Cold Deception by D.B. Tait Read Free Book Online

smoothness down toward her buttoned shirt. It was a little too tight and the first button pulled, stretching to open.
    He gave himself a good mental slap. Of all the women in the world to lust after, this was not the one. Apart from the fact she was just out of jail, was suffering from a bad transition to the real world, and he might have to arrest her sister at some stage, there was something about her he knew was dangerous. Not dangerous for others, just for him. Under that tough persona he could see she was too vulnerable, too lost.
    “Do you want me to get you some water?” he said.
    She shook her head.
    “How often does it happen?”
    She finally met his eyes and he saw wariness had replaced yearning. Good. She needed to be on guard.
    “Just when I come across a crowd of people in an enclosed space. I thought I was over it. I guess I’m not.”
    “You had one yesterday when I brought Blossom home. There wasn’t a crowd there.”
    Hard bitterness leached into her eyes.
    “I wasn’t expecting to see a cop on my doorstep so soon after getting out. You reminded me of someone.” She wound the scarf back around her neck and stood up. “Thanks for saving me,” she said with a wry smile. “It’s a first for me.”
    “Being saved?”
    “Being saved by a cop.” She crammed her beanie back on her head as the wind picked up. “I’m okay now. Time for another go. This time I’m prepared.” She turned toward the Council Chambers.
    When she was halfway across the square he called after her.
    “Who do I remind you of?”
    She stopped and turned back toward him.
    “The cop who punched me in the gut then pushed me into a filthy police cell the night I was arrested. He didn’t rape me. He’d done that already to the woman in the cell next to me. I was lucky, wasn’t I?” She shrugged. “He went on to bigger and better things, though. Quite a business man in more ways than one.”
    She lifted her hand and saluted him then went on her way. A chill, colder than the icy wind, settled into his bones as he watched her go.
    *
    Julia stood in the queue waiting for her number to be called and repeated her mantra again and again in her head.
    Nothing can hurt me. Nothing can hurt me.
    Sure, in the past many things had hurt her, but standing in a queue, doing one of the most boring and ordinary of tasks, did not involve contact with psychopathic figures of authority. The rather sweet-looking girl behind the counter, who chatted with her customers as she took their money, would not attempt to assault her. Julia doubted she was even capable of rudeness. She would be fine. All she had to do was concentrate on the mundane. Ignore everything else. Especially the feel of that stormy gray gaze, tracing the line of her neck.
    Why the hell had she mentioned what happened that night? The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. Something about wanting to put him in his place, to make him know she was no one’s fool.
    He – Dylan, she had to start thinking of him as Dylan if he was a friend of Dee’s – was the first man in a long time who’d stirred something in her. She didn’t like it.
    Before jail, men came on to her all the time. She’d enjoyed their attentions. Not anymore. Not after the stories of the women who came and went in custody and not after experiencing the casual and not so casual brutality of most of the prison officers. Although, to be totally honest, the female POs were sometimes worse than the men.
    She swore she’d never be with a man again after her first couple of years inside. Once she seriously considered having sex with some of her friends, but knew she didn’t really want to have sex at all. Jail had killed her desire along with everything else. Thirty years old and she’d only experienced one casual relationship with a fellow student about six months before that hideous night. She was virtually a virgin.
    Which made her response to Dylan the cop inexplicable. She could tell he