Lust Meter System: Conquering Beauties

They got dressed in the quiet of the bedroom, the kind of quiet that came after something and was comfortable rather than empty.

Grace found her shirt from the floor and pulled it on and Liam got his things together and they moved back through the apartment without any particular ceremony about it.

He sat on the couch for a moment to tie his shoes and Daisy came over immediately and put her chin on his knee and looked up at him with the patient expectation of someone who had been waiting for this specifically.

He ran his hand through the fur on top of her head.

"Hey girl," he said. "Be good."

Daisy’s tail moved twice and she stepped back with the dignity of a dog who had received what she came for.

He stood up and looked at Grace standing near the door with her arms loosely crossed, her hair still slightly undone from everything, her shirt sitting on her the way shirts sat on her when she had put them on without caring how they sat.

"Hey," he said.

She looked at him.

"Don’t pick up the big case," he said. "I know you and I know you’re already thinking about going back to it the second I walk out that door. Don’t." He looked at her directly. "There are always more cases. Big ones, small ones, ones that feel like they can’t wait. But there’s only one of you and you can’t do any of it properly if you’re running on a back that needs two more weeks and a body that’s been carrying three weeks of stress." He paused. "Take care of yourself first. The work will be there when you’re ready."

She looked at him for a moment, something moving through her expression that started as resistance and ended somewhere softer.

"Okay," she said. Quietly. The real okay.

He crossed the room and pressed his lips to her forehead.

She went still.

"What was that for," she said, her voice slightly different from what it had been a second before.

"That’s your reward," he said.

She looked up at him and pressed her lips together and said nothing, which was its own kind of response.

They walked through the apartment together and she opened the front door and they came out into the hallway and he waited while she locked up and then they walked to the elevator and down and out through the building entrance into the afternoon.

The street was doing its late afternoon thing, the light lower and warmer now than it had been when he arrived, the trees along the block throwing longer shadows across the pavement.

A couple was walking a stroller on the far side of the road. Somewhere further up the block music was coming from an open window, low and unhurried.

He walked with her to where the M4 was parked.

She stopped.

She looked at the car.

Then at him.

"Wait," she said. "That’s yours?"

"Yeah," he said. "You like it?"

She walked around to the front of it slowly, her eyes moving along the lines of it, the navy paint catching the afternoon light along the bonnet, the wheels sitting exactly right beneath it.

"I really like it," she said. The surprise in her voice was genuine. "That’s a beautiful car Liam."

He smiled. "Want to take it for a spin?"

She looked at him. Then at the car. Something in her expression was genuinely tempted for about two seconds.

"I’m okay," she said. "I’m more of a normal car girl. I don’t think I’m ready for something like that yet." She ran her hand along the front of it, across the bonnet, feeling the paint under her palm. "But it’s really nice. Genuinely." She looked at him over the roof. "Just be careful with it."

"I will," he said.

She nodded slowly, still looking at the car with the expression of someone taking a last look at something they appreciated, and then she straightened up and looked at him.

"Alright," she said. "I’m going inside."

"Bye," he said.

She turned and walked back toward the building entrance and he watched her go and then got in the car.

He started the engine, the sound of it settling into the quiet street, and pulled slowly away from the curb. He built the speed gradually until he hit the junction at the end of the block and then pressed the accelerator properly and the car responded with the immediate conviction of something that had been waiting for exactly this, and he turned onto the wider road and was gone.

---

Grace stood on the pavement and watched the M4 disappear around the corner.

She stayed there for a moment after the sound of it had faded, the street settling back into its regular afternoon pace around her.

Then she sighed.

She turned and went back inside, through the building entrance and up to her floor, and unlocked her apartment door and came in and pushed it closed behind her.

The apartment was warm and quiet and exactly as they had left it. The yoga mat still on the floor. The two water glasses from earlier still on the coffee table. Daisy on the couch in the specific position of a dog who had determined that the couch was hers in the absence of any human making a counter-argument.

Grace toed off her shoes at the door and left them there and padded across the floor toward the kitchen.

She was halfway there when her hand found its way to the front of her underwear, her fingers pressing lightly against the fabric, and she exhaled slowly through her nose.

’That,’ she thought, pressing slightly more, ’was really something.’

She stood there for a moment in the middle of her apartment in her socked feet with her hand against herself and her eyes half closed.

Then Daisy started barking.

Not the casual bark she produced when something moved outside the window. Not the short announcement bark that meant someone was in the hallway.

This was something different, continuous and serious, Daisy having dropped off the couch and positioned herself facing the front door with her whole body tight and low and her voice going without pause.

Grace’s hand was off herself and moving toward the cabinet where she kept the backup piece before her brain had fully caught up with what her body was already doing.

She kept the Glock in a locked box on the top shelf, the kind that opened with a four-digit code her fingers knew without her thinking about them.

She had it in her hand in under fifteen seconds, the safety checked, her body already moving toward the door with the quiet sideways steps she had practiced enough times to do without deciding to.

Daisy’s barking covered her footsteps completely, which was either fortunate or Daisy had figured out her role in this.

She reached the door and stopped beside it rather than in front of it, one shoulder against the wall, and looked through the peephole.

A woman was standing in the hallway.

Dark hair loose around her shoulders. Short black dress. Heels.

The specific quality of someone standing outside a door with complete patience, not shifting their weight, not checking their phone, not doing anything that people waiting in hallways did.

Just standing there with a small smile on her face looking at the door.

Grace looked at her for a long moment.

She did not recognize her.

She lowered the gun to her side but kept it in her hand and opened the door with the other.

The woman looked at her with the smile already in place.

"Hi there," Grace said, keeping her voice even and her body positioned so the gun behind her back was accessible but not visible. "Can I help you?"

The woman tilted her head slightly. "Mm," she said first, like she was registering something. "My master’s scent is really strong here." She looked past Grace briefly into the apartment. "Is he still around?"

Grace looked at her. "I’m sorry, I think you might have the wrong place."

She started to step back and pull the door toward her.

Stella’s hand came up and stopped the door.

One hand, flat against it, and the door stopped moving entirely as though it had been set in concrete.

Grace pushed against it.

Nothing. The door did not move by a single millimeter.

She looked at the woman’s hand and then at her face, which was still wearing the smile.

"What the," Grace said, and pushed harder, putting her shoulder into it.

Still nothing.

Stella looked at her pleasantly. "I know I have the right place," she said, and stepped forward into the apartment, the door swinging open easily as she moved past it, and Grace stepped back automatically because the alternative was letting this woman walk through her.

Daisy was still barking, standing her ground between Grace and the woman, her voice continuous and her body low.

Stella looked at Daisy.

Daisy went quiet.

Not gradually. Immediately, the way a sound stopped when someone turned off a switch.

She whimpered once, a small sound with a lot of information in it, and stayed where she was, still planted between them but no longer making any noise.

"You have a really great dog," Stella said, looking at Daisy with what appeared to be genuine appreciation.

Grace had the Glock up and pointed at her before the sentence finished.

"I need you to leave my home right now," she said. Her voice was flat and professional and entirely without the fear that was currently doing something significant to her heart rate. "You walked in here without permission and you’re going to leave the same way you came in. Right now. Or I will use this."

Stella looked at the gun.

Then at Grace.

"I’d like to see you try," she said, and took one step forward.

Grace did not hesitate.

*Pow!*

*Pow!*

*Pow!*

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!