Dixon looked up and grinned. “Ah, Ms. Lawson! Come on in.”
He stood up when I walked in and stayed standing until I made myself comfortable. One great thing about older men—and I mean centuries older—is that they tend to retain that old-fashioned sense of politeness and chivalry. I might be stuck in a room with a blood-sucking demon but I felt every inch the lady.
“Thank you,” I said.
Dixon sat and steepled his hands. “Now, what is it I can do for you?”
It was hard not to like Dixon Andrade. He was tall—imposing at six feet four inches, especially to my meager five foot two—and looked an awful lot like he just sauntered out of a Calvin Klein ad. He wore impeccably tailored suits in muted colors—charcoals, navy blues—that offset his pale features incredibly. When he fixed you with his sharp, glass-cutting eyes, it was nearly impossible to take a steady breath.
While Nina swooned the moment Dixon took over the UDA, I had my doubts. And I continued to have them once he fired me and I burned down my second place of employment. I felt a little better after he rehired me and dubbed me head of the Underworld Detection Agency’s Fallen Angel Division. While it’s true that I am the one thing that fallen angels spent their low life lusting after, Dixon saw my newly found, life-endangering knowledge of them and the Vessel of Souls a business bonus. And, happy to have medical insurance and unlimited access to office supplies again, I agreed.
“I suppose it’s not really a big deal yet, but in the last two weeks I’ve had three missed appointments.”
Dixon’s thin lips broke into a patronizing smile. “And?”
“And I think that’s a bit odd.”
Dixon opened his arms as if to remind me that working in an office thirty-five floors underneath the San Francisco Police Department was odd on its own.
“I know,” I continued, “it’s just that these are demons who never miss appointments. And none of them have called to reschedule and when I called them to check in—nothing. No return calls, no rescheduled appointments. I even checked with Kale to see if there were any messages or I just missed something. Don’t you think it’s fishy that three demons in two weeks would miss appointments? Especially Mrs. Henderson.”
“Miss Lawson, while I truly appreciate the concern you have with our clientele, you must remember that demons are a volatile bunch. And often nomadic.”
I gritted my teeth. “That’s what the Detection part of our agency does, sir. We detect demons, even when they are volatile and nomadic.”
Dixon sucked on his teeth and held out his hand, palm up. “Why don’t you leave the files here with me and I’ll take a look at them. If there is anything that raises any red flags for me, I’ll have Eldridge and Stella look into it.” He grinned a pacifying, annoying grin that showed off his long fangs. “Okay?”
“Brilliant. I feel much more confident knowing that the Wonder Twins are on the case,” is what I wanted to say. Instead, I shot back my own pacifying, annoyed grin and said, “thank you.”
It was just after 5 pm and the demon clientele had faded to a trickle. I stamped my last Fallen Angel registry form and plodded into the elevator with a couple of pixies and a zombie who kept staring me up and down.
“Did you need something?” I finally asked.
The zombie’s face broke into what passed as a smile for the undead, his greying skin crinkling at the corners of his toothless mouth. “Sorry. I’ve never seen one of you up close before.”
I was rolling my eyes when I bumped—smack dab, chest to chest—into Alex Grace in the police station vestibule.
“Hey, Lawson.” Alex grabbed my arms to steady me and I wanted to crawl back against him and sink into those arms.
“Oh, hey, Alex. Sorry, I guess I’m just a little bit distracted.”
I blinked, then looked up into those cobalt blue eyes of his. Oh, yes. I was definitely distracted.
Alex Grace was heaven. His milk-chocolate dark hair curled in run-your-fingers-through waves that licked the tops of his completely kissable ears. Those searing eyes were framed by to-die-for lashes; his cheeks were tinged pink and his lips were pressed into his trademark half-smile that was all at once genuine and cocky, with just a hint of sex appeal. A man like this was otherworldly.
And Alex had the two tiny scars just below his shoulder blades to prove it.
Alex was an earthbound angel. Fallen, if you want to be technical. But he lacked the certain technicality that made other fallen angels so annoying—he didn’t want to kill me. Most of the time.
I tried to tear my eyes away from his beautiful, full lips—lips that I distinctly remembered kissing—and focus hard on my rogue clients, but even though we had decided to be “just friends” almost six months ago, there was still a sizzling something between us. Call it forbidden love or my addiction to Harlequin novels, but Alex Grace was not an easy man to get over.
After all, he was an angel.