Zayn shook his head, half in awe, half in amusement.“You really remember that level of detail?”
“It's part of what made our team work.We knew each other’s weird quirks.It helped us spot what didn’t belong.”
She grabbed the laptop again, fingers flying over the keyboard.“Then I checked Olivia’s social media.”
“Let me guess—you didn’t know her password either.”
“Nope,” she said, a flash of mischief in her eyes.“But I knew her.Took me four guesses.”
He chuckled.“Of course it did.”
“The man she was supposed to meet the night she died—David Marsom—doesn’t exist.Well, he did once.But he’d be pushing 150 now.”
Zayn leaned in.“Maybe a grandson?”
Azlyn shook her head.“Nope.The only David Marsom from Springfield, Massachusetts—the place where the guy claimed to be from—was an only child.Never married.No kids.I checked.”
Zayn blinked.“You checkedallthe birth records?”
“There’s an app,” she said breezily, tucking a loose curl behind her ear.“Death, birth, marriage—all of it.You just need to know where to look.”
He gave a low whistle.“Remind me never to lie to you.”
Azlyn flashed a grin.“Smart man.”
Zayn leaned against the back of the couch, shaking his head.“Technology.Miraculous.”
She waved his objection away with a breezy flick of her fingers.“I only use my powers for good.Never for evil.”
Zayn didn’t answer right away—mostly because his brain had short-circuited somewhere around the sight of her in that shirt.
His shirt.
She must’ve grabbed it after her shower, because he knew damn well she didn’t have any oversized button-ups in her wardrobe.And there she was, padding around in leggings and that soft cotton shirt like it was a perfectly normal thing to do to a man—drive him absolutely insane without even trying.
Her hair was piled on top of her head in that sexy, messy bun she used to do back when they first met.No makeup.No polish.Just Azlyn, natural and glowing.She looked better now than when the palace stylist got ahold of her.And that stylist wasverygood.
But Azlyn?In his shirt and barefaced?
Unfair levels of hot.
His mind drifted to the fact that she’d been in his bedroom.In his closet.Had she looked around?Opened drawers?Sat on his bed?Imagining her fingers brushing his suits or running along the row of ties made his body react hard and fast.He shifted forward to hide the evidence, but that only gave him a better view of her pacing—and that wasn’t helping.The shirt shifted as she moved, offering the occasional glimpse of smooth thighs or a peek of curve where it barely covered her ass.
God help him.
He tried—really tried—to focus on her words instead of the womanly chaos walking in front of him.One was fascinating.The other was an erotic form of torture.And sometimes…they overlapped.
But before he could catch up to her enthusiasm, she spun and kissed him.
It was quick.A featherlight brush of lips.Gone in a heartbeat.
They froze.
Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders, but every nerve under her fingertips fired as if she'd branded him.He didn’t move, barely breathed, trying not to chase the taste of her, not to pull her in for more.His body screamed at him to take the moment and run with it.His heart wanted something deeper.
But Azlyn stepped back first.“I’m so sorry!”she blurted, spinning away and rubbing her forehead.“I didn’t mean to do that.I was just…caught up in the moment.In the next step.”
She looked around the room like she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing next.Neither was he.
