I look up.
Wrong move.
Oh, God.
He cups my face and touches his forehead to mine for a second. When he pulls back, it’s only to drop his lips to mine and kiss me so softly that it could be a whisper. “I love you, Noelle.”
“You need your head tested,” I croak.
“I already have an appointment for next week.” He smiles, brushing his thumb across my cheek.
My lips twitch, but they’re weak. “I’m scared to love you,” I whisper.
“Good,” he whispers right back. “Because I’m petrified of the fact that I love you.”
He kisses me again, and this time, I swear I taste the truth behind his words.
“Drake?”
“What?”
I run my teeth over my bottom lip. “I’m pretty sure I love you too.”
“Pretty sure?” He quirks an eyebrow, his lips tugging up too.
“Do you have cupcakes?”
He drops his hands to my waist. “What kind of amateur do you think I am?”
“Okay.” I pause. “What kinds?”
“Chocolate, lemon, raspberry, and champagne.”
I gasp. “Who did you send to Gigi’s?”
He grins. “You’ve been passed out for five hours. I had your dad come over in case you woke up and drove over there.”
Damn. Now, I’m all full of warm fuzzies.
“All right,” I say through my smile. “I’m sure.” I move onto my tiptoes and wrap my arms around his neck. Then I kiss him hard.
His arms wrap around my waist and hold me against him.
“I love you,” I say.
“Only ’cause I bought you Gigi’s.”
“That may or may not be an influencing factor.”
He laughs and guides me downstairs, making sure to touch me the whole way down. Any other day, it’d annoy me. Between the break-in, telling him about Dallas, and the L-wording, I feel like I might snap, so the warmth of his hand is welcome.
The pink Gigi’s box is in the middle of his kitchen table, and I pounce on it like a cat and a wool ball. Or a pregnant lady and ice cream. I tear the sticker off and open it, and I’m pretty sure I feel my heart jump into my eyes at the colorful array of sugary, cupcakey goodness in front of me. I snatch up the champagne one and scoop a huge fingerful of frosting into my mouth.
I moan. Don’t judge me.
Drake chuckles and flattens his hands on the table. “God, I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to replace a window.”
“It was a window or you.” He kisses the side of my head then reaches for the bag of coffee beans. “The window is cheaper.”
“Of course it is. I’m priceless.”
He glances at me over his shoulder. “You’re at least worth a hundred bucks.”
I narrow my eyes. “I’d sleep with one eye open if you’re going to sass me like that, Detective.”
“Are you saying you’re going to stay here?”
“Are you going to let me do anything else?”
“No.”
“Well, then. Here’s the plan. I want to know when I can get into my house to get some things. Then you’re going to call… Uh…”
“Jason,” Drake laughs. “He’s Jason to me.”
“Jason… And I want to know everything about these old cases and how they link to ours.”
He sets a cup of coffee in front of me just as I lick frosting off my finger. His eyes drop to my mouth and flicker with lust before he meets my gaze.
“I thought you weren’t interested.”
I lick some frosting from the corner of my mouth and grin. “I’m a dirty liar.”
Jason. Jason. Jason.
I keep rolling his name around my mouth on the tip of my tongue, but it doesn’t sound right. I wonder if he’ll be offended if I keep calling him Alex. Probably not. He doesn’t seem like the type to get offended about much—except murderers.
I’ve been mulling it over for the last two hours while he’s been here. His name, that is.
There isn’t much to mull over where the cases are concerned. They’re all the same. Between six and eleven victims each time. All drugged, raped, and killed. A different poison is used each time, but every one is a hallucinogenic. The runes, the burned pentagram… They’re all the same.
But the Holly Woods case is the only one where any kind of evidence beyond semen has been collected. Of course, evidence is all but useless unless we can tie that to someone.
There’s no rhyme or reason to the victims, either. They’re all women, sure, but their occupations vary from students to pensioners and everything in between. Whoever our killers are, they aren’t picky.
Something that makes finding them even trickier.
“I don’t have much of a list of suspects.” Jason huffs out a breath and rubs beneath his eye. “Maybe four or five, and at this point, I don’t know if they’re there because I think they did it or because I just don’t like them.”
“Seems as good a reason as any to me,” I mutter, pulling the wrapper away from the raspberry cupcake.
Yes, it’s my third one today. So what? I’m stressed.
“Who’s on it?” I ask.
He sighs. “Jackson Bullock, Alistair Carpenter, Ricky Roy, Samuel Barker, and Eddie Roy.”
“That’s why you’re always around whenever I see him,” I say as soon as it hits me. “That first time I met him—I felt you watching us.”
He shrugs, scratching behind his ear. “I don’t like him. I never have. He’s the only person who’s ever come close to finding out that I’m not actually Alex. He watched me like a hawk for several weeks. If he isn’t a killer, he sure as hell knows something about what’s going on.”
I put my finger, loaded with frosting, into my mouth and suck so hard that my cheeks hollow. My eyes dart between Drake and Jason, and I see Drake’s jaw tighten.
“No,” he says. “I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t fuckin’ like it.”
“What’s she thinking?” Jason asks, looking at us both.
I pull my finger from my mouth with a pop. “Why don’t I find out?”
“No,” Drake growls.
“Find out what?” Jason leans forward.
Oh boy. “If he knows anything.”
“Noelle!” Drake says angrily. “No!”
“Oh, come on!” I throw my hands up. “What’s he going to do to me in the middle of the fair, even if he is the killer? Whack me over the head with a fucking hot dog?”
“It’ll put a target on your back!”
“Newsflash, idiot! There’s already one! That’s why a pair of dumbass fuckers broke into my house!” I take a deep breath and try to fight past my annoyance. “Knew I should have waited and shot at them instead of my window.”
Jason laughs but quickly covers it with a cough. “That would have been helpful, yes.”
“I’m sorry. Next time someone attempts to kill me, I’ll make sure to think my actions through. I’m not exactly thrilled about the window myself.”
“It’s a window. It’s replaceable. You’re not.” He shrugs.
I hate it when men throw logic around. It messes with me.
“Look, all I’m saying is that I’m cute. I can get away with asking questions. We know without a doubt that a traveler is the murderer—at least one of them. It’ll be all too easy for me to go in there and ask questions and act like a dumb, pretty woman. Plus, I have the whole body-language-expert thing going for me. If someone’s lying to me, I’ll know.”
“Unfortunately, that won’t hold up in court,” Drake drawls. “We can hardly arrest someone on your gut feelings, sweetheart.”
“But I can give you a starting point.”
When neither of them replies, I groan and drop back on the sofa.
“Come on. I’m not telling you to let me go alone. Jason, you’ll be busy being Alex anyway, and I promise to check in every fifteen minutes. And Drake… Well, it looks like you’re not going anywhere soon, so just keep tabs on me.”
“Wait—you’re telling me to follow you?”
“If you don’t want to—”
“I didn’t say that.”