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"Nada. Though you will officially be the meanest woman I've ever met. Considering some of the people I've met on the job, that's saying something." His glance slid over her. "I can't promise I won't look. You can't hold that against me."

  "I'm not going to hold anything against you." She couldn't go to the home of a man she only knew from a convenience store bonding experience. Especially when that was the least dangerous thing about him. Telling herself a stern no, she started to backpedal toward her car.

  "Looks like you're striking out, Sergeant Keller."

  She jumped at the whine of the speaker Jai had mounted on the gas pump island and glanced through the window. Jai clicked the button again, smiling at her. "Despite what you've told me, apparently cops don't get pussy whenever they want it."

  She choked on a chuckle as Leland threw a glare toward the store owner. Jai shrugged, lifting his hands in a posture of total innocence. But he looked toward Celeste again, his expression sobering as he pressed the mic control. "He's okay, Celly. He's good people. I'd trust him with my own daughters. If I'm wrong, come get me and we'll shoot him. My gun's bigger than his."

  "But his aim's so bad he couldn't hit a parked car with it," Leland muttered. "Unless he threw the gun butt first."

  The three men came up to the cash register to pay for their items, so Jai clicked off. Leland turned his attention back to her. "I'm good people," he repeated. "So see? You can trust my word. If you get tired, not a problem. I've got a comfortable couch where you can sack out until daylight."

  She lifted a brow, blinked. "Do you usually ask strangers to sleep on your couch, Sergeant Keller?"

  He glanced toward the car. "I'm not sure that's going to get you home, unless home's across the street."

  "You'd be surprised. That car's a lot tougher than she looks. And I do have a cell number, Dad. I can text you when I get home safe." Which would give him her phone number, and her his. Still a mistake, but a more manageable one in the rational light of day. "It's kind of you to be concerned, but I do know this area of town."

  "Which is why you should be jumping at the chance to find shelter until morning, when the worst riffraff crawl back into their holes." He crossed his arms. "I wasn't going to point this out, but you are about to be guilty of a serious code violation."

  "There is nothing wrong with my vehicle. My tags and everything are up to date." At least, she thought they were.

  "Not that. I bought you dinner. There's a rule that says you're at least required to eat it with me."

  Swallowing the chuckle, she schooled her face into miffed indifference. She pulled the lasagna out of the bag and extended it to him. "A fair point. Jai has a microwave inside. I think it's four and a half minutes on high."

  Under his bemused gaze, she settled herself gracefully on the parking curb, glad the tight jeans had spandex as she stretched her legs out in front of her, crossed her ankles and leaned back on her palms. The release of pressure on her aching arches made her want to moan. She might not get up again for a while.

  "Open air dining works best for me." She smiled brightly. "And if we're talking code violations, when a man buys a woman dinner, dessert is supposed to be included. A Hershey bar should work, if you're springing for the full-course meal."

  Amusement crossed his handsome face, but something else, too. Dropping to his heels, he took the frozen box from her, but not to heat it in Jai's microwave. He slid it back in her grocery bag, nudged it to the side so there was nothing between the two of them, and reached out.

  Celeste went still as he cupped her cheek. His large hand cradled her face as he studied her. If he'd touched her in a more active manner, she would have drawn back, but that steady stare, the light hold, kept her still. Mostly still. Her lips had parted, her breath held in a peculiar stasis. When at last he moved, it was to slide his thumb across her bottom lip, tracing it just as she'd imagined. But then he kept going, caressing a path from the corner of her mouth, along her cheek to her jaw and lower, to her neck. The solid pressure of his thumb rested on her thudding pulse briefly before he stroked beneath her chin, making her lift it to him. She should be pulling away, saying something to break the spell. They were sitting in a convenience store parking lot, for God's sake. But she was only aware of him, the dense space between them. The way his eyes held hers as he spoke.

  "You like bratting, don't you?" His voice was a quiet rumble. "If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say how much you like it scares you, because sometimes like is just a different word for need. You think you'll get in over your head, so you deny yourself."

  When she was interviewing someone for a story, or cultivating a source, there was a click point. That was when the person made a step toward either trusting her enough to offer truth, or retreated behind shields and blew her off or bullshitted to establish distance, boundaries past which she wouldn't be invited if she couldn't find that pivotal instance again.

  This was such an instant. All she needed to do was react the right way. She could pretend like she had no idea what he was talking about, and back that up with affront or fake laughter, an offhand comeback to take her to safer ground. But it was late, nearly three in the morning, and that damn vulnerability was affecting her more than she wanted to admit. The best she could summon to defend herself was silence.

  "What I said in there, I meant," he said. His hand on her face was warm, his golden-brown eyes too kind. "Come back to my place, eat your dinner, watch some TV with me. Get to know me, and let me get to know you. That's all."

  He straightened and extended the hand that had touched her, offering to help her up from the curb. As she tilted her head, she noted he was a lot of man from head to toe. She didn't see anything between those two points that helped her resist his offer.

  "It's not a date," she said shortly. "It's two people who work in overlapping fields having a friendly meal and watching some TV."

  "I gave up fishing, remember?" He closed his hand over hers, tugged her back up to her feet. "That's all dating is."

  The stab of pain through her arches and cramped toes decided it for her. "I'll probably change my mind by the time we get to your place and kick you to the curb," she said, for form's sake.

  That easy smile crossed his face once more. Picking up both their bags, he headed for the convenience store entrance.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To get your dessert. If I have chocolate, you won't change your mind."

  Chapter Two

  In the half-mile drive from the convenience store, she came up with a million good reasons she should change her mind, all of them rotating around that sudden serious exchange on the curb.

  "All right?"

  She jumped at a brush of fingers along her hand, which was clutched white on the wheel. She focused on Leland's concerned face. "Yeah," she said. "Fine. You know, I am really tired. I--"

  "This is me, here. This next driveway."

  Her attention went to his house, a box shape with wood siding. Typical for the poor neighborhood, but the simple structure was painted a clean white with green shutters. A small front porch was partially screened with lattice, attached between two posts. The tin roof looked less than five years old. The concrete steps that led up to the porch were much older, a mottled dark gray and yellow. Though they had a few small cracks, they were still serviceable. Curving around back, the gravel driveway led to a ramshackle carport with a shed built against it.

  The tiny yard was mowed and edged, and the azaleas, hydrangeas and evergreens grouped around the foundation were well-tended. In short, the house looked like it had a conscientious owner, who had a few pending improvements to make.

  A lawn jockey marked the short walkway connecting his driveway to the front door. The metal statue had been painted to look like a police officer, the shirt blue with a yellow BRPD badge on the breast. A wooden sign hung from the hitching ring clasped in his outstretched hand. "Po-po Place" was painted on the sign, pictures of crossed handguns serving as borders on the corners
. A cheerful looking pair of wooden handcuffs, painted black, underlined the wording.

  It was so whimsically irreverent, she couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm guessing you didn't do that yourself."

  "I believe it was compliments of our teen graffiti artists, since it's a little above the creative talents of the local drug dealers. God only knows where they got the lawn jockey. It's vintage, one of the heavy ones. Probably stole it off some nice lawn in the Garden District, though no one ever reported it missing. Smart-asses." But his deep voice held affection for the culprits. "I woke up one morning after my first month here and found it. My mom added the mums and brick border around it."

  "It makes it easy to find you. Are the bushes your mother's plantings as well?"

  "Most of it. She got me started, called and told me how to take care of them, what to add to fill it in as the seasons change. Just an excuse to talk, not that she needed one." He glanced at the front of the house, his mouth softening. It was too dark to see his eyes in the car, but she heard the love, and the loss. She deduced his mother had passed long enough ago that he could talk about her easily enough, but not so long ago that the grief didn't still slip through.

  "Don't move," he said.

  Her brow creased as he got out of the car. She'd lost her opportunity to make a smooth getaway. When she watched him come around the grill, she realized he'd made her wait so he could open her door. It had been a long time since a man had done that for her. While she appreciated the courtesy, she wondered if he'd done it for that reason alone or to emphasize what he'd started on the curb of the convenience store. He was taking charge of the situation.

  He opened her door, held out a hand to help her from the car. As she lifted her gaze to his face, she saw patience. Calm. Much calmer than she felt.

  Just TV and dinner. If that was how he was viewing this, she could do it, too. But she wasn't in the habit of lying to herself--well, not as much as she used to do--and this was a testing ground. She rationalized that she could have mistaken his meaning with the whole bratting comment. But even if she hadn't, he was likely pretty serious about keeping it platonic and easy tonight. She couldn't imagine a cop stating straight out to a reporter that he was a sexual Dominant. She sure as hell didn't want to talk about the things inside her that meshed with that, things she spent a lot of time ignoring, enough that it had pretty much killed casual dating for her.

  "Celeste, would you like to know why you gave us the name Knights of the Board Room? Why you taunt us through your columns, why you goaded us by showing up at Club Surreal three times?"

  She hadn't been blessed with an eidetic memory, but that night she'd been forced to see that what she needed in a relationship might be the antithesis of what she'd always thought she wanted. She'd tried to ignore it, bury it, but no detail of that evening dimmed with time. She thought about it too often. Plus, she had most of it on tape.

  "There's a term for it. It's called bratting, actively seeking retribution. Asking for something you don't truly understand, but something inside you craves.

  Returning to the present, she met Leland's gaze. Damn it, it was just a frozen dinner and some sports clips. Setting her jaw, she placed her hand in his.

  This time the contact sent a full body shiver through her, and his grip was firmer. She wanted to jerk away, just run. While not wanting to come off like an idiot held her in place, she reminded herself that being governed by self-consciousness instead of self-preservation was the kind of thing that resulted in a woman's body being found in the woods. She wasn't worried about that with Leland, though, and it wasn't just Jai's endorsement. When Leland touched her, she knew she had nothing to fear from him in that way.

  He dropped her hand once she was out, giving her some breathing room as he carried their two sacks of groceries toward the door. She paused to pull her go-bag out of the back, locked her car and followed. The man worked a pair of jeans as well from the back as he did the front. Christ, what an amazing ass. High and taut, it made a woman want to grab two handfuls and hang on as he plunged into her, his cock hammering her hard and deep, his breath against her face and neck. Her gaze slid to the pull of his shirt over the wide shoulders. She thought of those muscles rippling under the honey-gold skin as he braced himself over her. He'd tell her she'd take all of him, command her to lock her ankles higher over his ass so he could thrust so deep into her, she'd have no doubt who owned her, body and soul. He wouldn't coax or compel her surrender. He'd just demand it. He'd still the voices, so all the decisions were his. Yet weirdly, the choice to let it happen would be her ultimate decision, the one that made everything else work.

  Jesus. She'd paused, her breath shortening at the power of such an image. Shoot her now before humiliation embedded itself in her brain like a permanent thorn. Which would be the end result, if she made a fool of herself in front of a man who was putting off vibes she should resist but couldn't.

  In college, she'd thought herself as far from the Dom/sub world as a girl could get. Then she'd done a paper on the subjugation of women and browbeat a friend into taking her to a BDSM play party. In retrospect, the friend had probably hoped Celeste would see it differently firsthand, but Celeste had viewed it through a lens made up of self-righteous judgment and what she told herself was just a tinge of fascination, ruthlessly squelched. She'd condemned the BDSM elements in her final paper, and had kept a chip firmly on her shoulder against it for years afterward.

  "Methinks the lady doth protest too much" was almost too painful a cliche, but it had fit.

  Maybe if she'd had the balls to take the leap with an online relationship, or had visited Club Surreal on her own again, she'd have found a plethora of Doms to try and she wouldn't be drawn to Leland like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Lack of options was what had her responding so strongly to him.

  She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "I should go," she said. "I am going. Let me have my lasagna. And my chocolate."

  She was being stupid, acting like one of those crazy women who assumed way too much on the first date. But thanks to her job, she had highly developed intuition, and she knew what she knew. It was best not to start this.

  He'd unlocked the door, gaze sweeping the interior as he deactivated a security system. Stepping back out, he held the screen door open for her with his body.

  "You were right," she said, as equably as she could. "I'm scared of this. I don't think this can go where you want it to go."

  "You're the prettiest chicken I've ever seen standing on my sidewalk."

  She narrowed her eyes. "You're calling me a coward. Or laughing at me."

  "Neither. Being afraid isn't the same as being a coward." He pushed the door further inward with one long arm, an invitation. His gaze met hers. "Come inside, Celeste."

  His voice had that gentle, inexorable note again that caressed her agitated nerves, surrounded her like a fleece blanket on a cold night. It wasn't persuasive or coaxing. It was the lack of those elements that made him irresistible to her. There were so many ways he could mess this up. Yet her anticipation of it, building to dark hope, told her how worried she was that he wouldn't mess any of it up. That would be her job.

  As she stared at him, memory swam to the front of her mind. Herself as a teenager, sitting on the stoop of her mother's trailer. She'd fed her siblings and was smoking a cigarette, a habit she fortunately kicked when she reached her twenties. Two children lived in a trailer a couple lots down from hers, a girl and a boy. As Celeste had sat there, she'd heard their mother call them in for their supper. "Les, Tina, come on in. Your supper's ready."

  It was the tone of voice that had dug into her gut, held her in place. Yeah, supper could be a bribe. Heaven knew, it was the way she managed to corral her two younger brothers when they were running wild. When she got them back to the trailer to eat, she had half a chance of getting them bathed, making them sit down to do homework.

  But this mother hadn't called to her children in a thin tone of desperation, a cross between emp
ty threat and whining plea. It was a loving command. You will come when I call, because I love you and I'm in charge of your care. And I expect you to respect me.

  "Honey, do you want to come join us? There's plenty."

  She'd been startled to look up and see the woman talking to her, her gaze friendly but concerned. Celeste now recognized it as how a decent human looked when they saw a person in need and wanted to help. Back then, such a look had merely made her suspicious and wary.

  "No, thanks. I've eaten."

  "You sure? You look hungry."

  She was always hungry, never full. The body had to occasionally feel full of something, and when happiness and love weren't around to accommodate, hate, bitterness and anger were ready to step into the void if you weren't vigilant. But they weren't filling.

  "I'm sure."

  She wasn't sure at all, but by then she couldn't afford to show any weakness. Childhood was far away and she'd already learned not to trust adults. Their promises were worthless. She had no father, and her mother spent most her time trawling for poor substitutes, while depending on her teenage daughter to raise her other three children and figure out how to spread whatever money was thrown her way for shoes, food and the never-ending need for school supplies.

  Good Christ. If this guy was making her feel this much just from a chance encounter, his impact on her senses went way beyond a late-night booty call. By saying those simple three words, he'd made the things that could surge up in her lonely heart in the dead of night overflow.

  She swallowed, met his eyes. "Will you say it again?" Would it feel the same way the second time?

  He nodded. "Come inside, Celeste."

  The significance of her request brought additional heat to his gaze, because of course she was confirming his knowledge of what she was, what she wanted. He'd said nothing but TV tonight, but she knew enough about BSDM stuff to know how much could happen just mind to mind. It didn't have to involve sweaty sheets, getting naked or the awkward issues of protection to be over-the-top intimate, far more soul-baring than simple sex.

  Yet she came up the stairs, came to him. When she was close enough, he brushed a wisp of hair from her eyes. She had a pixie cut, the hair severely short on her neck and over the ears, but long on the top so the streaked brown strands scattered across her brow and curled over her right ear. In her exposed left ear she had two diamond earring studs in addition to the big hoop. One of the studs was in the second piercing in her lobe, the other at the upper curve of her ear. He passed a fingertip over those as well, sending a tingle down her neck.