Turning Point (The Kathleen Turner Series) Read online

Lifting me off my feet, he had me at the couch in two strides. Blane sat me on the arm, caught the bottom of my T-shirt, and yanked it upward until it tangled around my wrists. But instead of jerking the fabric free, he pushed me down so I lay with my back against the seat cushions, hands imprisoned behind me, and hips positioned on the raised arm. My feet couldn’t reach the floor, and I watched with breathless anticipation as Blane tossed his shirt aside and freed himself from his pants.

  Without any leverage to move, all I could do was watch as he grasped my hips, nudging my thighs farther apart to accommodate him. Just when I thought he would thrust into me hard and fast, he surprised me. Pushing forward, he allowed just the head of his cock to penetrate my body. I moaned, my eyes slipping shut as heat flooded me.

  “Open your eyes.”

  The command in his voice couldn’t be denied. I forced my eyes open. He was looking at me with an intensity that made my pulse pound. His face was stark with need and ferocity.

  “Watch me.”

  The order was unnecessary, I already couldn’t take my eyes off him. The muscles in his arms and chest flexed as he held me, his abdomen rippling with the movement of his hips as he pushed farther into me. He teased me, only partly filling me before withdrawing. My gaze was riveted to his cock—thick, hard, and glistening from being inside me. My mouth ran dry at the sight.

  “Do you want me inside you, Kat?” he asked, his voice rough.

  I jerked my head in a nod.

  “Say it. Tell me what you want.”

  I swallowed, my cheeks burning. “I want you,” I pushed past dry lips.

  “Want me to what?”

  The head of his cock teased my entrance, and I tried to push my hips forward, but his grip tightened, holding me in place.

  My restraint broke. “Please, Blane,” I begged. “I want you inside me.”

  A strangled cry fell from my lips when he thrust inside of me hard, not at all gentle. The position of my hips allowed him to press deep inside me, and before long the sound of my moans and gasps filled the room. The helplessness of my position only accentuated my arousal, the feeling of being completely in Blane’s power overwhelming me.

  “You’re mine. I want to hear you say it,” he ground out. One of his hands moved between my legs, stroking the taut bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs.

  “Oh God, oh God. Blane!”

  “Say it. You’re mine.” His hand and cock moved in sync, harder and faster.

  “God, yes! I’m yours! Oh God!” My orgasm crashed into me, and I cried out from the force of it. Blane’s release was a mere moment later, his cock swelling as he gave a wordless shout, his body jerking into mine.

  My body felt boneless as I lay there. I lazily lifted my eyes to meet Blane’s. He looked as overcome as I felt. Where he found the strength to pick me up and carry me to the bedroom, I don’t know, but soon we were nestled spoon-fashion in my bed. He pressed gentle kisses to my hand, my shoulder, my neck, my cheek, my brow.

  “God, I love you,” he whispered huskily in my ear.

  “I love you too,” I whispered back.

  “Thank you,” he said, “for that.” The gratitude in his voice was real.

  I realized that whatever was going on with Blane, I’d given him the opportunity to be in control. Being in control was as necessary to Blane as breathing. I wondered how far his need to control me went, and if that made me feel smothered or cherished. At the moment, it was the latter. That was my last thought as I drifted to sleep.

  When I woke, it was after seven and the sun was up. Blane was no longer in bed with me. Pulling on my robe and fuzzy pink slippers, I went in search of him and coffee, not necessarily in that order. The long night had given me a pounding headache, though the rest of me felt very nice indeed. The welcome soreness between my legs was a testament to a roughness that Blane usually kept under careful restraint. Not that I minded, but it was very obvious something was bothering him. I assumed it was the case he was working on, though if it was something else, I didn’t know if he would tell me.

  The bathroom was empty, as was the rest of the apartment. For a stricken moment, I thought he’d left. Then I heard the low rumble of his voice outside.

  Moving toward the door, I hesitated. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to wake me, or maybe he didn’t want me to hear. Knowing I might regret it and already feeling guilty, I crouched down on the floor under the window. I silently eased it open and put my ear to the crack. I could hear Blane plainly now.

  “If you don’t find out, the guy is gonna walk and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”

  Silence.

  “Killing him is immensely appealing. Don’t tempt me.” His tone was dry as dust.

  “Nothing yet. He’s keeping his word. But I don’t expect that to last.”

  I could smell cigarette smoke, and I realized that Blane was smoking while he was outside on his phone. I had never, ever seen him smoke before.

  “Yeah, I’m with her… No, she doesn’t and that’s not going to change, so don’t even go there. May I remind you that you’re an integral part of this mess?”

  A deep sigh.

  “I know, I would’ve done the same. I just didn’t know it’d come back to bite us in the ass.”

  Another silence. I could hear Blane take a long drag of his cigarette.

  “Got it. I’ll be in touch.”

  That sounded like the end of the call to me, and though I waited a few more seconds, he said nothing more.

  Quietly, I closed the window before going to join him outside.

  The morning was cloudy and chilly, as though winter was hanging on with a persistent tenacity. Blane was leaning on the railing, both arms braced on the rusting wrought iron, when he saw me. A quick flick of his fingers, and the cigarette went plummeting to its demise on the concrete below. He stood, opening his arms to me as I nestled against his side. Even in the cold, his skin was warm.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” I said by way of greeting.

  “It’s a bad habit left over from my Navy days,” he replied. “I don’t often indulge. Sorry if it bothers you.”

  I shrugged. “My dad smoked. It doesn’t bother me.”

  I paused. “So why are you ‘indulging’ this morning?” I hoped he would open up to me, tell me who he’d been talking to and what they’d been talking about, and why he’d been so upset earlier.

  A man was out early walking his dog, a Pekingese, oddly enough. For some reason, I always thought men should have manly dogs, like German shepherds or Dobermans. A yippy, high-maintenance dog seemed incongruous with a man, though I guess that was sexist of me. I watched them go by on the sidewalk next to the street while I waited for Blane’s reply.

  He didn’t answer for a minute, his hand restlessly rubbing my shoulder. “I tend to when things are more stressful than usual.”

  “What’s stressing you? This case?”

  “That. Among other things. Nothing you need to worry about.” His lips brushed the top of my head. “Let’s go inside. You’re cold.”

  Back in my apartment, I rounded on him. I hadn’t been appeased by his answer or his kiss. If anything, I was more frustrated. “Who were you talking to?” I asked bluntly.

  “Listening at the window, Kat?”

  His words were light, but I detected an undercurrent of warning.

  “How else am I supposed to know anything?” I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest. “You refuse to talk to me. You don’t treat me like a friend and lover who wants to share your life, your burdens. Instead, you treat me like a child, to be coddled and protected.”

  His jaw tightened. “That’s not true. Though at the moment, you’re acting like one.”

  For a moment, I literally saw red. “Are you kidding me?” I gritted out from between clenched teeth.

  “Midnight visitors you refuse to name. Playing at being an investigator, of all things. Eavesdropping on me. What would you call that?”

  I tried desperate
ly to keep my temper in check. “For your information, I have a very good reason for not telling you who was here. It might even be as good a reason as you have for not telling me why you’re defending Matt Summers. And like I’ve already said, eavesdropping is the only way to know what’s going on in your life.” The tears were coming now, and I angrily blinked them away. “And lastly, my ‘playing’ at investigator is the first time anyone’s given me a chance to prove myself at anything!”

  “Giving you a chance to prove yourself and putting you in immediate danger of being hurt or killed are two very different things,” he said tightly. “And who are you trying to prove yourself to?”

  “To you!” I exclaimed in exasperation.

  Blane looked stunned, and his whole body went still. “To me? Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked incredulously. “Look at us, Blane. We come from totally different worlds. You have a successful career, ambitions. You come from a well-known political family. Me? I’m a cop’s daughter from a little bit of nowhere, Indiana. I’m a bartender who’s ‘playing’ at investigator.”

  The anger drained out of me and I pushed a hand through my sleep-tousled hair. None of these things were revelations to me, but they were depressing all the same. “Maybe that’s why you won’t open up to me.” I sighed in defeat.

  Blane was next to me in an instant, his hand under my chin, forcing me to look at him.

  “You don’t have to prove a damn thing to me, Kat,” he said earnestly. “I love you for who you are, not for where you’re from or who your parents were.”

  I wanted to believe him, I really did.

  “Then why do you hold me at arm’s length?” I asked.

  His expression shuttered, even as his fingers trailed a featherlight path down my cheek. “Maybe you’re right,” he said quietly. “Maybe I do hold back. I don’t mean to. I don’t want to.” He paused. “But I don’t know if I can change. If I can give you what you want.”

  Disappointment deflated me, but I forced my expression to remain stoic. I gave a short nod.

  “I’ve spent my whole life being the one in charge, the protector, defender, the one everyone goes to for help, the one who knows what to do,” he said. “It goes against my nature to burden anyone with my responsibilities, especially when it comes to defending my own.”

  I searched his eyes, seeing in them the warrior that he was at heart. Whether he was fighting on a battlefield or in the courtroom, he saw it in black and white, us versus them. How could I find fault with him for that? He’d protected me, defended me, avenged me.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he said. “But all I can promise is that I’ll try.” His hand captured a lock of my hair, winding it around his finger and giving it a gentle tug.

  I rose on my toes, answering his silent request. His lips met mine in what felt like a pledge, from him to me.

  “I have to go,” he said, once we’d parted. “I’ll see you at the office, all right?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Okay.”

  The meaning of something he’d said occurred to me only after he’d gone, and I was left wondering, who was he “defending” me from?

  When I got to the office, it had started to rain. Cursing the fact that I’d left my umbrella in my cube, I dashed to the building. A man held the door for me as I hurried past. I turned around to thank him, and stopped—the words I’d been about to say dying on my tongue.

  It was Matt Summers.

  “Got a little wet this morning?” he asked with a genial smile.

  Matt wasn’t bad-looking, he was actually rather attractive. He was maybe five ten with a wiry build, like a runner rather than weight lifter. He had sandy-brown hair and blue eyes, and skin that was rather fair, like mine. High cheekbones and a pointed chin might have seemed feminine, if not for the look in his eye.

  I forced my lips to curve politely. “Yeah.” I turned away.

  As I watched him from the corner of my eye, he sauntered toward a woman waiting for the elevator. I couldn’t remember her name, but I thought she was a new paralegal, and he struck up a conversation with her. I eased closer as nonchalantly as I could, trying to overhear what they were saying.

  Blane entered the building from the other set of doors, across the foyer. He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair to dislodge the raindrops. Carrying his briefcase and dressed in a neatly pressed charcoal-gray suit and a black trench coat, he looked a far cry from the man who had been at my apartment just a short time ago.

  A flash of memory hit me—Blane standing over me, palms grasping my hips as he thrust into me—and I shivered.

  Blane caught sight of me, standing a few feet behind Matt as though I were also waiting for the elevator. His body stiffened and his long strides ate up the floor as he walked toward us.

  “Matt,” Blane said with a curt nod, once he was within a few feet. “It appears I’m running a few minutes late this morning. Shall we head to my office?”

  He completely ignored me.

  “Of course,” Matt replied amiably. He turned to the girl. “Lovely to meet you, Amy.”

  Amy smiled, a flicker of interest in her eyes.

  Then Matt caught sight of me waiting for the elevator as well. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t get your name.”

  I opened my mouth, but Blane abruptly cut me off. “I thought your uncle would be coming today as well?” he asked, directing his words to Matt. Blane had yet to even acknowledge my presence.

  Matt glanced back to Blane, his eyes narrowing. “I’m perfectly capable of handling this, Kirk.” His words held an edge that made my breath catch, but they didn’t seem to have an effect on Blane.

  “Excellent,” Blane said flatly.

  The elevator opened then and Blane gestured for Matt and Amy to precede him inside. When their backs were turned, he grabbed my arm and jerked me out of sight to the side.

  “Stay away from Matt,” he hissed.

  With that admonition, he disappeared into the elevator as well, the doors sliding shut behind him.

  It was several moments before I moved, my mind busy puzzling through Blane’s behavior. At my cube, I sat staring into space, replaying it in my mind. Did Blane think Matt was so dangerous that he didn’t want to even let on that he knew me?

  “Got a minute?”

  I jerked my head up to see Derrick Trent, the other partner in the firm, standing by my cube.

  I jumped to my feet. “Absolutely. What can I do for you?”

  Derrick sat in the only other chair in my cube and handed me a manila file folder. I took it and sat as well.

  “I’m working a case where a girl has disappeared and her boyfriend’s being charged with her murder,” he began. “There’s no body, all the evidence is circumstantial. It shouldn’t have even gone to trial, but it has. I need you to see if you can dig up anything more on the girl. The boy says he didn’t kill her, and I believe him. Maybe she had another boyfriend, maybe she just got sick of Indiana. But whatever it was, I need to know what happened to her.”

  Skimming through the file, something caught my eye. “She worked at the same place Julie Vale worked,” I said. “That’s quite a coincidence.”

  Derrick frowned. “Check it out. There might be a connection.” He shrugged. “Or it could be just random fate.”

  He left and I got online to check out the place. It was a bar and strip club in a seedy part of the city. Definitely an unusual place for both girls to work, given the fact that they’d come from reasonably middle-class families. The club, called Xtreme, opened at four.

  I grabbed a sandwich for lunch and spent the afternoon doing research on the missing girl and Julie, reading through their files again, Googling them, and checking out their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Both girls were pretty and young, barely in their twenties. I made note of the high school that Derrick’s girl, an Amanda Webber, had attended. The town wasn’t far from Rushville, where I’d grown up.

  I’d hoped Blane would
visit or call me at some point, but I didn’t hear from him. So at four, I headed to the club. Before going in, I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and popped a piece of gum in my mouth.

  The inside of the club was nicer than I had expected. Leather booths and dark wood chairs surrounded a raised stage, and the bar top was black granite. A smattering of patrons were seated, watching a young woman onstage. Her movements were sensuous and graceful, as she worked the pole center stage with admirable skill while dancing to the strains of Sade. Barely covered in a G-string and pasties, her body was enviably toned.

  Hopping up onto a barstool, I signaled the bartender, a wiry guy with full tattoo sleeves on display. His black T-shirt bore an intricate woven design, but I couldn’t make it out clearly.

  “What can I get you, blondie?” he asked.

  I smiled and smacked my gum. “Nice tats,” I complimented him. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. We went to the same high school. She told me she worked here, made good money. I just moved into town, thought I could hook up with her.”

  “Sure,” he said. “What’s her name?”

  “Amanda Webber. Know her?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, man. She ran off with some guy. Four, maybe five months ago.”

  I pretended dismay. “You’re kidding me! I can’t believe she didn’t tell me!”

  The bartender shrugged. “Sorry. She didn’t keep in touch or anything.”

  “Now what am I going to do?” I asked rhetorically. “I need a job.”

  He nodded toward the stage. “Can you dance?”

  “No,” I said. “But I can tend bar.”

  “How long have you done that?”

  “A few years.”

  He studied me, then stuck out his hand. “Name’s Jack.”

  “Kathleen.”

  “When can you start, Kathleen?”

  I grinned. “I’m at your disposal.”

  “Perfect. Start tomorrow. Be here by three for training.”

  “Great! Thanks!”

  I didn’t breathe properly until I was back in my car. My heart was racing and my palms sweating, aftershocks from my performance. Apparently, I was getting better at acting, no matter what Kade had said about me being a shitty liar.