Wolves of Haven: Lone (4 page)

“For me,” he explained. “Not a
transfer for you, but for me.”

The anger visibly left her and her
head tilted to the side as if confused. “Huh?” she asked,
dumbfounded. It was common knowledge that the most sought after
command was District C-11. It was the most populated district, had
the largest force, those in command rose in the ranks rapidly from
that precinct, and they interviewed many for the coveted Captain’s
spot. And yet the stranger she literally stumbled across, bought
drinks for, then took back to her place for the most amazing,
passionate sex she’d ever had, was offering to abandon his post,
simply because of a drunken hook up?

That didn’t make sense to Akia in
the least.

Captain Nikas folded his hands
together on his desk and continued to maintain eye contact with her
in an attempt to keep the memories that were suddenly no longer
fuzzy from last night and the raw, primal mating, and to ignore the
longing within him that was apparently clouding his better
judgment, from his mind. He licked his lips before he spoke, and
Akia’s eyes snapped to his mouth then she struggled to swallow the
lump that suddenly formed in her throat from watching the
involuntary action. Never had a mouth spent so much time
worshipping her body, and she didn’t nearly get enough of it. “I
will,” he said, speaking in a low voice that caused Akia’s pupils
to dilate, “request reassignment to another precinct in order to
continue what was started last night, without alcohol this time,
and without the inadvertent comparison to a chewing the head off of
a mate praying mantis.”

Akia’s eyes widened and mouth fell
open with a soft popping sound. She had to be hung over still, that
was the only thing she could think of, because there was no way he
just said, just offered that, to her.

“The comparison,” he said with a
small chuckle, “was unintentional. I was trying to make a crane or
Bird of Paradise, but the only thing I could remember how to make
at that moment was the praying mantis. My apologies,” he said with
a sheepish smile; the ridges of his high cheekbones were flushed in
rose, a small dimple recessed deeply on one cheek, and his features
had somehow softened.

Absently Akia shook her head before
she could stop herself. She wanted to rip his designer suit off and
throw him on the desk at that very moment, be damned who else saw,
and pick up where they left off earlier that morning.

A smile filled his face before it
quickly dropped. “Very well,” he said, leaning back in his chair,
resuming the role of Captain. “Which department did you want? I
asked the others questions in order to find out which they wanted
since, in my experience, when you ask they simply blurt out
wherever I feel would be best for them or where there is
need-”

“Homicide,” Akia
interrupted.

He cocked an eyebrow and smirked.
“Promise of our first date or is that where you want to set roots
in C-11?”

Akia cocked an eyebrow and smirked
in return. “Both,” she purred.

Later that night Damian knocked on
her front door with a flower in hand, and when she opened the door
she didn’t give him a chance to say anything and pulled him inside
then ripped his dress shirt open, ruining it in the process, and
hours later they eventually made it to the bed.

And that was how the first year of
their relationship was.

Either he knocked on her door or
she knocked on his, and they eventually made it to the bed. After
the first few months they talked between marathon sex sessions, and
somehow, before they realized it had happened, they were in a
committed relationship. They kept up appearances at work—Akia kept
to herself and said very little of her personal life, and Damian
had a framed picture of a woman on his desk; no one knew it was his
dead roommate from college that died of ovarian cancer their junior
year—and fearing that Internal Affairs might find out about their
relationship, they went to extreme measures to keep the force and
everyone else out of it. Each still had their apartment in the city
for appearance sake, but they lived together in an industrial
warehouse turned loft space in the shipping district that the two
had renovated together. They filed taxes separately, the loft space
was owned by a shell trust located in the Caymans, their phones
were encrypted and a redirected number was stored for when they
called or texted the other, that way no one would question why
there were so many calls between the Captain and someone under his
command. They didn’t arrive to work at the same time, didn’t lunch
at the same time, and didn’t leave at the same time. Some days Akia
worked all night at the precinct, and other times Damian had out of
town family matters that he had to address, sometimes taking him an
entire weekend to resolve. He didn’t ask questions of her, and she
didn’t ask them of him; they unconditionally trusted the other,
something that neither had with another before.

“What are you thinking about?” Akia
whispered, effectively pulling Damian from the past and back into
the present.

He kissed her shoulder. “You, but
you already knew that.”

Akia smiled. “Anything specific?”
she pressed.

“I love you.”

“I know,” she sighed. “You
shouldn’t.”

“You say that often,” Damian
pointed out, not offended in the least that she doesn’t say it
back. He doesn’t need to hear the words to know that she feels the
same way. Everyone has a past, and he knew that Akia was no
different, and what caused her to run from her home was bad, so he
never pressed it. He hoped that one day she would trust him enough
to tell him everything, but that wasn’t any day soon he knew. “But
it doesn’t change how I feel.”

Akia groaned and snuggled against
him more, trying to silently tell him to shut up and that she
didn’t want to hear it at the moment.

“Demanding ass woman,” he grumbled
then kissed up the side of her neck.

The ringing of a cell phone pulled
their attention towards the opening leading to their
bedroom.

“Damn it, I’m too comfortable to
get up,” she pouted. “Isn’t it my day off?”

“It is. They’ll leave a message or
call back if it’s important. Did you have plans for the weekend? If
needed I can call your Captain and strong arm him into strong
arming you into taking a well overdue vacation, Lieutenant de
Wolfe.”

Akia chuckled. “You are stubborn,
more so than I am. What are you scheming?”

A smile filled his face. She must
have been exhausted because she very rarely conceded to his
requests without asking a dozen clarifying questions.

“My family owns a small cabin
around Montpelier, Vermont. It’s off the grid, private, romantic,”
he mused the latter, and she chuckled, “and the perfect place to
spend the next four days in bed.”

Her lips twisted into a
contemplative pout. “Sounds tempting. Taking me into the woods
where no one can hear
you
scream,” she said.

Damian chuckled. “Yes, exactly
that. I’ll even let you bring the handcuffs and riding
crops.”

“Even more tempting,” she
commented.

The cell phone in the other room
beeped, signaling it had a message, before it started ringing
again.

“Damn it,” he grumbled, sliding
Akia forward some, so he could get out of the bath.

“But I was comfortable,” she
pouted, leaning back in the water once he was out of the tub then
watched him walk across the bathroom naked, and admired his firm,
muscular backside as he moved. His smooth, muscular, olive toned
body was perfect, and she knew it better than her own, but every
time she sees it in all of God’s bare glory, it’s like seeing it
for the first time, and it causes an intense arousal that sets her
body ablaze with desire and clouds her mind with lustful
thoughts.

Neither had she minded in the
least.

When Damian walked back into the
bathroom with her cell phone in hand, his complexion was extremely
pale and his eyes wide.

Akia sat up. “What’s wrong?” she
demanded. Never had she seen him like that before.

He opened his mouth more than once,
his eyes going from the caller id to her and back again, but he
wasn’t sure what to say.

She got out of the tub and hurried
over to him. “Damian, what’s wrong?” she asked again.

He held the phone out to
her.

When she read the caller id her
eyes widened. She reached for the phone with a trembling hand then
put it to her ear.

The voice on the other end was like
a fist to the gut, and it nearly dropped her.

“Father needs you. Come home,” was
all he said before hanging up.

For hours and over the course of
hundreds of miles, Akia was assaulted with memories of home. It
wasn’t a place she wanted to go back to, it was a place she had
purposely left a decade ago without giving it a second thought, but
with only a few words she was on her way back, alone, and flooded
with guilt. It wasn’t guilt for leaving, no, it was guilt over not
being there for Father when he obviously needed her.

The last time HOME showed up on her
caller id, it was Father telling her that Conway was dead. It hurt
to lose a cousin, but in all fairness she’d only met Conway twice
in the fifteen years she had called Verulfr Manor home, and he was
an idiot and glutton for punishment, so she hadn’t gone back for
his final rites. Father was disappointed in her, but he didn’t
press it; he never did when Akia was involved.

Damian asked her once, and only
once, why she left. It only took one look from her for him to know
the answer, and it wasn’t one that he would press.

She really did love that about
him.

Without having to say anything, she
packed her bag, and Damian quickly got dressed. By the time she was
dressed and ready to go, he had her passport ready, cash in both
currencies, medications, keys to the Jeep, and had arranged for her
leave of absence from work for a family emergency. She opened her
mouth more than once, but nothing came out. She wanted him to come
with her; his protection she didn’t need though her heart did, but
she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to risk it so she popped one
of her pills since it was time.

“If you need me, call and I’ll be
there. I promise,” Damian said before caressing her lips with
his.

That promise, his reassurance, gave
her the strength to hit the road without question and to face her
demons. Perhaps it was exactly what she needed, this was the
inadvertent push that would finally bury her demons and
dysfunctions, and that would allow the three words biting at her
tongue to finally leave her lips.

“This is what I need to do,” Akia
whispered aloud. “In order to move forward, I have to let go of the
past.” She picked up the pendant hanging from around her neck and
her fingers traced over the delicate art deco filigree scrolling
encompassing the two inch long rectangular pendant.

Damian had given it to her as a
gift for her promotion; she hadn’t gotten a chance to open it last
night because they went straight to the bedroom the moment she got
home. Before she climbed in the Jeep, he handed the velvet box to
her; a token to remember him by, he had called it. The platinum
snake y-chain nearly went to her sternum, and the pendant hung
between her breasts, as close to her heart as possible. It was
beautiful, from the art deco era of design, which Damian knew was
her favorite period, and it was exactly what she didn’t know she
needed at that moment. The body of the pendant shimmered from the
tiny diamonds covering its surface, and in the center was a framed
blue diamond the same shade of her eyes. It was beautiful, more
than she could accept, but Damian wouldn’t hear of taking it
back.

“It cost me nothing,”
he assured her, sensing her argument before it
could leave her lips.
“It was my mother’s,
and she gave it to me to give to my heart… Hint, hint,”
he had teased, and she gave him a look.
“Shut up and accept that it now belongs to you.
At the moment you need to go to your family, thus we’ll argue about
the pendant later when you’re home where it’s
safe.”