Long pause.
"Wrath? You will repeat after me. 'Yes, Beth, I understand and will trust your honesty about your feelings for me.' " She shook his neck again. "Let's say it together." Another pause. "Now, not later."
"Yes," he gritted out.
God, if those lips of his were any tighter, they'd snap off his front teeth.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, Beth."
" 'I trust you to be honest with me about how you feel.' Come on. Say it."
He grumbled his way through the words.
"Good man."
"You're tough, you know that?"
"I'd better be if I'm going to hang around with you."
Abruptly, he took her face into his hands. "I want that," he said fiercely.
"What?"
"For you to be around."
Her breath caught. A tenuous hope took fire in her chest. "Really?"
He closed his glowing eyes and shook his head. "Yeah. It's f**king stupid. It's crazy. It's dangerous."
"So it'll fit right into your life script."
He laughed and looked down at her. "Yeah, pretty much."
God, his eyes were breaking her heart, they were so tender.
"Beth, I want to stay with you, but you have to understand, you'll be a target. And I don't know how to keep you safe enough. I don't know how the hell to - "
"We'll figure it out," she said. "We can do it together."
He kissed her. Long. Slowly. With precious care.
"So you'll stay now?" he asked.
"No. I really do need to get to work."
"I don't want you to go." His hand cupped her chin. "I hate that I can't be with you outside during the day."
But the locks sprang free and the door opened.
"How do you do that?" she asked.
"You will be back before dusk." It wasn't a request, not by a long shot.
"I'll be back sometime after sunset."
He growled.
"And I promise to call if anything weird happens." She rolled her eyes. Man, she was going to have to recalibrate her standards for that word. "I mean, weirder."
"I don't like this."
"I'll be careful." She kissed him and then headed up the stairs. She could still feel his eyes on her as she pushed open the painting and stepped into the drawing room.
Chapter Thirty-two
Beth went to her apartment, fed Boo, and got into the office just after noon. For once, she wasn't famished, and she worked through lunch. Well, sort of. She couldn't really concentrate and mostly engineered a rotation of the paper piles on her desk.
Butch left her two messages during the day, confirming they were going to rendezvous at her apartment around eight.
By four o'clock, she decided to cancel her meeting with him.
Nothing good could come out of it. There was no way she was turning Wrath over to the police, and if she thought Hard-ass was going to go easy on her because he liked her and they were in her home, she was just lying to herself.
Still, she wasn't going to put her head in the sand. She knew she was going to be called in for questioning. How could she not be? As long as Wrath was a suspect, she was on the hot seat. She needed to get herself a good lawyer and wait to be called down to the station.
On her way back from a trip to the copier, she glanced out a window. The late-afternoon sky was cloudy, with the promise of thunderstorms hanging in the creamy, thick air. She had to look away. Her eyes ached, and the discomfort didn't fade as she blinked repeatedly.
Back at her desk, she popped two aspirin and called the station house looking for Butch. When she was told by Ricky that he'd been put on administrative leave, she demanded to talk to José. He got right on the phone.
"Butch's suspension. When did it happen?" she asked.
"Yesterday afternoon."
"'Are they going to fire him?"
"Off the record? Probably."
So Butch wasn't going to show up at her place after all.
"Where are you, B-lady?" José asked.
"Work."
"You lying to me?" His voice was more sad than confrontational.
"Check your caller ID."
José let out a long sigh. "I need to bring you in."
"I know. Can you give me some time to get a lawyer?"
"You think you're going to need one?"
"Yeah."
José cursed. "You gotta get away from that man."
"I'll call you later."
"Another prostitute was killed last night. Same MO."
The news gave her a moment of pause. She couldn't have said what Wrath had been doing when he'd been out. But what possible purpose could a dead prostitute have for him?
Make that two dead prostitutes.
Anxiety spiked, making her temples throb.
Except she just couldn't see Wrath slitting some poor, defenseless woman's throat and leaving her to die in an alley. He was lethal, not evil. And though he operated outside of the law, she didn't imagine he'd take the life of someone who hadn't threatened him. Especially after what had happened to his parents.
"Listen, Beth," José said. "I don't need to tell you how serious this situation is. That man is our prime suspect for three murders, and obstruction of justice is a serious charge. It'll kill me, but I will put you behind bars."
"He didn't murder anyone last night." Her stomach rolled.
"So you admit you know where he is."
"I gotta go, José."
"Beth, please don't protect him. He's dangerous - "
"He did not kill those women."
"That's your opinion."
"You've been a good friend, José."
"Goddamn it." He added a couple of words in Spanish. "Get that lawyer fast, Beth."
She hung up the phone, grabbed her purse, and shut down her computer. The last thing she wanted was for José to come to her office and take her away in handcuffs. She needed to go home, pick up some clothes, and get to Wrath's as soon as she could.
Maybe they could just disappear together. It might be their only choice. Because sooner or later the police would find them in Caldwell.
As she walked out onto Trade Street, her belly was in knots, and the heat sucked the energy right out of her. The minute she walked into her apartment, she poured some ice-cold water into a glass, but as she tried to drink it, her intestines cramped up. Maybe she had a stomach bug. She popped two Tums and thought of Rhage. She might have picked up something from him.
God, her eyes were killing her.
And even though she knew she needed to start packing, she got out of her work clothes, put on a T-shirt and shorts, and sat down on the futon. She only meant to take a little breather, but once she was off her feet, she couldn't seem to get her body moving again.
Sluggishly, like the channels in her brain were clogging up, she pictured Wrath's injury. He'd never told her how he'd gotten hurt. What if he'd attacked the prostitute and the woman had fought back?
Beth pressed her fingers to her temples as a wave of nausea brought bile into her throat. Lights flickered in front of her eyes.
No, this wasn't the flu. She was coming down with the Godzilla of migraines.
Wrath dialed his phone again.
Tohrment was obviously using caller ID and avoiding his ass.
Hell. He sucked at apologies, but he really wanted to get this one out on the table. Because it was going to be a doozy.
He took the cell phone with him to bed and leaned back against the headboard. He wanted to call Beth. Just to hear her voice.
Yeah, and he'd thought he was just going to waltz away after her transition? He could barely stand being away from her for a couple of hours.
Man, he had it bad for that female. He couldn't believe what had come out of his mouth when she'd been making love to him. And then he'd topped off the simpering praise by calling her his leelan before she left.
He might as well admit it. He was probably falling in love.
And if that wasn't enough of a shocker, she was half-human. As well as Darius's daughter.
But how could he not adore her? She was so strong, with a will to match his own. He thought of her standing up to him, confronting him about his past. Few would have dared, and he knew where she got her courage from. Her father probably would have done the same thing.
When his cell phone went off, he flipped it open. "Yeah?"
"We got issues." It was Vishous. "I just read the paper. Another dead prostitute. In an alley. Bled out."