“Am I what?”
“A norm?”
He nipped the pad of her thumb, his gaze watchful. “What are you asking?”
“You ... see more than most humans.”
“I’m a cop,” he smoothly retorted. Too smoothly. “It’s my job to see what other people don’t.”
“Hmm.” She didn’t try to hide her disbelief. “I suspect there’s more.”
Without warning his arms were wrapped around her waist and she was tugged against his hard frame. He lowered his head until they were nose to nose.
“Become my lover and I’ll tell you.”
Logically, she knew he was trying to distract her. Physically, she didn’t give a shit.
White-hot excitement curled through the pit of her stomach, searing away her usual discomfort with allowing anyone to touch her beyond her most intimate friends.
It was ... terrifying, exhilarating. Glorious.
“Blackmail?”
“Incentive.”
She lifted a teasing brow. “Not so certain of those O’Conner charms you claimed would imprison me, are you?”
“It hasn’t just been my nightmares that are keeping me up at night, sweet Callie.” He placed her hand flat against the rapid beat of his heart, his breath brushing her cheek. “You share part of the blame.”
She quivered even as she tried to pretend that his touch wasn’t magic.
“Does that line actually work?”
He traced a line of kisses to the corner of her mouth. “For once it isn’t a line.”
She sucked in a shallow breath. “Yeah, right.”
He splayed his hands at her lower back, pressing her against his hardening cock.
“I don’t know why, but I can’t get you out of my head.”
“Because you want sex?”
His sharp laugh ricocheted off the walls. “That would be the preferable explanation.”
She tilted back her head to meet his brooding survey. “As opposed to what?”
“Yet another question I don’t intend to consider,” he muttered, his hand lifting to lightly cup her cheek. “Were your eyes this color when you were born?”
Wow. She struggled to follow his conversational leapfrog. Duncan O’Conner clearly had a narrow list of subjects he was willing to discuss.
“Yes.” She shrugged. “I assume they were the reason my parents abandoned me.”
“You were abandoned?”
She shrugged. “It’s not that uncommon. People expect to have a child who’s exactly like them. They don’t know how to handle a mutant.”
His expression tightened, as if he were angered by her answer.
“People can be shitty.”
“True.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t feel sorry for your parents, but I do.”
She frowned, wondering if she’d heard him right. Few among the high-bloods felt sympathy for the families who abandoned their own children. No matter how hard it might be to accept a freak.
“Feel sorry for them?”
His thumb stroked her cheek, as if fascinated by the texture of her skin.
“They have a beautiful, intelligent, outrageously sexy daughter who uses her gifts to make the world a better place.” He lowered his head to speak directly into her ear. “But they’ll never know you and that’s their very great loss.”
Desire, along with a far more dangerous sensation, spread through her until she feared she might melt into a puddle of need at his feet. Instinctively she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck.
“Maybe you do have a small smidgeon of charm,” she grudgingly admitted.
The hazel eyes smoldered with pure sin. “There’s nothing small about me, Callie.” He tilted his hips forward, as if she’d somehow missed the rigid length of his arousal pressing against her lower stomach. “Let me prove it.”
She breathed in his warm, sexy scent. She’d never noticed the smell of a man before.
Of course, there were a lot of things about Duncan she noticed. The way his ass perfectly filled out his jeans. The stubborn line of his jaw that was usually shadowed by a hint of golden beard. The utter focus on his goal. Whether it was finding the bad guy, or making her tremble in anticipation.
“A friend warned me that if a man has to brag about his size it’s because he knows it’s going to be a disappointment,” she murmured, her fingers teasing the hair at his nape.
“Let me take a stab in the dark,” he said wryly. “Was this friend named Serra?”
Callie made a sound of astonishment. “You know her?”
“Our paths have crossed.” His lips found an exquisitely tender spot just below her ear. “Unfortunately.”
She arched against the welcome hardness of his body, strangely pleased he didn’t have the usual male reaction to her dearest friend.
“Most men find her irresistible.”
He kissed down the curve of her throat, the rasp of his whiskers making her tremble in pleasure.
“She’s a man-eater.”
It was growing difficult to think. “What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he assured her, his hand gripping the back of her neck, his tongue doing wicked things as it traced the bodice of her stretchy top. “The only opinion I care about is yours.”
Her head fell back, offering Duncan greater access. He seemed to know what he was doing. Why interfere?
“Hmm.”
“I’ve never touched such soft skin,” he rasped, his lips lingering on the gentle swell of her breast. “It’s like heated satin.”
Her ni**les tightened, the tingles of excitement becoming a sharp-edged hunger that made her hesitate.
Okay. This was spiraling out of control way too fast.
And one of the first things all high-bloods learned was that bad things happened when they let themselves be out of control.
“What do you want from me?” she abruptly demanded.
“A kiss. That’s all.” He shifted to nibble her bottom lip. “Just a kiss.”
“I don’t—”
“Trust me, Callie. I won’t ever ask for more than you’re willing to give.”
Trust? Fane would tell her that she was crazy. That she couldn’t trust anyone.
Especially not a norm who all but accused the Mave of being willing to harbor a murderer.
But just for a few minutes she didn’t want to be a necromancer who was feared and even hated by others. Or the shy woman who often faded into the shadows.