“I thought you were out of that lifestyle.”
“And you’re the only thing in the world that could draw me back in. Now, the massage will work better if you just listen, but I’m not above strapping you down for it, either.”
Thatgot her going. She sat with her back to him for a moment, then removed her shirt and bra. Despite the men having all seen her marks already, she found she didn’t care for exposing them. There was always this moment of fear that happened, one when she was afraid to look at the men, when terror washed over her that they’d see her differently.
Olin sighed but said nothing as she twisted to lie down on her front.
He shifted beside her, then squirted some of the oil on his hand. It was surprisingly warm when he touched her back, when his strong hand slid across her skin.
And the moan she let out at the very first touch was downright humiliating. She’d been brought to orgasm by those hands—hell, she’d been fucked in front of a room of people at Sanctuary—yet this entirely innocent massage could forcethatsound from her lips?
It was witchcraft. Had to be.
Olin laughed at the sound but went on. He stroked over her lower back, easing the knots she hadn’t even realized were there. “I’m proud of you. You’ve worked hard at learning.”
“You were right when you said I should learn.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded, her face turned away from him, her cheek against the blanket on her bed. “I feel safer, I guess.”
“Good. That was part of the point.” He dug the heels of his palms into the sore places on her back. When she whined softly, he focused in on that area, as if he knew it was where she needed the most attention.
It reminded her of how twisted her view of love and sex was, though, because that edge of pain heated her up in entirely different ways as well. The noises she made, they were only partly in protest.
And no doubt Olin knew it, the observant bastard.
“Any word?” she asked, forcing herself to ask the question she wanted to know just as much as she didn’t want to know.
Olin didn’t pretend to not know what she was talking about. “No. I’m still getting reports from others at the station even though I’m not officially on the case.”
“Any more bodies?”
He didn’t answer, his hands pausing for a breath. Though, his lack of an answer told her plenty, didn’t it?
“How many?”
He sighed softly. “Two more. Same as the others.”
Kat couldn’t ignore the pain in her chest at that, the reminder that those women had died because of her.
“It’s not because of you,” Olin said as if he could read her mind.
“We’ve had this talk before—you aren’t going to convince me otherwise.”
“Was it Sunny’s fault that her dog got hurt? Do you blame Ell for getting you involved with Jerry?”
The question made Kat push up from the bed and give Olin a hard glare. “Absolutely not, and if you dare say something like that to them—”
Olin’s lips pulled into agotchyagrin. “See? You can see the truth when it comes to other people, so you just need to work harder to see it when it comes to yourself. You can’t blame yourself for other people’s actions. I mean, if I’d been a better detective, I might have stopped Jerry before he could do any of this. If Bradley and you hadn’t broken up, you wouldn’t have been in that position at all. If Dean had kept a better eye on Ell, Jerry couldn’t have abducted either of you. You can’t take this all on your own shoulders, Kat. Either Jerry is responsible for his own actions or weallshare in the blame.”
Kat tipped her lips down, trying so hard to find a way to refute his words. She wanted to lay the blame on her own shoulders because she was used to that, was comfortable with it. Being at fault meant she could do something to change it.
Having to admit it was all Jerry’s fault, however, made her uneasy, made her feel unsafe.
Olin set a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down, moving to work on her sore shoulder. The action blanked her mind, took her away from Jerry and the women who had been killed and everything else.
It shrank the world to her and Olin’s touches, to the way he pressed into the tense areas of the muscle, to the sharp pain followed by the gentle easing.