“She’s a witch.”
Faith scowled. She should have known he wouldn’t tell her anything useful. “Thanks for nothing.”
“You don’t believe me?” He studied her, head cocked on one side. “Why are you so certain she’s not a witch?”
He was the second person to question her convictions that day. It was starting to piss her off. She was the normal one. She wasn’t chasing after make-believe monsters. “I just am that’s all.” Perhaps she should suspend disbelief and see how far he would go. “So what is a witch? What does she do exactly?”
“Roz? She finds things.”
“What sort of things?”
He raised a brow.
Was she being slow? She thought about it and it came to her. “She finds people.”
“Sometimes.”
Shit, she’d found Jessica Thomas. Faith thought back to the other times she’d seen Roz at Scotland Yard talking to Ryan. She’d once asked him who Roz was and he’d told her that she didn’t want to know and she wouldn’t believe him anyway. And he was right. If he’d told her he was consulting some sort of clairvoyant “witch,” she would have laughed in his face. But the fact was, they’d found Jessica after Roz had become involved. Prior to that, they’d had no clue. Roz had come to visit Ryan in the morning and by lunchtime they had a photo-fit of the perp. Ryan had told her it was an anonymous tip. But it had actually come from Rosamund Fairfax.
For a second, she seriously tried to consider the witch aspect, but her brain refused to cooperate.
Instead, she sipped her wine as she tried to put the pieces together in her mind. Maybe there was no “magic” involved. Maybe there was a much simpler explanation—that she’d known who had taken Jessica because that person was somehow associated with Christian Roth. And Roz knew Roth…
But that didn’t explain the earlier cases she’d been involved with.
Faith rubbed her forehead, then pressed her fingers to the back of her neck. Her headache was returning with a vengeance.
“Are you okay?” Ash asked.
“Yeah, but all this supernatural crap is doing my head in.” She studied him over her glass. The room was falling into darkness casting shadows across the hard angles of his face. He was beautiful, all sharp cheekbones and the long lines. “Well at least I know you’re not a vampire.”
His full lips curved into a smile. “I’m not?”
She nodded to the window, where evening was just falling. “I’ve seen you in daylight.”
His smile broadened, showing gleaming white teeth, not a fang in sight. “Of course you have. And of course I’m not a vampire.”
“Good.”
He leaned across and filled her glass and they drank in companionable silence for a while. Considering he was such a scary badass, he was relaxing to be around. Some of the tension of the day drained from her and she sighed. After placing her glass on the table, she stretched, trying to ease the kinks from her shoulders.
Without speaking, Ash rose to his feet and moved around behind her. He pulled the grip from her hair and ran his fingers through the long strands. His hands moved to her shoulders and he kneaded lightly. Heat burned through the thin cotton of her shirt from his fingers, but it felt so good. It had been a long time since another human had touched her like this.
There was no point in telling herself there was nothing sexual in the contact, because she’d be lying. He might not mean it to be sexual, but little shivers ran across her skin, concentrating at her breasts and between her thighs.
His hands splayed, his thumbs digging out the tense little knots between her shoulder blades while his fingers continued to smooth the skin on her shoulders. Her breathing slowed, and warmth suffused her, spreading from his touch to settle low in her body. She bent her head giving him better access.
“Is that good?” he murmured.
“Oh yeah.”
He must have taken her words for license to go further, because his hands shifted and his fingers slid beneath her shirt to caress her bare skin beneath. He played with the strap of her bra and a jolt ran from her breast to her belly, every nerve ending coming alive. When she glanced down, her nipples were tight, little points pressing against the cotton.
His hand slid around to cup one breast over her bra and her head fell back against the cushions, the tension seeping from her muscles, leaving her limp and pliant beneath his touch. She had no thought of denying him; this felt too good. Just a while longer. His palm grazed over her nipple and brought it singing to life. She longed to feel his hand against her bare breast and a small groan escaped her.