Hotter After Midnight. Cynthia Eden

matter. He’d try trusting her, and for the doc’s sake, he sure as hell hoped that she didn’t betray him.

      So he’d gotten her to lay her cards on the table, and he’d finally gotten to taste her. For nearly three straight hours, he’d wanted to feel her lips beneath his. Now that he had, well, he wanted to taste her again.

      And he would. Soon.

      He stalked toward the front door, flipped the locks.

      “You never wanted to talk to me about the case, did you?” Her voice stopped him.

      Colin glanced back at her. She still stood against the wall, but her arms were crossed over her chest now and her left foot tapped out a hard rhythm on the floor. “I don’t want to talk about that yet.” Not until he’d gotten his report from the ME and he’d talked to McNeal about the possibility of bringing Emily on the case in a more official capacity.

      If she was right, if the killer really was Other, then he figured the PD would need all the help it could get in solving the case.

      And who better to hunt a monster than the good doctor?

      “Would you work with us?” he asked as he began to make his plan of attack. McNeal had brought her on originally; he’d probably okay pulling Emily completely onto the case.

      “Work with you?” Her foot stopped tapping. “I already did. I told you what I know and—”

      “Lady, I have the feeling you know a hell of a lot more than you told me.” About the case, about him—but he’d deal with all that in due time.

      Her expression never altered. “What is it you want from me?”

      Once he’d gotten the official okay, he wanted her to be—“A profiler. I want you to give me a workup on this guy, want you to tell me exactly how he thinks, how he lives.” So that he could catch the bastard before he hurt anyone else. “Can you do that?”

      She nodded.

      “Then I’ll be seeing you soon, Doc.” And they’d start tracking a killer.

      Hmmm. Not a usual date, but with the doc, he had a feeling he’d have to take what he could get.

      They’d been inside the house for twenty minutes. The cop had gone in, like he owned the place, and he’d been inside with her for twenty minutes.

      A slow rage began to build inside him. This shouldn’t have happened. This should never have happened.

      Her front door opened. The cop appeared. He looked back at the woman, muttered something, then marched down the steps.

      His body tensed as he watched them. He’d hidden himself well; they wouldn’t be able to see him in the darkness. He was—

      The cop froze. Lifted his head. Looked slowly around the yard.

      “What is it?” Her voice. Dr. Drake stepped onto the porch. The light cascaded over her. For an instant, with that shining light all around her, she almost looked like an angel.

      But he knew she wasn’t an angel. No, not an angel. Never an angel. The doctor was a demon. Just like the others.

      The cop was looking right at his hiding spot now. The guy took a step forward.

      “Gyth? Is someone out there?” Dr. Drake crossed to the cop’s side.

      A trickle of sweat slid down his cheek. He realized the crickets around him had stopped chirping. The night was quiet, too quiet.

      Now wasn’t the time, he realized, inching deeper into the brush.

      He’d come back for the doctor another night. Wait until she was alone.

      Then he’d destroy the demon.

      After all, hunting demons was his job.

      Colin stared into the dark, twisted trees on the vacant lot across the street. For an instant, he’d sworn he’d heard something, someone.

      He spared a quick look at Emily. She was gazing at the trees, a faint furrow between her brows.

      “I want to check that place out,” he told her, and pulled his gun from the holster at his hip. “Stay here.”

      He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed, just took off, moving slowly, stealthily across the street. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he was just too damn tired, but he had to check the place out.

      Because his instincts were screaming at him, and he never, ever ignored his instincts.

      The faint scent of cigarettes teased his nostrils as he crept closer. Yeah, someone had been here all right.

      But why?

      The moonlight barely trickled past the trees, but he’d always had excellent night vision. Another little shifter side effect. So he could easily see the ground and the bent grass where someone had knelt, where someone had watched.

      A growl rumbled in his throat.

      His fingers tightened around the butt of his gun and—

      A twig snapped behind him. He spun around, gun drawn, leveled, aimed, and ready to fire—

      Right between Emily’s eyes.

      “Dammit!” He lowered his gun. “Didn’t I tell you to stay put?”

      Her gaze followed the movement of the gun, then slowly lifted back to his face. “Yes, but I’m not a dog. I don’t generally ‘stay’ when I’m told.”

      He realized the doctor was annoyed. Good. Matched him perfectly. “Future reference note,” he muttered, quoting her earlier words back to her, “when I give an order, there’s usually a damn good reason for it. And next time, you’d sure as hell better listen to me.”

      Her lips tightened. “I thought you might need some help.”

      “What?” Jesus. He was the cop! He didn’t need the mind doctor to back him up.

      And he was a shifter—that fact alone meant he knew how to guard his own ass.

      She muttered something beneath her breath, something he didn’t quite catch but sounded a lot like “asshole shifter.”

      “Shit. Just stay behind me, all right?” He wanted to check out the thick patch of bushes up ahead. He strained, trying to listen for any telltale sound that might indicate the watcher was still there. But he heard only the call of crickets, the faint rustle of the leaves in the breeze.

      He crept ahead, keeping his gun up. Emily’s soft footsteps whispered behind him.

      With his right hand, he pushed back a mass of bushes. Saw only dark earth.

      He looked up, gazing straight ahead. There was no sign of anyone else. He couldn’t hear anyone, and he had damn good hearing.

      Looked like their watcher was gone.

      Pity. He would’ve liked to have found out exactly why the sonofabitch was hanging outside the doc’s place.

      He spun back around, frowning down at Emily. In the darkness, he knew she couldn’t see much of him, probably little more than the rough outline of his body. “You got any enemies I should know about, Doc?”

      With his enhanced vision, Colin could see every detail of her face and body. He could easily recognize the sudden tension on Emily’s face.

      “Doc?”

      She swallowed. “No.”

      He’d interrogated enough perps to know when someone was lying to him. But he decided not to push her. Not yet.

      Colin pushed his gun back into its holster. “Well, looks like one of us managed to catch someone’s attention.” He stalked back to the circle of bent grass. Kneeling, he inhaled and caught the same stale scent of cigarettes he’d noticed earlier.

      Someone