Leopard's Run (Leopard People 10)

“Did your instincts tell you that your friend Crispin was a dirty cop?”

He sighed and then shook his head. “No, they didn’t. I suppose I wasn’t listening because I didn’t want to know. It’s hard when it’s your friend.”

She could understand that. Rodion had slipped his phone back into his pocket and was once more reading a book. He lifted his hand, and she rolled her eyes. “That’s my cue to bring his majesty more coffee.”

“And those cinnamon cookies,” Rodion added, without looking up.

She made a face, and Jeff laughed. “Since Evangeline started this bakery, those apple-cinnamon cookies of hers have become so popular she has to make triple the batch she used to.”

“They are good,” Ashe conceded. “I find myself sneaking one every now and then.” She made Rodion his espresso and put three cookies on a plate to take them to his table. “I’m not a waitress,” she hissed at him.

He grinned at her, unrepentant. “I was afraid the boss would walk in and catch you giving that cop an eyeful.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. “I wasn’t giving him an eyeful of anything.” Nevertheless, she looked down at her shirt to make certain she was covered up.

He laughed at her. “You’re so easy, Ashe. You’re going to have to be faster than that to keep from being the target every time we want a laugh.”

She flicked him behind his ear with her index finger just the way her mother had often done to her when she was behaving in a manner her mother didn’t find acceptable. She made her way through the tables back to the counter where she felt safer. She cast several anxious glances at her shoes, praying Rodion had gotten all the blood spatter off. Since no one had called her to stop so they could examine damning evidence, she thought she might be out of the woods.

Evangeline joined her to serve the evening crowd, and just as the last of them left the store, the black town car pulled to the curb and the room went electric in anticipation. Evangeline looked up and smiled as Timur came through the door, glanced around and then moved all the way inside. Ignoring the cops spreading out in the room, he went straight to Ashe, reached over the counter and caught her shirt in his fist. He pulled her toward him.

She wanted to tell him so many things. Warn him. His gaze dropped to her mouth and he settled his lips there as if coming home. It felt like coming home and going straight for the bedroom to Ashe. The moment his mouth was on hers, the rest of the world and all the danger in it dropped away. She was blind and deaf to anything or anyone but Timur. She wanted to press her body tightly against his, preferably without a single stitch between them.

The moment he touched her, she went up in flames. He reached out with both hands and lifted her across the counter, still kissing her, his tongue singeing her soul, branding her, scoring so deeply she knew she would never get him out of her bones. When he lifted his head and smiled down at her, once she was able to see straight again, she noted that his eyes were blue flames.

For a moment Ashe was elated. She wasn’t alone in her terrible need of him. And then she looked around. The police officers she’d been serving coffee and pastries to were all on their feet in a semicircle around Timur and her, weapons drawn. He’d known. Timur had known the cops were waiting for him because the others had let him know. He’d deliberately come in and kissed her, making them think his entire attention had been on her—making her think that.

He slowly lowered her feet to the floor. “Gentlemen. I’m armed. I have a concealed weapons permit in my wallet along with my ID in my left pocket. The gun is in a holster on my left as well.”

She hadn’t even felt the weapon. She tried hard to get her breathing under control. It had been a crazy day. While she’d been serving police officers, Kyanite had been taking a dead body out the back, wrapped in a tarp, or more likely because he knew eyes were on the bakery, he’d hidden it somewhere inside. She shivered.

“It’s going to be okay, Ashe,” Timur murmured, his voice gentle.

She hated him for that tone. He sounded like she meant something to him other than a cover he was using. Damn it all, why did she have sex with him? Now he had it in his head that he could use her for anything he needed, including distracting cops. No matter what he said to her, she had to keep disbelieving, because if he was being deceptive, her heart would shatter.