Intense Love Read online

  Copyright 2018 Natalie Ann

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without a written consent.

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Road Series-See where it all started!!

  Lucas and Brooke’s Story- Road to Recovery

  Jack and Cori’s Story – Road to Redemption

  Mac and Beth’s Story- Road to Reality

  Ryan and Kaitlin’s Story- Road to Reason

  The All Series

  William and Isabel’s Story — All for Love

  Ben and Presley’s Story – All or Nothing

  Phil and Sophia’s Story – All of Me

  Alec and Brynn’s Story – All the Way

  Sean and Carly’s Story — All I Want

  Drew and Jordyn’s Story— All My Love

  Finn and Olivia’s Story—All About You

  The Lake Placid Series

  Nick Buchanan and Mallory Denning – Second Chance

  Max Hamilton and Quinn Baker – Give Me A Chance

  Caleb Ryder and Celeste McGuire – Our Chance

  Cole McGuire and Rene Buchanan – Take A Chance

  Zach Monroe and Amber Deacon- Deserve A Chance

  Trevor Miles and Riley Hamilton – Last Chance

  The Fierce Five Series

  Brody Fierce and Aimee Reed - Brody

  Aiden Fierce and Nic Moretti- Aiden

  Mason Fierce and Jessica Corning- Mason

  Love Collection

  Vin Steele and Piper Fielding – Secret Love

  Jared Hawk and Shelby McDonald – True Love

  Erik McMann and Sheldon Case – Finding Love

  Connor Landers and Melissa Mahoney- Beach Love

  Ian Price and Cam Mason- Intense Love

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  A detective on the mend. A psychiatrist being tormented. Can their pretend relationship uncover who’s behind the threats?

  Dr. Cameron Mason went into private practice so she could help the victims. She spends a lot of her time putting the accusers away. It’s what she thrives at. What she wants. What’s right. Until someone didn’t think it was so right and decided to silence her from ever helping others again.

  After killing a teenager hopped up on heroin—that happened to be stabbing his partner—Detective Ian Price is mandated to get released by the city shrink. He wants to get in, get his release and get out. Until he sees she’s being victimized herself. Now he must go undercover in his most dangerous assignment yet. The threat isn’t just for his safety or his sanity, but also his heart.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Great Relationship

  Feel Better

  Type of Encouragement

  Nothing to Hide

  Short Lived

  Bring You There

  Nothing Covered Up

  His Purpose

  Trying to Maintain

  No Right To

  Plans and Goals Change

  Taking Bets

  Rotten Luck

  An Endearment

  Done Here

  She’d Be Safe

  Not to Me

  His Job

  Make Believe World

  Find on the Internet

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Ian asked his partner, Mick.

  He and Mick had been partners for three years now, since Ian was promoted to detective. Mick was closing in on retirement and the two of them had a nice working relationship. One where Mick let Ian do the bulk of the work in the guise of “training.”

  It was all fine with Ian though. He’d rather be reliant only on himself. Mick was a good guy. A good detective. One just counting down his days. Three hundred and twenty-three to be exact.

  “Zippy said this is where he got his last batch.”

  Zippy was Mick’s informant. Nicknamed that because he always had a Ziploc bag of something on him. Usually drugs, but sometimes food. He had a fascination with the little blue plastic handle sliding back and forth.

  “He’s not usually wrong,” Ian said back. Zippy might be high half the time, but he knew where to get his stash when he needed it.

  Ian closed in on the door at the end of the hall of the condemned building. Condemned buildings should be empty, but instead were full of drugs, users, and their sellers taking up residence.

  He and Mick were looking for a dude named Fast for questioning about a murder that happened last week. Not only did Fast get users the goods in a speedy fashion, but he managed to slip away before anyone could find him.

  There were low voices coming through the door. A man and a woman. A little pleading and a lot of begging. He was thinking someone might be short on funds and was trying to barter her way for a quick fix.

  The door was slightly ajar, so Ian pushed it open with his foot, his gun drawn. Mick’s too. No use taking any chances in a place like this. There were no expectations Fast would come with them peacefully, if he was even here.

  They were making their way into the rundown nasty rat-infested living room. Furniture was overturned, holes with coils sticking out. There was a stench in here that would cling to his clothes even after a washing, he was positive.

  The voices in the back were getting louder and it seemed to be just the two of them…no one else around, which was surprising. Normally in places like this, users could be seen passed out or shooting up everywhere you turned. That should have given him the first indication something wasn’t right.

  Instead, he followed Mick’s lead this time down another hall. They were just outside the room the voices were coming from when he heard a creak behind him, turned, and took a blow to the head, sending him down and out.

  When he came to a few seconds later his vision was blurred, but he saw Mick down next to him, blood pooling everywhere and a young woman over him with a bloody knife bringing it down again. He lifted his arm and fired, then blacked out.

  Great Relationship

  Ian Price opened the door to the waiting room and saw he was the only one there. Good. That was better than sitting with a bunch of strangers that were in need of Dr. Cameron Mason’s services.

  He didn’t need them.

  He was fine.

  It was mandated. He’d get his release signed, and he’d wait until the investigation was done, then he’d return to normal. Return to work. As if nothing happened a few weeks ago.

  No concussion. No partner that was home trying to recover and no dead teen haunting his dreams.

  He’d be back to the way things were. He’d make sure of it.

  There were magazines on the oak table in front of him. Time. Vanity Fair. Sports Illustrated. He didn’t pick up one of them.

  He wasn’t here to stay. He didn’t want to get cozy with a read; he just wanted this over with.

  Dr. Mason was probably some old balding fat man that was going to talk to him in a quiet voice, ask him about his inner feelings. If his parents ever raised their voices to him or swatted him on the ass. The answer would be yes. And he turned out just fine because of it. Matter of fact he and his par
ents had a mighty fine relationship to this day.

  Another ten minutes went by while he looked around the quiet office. If the watercolors hanging and the flowers in the crystal vase were supposed to be calming, they weren’t cutting it. Not that he’d let anyone know he was anything but calm, cool and collected even in the Sahara Desert at midday.

  Nerves of steel. That was him. Always.

  The door he’d entered beeped, then opened and he glanced back, only to see the receptionist still standing there, annoyingly popping her cherry-scented gum like she’d been doing when he walked in the front door. Either she put a fresh piece in or that stuff had some extract in it because it made him want to gag thinking of sugary sweetness at a carnival.

  “Dr. Mason will be just another minute. Is there anything I can get you before I leave for the day?”

  The twenty-something was eying him more than he cared for. Not trying to figure out who he was. More like she was hungry. Looking for a mate. Or looking for a plaything. He wasn’t either.

  He brushed off her flirting. He’d never see her again. He was going to have his one visit and be done. How hard would it be to get his release signed?

  “I’m good,” he said, then watched as she wiggled her eyebrows at him one more time, grinned and left.

  A minute, maybe two tops, and the office door opened and Dr. Mason came out.

  No old fat balding man.

  Not old. Not fat. Not a man.

  A woman. A smoking hot one in a black pencil skirt hitting her knees, a white shirt buttoned to her neck and tucked in, but not hiding a thing from his imagination. Neither were the simple but still sexy black heels.

  Dark straight hair falling over her shoulders, brown eyes assessing his, but not like her secretary. Unfortunately.

  “Mr. Price?” she said, her voice cool and maybe a bit raspy. Nah, that was just in his imagination. She was holding her hand out and walking forward. “I’m Dr. Mason. Why don’t you come into my office?”

  He shook her hand, brushing off the heat from contact, and followed her in, noting a leather couch on one wall and two chairs across from it. He sat down in one of the chairs. No way he was lying down. No reason.

  She laughed, a low sound that shot more heat in places it had no business being.

  “So why don’t you tell me why you’re here?” she asked.

  “Don’t you know that?” Dr. Mason was contracted as the city’s head shrink.

  “I do. I’m asking why you think you’re here.”

  “So you can sign my release papers and send me back to work.” Might as well be honest. No use lying or prolonging anything. “I took all your tests the other day. I’m betting I did just fine on them.”

  She pursed her lips. Full lips, minus any color or gloss. “I’ll do that in time. Until then, let’s just chat.”

  Great. Chat. He hated chatting. Hated it even more when it was idle and that was all he was going to do. No mention of the test results, but he wasn’t worried.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  She sat back in her chair, the pen she was holding now resting on her pad. “What would you like to tell me?”

  “Not much,” he said, stretching his long legs out in front of him, then resting his hands on his belly.

  She grinned at him, not easily put off. “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel just fine,” he said.

  “And your partner?”

  “Mick is good. Lucky to be alive, but he’ll make it. He’ll make it to his retirement too.”

  “Thanks to you,” she said. “How do you feel about the events that unfolded that day?”

  Here we go. She wanted to talk about his feelings. “I feel just fine,” he repeated. “I did what needed to be done.”

  She nodded, then picked up her pen and wrote something down. Wonderful. Just wonderful. She was taking notes now. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my childhood?”

  “Do you want to talk about your childhood?” she asked, frowning at him.

  What was wrong with him? He just didn’t want to talk about the night of the incident. Anything but. “Not really.”

  “Then why did you bring it up?”

  “Don’t all shrinks want to dig into their patient’s past? See if maybe they were abused. If something set them off. I’ll tell you right now there’s nothing. My mother spanked me a few times, then cried harder than I did. My father yelled at me too, then I yelled back and we laughed about it then and still do now. I’ve got a great relationship with them and they’d tell you the same.”

  “Did you practice that speech before you came here?”

  He had, but he wouldn’t admit it. “It’s the truth.”

  “I actually believe you.”

  “So we’re good then. You can sign my release and I’ll be set once the investigation is done?”

  “I was told the investigation could take up to another week or longer. They’ll have my full evaluation by then. No worries.”

  He wanted to grind his teeth but decided that would probably be a mark against him. Something more she’d want to talk about.

  “Well then, if we’re done today,” he said, moving to stand up.

  “That’s fine. I was running late and have had a long day myself. We can walk out together if you’d like,” she said.

  He wanted to say no, but that’d be rude and he was probably rude enough as it was. No reason to get her on his bad side. Not until she signed that stupid release. “You’re going to make me come back, aren’t you?”

  She smiled at him. “Of course.”

  He wanted to leave but didn’t. She walked behind her desk and typed a few things on her computer. “Since my secretary has left for the day, I’ll just schedule your next appointment. How about two days from now, same time? Last appointment of the day?”

  “That’s fine,” he said. Not like he had much going on. The sooner he could get this over with the sooner he could move on.

  “Well then, you can walk me to my car,” she said, grabbing her purse, walking out the door and flashing her keycard to open the inner waiting room to get to the receptionist area. She liked the security here and how she could lock herself and clients in from the front waiting room for privacy if needed.

  ***

  Cam was trying not to laugh. Detective Price absolutely did not want to be in her office. It was not the first time she’d dealt with a stubborn officer. One that thought he was fine. That figured she’d just sign his release and he’d be done.

  Sometimes she’d meet with them a few times, make her recommendation based on their work history and current mental state, and they’d be done. Others took longer.

  She was thinking Ian’s would be pretty simple. He’d passed all his tests with flying colors. But no one got a release on one visit from her. Especially when they didn’t want to talk about what actually happened. So until he at least acknowledged more than his partner was lucky to be alive that night, he’d have to come back.

  “Do you always leave alone?” he asked her when she turned to lock up the office door.

  “Normally. My secretary never wants to stay a minute past five. Guess she has an active social life that is more important than work. Tonight it’s a softball league she’s in. Said she was the starting pitcher and had to get there early to warm up. Something along those lines.”

  Good staff was hard to come by. Tiffany had been employed for a few months now. She did her job well when she was there and there wasn’t much more Cam could ask for at this point. It was better than the last three secretaries she’d had.

  Ian snorted. “I got that impression.”

  “Did she hit on you?” Cam asked, trying to hide her annoyance. She’d outgrown the days of rebelling against any authority by the time she was twenty. Tiffany was years behind, it seemed.

  “Does it matter? I’m not interested either way.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time she’s hit on one of my patients. Most are either in
situations like yourself, short-term looking for a release, court-appointed assessments for trial, or…high end.”

  “Not a lot of privacy for high end in here.”

  “Actually you’re wrong. Because there are so many businesses in this complex, it’s hard for anyone to know why someone would be entering unless they were followed to their destination.”

  Which was exactly why she’d chosen this location. She was on the third floor with five other businesses. There were two floors above her too. Clients could easily find another reason why they were in the building if they wanted to and most did. Most doubled up on appointments and saw someone before or after her, covering their tracks.

  “Whatever makes people feel good.”

  She turned and looked at him in the elevator. Really looked at his features. Dark hair, dark eyes, a few days’ growth of beard. Not messy, not lazy, just...manly. It seemed to fit his personality.

  “That is part of my job. To help people. To make them feel better.”

  “Does everyone feel better when they leave your office?”

  “Not always. Not everyone can be helped. I understand that. Do you?”

  “What? Feel better? I thought our session was over with?” he said, lifting an eyebrow.

  He was good. “It is. Just having a conversation.”

  “Elevator conversation is normally things like ‘What do you think about this weather? Did you catch the game last night?’”

  She liked his personality. Keeping just enough of himself back, but not so much that you wondered what was going on. A secret bad boy. Nothing wrong with that and though she was annoyed with Tiffany, she could appreciate the need to take a risk and see where she’d end up. “I can catch the weather on the news like most people. And I don’t have time for sports.”

  He laughed at her. “Good point.”