The Lark and the Bull Read online

  So, he went about doing so as perfunctorily as possible, keeping up a light—if one sided—conversation as he did so. "You don't look like a lark at all, you know. They're mostly kind of shades of brown and none of them have curls."

  He told her about his dad's love of birds—from which he'd garnered the otherwise non-sequitur information about larks—which his mom had teased him about, and his mom's atrocious cooking, which his dad had teased her about, quipping that it was a good thing that his father cooked well or he would have ended up being five-foot-two instead of six-four.

  It had been okay for him to do this until now, when she was standing in front of him in just her panties and her bra. Bull swallowed hard, struggling to keep his eyes on her face as he hadn't before. The rabbit helped, though. In clutching it so fervently to her, not letting go of it once while he was undressing her, she seemed much younger than she was, somehow, which made him feel even guiltier about his body's very adult response to her.

  His voice was huskier than he wanted it to be. "Why don't you just hop into the shower that way? If you want to take…take them off, I'd be glad to throw them in with your other clothes, but it's up to you, hon."

  He opened the door to the shower stall, offering her his hand. "Come now, babygirl. Let's get you warmed up."

  Her eyes flitted to his for the first time since he'd arrived on the scene, and there was such wide-open innocence and trusting there that he found the problem pulsing behind his zipper subsided a bit.

  "How about if I keep Wabbit with me, hmm? So he doesn't get cold and wet?" She resisted him taking it from her for a second, but he stepped just slightly closer to her, saying warmly but firmly, "He's completely safe here with me, I promise, just like you are. I'll put him right on the towels, where he can stay dry and warm, and you can have him again just as soon as you come out."

  When she let go, he murmured, "Good girl," and she whimpered slightly, her eyes locked with his until he forced himself to close the door behind them. "There's soap and shampoo in there—I'm afraid they're both just store brand, but you're welcome to use them."

  It was in his mind to give her a choice about whether or not he stayed in the room, but he quickly decided against it, although he did turn his back politely.

  For a long time, he knew she was just standing there—hadn't moved a muscle since he'd put her in.

  But after about ten minutes or so of that lovely hot, steamy water pounding down on her, he turned—wondering if he was going to have to join her—and saw her move behind the frosted shower doors. Seconds later, her very wet bra and panties were dropped unceremoniously onto his head.

  He rescued them and put them on the pile of mud soaked clothes he'd make a load of shortly, but he didn't think he should leave her to start it. He couldn't bring himself to leave her, he admitted quietly to himself, refusing to dwell on that strange fact, either.

  Eventually, the water was turned off. He hung the towels over the top of the stall and she took them, after a moment. It seemed she was no longer as helpless as she had been.

  "Would you like me to leave?"

  She came out from behind him, wrapped in a towel. Apparently not.

  Bull leaned over and turned on the heat lamps, clearing his throat with a nervousness he hadn't had around a half-dressed woman since he was a teenager.

  "Well. I'll go throw in that load and brew you up something warm."

  If he never heard that whimper again, it would be too soon. It caused his heart to contract so painfully in his chest every time that he couldn't draw a breath.

  Instead, he stayed, trying to be as gentlemanly as he could to her, thinking about how—if she was his, God forbid—how he'd want someone to treat her. He turned around, telling her to dry herself off with the towel, then offering her his t-shirt, which he knew she was going to drown in.

  But she didn't take it.

  When he peeped behind him, she was facing away from him, shoulders bent, obviously crying and distractingly nude.

  Jesus Christ. He wasn't made of marble, although his cock had been up and down so often in the past hour and a half or so, it didn't know whether it was coming or…not coming.

  Rather than try to comfort her, as everything in him screamed to do, he turned himself towards her, announcing, "My eyes are firmly closed, and my late mother is very proud of me, I'm sure. Why don't we see if I can get you into my shirt, hmmm?" There was no way he was going to trust himself to dry her off.

  He turned her towards him, gathering the shirt into his hands around the neck hole and holding it out.

  Still sniffling, she tugged his arms down quite a way and slipped her head into it.

  "Oh, sorry. Forgot to account for the fact that you're little, little one."

  He felt her stiffen slightly at that, but he didn't know why, so he continued, gathering first one arm, then the next for her to poke through.

  "Decent?" he asked, not really expecting an answer, since she didn't seem capable of speaking.

  Her tiny "yes" caught him by surprise and was nearly as much of a gut punch as her whimpers had been.

  The sight of her wasn't, though. As far as his genitals were concerned, she might as well have been standing there naked, even though she looked ridiculously young, as if she was a little girl wearing her father's shirt. The neck opening was so big it kept slipping off one shoulder, the arms ended three quarters of the way down hers, and the hem was nearly below her knees. She looked annoyingly adorable.

  He bundled her into his robe but had grabbed one that was full length, and once he put it on her, there was nothing of her left in it.

  "Stay here," he warned, grabbing a shorter one from his bedroom that was only slightly less gigantic on her, but at least she wouldn't be tripping on it with every step.

  With her in much warmer clothing than she had been, he took up the dry towel and applied it to her hair. Wet, with the curls pulled out, the ends touched her shoulders, but he knew that, when it was dry, they would form a crown of curls that would always make him wonder if they were soft and clingy, like she was now, or hard and stiff, as was his previous impression of her. That was something he wasn't ever likely to know.

  When it was drier, he put his own brush through it, careful not to hurt her as it pulled through the inevitable tangles.

  "Well, I'll turn the gas fire on in the living room, while we wait for your clothes to be done, and make us both something warm to sip on," he said more gruffly than he intended, turning on his heel to head for the kitchen because his libido was giving him hell again, and if he didn't get out of there in that moment, he was going to have to kiss her.

  And he wanted to do more—much, much more, but he knew he couldn't even do that.

  He yelled back to her, "Coffee or tea or—Jesus Christ, woman!"

  She cringed when he cursed at her, but she'd surprised him. He'd always prided himself on being able to tell when someone was coming up on him—hell, the innate ability had saved his sorry ass on more than one occasion— but she was standing right behind him as he was filling the Keurig with water, and when he turned, if he had taken a step, it would have been onto her.

  "Sorry."

  She was caved in on herself again, shoulders humped over, chin on her chest, although she was still upright, so that was some kind of advance, he supposed, although she looked as if he'd taken a whip to her.

  All traces of anger evaporated, he murmured firmly, "Stop. You just surprised me, that's all. I didn't hear you come up, and it's something of a coup for you to have snuck up on me. The guys all think I have some kind of sixth sense about that—I can always hear them clomping up behind me."

  There was no way he could ignore the strong urge to pull her into his arms, although he did so very slowly and carefully, giving her every chance to get away, but she didn't seem to want to, turning into his embrace quite fervently, rather than away from it.

  He held her there, saying multiplication tables in his head as he wondered why his sha
mpoo smelled such a damn sight better for her than it did for him, adoring the soft, slight feel of her in his arms. She didn't put hers around him, but let him do all of the holding, not that he minded, as long as she continued to snuggle up against him like this.

  They couldn't stay like this, though, much as he would have liked to, so he kissed the top of her head—which he was glad to see wasn't very damp at all anymore—and repeated the question she'd interrupted. "Coffee? Tea?"

  She peeped up at him, asking hopefully, "Cocoa?"

  He frowned. "Hmm. I've not had many requests for that, but I probably have some somewhere."

  "S'okay. Coffee."

  He let her go to rifle through his cupboards. "Ah-ha! I knew I had some somewhere." Bull waved the box of Swiss Miss triumphantly, feeling inordinately pleased with having found it for her.

  Within minutes, they were in his warm, cozy living room. Lark was sitting as close to him as she could get without being on his lap, on the end of the beat-up couch, having arranged almost all of her limbs beneath her in that way women had, and he was in his favorite chair.

  He couldn't keep his eyes off of her. She looked as if she was desperately trying not to look lost and sad and forlorn, but she was failing miserably. His arms ached to reach over and pull her onto his lap, but now that she was somewhat less broken, he was loath to do anything that might upset her.

  "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

  She shuddered visibly at that, the terrified look that had faded from her face returning a bit around the edges. She took a sip of her cocoa, answering in that thin, tiny voice of hers, "No, please," as if he was going to force her, when that was the last thing on his mind.

  But then, considering the behavior he knew she had come to expect from him, he supposed he deserved that. And yet, here she was, with him. Apparently, he was the only person she would allow to get close to her when she was in a very bad state.

  What was that about? His head hurt just thinking of it, but it wasn't his head that was most on his mind.

  Luckily, the buzzer for the dryer went off, and he headed down the hall to the laundry room, which was another of his renovations. It was located on the other side of the en suite, taking up a bit of room in one of the almost unused guest bedrooms. But it was located where he'd always thought was the most practical for a laundry facility—with the bedrooms, where all of the crap that was going to be put into it lived.

  Again, when he turned around with a terribly small armload of her warm clothes, she was right there.

  This time, she wrapped her arms around his waist and put her head on his chest as the clothes slid to the floor. It wasn't much by way of invitation, but it was all he could stand.

  Before he'd even kissed her for the first time, he swung her up into his arms for the third time in less than two hours and carried her into his bedroom where he put her down at the end of his bed.

  Carding big fingers into the soft tangle of curls that did, he noticed with not a small amount of delight, cling back at him, he laid his palms on either side of her face, tilting her head up gently so that he could see her eyes. "I want you, little girl," he growled softly, noting absently that the rabbit had been left on the couch.

  On tiptoes, Lark placed her lips as close to his as she could get, whispering just one potent word, "Please?"

  Chapter 2

  The first thing Lark did that morning was stretch, only to immediately decide that was not the best of ideas as she began to ache in parts of her body she didn't usually even remember she possessed. She was remembering with horror every detail of what had happened the night before. Although the experience she'd had before he'd appeared was one of the worst she'd ever experienced, it was what had happened later, between them, that bothered her the most.

  Occasional breakdowns were to be expected, she'd come to realize. Being rescued by one's mortal enemy wasn't. Letting one's mortal enemy take care of you when you had been knocked onto your knees, back to being about five-years-old, wasn't.

  Actually fucking him—asking him to fuck you—well, that was her crowning failure.

  And letting him make you come so many toe-curling times you lost what little mind was left to you most definitely was not in any way expected—nor was it particularly advisable.

  Although there was precious little "letting" involved. Lark hadn't been at all surprised to learn that he was as dominant in bed as he was at work, although that was probably one of the things that had overridden her distaste for him. Once she'd given him her assent, he'd been loving and tender with her, which was much more of a surprise than the dominance he displayed towards her.

  She was a sucker for a take-charge man, especially when she was hurt or at a disadvantage, and she certainly had been both of those things last night.

  Drowning in the waves of sadistic delight the killer had taken in claiming his victim, not to mention the mind-altering terror of the victim, herself, was a professional hazard, but it had never hit her this badly. Perhaps because she'd never felt quite so universally loathed by the department that was employing her—with the man who had made her come harder than she ever had in her life being the titular head of the witch hunt.

  Empath hunt. Whatever. People tend to lump them all in together, anyway. The label wasn't important.

  She was different. She always had been; she always would be. It was nothing new—nor was being disbelieved and thought crazy because of her abilities, such as they were.

  Mostly she didn't think of it that way, though. Being able to feel other people's emotions was a truly horrendous thing. She'd always been able to do it, from the time she could remember. As a little girl, she'd walk up to people who were hurting and tell them that she was sorry that they'd lost their mom, or their cat, or their child, or that they'd had a fight with their wife or their boss had chewed them out. Her mother had gotten her to stop doing that quickly, but the impulse was always there.

  Lark had been looking for some way to suppress her abilities all her life, but she hadn't found one until the day she walked into the Coal Harbor Police Department in West-by-God Virginia.

  Drawing a deep breath and trying to brace herself against the inevitable, she stepped into the lion's den, walking up to the first desk she saw and asking, "I'm here to see Chief Milford? I have an appointment at two."

  "Just one moment, ma'am. I'll let the chief know you're here." She pushed away the powerful waves of Officer Callahan's feelings of loneliness and despair as best she could, preferring to try to dull the roar of everyone else's emotions by turning around to look out the big windows by the door instead. The officer's feelings were hidden behind an outer layer of fear and loathing she felt directed at her, which at least let her know that the department as a whole had been briefed on the fact of her employment with them.

  Buffeted by what seemed like genuine warmth and openness coming from behind her, she turned to see a tall, handsome older man appear, offering his hand. "Miss—Ms.—or is it Mrs. Jeffries? I'm glad to finally meet you."

  She put her hand in his and shook it firmly. "It's Ms., but please call me Lark, Chief Milford."

  "Lark, then. And I'm Dale. We don't stand on formality here. Follow me, if you would. There are three detectives working this case, and they're all waiting for you in the conference room."

  Not eagerly, she'd bet.

  Long before she got there, she met with the kind of feelings she had come to expect when walking into a police department—strong skepticism in most people that manifested as fear in some and anger in others. Anger in most.

  By the time she got to the room, having walked past rows of desks where officers and detectives were working, she knew exactly who was going to give her a hard time, and she found herself chanting in her head, "Please don't make me work with him, please don't make me work with him."

  The biggest source of skepticism—and the loudest, angriest voice in her head— was that of the last man whose desk she passed by before entering the roo
m, and it gave her false hope.

  Her heart sank, though, when she realized that there were only two people in the room—both of whom seemed to be basically happy, surprisingly open people who were at least willing to give her a chance.

  "Keenan!" the chief called, and, of course, in walked the Neanderthal who—in seventeenth century Salem—would have been very happy to see her burned at the stake as a witch, apparently. Or, at the very least, run out of town on a rail.

  Vicious scorn and utter distaste for her radiated from him as if he was shouting it at her.

  "Lark Jeffries, this is Detective O'Leary." The chief introduced the two who were already there first—the ones who obviously hadn't objected to this meeting with her and hadn't had to be called into it by their boss.

  The young man was very polite and shook her hand very gently. "And Detective Hobbs." The young, tall redheaded woman was next.

  "And this is the lead detective on the case, Gregory Keenan." He gestured to the man who was standing behind her in the doorway.

  "Of course, it is," Lark muttered to herself, knowing that that meant she was probably going to have to work most closely with him. But she forced herself to turn and offer the guy who would happily have been piling wood onto the fire that killed her—the witch— her hand.

  Which he, of course, refused to touch.

  "Dammit, Bull!" the chief scolded, adding, as an aside to her, as if to try to diffuse the situation, "We call him Bull, 'cause he's so full of it."

  But she could have told him that it wasn't going to work.

  "I don't have to shake hands with her if I don't want to, Chief. There's nothing in the handbook that says I have to."