Trust In Lust Read online

  Trust in Lust

  Part One

  Rhylie Matthews

  Author: Rhylie Mattews

  Copyright © 2020 Kaara Newell

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, distributed, transmitted, or used in any form by any means, including but not limited to any electronic or mechanical means, without express written permission by the author except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ASIN: B089ZVS4W7

  Cover Art by HQ Artwork

  Edited by Dani Black at Black Lotus Editing

  Formatted by Peachy Keen Author Services

  This book is dedicated to my mom…

  Though I hope she never picks it up or reads a single word.

  You passed your love of the written word to me. Your dreams became mine. I owe it all to you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Thank you

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Empty? How—I pulled the cup back from my lips and swished it around just to be sure. Damn. I knew I should have gotten extra. I knew it! But nooooo, apparently I’d “have to pee” and you can’t pee on stake outs. It’s “unprofessional”. Unless you have a dick—I glared over at the back of my partner’s head in the dark cab of the truck. If you have a dick, you just get to pee wherever the hell you like. Parking lots, bottles, bushes; just a few of the places I’d seen Sutton relieve himself in the six months we’d been on this case. Nope, no dick envy here!

  One time. I had to pee one time, and that was only after seven hours. In this truck. Okay, and maybe as many coffees, but that’s beside the point. Who wouldn’t after seven hours? Men who pee on tires, that’s who. Excuse me for needing an actual bathroom; with privacy.

  I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to throw my empty cup at him while he had the binoculars pressed to his face. Twisted around in the driver’s seat, his broad shoulders and back blocked my view as he stared through the truck’s window. The ever present black beanie was down low over his ears on the sides, as far down the back of his neck as possible, and pushed down into the collar of his leather jacket like we were still in Maine instead of Florida, and he’s scared his ears would freeze and fall off that big head of his. The warehouse we were watching drew his full attention while his coffee sat, untouched, in the cup holder…

  "Don’t even think about it." His voice was a low gravelly threat issued in the quiet dark without even turning around.

  “I wasn’t!” I denied wholeheartedly, deciding he was referring to me stealing it rather than just thinking about stealing it. I hadn’t gotten that far yet.

  He turned his head then and glared. What little moonlight filtered through the windows only highlighted his sharp dark eyebrows, full beard, and the suspicion written all over his face.

  I just sat there holding his gaze and blinking innocently up at him. If he didn’t want his words left open to interpretation, he really should have been more specific. All I needed was just a little wiggle room and I could truth myself out of anything. Giving him shit and riding that last nerve of his had become a favorite pastime of mine in the last six months. Hell, the only pastime now; he rarely ever let me out of his sight since we weren’t at the academy anymore. And that glare? Didn’t do shit.

  “You’re a shit liar, J, and stop doing that with your face before you have a stroke.” Humor laced his tone, and I flipped him off, but he just grinned and threw the binoculars on the dash.

  “You couldn’t pull off innocent, even if you were actually innocent.”

  “Rude.” Laughing, I kicked my boots off then pulled my phone out from underneath my thigh to check the time. Four A.M. “We’ve been here all night. There’s no sign of Hicks, I can’t even tell if the guy is anywhere near here. I’m out of coffee, and for the record, big guy… you smell.”

  I hit the button to let the window down and some fresh air in. Except it wasn’t fresh, and the foulness that hit my nose smelled like dirty ass. Seven day, dirty hooker ass. “Holy shit.” I covered my nose and almost gagged before I could get it back up. “I think I made it worse.” My eyes watered, and I looked back over to him.

  “Uh, huh. That’s what you get for being such a smartass all the time, shithead.” He was laughing at me, but I noticed his hand go up and rub underneath his nose as well.

  “How was I supposed to know the alley smells worse than you?” I swear I could taste the smell on the back of my tongue and I swallowed another gag before I threw up my one cup of coffee.

  “I don’t smell.” He rolled his eyes and turned back to the window to ignore me.

  “Mm-hmm.” Sure ya don’t buddy. That whole saying about idle hands... Boredom is a wonderful thing and there was no telling how much longer we’d be here. Why not poke the bear? I stuffed my nose in the cuff of my long sleeve undershirt and looked back out the windshield, waiting.

  It only took a few minutes. He looked over before lifting his arm and subtly sniffing himself.

  Oh, God. Choking back a laugh, I curled my legs under me and got comfortable in the truck’s big cushy seat.

  “It’s ok,” I tried to console him seriously, but could feel my lower lip already twitching. “I’ll get you some deodorant that won’t let you down.”

  “I don’t fucking stink, Vaughn!” he barked and snatched the binoculars off the dash. Turning his body, he raised them to his eyes and looked around the lot surrounding the rock yard’s warehouse. After another minute, he slowly lowered his elbow and tucked it in as close to his side as his big bicep would let him.

  I broke, my laughter echoing in the truck, and I covered my mouth again, trying to stay quiet.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is,” I damn near wheezed and my face was burning. It was fucking hilarious. Leave it to the grumpy giant to have a body odor complex. Considering the only time he did stink was after training or a few hours in the gym. If his cologne didn’t turn me on enough to piss me off every time I smelled it, I wouldn’t give him so much shit; but he smelled how coffee, chocolate cake, and orgasms make you feel. No one should smell that good and I’m pretty sure fantasizing about eating your partner, who’s also technically your boss, is a no-no.

  There’s very little privacy and even fewer boundary lines when you’ve spent months alone tracking cases with each other, city after city, one hotel room after another. Shit happens. Unfortunately, that never happened. Ever. I needed out of this truck.

  I looked over the tree line on the other side of the deserted parking lot we were facing again, hoping for something, anything, to happen. I’d have really settled for anything at this point, but it’s just trees. Trees, trees, and more trees. Still. And bushes. Let’s not forget the bushes! “Fucking bushes,” I grumbled.

  A low chuckle came from the other side of the truck and it irked me. I mean, girls did the bushes thing. But I’m not. Everyone has a line, and that’s mine. Even if it meant he cuts my coffee intake off. I’m not peeing in the fucking bushes. Ever. Or a bottle... I couldn’t even imagine trying to make that work.
Just line it up? Lift the flaps and make a seal? I cringe—now completely grossed out and semi nauseated by the shit flying around in my own damn head as I watched a piece of trash tumble across the asphalt. New town. New case. Yet, we always ended up in creepy ass parking lots in the middle of the night. Flaps, Julianna? Even lady lips are better than flaps. No, it’s not. Is there a word for that part of a woman’s body that’s not… I closed my eyes and massaged the bridge of my nose. You’d think wolves raised me.

  “What do you call women’s lips?”

  “Lips,” Suttons answered flatly from the driver’s side and I turned in the seat to look over at him.

  “No, I mean…” I paused, wondering if he was going to start yelling. He tended to yell when things got awkward. And sex? Sex made him awkward. Very, very awkward. It was kind of fun to watch. Probably also the reason we hadn’t…

  He looked back over his shoulder at me expectantly and I pointed down a few times, motioning to vajimjam territory. “Lips, lips,” I finished, giving up on tactfulness. No lines. He was definitely going to yell.

  “Do I even want to know what fucked up path your brain took to get here?”

  I huffed and held my coffee cup up in the air between us, then flipped it upside down like it explained everything.

  His eyes flicked to the empty cup, then back to mine, and he smirked. “Jealousy’s not your color.”

  I threw the cup at him and he laughed, turning his head back toward the window as it bounced off his shoulder.

  “You can’t deny dicks are convenient.” I couldn’t help it. Torturing him to get my coffee rights back was my only option, and I fought to keep a straight face. “Just grab a bottle, cram the head in, and go!”

  “Cram?” He whipped his head back around. “There’s no cramming!” Even in the dark, I could see that his eyes were a little too wide.

  “Okay, maybe not cramming it in the bottle. I know that’s not how it works—”

  “J!”

  “But some could though, I guess? Nature isn’t always kind, ya know.” I shrugged, then winced at the thought of a dick small enough to fit that hole.

  “Shut up.”

  “Poor guy. Could you imagine?” I asked innocently, completely ignoring him.

  “I don’t want to! Now, please, shut. The. Fuck. Up!”

  Images of him trying to cram the head of his dick in a twenty ounce came to mind, and I lost it laughing. Again. I’ve seen it. That monster definitely wouldn’t fit.

  Sighing, he faced the window again and brought the binoculars back up to his eyes. “Your head is a fucked up place when you’re bored, you know that?”

  “Agreed.” ADHD was a bitch. It was entertainment, though. Enough to keep my mind off going stir crazy and being out of coffee.

  Coffee. I frowned down at my own empty cup, turned over on its side in the middle seat and picked it back up. Leaning forward to put it back in the cup holder, I noticed Sutton’s large coffee still sitting there. The clock on the dash assured me it’d been over the allotted hour, and I flicked my gaze over to see if he was paying any attention. I was sure I could steal some before he put the binoculars down.

  “Woman.” My fingers hadn’t even reached the cup yet!

  “It’s been an hour! We had an agreement; if you don’t drink your coffee within an hour, it’s mine.”

  “You’re. Cut. Off,” he bit out slowly.

  “You’re not even drinking it!”

  “I’m going to.”

  “No, you’re not, you just got it to drive me crazy because you only let me get one!”

  “Irrelevant.” The corner of his mouth twitched. Bastard.

  “You know the rules.”

  “That you don’t pee in the bushes?” he asked, voice laced with humor.

  “If I had a dick, the first thing I’d do is pee on your fucking tires.” Every. Single. Tire.

  He dropped the binoculars and his head fell back on the headrest as he laughed.

  “You agreed. I did no such thing. My caffeine habits don’t play by your addiction, coffee thief.”

  “That’s just…” I looked down at the neglected cup and frowned. “Wrong.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and looked out the windshield up at the inky starless sky. It was pitch black, like the sun wasn’t even thinking about rising yet, and here I am stuck, parked in this disgusting alley for hours. Out. Of. Coffee. Pity party for one?

  “How much longer?” I asked, rolling my head over on the seat to face him.

  “Who the fuck knows at this point.”

  Resigned to my fate, I readjusted my vest. I’d worn it so much, it was second nature now, but it was hot enough in the truck with the polar bear as it was. This thing was just another layer.

  “Yeah, I know.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Bobby and Phillips said this guy's all over the place, and they weren't lying. There's no pattern except him coming here every Friday. So, we wait. May as well get comfortable. Take a nap.” He leaned forward and put the binoculars back on the dash and got comfy himself, leaning his tall frame back in the seat.

  “A nap? You want me to take a nap on a stakeout? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”

  “Your job is to watch my ass, not his. I’ll wake you up if I need you.”

  “You just want me to shut up, don’t you?”

  The jerk just smiled and shook his head, then pulled his ear piece out, put it down on the dash, and flipped the receiver off. “It’s going to be a long day.”

  He turned it off. Which means… “Your earpiece was on the entire time!”

  “Yup.” The corner of his mouth twitched.

  Lips. Bushes. Dicks. Why? Why did I do this to myself? I massaged the bridge of my nose. Of course it was on.

  “Which one?” Please, not Phillips. Please.

  “Bobby.”

  “Thank fuck.” I sagged back against the seat in relief. “I’d have never heard the end from Phillips, and he rides my nerves enough as it is.”

  “Would have been worth it just to watch you kick his ass again.”

  “And finally get to watch Chief Nathanson have a coronary?” I asked sweetly. Just the thought had me almost giddy. The local police chief had thrown one hell of a hissy fit the first time Officer Phillips and I had tied up. Even filed a report with our boss. Sutton’s boss? Sutton’s my boss. So, my boss’ boss? Sutton being in charge of anything is still strange. But the point was still the same. I got another purple piece of paper in my file and if that sexist twat dropped dead, I wouldn’t blink an eye. It may make me a bad person, but that guy felt wrong and every alarm bell inside me went off every time I got near him. No, thank you.

  He chuckled. “Now that’s something I’d pay good money for. This asshole better show, I’m fucking sick of this town.”

  “Same.” If he didn’t, we’d be doing the same thing until he did. Hicks was our only lead.

  “I still can’t believe this jackass is our only lead. In six months, this is what we have? Six counts of petty theft, eight breaking and enterings, assault on a female security guard? He’s a piece of shit, yeah, but there’s a curve, ya know? His sheet doesn’t scream serial killer to me. Something’s off.” I rubbed my eyes and twisted around to lean back against the door, thankful for something productive to talk about.

  “You think we’re missing something?”

  “I know we are.”

  “Know it or feel it?”

  I frowned up at him. “Does it matter? He’s involved, but he’s not the killer. Something or someone connects all these cases, Sutton, and it’s not this guy.”

  “You mean besides you?” he asked quietly. Hesitantly.

  My breath caught, and my heartbeat kicked up a notch in my chest. I swallowed down the denial that tried to break free; it’d be a lie. Maybe not a full outright lie, but close enough my conscious reared its ugly head and I couldn’t force it past my lips.

  “That’s not funny.” At all. I looked away from him and
stared sideways out the windshield as the guilt that gnawed at me over the deaths of the alumni from my mother’s academy came crashing back with a vengeance. Like it owed me extra for the small time I had gotten out from underneath it.

  His hand landed heavily on my shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to be, J. But the only thing all these cases have in common is you.”

  His remorse washed over me like a cool, soothing balm on a fresh burn. I wanted nothing from him on this though, and it just pissed me off. The only thing that would make this better was solving the case. I shook his palm off my shoulder, not needing his comfort. “It’s not me.”

  “Your school.”

  “It’s not my school,” I denied vehemently even as my stomach turned and a wave of nausea washed over me. The Vaughn-Morrigan Academy. Passed down from generation to generation since its very beginning centuries ago.

  “You can run and hide from it all you want, Julianna, it won’t change the reality of the situation.”

  I faced him once again. “I’m not running from it. Or hiding. If I were, I’d be on a beach somewhere instead of here with you, stuck in an alley that smells like a God forsaken dead hooker’s ass following the only lead we have! So no. I’m not fucking hiding from it, James.” I fucking hated it when he used my full first name.

  He looked away from me then and out his window. “You may not be hiding, but you’re damn sure running from something.” His voice was solemn, and waves of empathy drowned his remorse. He knew exactly how this felt, and it made me wonder about the things I’d never ask him about.

  After a few minutes of silence, he turned back towards me with questions in his eyes. “You ever going to tell me?”