She let out her breath in a sound of almost frustration. “Derrick.”
“I’m simply curious.”
She shook her hand from his and crossed away from him. She stood before the fire, a silhouette of curves and angles that was so achingly beautiful that he wanted to fall down on his knees and worship. That was the flame Vale had implied earlier. That beauty and allure that sucked everyone closer to this woman.
And at what cost?
She pursed her lips. “It isn’t my place to share her past.”
“Then tell me yours,” he said. “How did you meet? How long have you known her?”
Her lips pursed, annoyance, he thought. Perhaps something more. Something darker. “How does anyone meet in these circumstances? She was looking for work. I was looking for someone to fill her position.”
Derrick’s frown deepened. And there it was, that cagey reluctance to tell him something that should have been so benign. Which meant one of two things. Either she didn’t trust him enough to give him even the most harmless of information, or…it wasn’t harmless at all. There was something she hid because it was worth hiding. Especially from a man like him who represented the law to her.
He didn’t like either answer. He drew a short breath. “Selina—”
She interrupted him with a lifted hand. “I’ll tell you that she’s been a friend to me when I needed her most.” Her gaze got distant. “Loyalty is hard to come by in my world.”
He pulled away slightly at the turn of phrase. “Your world?” he repeated. “And what world is that?”
She stepped back in his direction, her blue eyes wider, her hands shaking ever so slightly at her sides. “Why are you here, Derrick?”
He knew she was changing the subject. Trying to distract him from the line of questioning she didn’t want him to follow. Why, he couldn’t say. As an investigator, it increased his doubts.
But in this room, with her standing so close,washe an investigator? When he stood before this goddess, trembling with need for her, was he the man sent to look for a thief? Or was he just a man? Standing before a woman who made his blood burn and his body ache?
In this moment he didn’t want to be anything more than that. So he set his questions aside.
“Are you just here to interrogate me about my companion?” she continued.
“No,” he murmured and he slid his fingers into her hair. He bunched them against her scalp, feeling her pins shift against his hand. One pricked at his skin, sharper than he’d expected, and he smoothed the locks anyway and the pins clattered to the floor around her feet. “You know why I’m here.”
She shivered, an expression of surrender. Of desire. Of the need that burned in her as much as it burned in him. “Why?” she pressed, making him say it. Making him own it.
“To finish what we started earlier tonight,” he whispered, and then he lowered his mouth to hers and claimed her lips.
She lifted her gloved hands to his face, the silky fabric stroking along his jaw as she made a soft groan of desire into his mouth. It wasn’t enough. He wanted her skin on his.
He pulled back and met her eyes as he lifted one hand between his own. He kissed her knuckles, blowing steam through the glove before he unfastened the button at her elbow, gliding his thumb beneath the fabric and swirling a circle against her flesh with the pad.
Her eyes fluttered shut and she whispered his name in the quiet. He was going to make her groan it, scream it, offer it as a prayer.
He rolled the glove down. Her initials were stitched in the lining in a pink thread. He traced them with his finger before he leaned in and kissed a path along her inner arm as he inched the fabric lower. He nipped her flesh. Her hips surged, bumping his, asking for what would come in a moment. He ignored the demand, though it was almost impossible to do so, and instead exposed her wrist. There was a tiny scar there, and he swirled his tongue around it, feeling the raised flesh, tasting the lightly salty flavor of her.
He tugged each finger of the glove, and at last he tossed it away over his shoulder. He sucked her index finger between his lips, swirling his tongue around its length. When he allowed her finger to pop free, she rubbed it across his lips, her gaze wide and dilated.
He repeated every single action on the opposite hand, removing her glove the same way he would soon slowly and purposefully remove the rest of her clothing.
And she seemed to have the same idea. She grabbed his lapels and used them as leverage to drag him to her mouth. Their lips collided again in rough, powerful passion. She devoured, driving her tongue with certainty, biting his lip gently and then less gently, pulling him as close as she could while her fingers tugged the cravat she had only helped him tie a few hours before.
It felt like a lifetime since they last touched.
She unwound the long swatch of fabric and tossed it to the ground with her gloves. Continuing to kiss him, she tore at the buttons on his shirt, freeing enough of them that he could push away from her and tug the contraption over his head. He was ready to step back into her, but her stare stopped him.
“What is it?” he asked, breathless.
She was staring at his chest. At the scar that slashed across his left pectoral, the other one on his stomach, marks of war and sacrifice. She lifted a shaking hand and pressed it to the hot flesh, and he felt like he would die from it and it would be a happy death.
