huggedan better on a social level; but the nature of her job and the role she played made it very difficult. Sometimes she was convinced they thought the only thing worse than her was Internal Affairs. That made it very hard to cultivate relationships. They couldn’t separate who she was as a human being from the threat they perceived her to be professionally.
“Now what’s that expression for?” he asked her gently. “That looked like a very troubling thought.”
“I was just wondering … I thought you told me that you’re Blending with Jackson and becoming one in essence. But I can very easily tell who I am talking to from one topic to the next.”
He made a small contemplative sound. “I find it intriguing that you do. But we are newly Blended, and over time you will not see any distinctions. Nor will we feel the need to use plural pronouns when referring to ourselves.”
He smiled then, all gentle magnetic charm as he touched his thumb to the corner of her lips. It seemed to be a favorite caress of his, she thought as warm frissons of indefinable emotion swam through her. It wasn’t arousal or desire, though she did acknowledge that both were also present at that moment. It was …
It was enough to make her shy away from him, turning abruptly out of his tender touch. She reached for her sandwich, stuffing it into her mouth before she got some crazy notion in her head like wanting him to kiss her.
Menes watched her shift away from him, drank in the pretty flustered color on her cheeks. She was perfect. In every way he could possibly hope for. Jackson’s desire for her was a volatile, virulent thing, and Menes didn’t blame him in the least. She was beautiful, intelligent, capable of deep emotions and equally capable of hiding them. That was important when one was in a position of authority. Like, say, a queen. Oh, he could see there were flaws, that she had control issues, and had very little ability to trust. However, he would never discover any of these things nor other more crucial answers if Jackson didn’t stop locking down his needs and emotions where Marissa was concerned. All of the recent progress he had made up to date had been as a direct result of Menes’s internal influence. Jackson was completely unaware of that fact, of course. Menes was a far more powerful soul than Jackson was, which allowed him to have his secrets in spite of the Blending. He wasn’t subjugating Jackson in the least, merely … encouraging him to follow his natural instincts where she was concerned.
She was a beautiful creature, but she was in desperate need of a complex sort of wooing. An aggressive sort of wooing. She was too powerful a personality and had extremely strong walls for defense shored up against … well, that part was still a puzzle. Was it just Jackson or was it men in general? Or was it people that she mistrusted altogether?
“I imagine that, as a psychiatrist and as one that tends to the needs of police officers, you see and hear a great many terrible things,” he said, watching her carefully to see how she reacted to his change in topic. It would throw her off, keep her off balance a little, which he suddenly realized was what he had been doing to her all along. He was keeping her from finding her footing, so she couldn’t try to ward him off.
She frowned a little just before letting a professional mask slip over her features.
“It’s part of the job, yes. The men and women on the force are very complex certainly ag. people, but for the most part, in spite of their strength and dominant personality traits, they became cops in order to do something good. For the most part they have very powerful moral compasses. Do some get lost along the way? Absolutely.” Again a brief frown turned down the corners of her mouth. He would have missed it entirely if he hadn’t been on high alert for it. “For people with such a powerful sense of right and wrong and a need for justice, it can be very psychologically damaging for them to see such terrible things. And to see those terrible things go unpunished makes it even worse.”
“Yes. Believe me I know.” Menes knew this not only from the parts of Jackson that were now a part of him, but he knew