Yep . . . not happy to see me at all.
He stormed out of the office, eyes locked on me as he made his way to where I was standing, separated from the rest of the police precinct and the officers milling about, some in uniform some out. Titus never wore police blues. At least he hadn’t any of the times I had seen him. No, Titus dressed like a man that had a job to do and that the job was wearing him down and slowly and surely eating away at his soul.
As he stalked toward me I could see the way the knot in his tie hung loose at his throat. I could see the way his rolled-up sleeves tightened on his forearms as his hands clenched into angry fists at the sight of me. I could see the way his dark slacks had wrinkled from whatever bad thing or bad guy he had spent the day trying to set right. When he finally reached me I couldn’t stop staring at him. I ended my perusal at the tips of his worn and scuffed-up black boots as he stopped so that he could loom over me. There would never be polished wing tips for a man like Titus King. There would never be pristine tennis shoes used for recreational sports. Nope, Titus would always be a man that needed shoes that could get the job done and handle the muck and mire that he had to wade through every waking hour while he tried to keep some kind of order.
I gulped and fought to keep myself from falling back a step. Titus was a big man and really tall, so it was easy to want to cower under his burning glare, but if I did that I would show him how scared I was and I couldn’t afford to start this conversation out that way.
Instead I batted my eyelashes slowly, let out a deep breath that I knew would force him to have to watch the rise and fall of my chest, and kicked the side of my very carefully painted mouth up in a grin that had made more than one man do anything I ever asked of them.
“Detective King.” I liked his name even with that title in front of it. He could be the ruler of some ancient barbaric land where only the strong survived.
“What in the fuck?” It was a question and a statement shouted loud enough to draw the attention of both the police and the criminals wandering around the building.
An ironlike hold clamped on my elbow and I was unceremoniously dragged past all the bars and barriers, past the other cops sitting at their desks, past a captivated audience that couldn’t help but speculate what kind of bug had gotten up the big detective’s ass. Titus was not a man prone to big displays of extreme emotion. He was much more a man of action, so the glower on his harshly handsome face and the force with which he maneuvered me around his coworkers and the riffraff that littered the police station did not go unnoticed. He was beyond pissed at my sudden appearance and doing nothing to hide it.
When we were back at his office he shoved me inside like I was one of his perps and slammed the door behind us with far more force than necessary. I knew the Point was on the verge of burning, but nothing would ever be as hot or as out of control as the wild fury I saw sparking in the depths of Titus’s sky-colored eyes. He was pissed like I knew he was going to be, but more than that he was concerned, and I think that made him even angrier. No one wanted to worry about a girl like me. I was supposed to get whatever nasty shit landed at my doorstep. I deserved it. That was how karma was supposed to work, but Titus was hardwired to care, even if the other person didn’t earn it or necessarily want it, and that had to make him crazy.
I studied him for a long minute, eyes locked on a muscle that twitched in his rock-hard jawline. He was so beautiful. I had thought so the first second I laid eyes on him when I initially went to him to pour out my heart and seek some kind of redemption. He was everything a man should be. Everything a warrior needed to be to make it in this wasteland, fighting for things that had long been lost. Sometimes it felt like I was torn between lust and worship where he was concerned.