“You should consider joining the department as a sketch artist,” he laughed, looking at it.
“No thanks. I still prefer CGI.”
He looked puzzled.
“Computer generated images.”
“Of course. Do you mind if I take this with me?”
“Nope. It’s not like I’m going to hang it on my wall.”
“Are you going to hang that one on your wall?” he asked, nodding toward the one of him she had flipped back over to in the sketch book.
“I might, when I finish it,” she teased.
He sat down the sketch of the man and his wine on the table, inching closer to her and tangling his fingers in her hair, pulling her to him in a heated kiss. The conversation fell to the wayside as things got heated on the sofa. Soon, they abandoned their drinks and any thoughts as they became entangled in one another. They were both already mostly naked when he scooped her up in his arms and carried her down the hall toward her open bedroom.
It was impossible to think about anything but how she felt and tasted at that point.CHAPTER TENRyan
“What’s the date?” Ryan asked as he glanced at a printout of his work schedule.
“The 17th,” Deputy Carson replied from across the front desk. “Less than a month until Valentine’s Day. Did you find someone stupid enough to come with you?”
“I did. You gonna bring your Mom again this year?” he shot back.
“She’s only ten years older,” Carson muttered as he reached for the phone that had begun ringing beside him.
Ryan laughed and stepped away from the desk, holding the sketch Lucy in his hand. He took it over to Kate Samson, a rookie who always had some time on her hands and a thing for him that was in no way reciprocal. She was a good looking girl, but human and he’d never been much for dating outside his kind. His pack was relatively modern and had a number of mixed species couples. He was fine with that, but he just preferred someone who understood him a little better than a human ever could.
“Kate, are you busy?” he asked.
“Not if you need me not to be,” she purred.
He ignored the flirtation, handing her the drawing.
“Do you think you can scan that in to the facial recognition software and see if you get any hits on it?”
She looked at it and frowned.
“It’s a little harder from a sketch. A picture would be better, but I’m assuming you don’t have one.”
“You assume correctly.”
“Alright, but it might take a while.”
“How long is a while?”
“I don’t know. Hours. Days. Depends on how many faces match it. It’ll spit out similar ones and then they’ll have to be looked through manually to decide if they are the same. So, depends on how much there is to find and how much there is to go through by human eye. Might be inconclusive altogether if the computer can latch onto a good enough likeness.”
‘I see. Well, just do what you can with it.”
“Got a case number to go with it?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Hold on.”
Ryan pulled out his notebook and flipped back a few pages. He gave her a case number from one of the drug dealers he and Tate had been dealing with. His name had come up when he was checking out the druggie on Lucy’s street. It was a thin connection, but good enough to cover the fact that this little project had nothing to do with any of his active cases.
“Alright. I’ll let you know when and if I have something.”
“Thanks, Kate,” he replied.
She beamed back up toward him, apparently thrilled that he’d come to her for something. He was sure she saw it as some sort of in to get closer to him, which was okay. It worked in his favor. If she thought it might open up a chance for her to hook up with him, she’d work extra hard to get him what she thought he needed for a case. Some might consider him taking advantage of her, but it was just the way it worked around the department.
He had traffic court today, so was in uniform and not out on the beat with Tate. It was old stuff from before they had moved him to plain clothes. Luckily, most of the people he had ticketed or arrested pled out or had already paid their fines and he got out early. He called Lucy to see if she wanted to have lunch.
“Sure. I just got home from class. Where did you want to go?”
‘I thought we could just grab tacos at La Casa Verde.”
“Sounds perfect. Should I meet you there?”
“Nah. I’ll drop by and pick you up.”
“See you in a bit then.”
Ryan ended the call and headed out to the Cherokee. He thought about what she had said about her father on the way. It explained a lot about her resistance to Alphas he had encountered on their first date. He was glad she had given him a chance and gotten past all that though. Even though things had gotten weird around them a couple of times, they had stuck together and that said a lot. They were finishing their lunch when Lucy brought up the subject of the Valentine’s dance.