Next of Kin Read online

  After eight long hours of looking into their suspect's smirking face, they had finally managed to provoke him into a confession. When he realized what he had blurted out in his anger, the perp had jumped across the table at her, and Aiden had taken a certain satisfaction in slamming the cruel rapist of a young mother down on the table and cuffing him.

  Aiden prowled through the living room, knowing she was too charged to sleep. Six months ago, she wouldn't have gone straight home after leaving the precinct – or if she had, she certainly wouldn't have been alone. A night like this had often resulted in one-night stands. Sex had always been her way of relieving a little tension and dealing with the emotions her job evoked.

  Now that she was in a steady relationship, that form of stress relief was out of the question. It was also too late for a workout with her punching bag or a run through the neighborhood. Aiden resigned herself to a sleepless night in a cold bed. She trudged into the bathroom, pulling off her blouse as she went.

  She frowned when she couldn't find the T-shirt in which she usually slept where she had left it in the bathroom this morning. I'm not that tired, am I? I could have sworn I left it right here. Finally, she shrugged out of her bra and decided not to bother with a T-shirt. She was alone tonight, so no one would object to her choice – or lack – of sleepwear.

  She finished her beer and rounded the couch, finding her way to the dark bedroom by sense of touch and memory alone. She slipped under the covers – and almost jumped out of her skin.

  Instead of the cold sheets she had expected, she encountered warm skin. She flicked on the bedside lamp.

  Dawn was sleeping peacefully right next to her. The covers had halfway slipped off, revealing Aiden's missing sleep shirt. It loosely covered the gentle curves of her lover.

  A tingle shot through her, and the happy grin that formed on her lips felt almost unfamiliar after the grimness of her workday. What's she doing here? Not that I'm complaining. Aiden turned off the light and slipped under the covers again, immediately snuggling up to Dawn.

  Dawn's warm body felt so good against her own, and there was something incredibly sexy about knowing Dawn was wearing her T-shirt – and probably not much else. Aiden pressed her face against Dawn's soft neck and deeply breathed in her enticing scent.

  Dawn began to stir against her, turning in Aiden's embrace.

  Heat flooded through Aiden as she felt Dawn's breasts press against her own, and she reflexively pulled Dawn even closer.

  "Hmmmhm," Dawn mumbled, snuggling even closer. Her lips sleepily skimmed Aiden's collarbone. "Aid'n?"

  "Yeah," Aiden answered. One of her hands slipped under Dawn's sleep shirt to draw circles on the soft, warm skin. "I'm home."

  Dawn's eyes blinked open. A sleepy grin formed on her lips when she made out Aiden in the darkness.

  "What are you doing here?" Aiden asked, very distracted by the sudden discovery that Dawn wasn't even wearing panties. Her sleepover must have been a last-minute decision. Both of them rarely stayed over at the other's apartment on weeknights.

  "'s lonely," Dawn murmured, still not fully awake.

  Aiden rolled around, covering the pliant body of her lover with her own. "Let's see if we can't change that," she seductively whispered against Dawn's lips.

  Dawn lazily returned Aiden's kiss, and her arms came up to wrap around Aiden, not moving, just holding on.

  The casual submissiveness ignited an unexpected spark in Aiden. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to conquer Dawn, to awaken her passion, and make her come to life. She trailed challenging nips down the soft skin of Dawn's throat, and when Dawn arched up against her, she lifted one of Dawn's legs and wrapped it around her hip.

  Dawn's warm hands clutched at her, firing her body temperature up even more.

  One hand pressed against the bed for leverage, Aiden began to move against Dawn while her other hand tugged up her sleep shirt until her mouth could meet Dawn's bare breast.

  Dawn groaned. Her fingers slid up Aiden's back and tangled in her short hair.

  Aiden nipped at an erect nipple with gentle teeth and moved her hand down between their bodies.

  "No!"

  The word hit her like a slap in the face. Aiden froze and stared down at Dawn, who was stiffly lying there, her chest heaving and her face flushed.

  "I'm sorry, but I can't. Not tonight," Dawn whispered. She was looking at the ceiling, not meeting Aiden's gaze.

  Aiden quickly rolled off her partner's warm body and onto the cold sheets. She threw an arm over her eyes and closed them tightly. "You all right?" she asked after a few seconds, trying in vain to make her voice gentle. She could hear desire, guilt, and anger roughen her voice, and she knew Dawn could hear it too.

  "Yeah." Dawn exhaled shakily. "It just got a little intense there for a second." She rolled around and leaned over Aiden, looking down at her with gentle green eyes. "Hey, are you okay?" She reached out a hand to stroke a damp strand of hair from Aiden's face.

  Aiden quickly rolled out of bed. She couldn't stand Dawn's gentleness right now. She didn't deserve the loving touches.

  "Aiden?" Dawn called after her, clearly confused by the abrupt departure. "Where are you going?"

  Aiden pressed her lips together. Another thing that was different now: she couldn't just get dressed and slip out of her bedpartner's apartment without comment. "I forgot to take a shower," she said. Suddenly, she felt as if she needed one to wash away the guilt and frustration. Half-drunk with emotions, she stumbled through the dark apartment and into the bathroom.

  She stood under the scalding hot water, her hands pressed against the cold tiles, and let the water beat down on her back like a medieval instrument of torture. A mental picture of her passionately pressing a female partner against the wall of the very same shower flashed through her mind, and she hit her fist against the tiles. Stop it! she yelled at herself. You're not an animal, only controlled by its needs! You're not like your father!

  The shower curtain was pulled back.

  Aiden looked up, sputtering.

  Dawn slipped the sleep shirt over her head, let it drop to the floor, and stepped into the shower without a word.

  "Dawn..." Aiden said, moving back half a step.

  Dawn moved under the water and into Aiden's arms.

  Aiden quickly adjusted the water to a more bearable temperature and tried to move out of Dawn's embrace, but Dawn stubbornly held on and pressed her lips gently to one of the red marks the hot water had left on Aiden's shoulder.

  "What are you doing to yourself?" Dawn asked, her voice a worried whisper.

  "To myself?" Aiden laughed roughly. "You mean, what am I doing to you?"

  Dawn pulled Aiden's head around, forcing her to look into her eyes. "You haven't done anything wrong."

  Aiden snorted. Even now, Dawn was trying to defend her. "I practically ambushed you!"

  "Mm-hm, in a very nice way," Dawn agreed with a smile.

  "Oh, stop it, Dawn!" Aiden shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. "You were clearly not in the mood, and I –"

  Dawn followed her, stepping close in the cramped space of the small bathroom. "And you were; there's nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed what you were doing. It's just... everything is just so close to the surface tonight, and I suddenly felt so out of control, and I could smell beer on your breath."

  Tonight. The sudden realization hit Aiden with force. "You got your test results back today?" With all that had happened at work, she had almost forgotten about it. A cold sweat broke out on her still wet skin, and she felt as if she couldn't force enough oxygen into her lungs.

  Dawn nodded. "Don't worry. Everything's fine. It just brought back a lot of memories. Sitting in the waiting room, that feeling of helplessness..."

  You're an asshole, Carlisle! Aiden grabbed a towel and roughly dried herself. An asshole of gigantic proportions!

  "Stop it!" Dawn took the towel away from her and gently dabbed it over Aiden's skin. "Don't punish yourself
for wanting to make love to your girlfriend."

  "I didn't want to make love! I wanted to have sex!" Aiden snapped before she could stop herself. She abruptly turned and stormed out of the bathroom, gathering her clothes and slipping into them as she went.

  By the time Dawn stumbled out of the bathroom, shrugging into a bathrobe, the door of the apartment fell closed behind Aiden.

  * * *

  Kade closed the thick law book with a resounding "thud". She threw the pen down on her legal pad and leaned back with a groan, looking down at the work she had managed to complete tonight. Being stalked has its advantages, she decided with a self-mocking grin. She had stayed late every day for the last week, feeling safer in her office with the security guard downstairs than at home. By now, she was almost caught up with all the paperwork and trial prep – a miracle that hadn't happened since she had started working with the sex crimes unit.

  A quick glance at her watch showed her that it was almost midnight. She looked at the small sofa, contemplating staying and sleeping in the office for another night, but then she dismissed the thought. She was due in Judge Trenton's court first thing tomorrow morning, and she hadn't brought a change of clothes.

  She packed her briefcase with a few documents she wanted to review tomorrow morning over coffee and picked up a stack of files. She would drop them off at the precinct on her way home so that the detectives would find them when they came in tomorrow morning.

  The security guard hardly looked up when she wished him a good night anymore. He had gotten used to her nightly presence by now.

  Kade paused on the front steps for a moment, staring into the darkness. Everything was quiet. Don't be silly, she reprimanded herself. No one but a workaholic DDA would voluntarily hang around here after midnight. Even amorous, flower-sending stalkers keep office hours that are shorter than yours.

  She stepped into the darkness and strode to her car without pausing. A few minutes later, she gathered the files from the passenger seat and stepped out of the car.

  Two officers from the night shift, leaning against their patrol cars during a cigarette break, greeted her. Kade gave them a stern nod but didn't stop to chat.

  She made her way through the still busy squad room toward the Carlisle/Bennet desks that should have been empty this time of night.

  Aiden sat behind her desk, staring off into space. She rubbed her neck with one hand while the other played with a pen. Kade had seen her do this a hundred times before, sometimes during a witness interview, sometimes while she studied a crime scene report, but this time, Kade got the impression Aiden wasn't obsessing about her work.

  Kade set down her files on Ray's desk. "Aiden?" she asked quietly.

  Aiden didn't react.

  "Aiden?" Kade said, this time a little louder.

  Aiden jumped and whirled her chair around. "What?" she snapped, clearly irritated. Then her gaze softened when she recognized who was standing in front of her. "Oh, hey, Kade. What are you doing here at..." She glanced at her watch. "...midnight?"

  "Same thing you're doing, it would seem." Everyone knew that Aiden's workaholic tendencies were surpassed only by Kade's own.

  Aiden barked out a laugh and mumbled something that sounded like, "So you're hiding from your lesbian lover too?"

  "What?" Kade asked, pretending not to have heard. The truth was that all her years in the courtroom had sharpened her hearing. Being able to understand all the whispered reprimands of sleazy defense lawyers in front of the bench was all the incentive Kade needed to school her hearing.

  "I said I just need to finish up a few things," Aiden said, trying to appear hard at work by reading through a witness statement that had already been highlighted.

  Kade knew that was not the reason why Aiden was still at the precinct, and she knew Aiden was aware that she knew. But in the past, both of them had always respected those polite little lies. Both had been careful not to cross the boundaries of professionalism. When they talked, it was work they discussed, not their private lives.

  But during the last few months, something had changed. Kade couldn't say what exactly it was. They were still the competent detective and the confident deputy district attorney, and the Sexual Assault Detail still worked the toughest cases in Portland, so she had tried to tell herself that nothing had changed. Still, she could feel that something was different.

  It had all started when she had confessed to Aiden that she was going out on a date with Del on Valentine's Day. Interpersonal relationships are like practicing law: once there's a confession, the game is over. There's no going back, she thought, then raised a skeptical eyebrow at herself. Oh yeah? If practicing law and interpersonal relationships are so much alike, how come you're so good at one and so very bad at the other?

  She returned her attention to Aiden and noticed she wasn't pretending to read through the witness statement any longer. Instead, she was staring at one of the pictures on her desk, lost in thought.

  At first Kade thought it was the photo of Aiden's mother that she had seen before when she had perched on the edge of Aiden's desk, but when she took a closer look, she saw that a new photograph had been added. Dawn Kinsley was smiling into the camera in a way that left no doubt in Kade's mind that Aiden had been the one taking the picture.

  Dawn. She was a part of what had changed between Kade and Aiden. Aiden was in a steady relationship now, and that changed the dynamic between them. Not that either of them had ever seriously considered a relationship between them, at least Kade hadn't. Enjoying Aiden's admiring glances had been as far as she had allowed her thoughts to stray.

  Aiden was a colleague, a detective working for her, and that automatically excluded her from ever ending up in the "romantic interest" category. Keeping her work and her private life separate had always been Kade's hard and fast rule.

  Despite that personal law, her life and Aiden's were not as separate anymore as they had once been. They had slowly started to become more interwoven. Aiden had even called her "Aunt Kade" when she had thought she would start dating Del. Kade had confessed her interest in Del to Aiden, and that sign of trust had started them down a road of cautious friendship when they hadn't been more than friendly colleagues before.

  "Can I ask you something?" Aiden's voice interrupted Kade's thoughts.

  Kade nodded.

  Aiden looked away from Dawn's picture. Her gaze landed on Kade. "What happened between you and Del?"

  Kade quickly dragged Ray's chair around the desk and closer to Aiden's. She didn't want the whole squad room to overhear her answer, short as it was. "Nothing."

  "Nothing?" Aiden obviously didn't believe that for a second.

  "Nothing happened between us." Kade spelled it out as she would for a jury.

  Aiden drummed her pen against the desk. "That much I already knew, or Dawn's friend would have let something slip at the Kinsleys' dinner table."

  Kade narrowed her eyes and studied her. Why was it that Aiden always sounded a little brusque when she was talking about Del? "Dawn's friend?" she repeated. "Not 'our' friend? I thought lesbian couples weren't supposed to have separate circles of friends?"

  "Are you afraid I'll lose my U-haul discount card? What did you do, research lesbian mating habits?" Aiden asked with the charming little Carlisle grin that almost made you forget the casual snark of her words.

  Almost. "I thought you and Lieutenant Vasquez got along great?" Kade put a silent question into her words and ignored Aiden's comment. Her mating habits, lesbian or otherwise, weren't up for discussion while they were sitting in the middle of the squad room.

  Aiden shrugged. "We do, I suppose."

  "Then why are you insinuating that Lieutenant Vasquez would broadcast it to the whole Kinsley clan if anything had happened between us?" Kade put her well-practiced cross-exam stare to good use. Del was a decent, honorable person, and she wouldn't let Aiden insinuate otherwise. Wait a minute! You thought she might be stalking you, and now you're defending her honor?

/>   "I'm not insinuating anything." Aiden interrupted Kade's internal monologue. "I'm just saying that any lesbian would have a hard time not shouting it from the rooftops if she had managed to be 'cross-examined' by a certain DDA."

  Kade resolutely shook her head. "There was no cross-examination."

  Aiden tilted her head. "Why not? I mean Dawn said she hadn't seen Del so interested in a woman in years, and there seemed to be a certain interest on your part too, so why didn't you let something happen?"

  Kade glared at two police officers who wandered past Aiden's desk for the third time, making them suddenly remember that they were urgently expected somewhere else. Anywhere else. Okay, this is clearly going a little too far for our first friendly talk. Is she really asking me why I didn't jump into bed with Del? When Aiden continued to just look at her, her gaze open and nonjudgmental, Kade sighed. "I dismissed Lieutenant Vasquez from the witness stand when she broke the golden rule of lawyering," she answered, keeping up the lawyer analogies Aiden had started. That way she could pretend they were just discussing a case, and every eavesdropper would think the same.