PsyCop 4: Secrets Read Free

slide them along the floor.
    I glanced down at my bony hips. Red fingermarks covered each of them, shading slightly to purple. Bruises.
    Funny. Jacob was the only lover I’d ever had who could actually overpower me. He was so strong that he could do it without even batting an eyelash. And yet, he was the first man I’d ever trusted enough to venture into territory that could turn dark and ugly if it went too far.
    Maybe Jacob’s size and strength had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was more about his personality. His equilibrium. The control he exercised in every little aspect of his life, from his exercise regimen to his alarm clock. If anyone knew his limits, it was Jacob.
    I heard the shower run and pried myself up from the futon, moving slowly. I felt the af-termath of our sex in my jaw and hips, and especially in my ass. The thought of it gave me a little shiver. That, and the fact that I was naked, it wasn’t particularly warm in the apartment, and Jacob’s big, hot body no longer covered me.
    I ran through the kitchen and into the bathroom. I was so intent on slipping into the shower that I almost didn’t get a look at myself in the mirror. It was starting to steam up around the edges, and a quick glance at the steam pattern made me pause.
    And then I saw it.

    The mirror fogged over as I squinted at my reflection, and I scrubbed it with the heel of my palm. My skin squeaked against the glass, and I turned my head to the side. I peered at my reflection from the corner of my eye.
    Toothmarks.
    Jesus.
    “You left a bite mark on my neck!”
    Jacob opened the shower curtain just far enough to look out at me. He knuckled water out of his eye and grinned. “Good thing you don’t have to work tomorrow.”
    “You shit.”
    He grinned wider and whisked the curtain shut.
    Way to go. I’d look real slick reporting for duty at the Fifth Precinct covered in hickeys like a slutty teenaged girl. Damn it. I rubbed at the toothmarks, which raised a pinkish blotch around them. “It better be gone by Thursday,” I said. I’m sure Jacob felt very chastised.
    Not.
    “Put a bandage over it and say you have a rash.”
    “That’s really appealing,” I said. So much for Jacob’s so-called control.

-TWO-
    Carolyn Brinkman wouldn’t have been my first choice as a moving helper, but since I wasn’t exactly chummy with my partner on the force, Jacob’s partner would have to do, all hundred and ten pounds of her. Carolyn was waiting on our front stoop, ready for business in immaculate white tennis shoes, size four jeans and a baggy U of I sweatshirt. She’d brought along her best friend, Crash, who also happened to be Jacob’s ex. Yay.
    “It’s awfully late,” she said. Not the world’s warmest greeting, but Carolyn had no choice but to say what she thought. She was a telepath who could smell a lie a mile away, which made her a kick-ass investigator. But the flip side of her talent was that she couldn’t lie, herself. Not even for the sake of being nice.
    Crash took a long drag off his cigarette and gave me a smug little smile. He always looked smug. His hair was dyed Kool-Aid green. Maybe that’s what he was looking smug about today, despite the fact that it clashed with his olive drab army duster. Or maybe he knew my ass stung with every step I took—either because he was an empath who got “feelings” about what everyone else was experiencing, or because he’d taken it up the ass from Jacob himself. Crash’s smirk widened and I looked away. One day I’d probably slap him.
    And then I’d regret it, because he was probably into stuff like that.
    Crash flicked his mostly-smoked cigarette into the gutter. “C’mon, kids. Let’s get this show on the road while we’ve still got daylight.”
    The next couple of hours were a blur of heavy lifting and smashing my fingers on anything they could possibly be smashed on: between boxes and crates, furniture and walls, the front door and the doorjamb.
    We emptied the