Page 3 of Forensics of a Fable

“Hello, detective,” a voice like whiskey and smoke echoed in the darkness, and Bel’s skin flushed as the deep tenor wrapped her in warmth. The shadow moved again, and Eamon slipped silently from the night, an excited Cerberus dancing around his legs.

“You need to stop stalking me,” Bel said, a slight tremor shaking her words, but her heart rate slowed as she recaptured the dog’s leash.

“If I was stalking you, detective, you wouldn’t know I was here.” He stepped closer, his presence sucking the air from her lungs as he invaded her space. She hated when he stood that close, his muscular chest begging her to reach out and run her fingers over its contours, and she took an involuntary step back.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, opting not to mention that she always knew when he was near. Not a single night had passed in the weeks since Alcina tried to kill her in the woods that Eamon had not stood guard over her cabin. He never revealed himself. She hadn’t seen his face since that traumatic case, and while he was a monster of moral ambiguity, she slept better knowing his protection surrounded her.

“You didn’t say hello at the fundraiser.” He stepped forward, following her unconscious recoil to close the distance between them.

“You were busy.” Her voice escaped in a whisper, and Eamon smirked at her body’s reaction to him, his sharp canines seductively biting his full lips.

“That’s not why you were avoiding me, my little detective.” Eamon’s eyes traced the outline of her mouth as she studied his teeth, and his predatory gaze turned hungry. He stepped closer again, peering down at her as if mesmerized by the way her chest rose and fell with each faltering breath.

“I…” Bel gripped Cerberus’ leash tighter and brushed passed him with a dismissive nudge of her shoulder. “You can’t keep following me.”

“If only you meant that.” Completely undisturbed by her dismissal, he settled comfortably beside her as she walked.

“What do you want from me?” Bel looked up at him with exasperation. Her patience was running thin after the odd nightshe’d endured, and she wasn’t in the mood to verbally spar with a possibly unhinged millionaire. “You saved my life, and I’ll forever be grateful, but you’re also the reason for the scars on my throat. I’m a cop, and you are…” she trailed off, afraid to speak the truth out loud. “You can’t keep stalking me.”

“I want you,” Eamon answered, his normal arrogance gone as he confessed those three small words. “I want you safe. I crave your smile. I ache to kill anyone who so much as looks at you. I want you, Isobel Emerson, so I will not stop stalking you, as you call it, because you are too precious to leave unprotected before the wolves.”

Bel stopped short and looked up at his towering height. “Why?”

Eamon brushed the dark curls from her neck, revealing her scars to the moonlight, and with worshipful fingers, he traced the marks he had so cruelly left on her body. “Why do I want you? Oh, my little detective. If only you saw what I do when I look at you. I gave you time. I stayed away as you asked, and at The Espresso Shot, I told myself I wouldn’t bother you unless you approached me first, but I can’t do it. End my suffering. Let me in.”

“Eamon…”

“It can be slow. I am a patient man. I won’t rush you, but I can’t do this.” He dropped his hand from her throat and resumed walking down the lane, Cerberus dragging her after him. “I can’t stay away. Talking to that girl at the fundraiser and not you was torture. Let me at least see you eye to eye before I go mad. Tell me I’m forgiven.”

“Eamon.”

“Ask the world, and it’s yours. Tell me what punishment I must endure to earn your forgiveness, and I shall gladly bear it, but please. I’ve gone weeks without speaking to you, withoutyour scent curling around me, and it’s making me crazy. Let me in, even if only as your friend.”

“So, you weren’t interested in that brunette at the fundraiser?” Bel asked, and he looked at her with confusion until he noticed the thread of jealousy still wafting off her.

“I see only you, and you know that, detective.”

Bel nodded, contemplating his confession as her heart raced. No one had ever spoken to her that way, and logic warned her they were nothing but inflated words. But his eyes? Those death-black eyes held the truth, and the only falsehood in Eamon Stone’s gaze was that he concealed the true magnitude of his emotions from her.

“Not in my house. Not yet,” she said. “I don’t know if you need permission to physically enter, but even if you don’t, I’m not ready.”

“I don’t require an invitation, but I agree to your terms. You, on the other hand, may enter my home whenever you want, which we know you tend to do.”

Bel rolled her eyes at his reminder of the night she broke into his mansion. “I want to trust you, Eamon. I don’t understand why I do, but I want to let you in. I’m afraid, though. You aren’t the evil hunting this town…”

“But I am evil,” he finished for her, and she nodded. “I swear it. I won’t enter your home unless your life is in danger.”

“Then we can be friends.”

“Good.” His death-black eyes brightened at her agreement, and he picked a stick up off the ground, launching it down the lane for Cerberus to chase. “I’m glad. I enjoy hanging out with the dog.”

Bel rolled her eyes at his tease and parted her lips to retaliate when Eamon’s body stilled. The way his muscles froze was unnatural, as if even his blood and breath stopped flowing.

“What’s wrong?” Bel asked, but he ignored her, black eyes staring at the darkened woods. “Eamon?”

“Nothing, detective.” He accepted the returned stick from Cerberus, his body rippling back to life as air filled his lungs. “It’s nothing.”

“Good. You’re here,”Sheriff Griffin said by way of greeting as she set the coffee thermos down on her desk. “Your new partner is in my office.”

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