Page 85 of Bright Dark Curses

“Is that right?” he murmured, giving me another deliciously long kiss.

Hannah had finally been booked and locked away, and once Ian had been reasonably certain she wouldn’t tattle on the shop, he’d driven back as fast as possible. Yesterday, I’d caught him right after he had arrived and was about to drive to the shop to surprise me with his return.

Best surprise ever.

I ran my fingers through his hair, combing it away from his face. “Are you going to shift again for me?”

“Nope.”

“Aww, why not? I want to see your wolf again.”

“It sheds.”

“I’ll use the vacuum.”

He harrumphed, then pecked me on the mouth. “Maybe for Christmas. If you’re a good girl.”

I gave him what I hoped was a sultry look but probably looked like constipation. “I’m always a good girl.”

He snorted at that.

Growing serious, I held his face with my hands. “Is it because of your ex-partner?” Ian’s mentor at the bounty hunters who had turned into an assassin-for-hire. “Why you don’t want to shift?”

His hands contracted on my waist. “He liked to send me after our marks in wolf form. It was faster, easier to track.”

“And put the fear of everything holy in them?”

“Yes.”

I snuggled in closer, mentally sending him all the warmth and comfort I could manage. “You think he used you. You and your wolf.”

“It made sense at the time.”

“But now it’s tied to your memories of being fooled by him.” If you added to that the whole mess with his shifter father and the pack, no wonder he didn’t like to shift. I rubbed my nose against his. “That’s okay. We can make new memories starting now.”

“I’ll say,” he said with clear amusement. He reached around me to grab a sandwich triangle and ate it in three fast bites.

“I should call Office Brooks, I suppose,” I said, taking a tiny bite of my own sandwich. The mix of hot bread, butter, ham, and delicious cheese melted in my mouth, but the familiar flavor was dampened by the taste of failure.

“Not yet,” Ian said in a strange reversal of roles. “Why did you settle on those three suspects?”

“Lee was mad about not getting the lead, Sanders seems to have an issue with the director, and Curtis would like the whole thing to be scratched off.”

“Nobody else had a beef with the movie?”

“Nothing obvious. But I suppose there might be a lot of them with hidden beefs.”

“Like Ethan.”

“Yep.” I took another, bigger, bite of my sandwich, the gears in my brain gaining speed. “Too many people to keep track of, especially if we don’t know who’s paranormal and not.” I sent him a hopeful glance.

“There is no secret paranormal database, Hope.”

“How can you lie while I’m sitting on your lap?” I let out a comically disappointed sigh. “You’re so rude.”

He grinned. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

I laughed. “You’re right. So far, we haven’t found anything incriminating about Sanders and Curtis, but we also didn’t have anyone spying on them all day outside the set.”

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