“No promises,” he muttered, pushing open the door to the interrogation corridor.
Frank peeled off down the hallway with a low chuckle and a shake of his head, steps fading into the buzz of the bullpen.
Rick proceeded straight ahead. He came to a halt in front of the interrogation room’s two-way mirror, arms folded tight, shoulders coiled with tension. He caught his reflection in the glass: scruff thickening along his jaw, eyes shaded beneath the harsh cone of the overhead bulb. No sleep. No answers. Only the same tall silhouette, pacing through a place that never thawed.
The room beyond receded into shadow, bleak and bare, a concrete oubliette built to break you down. A single low-hanging lamp illuminated it, casting a hard white cone of light that offered no warmth, only definition. Everything outside thatcircle dissolved into black. And at its center, as if conjured from smoke and sighs, sat the boy.
Chained to the table, head bowed slightly, he looked carved from chiaroscuro—the kind of beauty too striking to be trusted, too luminous to forget. Bloodstains dried crusty around his wrists, crimson shackles more vivid than the cuffs themselves. But his face? Clean. Too clean. No sign of fatigue in it, no exhaustion. He was a secret never meant for daylight, kissed into being by lust alone.
Rick let his gaze roam, unhurried. No one was watching now.
The boy lounged like sin in a church pew, legs spread in lazy arrogance, damp curls clinging to his forehead, dark laurels of a fallen angel. Shadows sculpted his cheekbones to cold perfection, pooled gently under his eyes, and caressed the bow of his full mouth. A faint furrow creased his brow—an almost tender expression of confusion, or defiance, or hurt. His leather jacket hung open, the light catching on the harness that caged his chest, glinting along the hollows and ridges of firm muscle. Glitter clung to ivory skin, stardust scattered across marble.
He was the most beautiful creature Rick had ever seen.
Now, alone, he could finally admit it.
Ashton Hunter, twenty-five, five foot ten. Born October 31st. Occupation: exotic dancer. Adopted as an infant by the Hunters. Entered foster care at sixteen after they died in a car accident. No criminal record. Rick knew the file by heart. But it told him nothing ofthis.
He could sense there was something wrong about him. Not morally—no, that had stopped mattering the second Ash glanced up at him with those amethyst eyes—but existentially. His beauty didn’t sit right with the world around it. It didn’t belong in this room, in this time, under this lamp. His melancholy lit a raw nerve in Rick’s chest; a need to shield him, guard him fromhurt. That was the trick, wasn’t it? The urge to protect could be a powerful blind spot. He wouldn’t let himself fall for it.
He stepped closer to the glass, frowning. With that face and body, the kid could’ve been a supermodel in New York, a movie star in LA. But in Calgrave, he was a fucking stripper. Adding a murder suspect to the resume.
Inside, the boy lifted his head and looked. Not at the mirror butthroughit, with the sharp, unerring certainty of a creature that knew it was being watched. His eyes, shining and clear, locked with Rick’s across the unseen divide, as if the barrier between them didn’t exist. As if hesawRick standing there, saw right into his soul. But he couldn’t… could he?
For a heartbeat, Rick forgot how to breathe. The boy’s gaze pinned him there, stripped him bare in a way no human should have been able to. There was no challenge in that stare. No plea. No anger. Just a terrible, quiet knowing, as if the boy had peeled back the layers of him with a glance and was waiting to see what he would do next.
Rick swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat.What are you?
When he inhaled, the scent hit him even through the closed door: sandalwood-sweet and pheromone-rich, laced with darker things underneath, raw musk and rain-slick asphalt, a summer storm waiting to break. It roused something primal in him, that thing that howled and clawed and craved, and he fought the irrational impulse to bare his teeth.
His shoulders squared. Whatever was waiting for him in that room, whatever this boy was, he was far from harmless.
But God help him, Rick didn’t want to be saved.
Chapter Three
(2:04 a.m.)
When the cop entered the room, Ash didn’t turn his head. His lashes veiled his eyes, but behind them, he watched with a snake’s patience, his senses attuned to every movement, every shift in the current of the man’s energy.
The gumshoe moved with the gravity of someone who didn’t need to announce his authority—it filled the space around him, subtle and suffocating, impossible to ignore. First, the suit jacket came off: brown wool, faintly wrinkled at the elbows, the kind of utilitarian thing meant to blend in but clung to his impossibly wide shoulders a little too well to go unnoticed. He draped it over the back of the chair, hands lingering a second longer than necessary. Not out of hesitation; no, this was a ritual. A shedding of civility before the interrogation began anew.
The patterned tie came next. Fingers tugged loose the knot with practiced ease, slow and unbothered. The top button of his white shirt gave way, his collar parting enough for Ash to catch a glimpse of fur crowning his broad, muscular chest, a thicket of masculinity that made Ash’s mouth go dry. A pair of black suspenders framed his torso, taut against the stretch of those bulging pecs, the clips gleaming under the sterile light.
He rolled up his sleeves, methodically, revealing thick forearms bristling with restrained force. Tendons shifted underneath the bronzed skin, veins threading in sinuous, living lines. These were working hands. Fighting hands. Hands that had done damage. No ring, but a pale band of skin on his finger, a ghost that hadn’t gotten the memo. Divorced, then. Orwidowed. Either way, someone had once touched him where no one touched him now.
Ash tilted his chin, letting his gaze drink him in. The detective was a mountain: solid, immovable, carved from raw power, and dwarfing everything around him. His face was chiseled in bold lines: heavy brow, strong nose, a jaw built to take a punch and deliver worse. A rough shadow darkened his cheeks, less than a beard, more than a stubble; a permanent fuzz that was more an extension of him than a choice.
He took the chair across from Ash and lowered himself into it with a measured, deliberate sprawl, thighs parted, posture loose, the picture of repose. But there was nothing careless about it. The stillness was poised, predatory, a lion lazing in the sun, waiting for the right moment to pounce.
Ash’s gaze dipped, instinctively, and found it: the thick bulge pressed bold and blatant behind the cop’s fly, a promise wrapped in cloth. His lips parted around the ghost of a smile, pulse beating hot in his throat, betraying nothing but his body’s quiet treason. Seems this one didn’t do anything halfway. Ash could smell him now—cedar and sweat, clean detergent of his shirt undercut by the raw edge of virility. No cologne. No frills. Just the scent of a man who didn’t play games unless he meant to win.
They were alone now. The black, mustached one was gone—probably off chewing on a donut somewhere and waiting for the hammer to drop. This one had stayed behind for the real work. The cold work. The long stare across the table, the silence that said more than any threat.
“What, no good cop–bad cop routine this time?” Ash asked, his voice smooth as satin. “What’s the matter? Couldn’t decide which one you wanted to be?”
The detective didn’t answer. Just sat across from him with calm precision, his knees wide, hands steepled on the table.Those eyes—gray, stormlit, and too damn sharp—latched onto him and held with a weight that didn’t need cuffs. Yet under all that steel, Ash felt something simmering. A coiled thing. A kind of nature that didn’t show itself until it was far too late.
