I chewed my lip. His accent was familiar, and things were starting to fall into place.
Disturbingly.
L.A. was huge, so the chances of him being who I thought he was were small. I hoped. I had managed to navigate my way around the city without bumping into him. For the four months I’d been here I’d managed it. No way I would come into contact with him under these circumstances. It would be too freaky. Even the universe wasn’t that much of a bitch.
“Security,” he finally grunted, straightening and crossing his arms.
My heart skipped a beat. “For whom?”
Ice blue eyes flickered down to the body by answer.
“She doesn’t need security, at least not anymore,” I explained. “You work for a company?” I asked as my head pounded.
He nodded. “Greenstone,” he clipped.
Yes, the universe was that much of a bitch.
I nodded. “Of course,” I exclaimed, throwing up my hands. “Of course, you do.”
Yep, this day effing sucked.
The cops arrived first. Which meant I was going over my story with two detectives. Not your garden-variety rookies; this was a high-profile case, after all.
A murder scene went from desolate and full of death to chaotic and overflowing with life in a disturbingly small amount of time. The room was soon stifling with the amount of people taking photos, standing around and dusting surfaces.
“You said you were here for an interview, is that right, Ms. Walker?” Detective Max asked.
Max was not his last name. The dark-haired, not-unattractive detective had insisted I call him by his first. That was after his eyes had flickered over my skintight black dress and the leg it showed. Not entirely professional, but then it was something else to focus on besides the fact that he was interviewing me about the murder I’d discovered.
I nodded distractedly while maintaining eye contact, yet my mind was on the air. The way it was wired. I knew that was insane to feel him in the air, but I knew. The low rumble of an accented voice added to my certainty, as well as the reaction my body had to it.
“And how is it you entered the building?” Max continued.
I didn’t look his way, though I knew he was approaching. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, he wouldn’t exist, and I wouldn’t have to deal with my first glimpse of him in six months. Five feet away from a woman with her throat slashed.
“I was let in by the doorman. He was expecting me,” I answered, my nose screwing up in question as to how the murderer had gotten past the doorman. Did he know him? Slip past him when he was distracted carrying a socialite’s many shopping bags from the trunk of her Mercedes?
The questions bounced in my mind, coupled with a yearning to get them answered.
I blinked as the attention of two hard-faced cops stared at me, waiting for more.
I sucked in a breath. He was close. Almost there. The air was cleaner, somehow passed through me easier, just from his presence. That was insane, I knew, but it was my body’s reaction.
“The door was open when I got here. I thought she’d left it open for me, so I just came in.” I paused. “Lucinda Cross is known for… eccentric behavior at interviews. She’s an artist, you see, so I thought she’d left the door open so she didn’t have to go through formalities like knocking and such.”
Detective Max opened his mouth, but an accented voice, much angrier and lower than the cop’s professional tone, beat him to it.
“Lucy,” he growled.
And then I wasn’t sitting on the sofa in front of the two police officers. I was in his arms, pressed against his hard body and smelling his crisp scent. I didn’t even get a moment to register the abrupt change, nor the fact that it was the body I’d been craving like processed sugars for six months, because he held me at arm’s length after giving me a single squeeze against his body.
“Are you okay?” he barked, eyes and hands roaming over me as if searching for a rogue knife wound the police and paramedics had missed.
“Excuse me, we’re in the middle of an interview,” Max snapped.
Keltan didn’t look up. “Don’t give a fuck what you’re in the middle of, mate. It’s on pause while I make sure she’s okay,” he bit out.
The cop’s lips thinned. “She’s been checked out by paramedics.”
Keltan chose then to raise his chocolate irises to meet the muddy brown of the officers. “But the paramedics aren’t me,” he told him, exuding authority like he was the one with the badge. They stared at each other for a beat, like lions circling, silently deciding which one would be the alpha.
Detective Max sighed, running his hands over his messy brown hair in a gesture of frustration. “I’ll give you a moment with your boyfriend, Ms. Walker,” he conceded, still giving Keltan a hard look. “Then we have to finish the interview.”