“I mean, like me, like humans, you feel. Lust. Anger.” Oh, yes, he knew she felt anger. He had the burnt hair to prove it. “Love.”
A slow nod. “I can feel. Being a demon doesn’t mean I’m not a woman, Todd. I need. I hurt. I bleed. Just like anyone else.”
But with a few dangerous extras thrown in for spice. He rubbed his eyes. “Look, I’ve gotta have some time to think about this.” To figure out just what the hell was going to happen next.
Her face paled. “I see.”
That cold, stilted voice pissed him off. He dropped his hand and stalked toward her. Todd caught her arms and hauled her up against him. “No, I don’t think you see a damn thing.” She thought he was running, like those other fools she’d mentioned.
But he was no fool.
He kissed her, driving his tongue into her sweet mouth and growling his hunger.
Her fingers pressed against his shoulders.
He drank in her essence. Fought the growing hunger that roared inside him. “I have to get to the station,” he bit the words off against her lips. The tox screen was due in first thing this morning. He had a job to do and—
And he needed to think.
But he was not running.
He stepped away from her. “I’ll be back, Cara, tonight. We’ll finish this—” Whatever this was.
She just stared up at him, silent.
What was he supposed to say? The woman had just confessed that she was a demon, for Christ’s sake.
No wonder the sex had been so damn powerful with her. She wasn’t human.
Just like she’d told him in his dreams.
Oh, yeah, his dreams…they’d have to talk about those babies—and she would have to tell him just what the hell had really been happening when he touched her in his sleep.
Cara nodded. “I understand.” She shrugged, tried to look as if she didn’t care. Failed. “Do what you have to do.”
Damn if the stiffness in her shoulders didn’t make him feel guilty, when he was the wronged party. He hadn’t misled her about being human. “It’s the case, Cara. I have to check in by seven thirty. I’m supposed to be getting the tox screen in for House.” Okay, he probably shouldn’t have told her that. His big mouth was going to get him into trouble one of these days.
“Then you’d better hurry.”
No screaming. No yelling. No when-will-I-see-you again questions.
He shoved his hands into the front pocket of his jeans. Marched toward the gate on the side of the house. Hesitated. Shit—he had to go. He had to swing by his place, find a shirt with buttons. Then hurry his ass down to the station.
Todd pulled in a slow breath. “This isn’t finished.” He said the words without looking at her, because gazing at the woman was dangerous to his control.
“No.” The word drifted to him on the breath of the wind that feathered over his face. “It’s not.”
He’d be seeing his demon again, there was no question of that in his mind.
His right hand reached for the gate.
“It was real, you know.” Her voice stopped him cold. “Everything that happened between us was real. I wanted you, you wanted me. Just like humans. Only much better…”
Much better than anything he’d ever experienced before, that was certain.
“Remember that, when you’re away from me. Remember what we had when we were together, and stop thinking that you screwed a monster.”
His fury erupted. Todd spun around, hands fisted. “Damn it, I never—”
She was gone. Just the faintest trace of her soft lavender scent remained in the air.
“I never thought you were a monster,” he snarled, knowing that she couldn’t hear him. “That was your word, not mine.” He’d thought of her only as…
His.
Todd’s eyes squeezed shut. Hell, he’d known the woman was going to be trouble from that first glance, and he’d been so right about her.
Now what was he supposed to do?
Colin was bent over his desk, busily thumbing through files, when Todd walked into the bull pen. As usual, chaos reigned in the detectives’ world. Phones rang with shrill cries. Voices floated around the room as questions were tossed back and forth between the men and women who were guzzling black coffee and pushing the sleep from their eyes.
His home away from home.
Todd headed for this small desk, directly opposite his partner’s. He’d barely taken two steps when Colin’s head suddenly snapped up and his gaze zeroed in on him.
No damn way he heard me. Not with all this racket going on. Todd stared back at his partner, saw the slight flare of Colin’s nostrils, then the abrupt tightening of his jaw.
He knew what that telltale clenching signified. Colin was furious, and from the look on his face, that anger was directed straight at Todd.
A sigh broke from his lips. Okay. He was tired of the guy’s attitude. He’d put up with enough shit from Colin. It was time to clear the air once and for all—
“Have a good night, partner?” Colin murmured when Todd reached the desks.
His eyes narrowed. “Good enough.”
Colin glared at him. “You know you could be fucking up the case.”
He knew. Todd didn’t know how the cagey bastard knew, but Colin realized that Todd had spent the night with Cara. “She’s not a suspect anymore.”
Another flare of the guy’s nostrils. “You sure about that?”
Very deliberately, Todd placed his hands on top of the old, wooden desk and leaned in over Colin. “It wasn’t too long ago when you were screwing a suspect, too, buddy.”
“Emily was never a suspect! She was working with us and—”
“—and for a while she looked guilty as hell.” His hands shoved harder against the desktop.
“But she wasn’t!”
“Neither is Cara!” Not guilty of the murders, anyway, but—
“Gyth! Brooks!” The whiplash of Captain Danny McNeal’s voice cut through the fire of Todd’s anger. He glanced up, realizing too late that he and Colin hadn’t exactly been having a quiet conversation. Most of the eyes in the station were on them, particularly the glaring gray stare of the captain.
Shit.
“In my office,” McNeal growled, his completely bald scalp gleaming as he inclined his head toward the open door. “Now.”
Todd straightened. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
The wheels of Colin’s chair rattled as he shot to his feet.
They didn’t speak as they crossed the room to the captain’s office. Not really much to say at that point.
McNeal slammed the door shut behind them. Marched to his desk. He didn’t sit down. Just glared at them, tension evident in the thick muscles of his body.
Todd knew that Captain Danny McNeal had been with the Atlanta PD for over twenty years. The guy was in his early forties and in better shape than most of the men in the precinct. He ran every day, and could be routinely found in the PD’s gym, tossing cops over his shoulder and onto the cushioned blue mats.
The guy was a real hardass. Smart as a whip. And known for his fiery temper.
According to the rumors, he’d also been heavily involved with Smith at one time.
But, of course, those were just rumors, and Todd had never really been able to imagine the gorgeous doctor pairing up with the asshole cop.
Just didn’t fit for him.
“Are you going to fucking stare at me all day, Brooks, or are you going to tell me why the hell my best two detectives were yelling at each other like two twelve-year-old girls in the middle of my bull pen?”
Oh, damn. Todd winced. The first time he’d ever been compared to a twelve-year-old girl. “I lost my temper, Captain. Sorry.” He wasn’t going to point any fingers at Colin. Not his style.
McNeal grunted. “Well, learn to keep your damn temper in check! Understand, Brooks?”
“Yes, sir.” Though McNeal really needed to learn the same coping skill.
“I got the shit-for-brains mayor and the dumbass DA breathing down my neck right now, yelling about another serial killer being on our streets—I don’t need this crap from you two!”