His to Take (Wicked Lovers #9)(63)
Author: Shayla Black

“Yeah,” Bailey admitted softly. “But I stopped him in the middle.”

Kata sneaked a glance at Joaquin. “He’s interested, you know?”

“In me?” Kata and Callie both thought that. Why hadn’t they figured out that men like him, locked in life-and-death struggles, didn’t want silly little ballet dancers. “Not really. I’m important to his case, but—”

“You’re important to him as a woman,” she assured her. “Look, I’ll be honest. I haven’t seen much of my brother in years. When we were kids, our dad passed away after getting caught in a domestic dispute in the line of duty. He took a bullet to the chest. Doctors tried to perform surgery to repair the damage to his heart, but he bled out too fast.

“After that, Joaquin began to disconnect from everyone around him. Sometimes, it feels like I lost more than one family member that day. He didn’t attend my high school or college graduations. Hunter and I eloped, but Joaquin only attended our family ceremony for an hour. He didn’t even know that our mother had married Hunter’s father last fall. To see him interested in anyone is heartening.”

It was probably stupid, but a pang hit Bailey’s heart. He’d lost someone he must have loved dearly at a young age. How solitary had he been since? How much had he been hurting because of it?

Bailey wished she could help Kata—and Joaquin—because she knew what it felt like to be without family. She knew the pain of holidays spent around a Christmas tree by herself, about passing the milestones of life and not having the people she loved to share them with. Just like she knew that Kata was subtly asking her to help heal Joaquin. It hurt even more to shake her head.

“He’s trying to solve a case. He might want to sleep with me. I’m available and not a total troll. But he’s not trying to make any sort of emotional connection with me.”

“Why did he spank you?” she demanded.

“I made him mad.”

“Because . . . ?”

“He thought I’d risked myself too much by going into the public area of Dominion one night. I was with Callie and no one saw me, but—”

“He was worried about you,” Kata argued with a smile. “He didn’t want you to get hurt. That tells me he cares.”

Bailey hated to burst her bubble. “He didn’t want to lose the only person who might be able to help him understand why people are dying.”

Kata wagged a finger in her face. “If he didn’t care at all, he’d have locked you in a room and ignored you completely until he wanted to question you. Instead, he tossed you over his lap and put a bare hand to your bare ass, am I right?”

“Yeah.” So what was her point?

“That’s a very personal way to punish someone. He wanted to discipline you himself. He wanted to feel you as he did. A lot of Doms would have chosen isolation as a punishment, especially since it would keep you safe. Instead, he put his hands on you. You’re here at this party, talking to his sister. And he’s watching you right now . . . It grosses me out a little that I can see how much he wants you, but I’ll take that any day over his indifference.”

Bailey swallowed down a knot of lust. She didn’t want to want him. And she didn’t want to be responsible for Joaquin’s emotional state or whatever Kata was suggesting.

“My wife is very smart. And very right,” Hunter murmured, approaching in her blind spot and wrapping an arm around Kata’s waist.

Bailey whirled, then took a half step back to include him in the conversation. The look on Hunter’s face didn’t hold the slightest hint of teasing. He genuinely believed, as Kata and Callie did, that Joaquin wanted her as something more than a witness.

“I would have only administered a spanking in that situation if I had some visceral need to feel a sub’s reaction to my discipline.”

Why would a Dom need that? Her brow wrinkled with confusion. Kata smiled.

“In other words, Joaquin would have only punished you that way if he wanted to see and feel for himself that he’d gotten through to you,” Hunter explained. “Drinking in your pain and pleasure, experiencing you lowering your walls and surrendering to him, would help him believe that you wouldn’t foolishly risk yourself again. Isolating you would have been easy, probably even effective. But it would have given him absolutely no assurance that you understood. If he didn’t care, that wouldn’t matter.”

Hunter’s words slapped Bailey. Kata had said the same thing, more or less. For some reason, maybe because Hunter was a man interpreting a man’s actions, everything he said made more sense. Carried more weight.