Page 59 of Deadly Lineage
“You do that,” I encouraged before turning and getting back to business. Maybe bringing Boone along wasn’t such a good idea. He was far too charming a distraction.
“I’ll check out the bathroom,” Boone offered before slipping from my sight. I could hear him humming with interrupted musings. I couldn’t hear well enough to figure out what he was saying. I’d learned that Boone often spoke to himself. Then again…
“Aurelia isn’t here, is she?” I asked, suddenly concerned she was lurking about and I simply couldn’t see her.
“Nope. No djinn currently in the building,” Boone answered in a lilting voice.
My tension eased. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Aurelia. On the one hand, I was almost positive she’d saved our lives yesterday. On the other, she could just as easily decide that wasa mistake and rectifying it was the only solution. We’d be dead before we realized she’d changed her mind.
Shaking off that unsettling and unproductive thought, I got down to business. There was nothing I could do about Aurelia, and I needed to focus on what I could influence. Namely, figuring out the asshole who was on a multispecies killing spree.
“Not much in here,” Boone hollered. “About what I’d expect from a mammalian shifter. Linus’s personal products are all natural and have little scent. There’s nothing in the bathroom trash either.” Boone exited the bathroom, blue latex gloves covering his hands.
I nodded while opening his dresser drawer. Like everything else we’d seen, Remington’s clothing drawers were respectable and the laundry clean. Nothing was hidden below the clothing.
“Not much in the fridge except meat,” Boone said and his muffled voice made me think he currently had his head stuck in said refrigerator. “There’s some leafy green stuff, but not much else. Makes sense. All but one of the packages is still in date. Looks like Linus went grocery shopping recently.”
It also backed up the fact that he hadn’t been missing for too long before he’d been murdered. Time of death was recent, but I hadn’t been certain how long prior to his death Linus had been taken.
I heard the refrigerator door close, quickly followed by the freezer. “Not much in the icebox. Looks like Linus preferred his meals fresh.”
I packaged that information away while I continued searching the studio apartment. There was a small television and a few books strewn about. None of our victims had been found with their cell phones. As a matter of fact, we hadn’t been able to locate a single electronic device and so far, Remington was no different.
Shuffling perked my ears, and I turned around in time to see Boone’s pert ass poking into the air as he bent over and shoved his hand between the two mattresses.
“What?” he asked. “It’s the classic hiding place.”
“Not disputing that, but it might be better to lift the mattress up.”
“Oh.” Boone’s cheeks colored. “That would take a bit more work.”
“It would,” I easily agreed before crossing the short distance and grabbing one end of the mattress. Between the two of us, we made short work of lifting it and setting it on its side.
“Jackpot!” Boone’s hand shot out and snagged the laptop. He pulled it away and I dropped the mattress.
Boone looked like a puppy who’d just done something spectacularly important and praiseworthy. Who was I to deny good behavior? Grabbing the laptop, I tossed it onto the bed and pulled Boone to me. Our lips collided before he could so much as gasp.
Shit, how could he taste even better than I remembered from last night? Did it really matter? No. No it did not.
A groan slipped through Boone’s lips, reverberating on mine and traveling straight to my cock. Finally pulling away, I sucked in a lungful of air before shivering and uttering a wholly inadequate, “Fuck.”
“Not here,” Boone answered while his teeth nibbled on my earlobe.
“No, definitely not here.” I wasn’t even certain we’d do that anytime soon. While I wanted inside Boone’s body, I didn’t feel rushed. The lustful inferno coursing through my body surrounded a cool core of ice. That core tempered my need. What Boone and I were forming was different. It had that intangible quality I’d been searching for without being aware. It was like we were hooked together, holding close together aswe drifted through the rocky oceanic waters. It was a constant connection that promised more, that eased the desperate need to consummate our feelings before things fell apart—before the opportunity was missed. It was the knowledge that Boone would be there tomorrow. That he’d be there the following week, and the week after that.
I don’t know how I knew it, but that didn’t change the fact that I did. This was more than a fling. It was more than a hot night between the sheets. What Boone and I were forming held the delicate thread of forever. I intended to keep adding strands to that thread, braiding it into an unbreakable rope.
“We should get this to Becks,” I said, voice husky.
“Sure thing,” Boone answered while rubbing his thigh against my firm cock. “We should get right on that.”
A half-assed “fucking hell” slipped through my lips before I slammed them against Boone’s. Surely five minutes wouldn’t make or break the case.
Chapter
Nineteen
Erasmus
