“Fuck!” he roared, pacing the room before whirling on me. “This is dangerous, Snow,” he said quieter, yet it was somehow louder than the roar. “This isn’t shit for you to get tangled up in more than you already are.”
His eyes glittered with something. Knowledge that had me anxious to get it out of him. And anger, surely. But something else too.
Fear.
And I knew it wasn’t for himself.
I jutted my jaw out, not letting that fear stop me. “I don’t think that’s your call to make.”
He glared at me, easy gazes nothing but a memory. “Think the prospect of you staring up at me with a slit fuckin’ throat makes it my call to make,” he replied softly, his words finding their mark without increased volume.
“I’m asking for tapes, Keltan, not trudging into a dark warehouse full of moustache men and drug deals,” I snapped.
My quip was not well advised.
Keltan stilled. “What the fuck do you know about drug deals?”
I didn’t blanche. “What do you know about drug deals?” I countered, my journalist brain cottoning on to his words and then doing an internal fist pump that my hunch was correct.
Keltan did not look like he was doing an internal fist pump. He vaguely looked like he might want to shake me. “Jesus, let the fuckin’ police do their job!”
I gave him an even look. “I am. Let me do mine.”
He shook his head. “No. Not when it interferes with mine.”
I rolled my eyes. “Keltan, not to be callous, but your job ended the moment your client bled out.”
His eyes hardened. “No, babe. Not talkin’ ’bout the shit that pays the bills. I’m talkin’ bout my job. The only one that’s important. Protecting this. This little pocket of stillness I’ve found with you. That’s the only job I care about.”
I pursed my lips.
That was sweet.
But the gesture was misplaced.
“You want to protect it? Then don’t try to stifle me. Who I am. What I want from life. Treat me like a damsel who needs saving and that’s the quickest way to squash this,” I informed him.
And we’d already just made it, the quickest snap of us being “together.” As easy as a dead body and then sex on a desk. Oh, and almost two years of bullshit before that.
I watched the cogs working in his mind. Could almost sense him going through scenarios, then understanding the truth to my words.
Because I wasn’t lying. As soon as he tried to treat me like the “little woman” who needed protecting from everything in the world and put me in a gilded cage, that was the moment I was gone.
Because Gray.
That thought had me realizing that was something I had to share with him, if this actually was happening. I wasn’t going to hide it from him, considering it was a huge part of the reason it had taken so long to get to this point.
All the while Keltan was staring at me.
He sighed, much like a father might when being worn down by a teenage daughter arguing curfew. Though I didn’t know why I went that route, thinking of him as the father.
Internal flinch.
Nope. Gross.
“Fine, we’ll watch it together,” he relented, moving to his computer with a tight look on his face. He sat down and tapped the keyboard as I moved around to give myself a view of the screen. “It’s what I had planned on doing this morning anyway.” He glanced up, the hardness in his eyes giving way to a liquid that made my stomach clench. “Before I got distracted,” he continued, my stomach fluttering with the memory of that distraction.
His eyes went from swirling with erotic promise to hard with a glint of anger.
“The fuckwit police officer requested it. That’s why I came back early. I’ve got to say, that motherfucker is number one on my shit list, but I’m thankful he had me back here to do that,” he grumbled, his hand moving to give my ass a gentle squeeze.
I stared at the screen, swallowing, only because I knew if I looked at him, I’d lose whatever remaining reason I had. And I had to have some sort of focus if I was going to do this story.
And I so was.
Luckily Keltan was focused on doing his job too, moving his attention the computer.
I watched him navigate the chaos of his computer desktop.
“What is this?” I asked in horror, looking at files littered everywhere like… well, litter.
“I think it’s this new-fangled technology they called a computer,” Keltan replied dryly.
I glared at the side of his head, then got distracted by how hot he was in profile. I shook myself out of it. “How do you know how to find anything in that?” I nodded to the folders he was scrolling through. Then I glanced to the neatly stacked papers on his desk, the lack of dust on the shiny surface. And the same with the rest of the office. “And how do you have an office like Martha Stewart organizes yet have that shambles?”