His mouth covered hers, as lightly as a dream. In restrained forays, he slipped inside, drawing out the moment, extending the pleasure beyond bearing. Warm breath sighed into him, and he cautiously explored the satiny recesses. Over, under, together, he claimed her mouth for his own.

She returned the kiss, wooed by the textures of tongue and teeth, by the caress of strong hands as they angled her for deeper access. A moan rose as softly as a wish, and she tried to draw him closer.

He relinquished her mouth to skim kisses across her face. Pulling away, he brushed a last kiss across her lips and whispered, almost too soft for her to hear, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Chapter 21

“Insulin overdose.”

Gabriel read the coroner’s summary aloud to two women in the poorly lit, cramped detective’s office. He took a sip from a can of Coke he’d filched out of Sylvie’s private stash. Erin’s bottled water sat unopened. They were seated on the visitor side of Sylvie’s desk, jammed between the beige floor-mounted air conditioner and overstuffed black filing cabinets. The unit rumbled to life, humming and spitting frigid air into the room.

The sound grated on Gabriel’s nerves. As he scratched notes on the steno pad open on his lap, the sound of the pencil added to the dissonance. When the lead broke, he restrained a sigh and stole a fresh stylus from the cluttered desk.

Par for the course, he thought. Since the morning, he’d been unable to make anything work. The Jeep had barely sputtered to life and Erin had retreated into her shell once again. The hell of it was, he couldn’t blame her.

Today she’d discover if she’d mistakenly accused her boss of murder and left another man free to kill Harmony Turner. Their truce from the day before had ended at breakfast, when she’d been icy and distant. He hadn’t helped matters, he thought, but maybe the distance was good for her. It might blunt the edges of what lay before them now.

Brutal photographs were spread across the desk. Though he’d learned long ago to cleave his emotions and divide feeling from fact, he could see again the pallid figure tossed onto the street like trash. When the second pencil cracked into jagged pieces, he muttered beneath his breath and snatched a pen out of the cup on Sylvie’s desk. Sylvie watched as he jerkily pushed the report closer to Erin, though both were careful not to touch. Quite a feat to manage, Sylvie thought admiringly, given the tight space. Gabriel was as hot as gumbo, silver eyes flashing. He’d stormed into Sylvie’s office a few minutes after noon. The prim professor had come in next, with an edge of ice that could have sliced and instantly frozen a lesser cop.