“That’s why everyone comes to L.A., isn’t it?” He tossed another popcorn kernel, this time at the table. “Our killer isn’t exactly writing taunting letters to the police, but the signature is flashy enough.”
“Like they’re begging to be noticed, even if it’s in a demented, passive-aggressive way.”
“Exactly.”
“And this has nothing to do with Frank.”
“I…Damn it, I don’t know.” He dumped the rest of his popcorn on a napkin that rested on the table.
Why wouldn’t he tell her about the reason all this mattered in an investigation of her dad? What was his agenda? Was it as crazy as her own?
The remote felt alien in Dawn’s hand. She tried to think up ways to get more information out of him, first of all because she’d promised Breisi. Second of all, because she knew she needed to do everything possible to make up for Kiko’s psychic blindness with Milton Crockett and the Tomlinsons—
Crack.
Just like that, her vision wavered, like something had disturbed the solidity of her world. Right on its tail, her peripheral vision caught a flash of silver?…red?…outside the window—
She whipped her gaze there, catching the orange sway of a bird-of-paradise. Not silver at all. Not even red.
Had the movement come from the Friend who’d been sent to watch her?
Uneasy, Dawn put her popcorn and water down on a napkin. Her stomach felt light, queasy. Her body felt heavy and exposed—watched.
It was a Friend, she told herself. That was all.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asked. “You look the way you sounded on the phone earlier.”
“And how did I sound?” She tried to smile as she faced him, her back now to the window.
She knew she wasn’t wearing her emotions freely. Because of training and life experience, he’d never know anything she didn’t want him to.
“Scared,” he said. “You’re scared of something.”
“Bullshit.”
She started to laugh it off—a nerve-laced compulsion—but he quieted her with a touch to her cheek. Immediately, she stopped with the bravado, jolted by the caress of his fingertips.
Real, she thought, thinking how much different this was than being with The Voice. She could feel, see how Matt’s skin was rough, tangible, how it brushed against her own to cause friction.
The need for stimulated comfort took her over, jarring her heart to an erratic pump, sharpening the air in her lungs.
She wanted him to make her forget, like all the other men had. Forget the homeless woman, forget Frank and Eva, just for a little while….
His fingers traveled her face, sweet deliberation. When he got to her right lobe, where her long blood-moon earring used to hang with ruby-and-silver negligence, he stroked, as if mimicking the phantom fall and shimmer of it.
“I wish you’d tell me everything,” he said.
“Same here.” Was this one of their cat-and-mouse standoffs? Is that why he’d invited her over? She couldn’t exactly be angry, because she was here for ulterior purposes, too.
“I’m not just talking about our work.” He slipped his hands down her jacketed arms, coming too close to her shoulder-holstered gun while taking her hands in his.
She hadn’t doffed her jacket because weapons were still in her pockets, plus, she didn’t want to showcase the gun, even though he already knew it was there. In back of her, the window seemed to loom with whatever was watching her—Friend or foe. A chill flew down her spine and, not for the first time, she was glad she’d kept her arsenal handy.
But the reminder didn’t chase away any of the heat churning through her. Steam bathed her, prickling her skin, making it painfully aware of what might happen between her and Matt, now that he’d gotten over some of the bashfulness.
“Right now,” she said, “I’m all about work. There’s not much left of me.”
As if to prove her wrong, he leaned forward, molding his lips to hers in lingering question. Wet, warm. She couldn’t think anymore, not with the excitement of him mingling with the shivers of being watched from outside the window.
Impulsively, she parted her lips, demanding more while pressing forward. She wanted to wipe away the violence she’d faced earlier with violence of another type: something she’d dealt with so many times before, something she could control. Skin to skin, she came out the winner every time, whether it was over a partner or Eva or even herself.
As she entered his mouth with her tongue, engaging his with ravenous insistence, he fisted her hair, moaning. She levered him backward, intending to straddle him, to grind into him and make him her goddamned slave.
“Wait,” he mumbled.
“No.” She sucked at his lower lip, sliding a hand down his chest as she kept pushing him back.
With just as much force, he grabbed her wrist, the one that had never been injured. He grabbed it hard.
Good. Her body remembered how, one night, he’d lost a fraction of control, at the hospital, when she’d been devastated by Kiko’s back injury and had been yearning for someone to take her away from it. Matt had responded to her rough kisses, her prodding seduction.