Yes, he was totally right, but that didn’t stop me from bristling. “It was me Claudia Brewster hired, not you.” Well, maybe technically she didn’t hire me. I hadn’t accepted any money from her.
Adam seemed less than impressed. “You brought the case to me for a reason, and it wasn’t because you wanted to hang out with me. Let me do my job, okay?”
I’d have loved to argue with him if he weren’t making so much sense. Of course, being me, I wasn’t about to agree with him, either, so I just gulped more coffee instead of speaking.
“You said we needed to talk about something,” he said when it became obvious I wasn’t planning to say anything more. “Obviously it wasn’t about this, so what’s up?”
He’d already said he didn’t want Saul back in Dominic, but when I’d asked him, he hadn’t known that’s what Lugh wanted. I believed Lugh was right, and Adam was a good little soldier. What his king commanded, he would do, no matter how much it hurt him, or anyone else.
I knew eventually I’d have no choice but to tell him what Lugh wanted me to. But that didn’t mean it had to be now. Lugh shot me a little headache to let me know he disapproved of my decision, but it was only a brief stab of pain. If he really wanted to show his displeasure, he could hit me with a pain so bad it could bring me to my knees.
“Never mind,” I told Adam. “It’s not important.”
I’m sure he saw through my lie, but he didn’t challenge it. I glanced at my watch and was startled to discover it was already two in the morning. I hadn’t realized how long I’d sat in that damn club! The twenty-four hours Lugh had given me were almost up, which meant that if I didn’t tell Adam now, Lugh would hijack my body the next time I fell asleep.
I took one more look at Adam, then decided it was time to get a refill on my coffee.
Adam gave me a bit of a funny look when I returned to the table with my fresh cup of coffee. De spite a concerted effort, I still haven’t learned how to keep everything I’m feeling from showing on my face, and he probably knew something was wrong. Something other than his cheating on Dominic, that is. And though I fully understood why he was doing it, as long as Dom didn’t know, it seemed like cheating to me.
“I gather you haven’t had a chance to visit with Sammy yet?” I asked, hoping that would stave off any questions he was tempted to ask.
Adam raised an eyebrow. He knew a diversionary tactic when he saw one. Luckily, just this once, he decided to let me off the hook.
“I dropped by his office today and found out he’s on vacation. I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets back. But meanwhile, I’ll focus on Tommy. I suspect I’ll have no trouble getting some, uh, private time with him.” He stared at his cup of tea, though I suspected it had been empty for at least fifteen minutes.
It wasn’t hard to guess what he meant, and I had to fight my surge of disgust. “You mean he likes the hardcore shit,” I said, my voice rising, “and you’re going to cheat on Dom with him.”
I was loud enough that a few people turned to look at me. I swallowed hard and lowered my voice. “I’d rather you let me question him myself.”
Adam put his cup down and leaned toward me, anger glinting in his eyes. “I am not cheating on Dom,” he snarled. “And with your charming personality, you’ll have him clammed up and suspicious within the first five minutes. If I take him down into Hell, I can get him into a frame of mind where he’s not thinking straight. And since I’m a police officer, I can act on it if he tells me something he shouldn’t. You’ve done your part by bringing the case to me. Now stay out of it like a good little exorcist and let me handle it.”
I was getting pretty damn tired of being told to stay out of it, but for once my common sense spoke up in time, and I kept that thought to myself. I doubt Adam expected me to heed his warning, but I didn’t think arguing about it was going to help my case.
“Fine,” I muttered, slurping down more coffee. “You go on back to Hell. It’s where you belong anyway.”
I stood up, meaning to make a dramatic exit, but Lugh sent a stab of pain through my eye, and I stumbled. I almost pitched face-first into Adam’s lap, but with demon-quick reflexes, he caught me. For a moment that felt like forever, I looked into those dark brown eyes, my nose inches away from his. I caught the scent of the spicy aftershave he favored, and beneath that, a salty undertone that reminded me of an ocean breeze. Despite my dislike of him, despite his sexual habits, despite him being a demon, I had to admit to myself that he was one hell of a sexy specimen of manhood. Against my every wish, images flashed through my mind. Images of Adam, naked and aroused, images of him with Dom, images of—
With a jerk, I shoved myself away from him, shutting down that line of thought with all the ferocity I could. I did not want to think of Adam that way. I was already in love with Brian and in lust with Lugh. I didn’t need any more. . complications.
One corner of Adam’s mouth rose in a half-smile, but it wasn’t a nice expression. There was no question in my mind that no matter how much I wanted to deny it to myself, Adam knew I found him attractive. I had a distinct feeling he would use his knowledge against me if he had half a chance.
Knowing that anything I said would just make things worse, I settled for shaking my head before I turned on my heel and strode to the door. Lugh did the eye-stab thing again, but it was merely a brief annoyance. It wasn’t like this was a battle I could win. No matter how much caffeine I ingested, eventually I would fall asleep and he would take over. But eventually was better than now.
Wondering how I was going to keep myself occupied during the wee hours of the morning, I made my way back to the garage to retrieve my car.
CHAPTER 11
It was past four when I finally let myself into my apartment, so I didn’t have as many wee hours to kill as I’d expected. The day was getting a head start toward being really shitty. On my way home, I’d gotten pulled over for speeding. Naturally, the cop who pulled me over was female and not a good candidate for the eyelash batting that had gotten me out of tickets with the testosterone brigade. I wasn’t really going that fast, but I guess she was bored and I made an easy target. Always happy to help our women in blue pass the time.
I shoved the speeding ticket into a drawer with my growing pile of unpaid bills and then made myself a pot of coffee. My body ached for me to throw myself onto the bed and sleep for a week, but this was a case of mind over matter, and I wasn’t going to give in.
I had to find a way to keep myself busy, otherwise the lure of sleep would be too much to resist, but I couldn’t think of anything useful to do on the Brewster case. I could drop by Tommy’s apartment again, but I didn’t think it would do me much good. Besides, I had semi-promised Adam I’d let him handle things. Not that I felt particularly bound by that promise, but I figured it would be decent of me to at least let him make first contact. Besides, for all I knew, he’d gone back to the club last night and convinced Tommy to confess everything.
I settled for going in to the office again. This would be two times within the space of one week. I was being positively productive! Of course, I hadn’t gotten much work done the last time, Claudia Brewster’s visit having thoroughly interrupted my efforts.
Doing paperwork wasn’t the best way to keep myself awake, I realized a couple of hours later as my eyes crossed and my mind wandered. I took an extended break to get a grande cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso from the nearest Starbucks, and felt marginally more alive after my first few sips. I had almost psyched myself up for the singularly unpleasant task of chatting up my insurance company when I stepped off the elevator into the hallway leading to my office. I was spaced out enough that I took two more long strides toward my door before I noticed the figure standing before it.