fact that she had gone back to calling him sir, she couldn’t tell. A little of both probably.

He didn’t argue her point, merely turned back to the list. “I bet some of these line of duty kills were set ups and maybe some of the accidents, too.”

She’d already considered the possibility. “It’s going to take a lot of digging into the details of the file on each case, including the autopsies. Plus, I still have more graduates to track down. It’s going to take a lot of time. And I don’t even have the knowledge base to review the autopsies.”

“Neither do I, but Cassidy does.” He gave Parker a pointed look.

She held his gaze for long seconds, trying and failing to ignore the vivid blue of his eyes. They were compelling and enticing, and just for those few seconds, she really did forget why she was in this house. Without thought, she leaned closer to him, still staring into those eyes and wondering what Crayola would name this particular shade. She didn’t stop her forward movement until she felt his breath upon her face. It left his mouth in short, fast puffs. It was only when a noise came out, a kind of grunt, that she froze.

Oh, my God, what was she doing? She threw herself back into her chair and with rapid blinks of her eyelids, looked away. “Um.” She wracked her brain for the topic of discussion to eek out some kind of suitable response. “You want to bring in other people?”

Daire cleared his throat in an alarming way. He sounded as if he were choking on a live cat. “Yeah, that’s what I’m suggesting. We need more eyes on this, and a medical examiner would be especially helpful. Don’t you think?”

She turned her head slowly back to him and blinked some more. Think? How could she think about anything with him so close? No amount of nightly sessions with her beloved vibrator would satisfy her with a man like Daire in her life. In that moment, she had an epiphany. More people in the room would be the perfect solution. Plus, he was right, they needed more eyes and brains working on this. “Other than Dr. Barnes, who did you have in mind?”

Daire pushed his chair back and stood up. He paced away from her. “My brothers and my cousin, Regan, plus Caruso and Nieves, if they’re willing and my brothers don’t mind.” He gave her a rueful grin. “They’re pretty protective of the people in their lives.”

Parker appreciated the distance he’d put between them. It gave her space to breathe, although she’d only be truly comfortable after she left the house. Getting up, she proceeded to shut down her netbook and gather her other stuff. “Okay, I’m convinced, although the more people we involve, the more notice we’ll get. Plus, I’m not sure doing my investigation this way isn’t going to land all of us in hot water.”

“Well, Regan’s boyfriend is a top notch litigator, so that might come in handy.”

Parker gave him an exasperated look. “Don’t even think a joke like that.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t look it. Instead, he gave her a mischievous smile that sent her body back into the no-fly zone. She practically raced to grab her coat off its hook. “Let’s keep this as off the radar as we can. I suggest we all meet here this Friday night.” Surely, her hormones would behave themselves in a house full of Daire’s relatives.

“Good idea.” He’d come up behind her as she struggled to shrug on her coat while still holding her briefcase and purse. She jumped at the sound of his voice and shuddered at the feel of his hands on her shoulders. “Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Without looking over her shoulder, Parker said, “Startle is hardly the word. Disturb is more like it.” What a moronic thing to confess. The words were already out of her mouth, however. The only thing left to do was flee.

Daire leaned against the door as soon as it shut behind Parker. He pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the door’s window and forced deep, even breaths into his lungs. A tremor ran through his body, testament to the strain he’d been under during Parker’s mercifully short visit. His dick throbbed painfully, and he resisted the urge to even glance at it. So long as he didn’t see it, he could pretend that Parker hadn’t either.

After a few seconds, he calmed enough to return to the table and clear it. There was a lot of food left. The frugal part of him, honed over the years in which he’d had to squeeze every penny like a miser, insisted he pack all of it into the refrigerator to save for the next night’s dinner. Then he did the dishes, again falling back on habits developed after his parents’ deaths. It had been too easy for three young males to leave dirty dishes piled high. He’d forced them all into some rigid habits to keep the entropy at bay. Even now, when he could cut loose a bit, he kept to the behavior. The sad truth was, if he didn’t, he worried that loneliness and grief would overwhelm him. That concern was especially relevant tonight when the murders sat fresh in his mind.

His erection barely flagged with the monotony of his task. A scent lingered in his home, a light, floral perfume that had come in from the cold with Parker and stayed to tease him. As did the memory of her deep brown eyes boring into him. Christ, when she’d leaned over, he could have sworn she intended to kiss him. An absurd notion given they were practically strangers and definitely colleagues working a case. Totally inappropriate. And yet all he could think as she got closer and closer was “yes, please.”

He leaned against the kitchen counter and cupped his cock and balls. Even through the fabric of his pants, they felt hot and heavy. There was only one possible way for this evening to end, and fighting it wouldn’t grant him a better night’s sleep. He performed his nightly check of the downstairs perimeter, set the house alarm and trudged his way up the stairs and into the bathroom. As he stripped down for a shower, he told himself he should pull out one of his classic fantasy women to jerk off to. Parker deserved more respect than to play a feature role in his self-gratification. He fought the brief, losing battle, finally accepting the fact that his mind and body wanted this one very real woman.

The old shower was cramped, but he could stand under the spray for as long as the water heater held out. He still appreciated how he didn’t have to share something as basic as hot water anymore now that he lived alone. He really should remodel the whole bathroom, too, given his bank account contained a healthy cushion. All things considered, being a single man for the first time in his adult life was something to be savored.

So why did he feel almost bereft? Was this what empty-nesters went through? Ridiculous. He wasn’t some middle-aged man, missing his grown children. He’d barely started living his life. He’d marry someday and have his own children. This house would be filled with that new family. He just had to meet the right woman.

Parker’s exquisite face loomed large in his mind. Of course, the one woman he wanted was the one he couldn’t have.
Why the fuck not?
His lizard brain screamed it at him. His dick echoed the sentiment. The why nots were too obvious and too tiresome to repeat even to himself. Besides, he could have her here where he stood alone and unobserved. No one, especially Parker, would ever know. He had enough self-control to hide his interest when they were together, mostly. He needed to convince his cock to get with the program. Otherwise, he’d better get a chastity device to keep it in lockdown. Regan would undoubtedly be able to help him find the right thing for the job.

Just the thought of being confined for Parker’s benefit shot pleasure straight to his groin. Christ, Jesus, did that mean he was a submissive like Kyle? Maybe, although, the arousing part of the idea was tied to being Parker’s plaything and no one else’s.

With a groan, he clasped his rod in a firm grip. He squeezed up the long length and rubbed his thumb over the head. The water made his skin slippery, but not enough to glide easily, so he grabbed the bar of soap with his other hand and worked up a lather. Turning his back to the spray, he worked the foam over his cock and around his balls.

That helped. With his eyes closed, he used both hands to play with himself in languid fashion. Although part of him wanted to speed through to an orgasm, he forced himself to take his time. As he worked his dick and nuts, a soft video played in his mind.

Parker stared at him with her intense gaze. Her lips parted on a sigh, and her tongue flicked over them in blatant invitation. He pictured her mouth opening wide to cover his cockhead. He was so big and she was so small, she’d never take more than an inch or two in. He’d be gentle with her, grateful for the effort. His hand would cup the back of her head, not to push her, but to stroke the soft, shiny strands.

He ran his thumbnail through his slit and hissed at the bit of pain. He squeezed his balls as well and groaned. Yes, maybe there was something to this BDSM after all. Only for him, however. No pain could ever be inflicted on her exquisite and delicate body. With tender care, he lay her down on his bed, her dark hair fanning out over the white of the pillow. Small, pert breasts beckoned him to touch and taste. Each one fit perfectly into his mouth. He ran his tongue across the hard nipples, sucking and laving until she writhed in his embrace.

His hips jerked in his clasp, anxious to get in on the action. Patience, he schooled himself. A woman like Parker deserved to be made love to slowly. But he wasn’t a completely selfless person. He picked up the pace, working his way down the flat of her belly and nestling his lips between her legs. She tasted wonderfully sweet, and he could all but smell that subtle perfume of hers as if it came from her body and not a bottle. He feasted on her flesh, enjoying the exotic taste of an aroused woman, something he remembered only from his distant past.