Page 20 of To Catch a Sub

“I’ll be ready,” she said in a brisk tone. “I’m staying at The Lowry.”

Landon had already started walking away, but paused at the mouth of the alley to look back. “I know. How do you think I found you?” His gaze raked her, up and down. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Colette.”

FIVE

The British Museum

Several years earlier

“Constable? I mean Detective Inspector?”

Landon turned from studying a section of the Parthenon Marbles to face the speaker.

A pretty young woman stood behind him, near the podium that explained the difference between frieze, metope, and pediment. She had long medium brown hair and big hazel eyes, magnified by dark-rimmed glasses, and held both a clipboard and what looked to be an entire ream of paper pressed to her chest. A museum ID was clipped to the bottom of her boxy jacket.

She’d spoken softly, as was fitting in a museum, especially this section of this museum. The Duveen Gallery was a long room with periodic benches and informational podiums marching down the center of the dramatically-lit space. The walls and floor were brown stone, several shades darker than the sculptured panels of mixed white, grey, and beige stone displayed on the walls. The center of the room was dark, while the walls were lit with gold-tone light probably meant to mimic the Mediterranean sun.

“Detective,” he said, holding out his hand. “Detective Malik.”

She shifted her clipboard and papers to her right arm, stuck out her left, realized her mistake, and tried to quickly shift everything to her other arm. Papers slid out of her grasp, hit the floor, and scattered.

“Oh no!” She crouched, grabbing at the fluttering pages.

“Here, let me help.” Landon started gathering the furthest flung pages, working his way in.

He bent to grab one last piece at the same time she did, and their heads cracked together.

“Ow!” The woman grabbed her head with her right hand, overbalanced, and nearly toppled over onto her butt. Landon caught her by the elbow, steadying her.

She grabbed his elbow, their arms locked together, and looked at him, eyes blinking behind those big glasses.

A sizzling awareness hummed through him at the contact. They weren’t even touching skin to skin, and yet he felt like he’d touched a live wire. Landon dropped one knee to the cold stone floor.

The woman inhaled, almost a gasp, and for a moment lost that wide-eyed, worried expression. She looked older, sharper somehow, and her gaze traced over his face.

The change had him frowning, until she licked her lips, drawing his attention to her mouth. She had a gorgeous mouth, with a deep V in her top lip. Cupid’s bow, that’s what it was called.

The woman ducked her head, hair falling forward to obscure her face. She grabbed the paper they’d both been going for, then took the haphazard stack from his hand.

“I’m sorry.” Holding the papers to her chest with her left arm, the woman crawled across the floor to the closest bench.

Landon watched her ass as she crawled. He had a quick, vivid fantasy about what he could do to a nice juicy ass like that, and swallowed hard. He needed to make time to go to a club and scene.

Normally, Landon was king of compartmentalization and believed in a hard, decisive separation between work and personal. He would never let anyone he worked with know what he was into outside of work hours, and hid his status as a detective with London’s Metropolitan Police Service from people at the club.

The woman sat back on her heels?—

Another vivid fantasy about her in that same position, but wearing a corset and collar, popped into his head in full high-def.

What the fuck was wrong with him? Maybe the stress of the case was getting to him.

—and started organizing and stacking the papers using the bench as a work surface.

Landon walked over and sat. Standing while she knelt like that was a bad idea.

He took a moment to study her, wondering why he was having such a strong reaction to her. Given his predilections, he’d always valued personality and kinks over looks when it came to his partners. He didn’t know this woman, so it wasn’t her personality that attracted him. Physically she was pretty, but unremarkable, except for that little dip in her top lip that he wanted to lick.

She had thick brows, partially hidden by the glasses, and a wide jaw that gave her a rectangular face. She wore black pants, a pale blue button-up shirt and a navy jacket. The clothes were almost unisex, though the pants had hugged her ass very nicely when she crawled. He leaned, trying to read her name tag, but the angle was wrong.