“What, you though this was a one-way thing?” I asked jokingly. But I was far from joking. Adrenaline swamped my system.
Instead of responding, he dipped his head down and pressed his lips to mine. The connection between us throbbed, and my skin pulsed. This kiss was more intimate, more raw, than our others. I could’ve sworn I felt him tremble as he held me, but perhaps that was my imagination. I knew that my heart was trying to leap from my body.
His hands wound themselves into my hair as he deepened the kiss. My lips parted and he brushed his tongue against mine. I let my hands trail over the sculpted muscles of his arms, wishing not for the first time that I could feel the press of his bare skin against mine.
With a final press of his lips, the kiss ended. “I’ve never had this,” he whispered against my lips. “Relationships, yes, but never, never this.” He cupped my face like I was some precious thing.
I reached up and traced his lips with a finger, wonder at him—at us—filling me. “Neither have I.” We both smiled at that, Andre’s lips rubbing against my finger.
Tentatively his thumb touched the soft skin beneath my eyes. “You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”
There was no use lying to him. “No, not really.”
“Are you still having dreams of him?”
I licked my lips. “Sometimes.”
Andre made a noise low in his throat. “Sneaky little bastard,” he muttered.
It took everything I had to keep a straight face at his words.
He exhaled and gathered me close. “Tonight I get the night off from the trial, so I can be with you the entire night—if you’d like that.”
I couldn’t stop the wide grin that broke across my face. “Naw, that sounds awful.”
Andre squinted. “Is that sarcasm?”
I rolled my eyes, and he let out a bark of laughter and squeezed me tighter. “You are such a strange creature. I think that’s what I love best about you.” He gazed at me tenderly.
“You better watch yourself, punk,” I said, even though happy laughter bubbled inside my chest.
“Punk?”
I couldn’t tell whether Andre’s expression was more amused or insulted.
“I didn’t stutter, did I?”
And then we were rolling and laughing. “Someone needs to wash that mouth of yours out,” Andre said, pinning my arms again.
“Don’t act like you don’t like it.”
He stole a kiss. “Damn my wicked soul, but I do. I absolutely do.”
“Can you help me?” I asked Andre several hours later. We were still laying together on the bed, but we’d spent most of the time chatting and laughing. For being bossy, and protective, and old school, Andre was actually pretty freaking fun to be around. His looks didn’t hurt either.
“Always, Gabrielle,” he said, entwining our hands. “You never have to ask for something like that.”
His words warmed me to my core. I pushed off the bed and padded over to the desk in the room. “I know you’re busy, but I’ve been placed as an expert on this case, and I don’t really know what I’m doing.” It hurt a little to say those words, especially to Andre, who badly wanted me to quit.
Andre followed me over and scanned the papers. He flipped through them, and then picked up the files I had on our two victims. He pulled out a photo of the victims and compared them. For a long time he studied them.
“This looks like an old ritual they used to do hundreds of years ago.”
My breath froze in my lungs. This was too good to be true. “What was the ritual?”
Andre’s brows drew together. He placed the photographs back on the table and rubbed his jaw, still staring at them. “Three mortal wounds inflicted on the victim simultaneously. This,” he tapped the photos with his index finger, “this is a threefold death.”
My eyebrows shot up. Andre had managed to piece together in less than a minute what we hadn’t been able to in days.
I came to his side. “Threefold death?” I repeated.
He nodded to the photo. “Here you have asphyxiation, an incomplete beheading, and partial impalement.
“Why haven’t we ever heard about threefold death?”
Andre handed me the photo. “Well, it’s an old ritual—and an obscure one, at that.”
“Ritual,” I repeated, unease tightening my muscles.
“Triple death represented the killing of the three parts of man—the body, the soul, and the spirit. It was a symbolic way of completely eradicating a person’s existence. Usually it was reserved for people of importance—specifically, unpopular people of importance, if I remember correctly. It was the ultimate punishment for those who’d done bad things or pissed the wrong person off.”
“That sounds like a line from The Mummy,” I said.
Andre gave me a funny look. Guess he’d never seen the movie. “In certain areas of the world, it was considered the highest dishonor you could do to a person.”
“But these victims are angelic, so why do this to them?” I asked.
He frowned. “I have no idea.”
We both stared at the photos. “So whoever is doing this has religious motives?” I asked. We’d fallen back to the investigative team we were all those months ago.
“Probably.”
I thought back to last night’s encounter. “One of the women at the club smelled like ash and roses. Have you ever come across a scent like that before?” Perhaps learning what she was would help us figure out her and her partner’s motives.
His lips thinned. “I vaguely recognize it, but I have no idea what being it belongs to.”
I scrubbed my face. These were all dead ends. We had so many clues—I even met the freaking killers—but we couldn’t pin down anything.
“Andre, even if we were able to prove that woman’s guilt, how do you detain someone like that—someone you can’t control?” Someone like me.
Our gazes locked. “You don’t want me to answer this,” Andre said softly.
“Tell me.”
He worked his jaw. “How do you capture someone who can wield absolute power over you? You don’t,” he said. “You kill them.”