Yet she felt desire and then some for Trygg.
She studied him as he pulled up in front of the shelter.
As soon as they were parked, he pivoted toward her. He held out his hand, the big broad palm open. “I’ll take that phone now, Sia. And the rest of those things.”
“No.” The refusal slipped past her lips before she could stop it. She shook her head. “No. I’m not going to give it up. This evidence belongs to me as much as it does you or the Order.”
“Like hell it does.”
“I helped you get it tonight and you know it. At least be man enough to admit that—”
He flashed his fangs at her. “Oh, I am man enough, Sia. Man enough for anything you’ve got in mind.”
“You don’t frighten me, Trygg. And like it or not, we’re in this together.”
His expression darkened. “Damn right I don’t like it.”
“Good. Then at least we agree on something.”
She slid the phone and the rest of the contents back into the envelope. Then she hopped out of the vehicle, closing the door on Trygg’s vivid curse behind her.
Chapter 6
While he’d sure as hell rather be surrounded by his tech equipment at the command center, Trygg couldn’t find much to object to as he followed Sia up an exterior staircase to a private third-floor entrance of the house. As irritated as he was after her power play in the car just now—not to mention her earlier act of defiance that had rattled him more than he cared to admit, even to himself—it was hard to think about much else except the rhythmic sway of her hips as she mounted the old iron steps.
Very hard.
Her long, elegant spine and firm backside were a temptation that stoked a growing heat inside him as he stalked up the climb behind her. Everything male in him burned with desire. Everything Breed in him hungered for her too. If she chanced a look over her shoulder, it would be damn close to impossible to hide the amber lighting his irises or the press of his sharp fangs as they filled his mouth.
Letting her win just now was a mistake he already regretted, but that’s where her control was going to end. He’d go inside as she insisted and they’d do a cursory look through the rest of the items they’d brought with them. He would point out something or other so she’d have a bone to chew on, then he’d take everything back to the command center and dig into the meat of the scant evidence alone.
The way he preferred to operate.
He scowled at her when they reached the top of the stairs. “Is this the way you sneak in all the men you bring home with you?”
“Only the surly ones.” Her blonde brow arched over her long-lashed eyes. “And to answer the question you really want to ask, I’ve never brought anyone up here before.”
He didn’t want to ask that, so why did her answer give him such a healthy stab of satisfaction?
“Come in.” She opened the door into a cramped, one-room attic apartment. Trygg stepped inside, feeling like a giant in a dollhouse. The decor was aged and modest, the rug covering rustic wood floors threadbare. An upholstered chair and mirrored dresser stood on one side of the room. On the other was a narrow bed.
Sia walked over and sat on the edge of it, dumping the evidence envelope onto the coverlet. When Trygg didn’t budge, she looked at him expectedly. “Are you going to stand over there the whole time? Sit down, Trygg.” Her mouth twisted with amusement. “I’m not going to bite you.”
Christ.
Just the thought made his cock buck against his zipper. Was the heat on in the room? Suddenly he was too warm, the confined space seeming as tight as a cell. He swiped the skullcap from his head and shrugged out of his leather jacket, setting both on the cushioned chair as he walked over to the bed and sat down beside Sia.
She was already engrossed in the phone once more, paging through the call history and text threads. “Only a few of her messages are recent. It’s as if she cut off most of her other ties about a year ago. Oh. What’s this one? There’s no name attached to the text, just an odd number.”
Trygg glanced at the screen. “The phone number it came from has a block on it. People use them when they don’t want to be identified.”
Sia looked at him pointedly. “This is the only person Rosa communicated with on a regular basis in the past three months. And look—most of these texts came in five days ago. Trygg, Rosa showed up at the shelter two days later.”
He leaned closer. “Let me see those texts.”
She gave him the phone and he scrolled through the conversation thread. “It’s a male. She’s careful not to use his name, but she’s talking to him about their baby. Sounds like he could be married to someone else.”
Sia scoffed. “What a prince.”
