Demon's Embrace. Elle James

      Blaise rolled off me, collapsing against the pillows.

      I snatched my cell phone up, punching the talk button. “Danske.”

      “Meeting at the precinct in fifteen.”

      My boss’s words cut through the remaining haze of sleep, chasing back the lingering fluffs of fog, returning me to earth with a resounding thud.

      “Fifteen?” I glanced at the clock and groaned. I wasn’t due on duty for another hour and a half. “I need a shower.”

      “I don’t care what you smell like. Be here in fifteen.” Lieutenant Thomas, the detective assigned the illustrious duty of managing Manhattan’s Paranormal Investigative Team, had spoken. “And bring Blaise with you.”

      “What if I don’t know where he is?”

      “Cut the crap, Agent Danske. Where you are, he is. Both of you, in the War Room in fifteen.” The line cut off.

      I glanced at my partner, Blaise Michaels, the demon who’d taken up residence in my life. “You hear that?”

      He nodded.

      “Does he think you live here?” I tossed back the blankets, strode naked to the scuffed dresser I’d purchased from a secondhand store and yanked open the top drawer, digging around for a bra and panties.

      “How will anyone take me seriously, if they think you’re living with me?” I flung a narrow-eyed glare at him. “And how the hell did you get in? I locked the double bolts and windows before I hit the sack.”

      He shrugged. “I have ways.”

      “Don’t tell me another one of your talents is to walk through walls.” I shoved a foot into the leg of my panties and then another, drawing them up my thighs, completely aware of the demon eyeing my every move.

      And damned if my body didn’t play traitor on me and burst into red-hot flaming desire. “You—” With my underwear firmly in place around my hips, I poked a finger at him. “—are not invited into my apartment without my explicit consent. Do you hear me?”

      His grin infuriated me, at the same time it flicked all my damned “on” switches, sending a wash of purely decadent juices to my pussy.

      “I mean it.” Ah hell, who was I kidding? “No one will take a female on the force seriously if she’s sleeping with a team member. We can’t see each other anymore.”

      His smile broadened. “Okay.”

      I turned my back so that I wouldn’t have to look at his mocking face and slipped into a pair of black jeans, yanking the zipper up before I could get further sidetracked. The patronizing look he’d given me only made my gut tighten along with my resolve. As I clipped on my bra and twisted it around my ribs, I prepared a scathing retort.

      Before I could slip the straps up my arm and deliver a suitable comeback, warm hands reached around from behind me to cup my breasts.

      “Tell me you want me to stop, and I will.” He kissed the sensitive area below the back of my right ear, his breath stirring tendrils of hair, tickling my skin and sending shivers down the length of my spine.

      Oh, sweet Jesus. How was I supposed to resist him when he was a damned demon with the ability to throw my hormones into hyper-drive with a single touch?

      I dragged in a shaky breath, reveling in the heat he generated, his naked body aligned with my backside, his cock nudging at my bottom. With the strength of a saint, I shoved his hands from my breasts and leaped out of reach before I faced him.

      “We can’t do this anymore,” I said. “I want my employer to respect me for my skills as an officer of the law, not for my skills at pleasing our token demon.”

      He nodded, the smile disappearing from his too-handsome face, his ice-blue eyes boring into mine. “As you wish.”

      In the time it took me to complete dressing and brush my hair into a ponytail, he was dressed and waiting by the door to my apartment.

      Together, we walked the couple blocks to the station. When we were within a stone’s throw of our destination, I paused at a newsstand. “You go ahead. I want to get a pack of gum.”

      Blaise stopped. “I’ll wait.”

      “Not only are you arrogant, you’re thickheaded. I don’t want to arrive at the same time as you. Now, go.” I shoved him toward the station and turned my back on him. When I’d paid for the pack of gum, I resumed my trek, a good fifty yards behind the demon.

      Take that, Lieutenant Thomas. We’re not together.

      Yeah, yeah. The only person I was fooling was myself.

      In the War Room, Lieutenant Thomas paced the floor in front of the huge whiteboard, deep lines furrowing his brow. “About time you got here, Agent Danske. Now we can begin.”

      I glanced around at the empty chairs. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

      The lieutenant’s lips thinned. “Out patrolling the streets where you and Michaels should be.”

      “I wasn’t due on duty for another hour. If you’d wanted me earlier, you could have called earlier.”

      “I did. No answer.”

      I pulled my phone from my pocket and scanned the recent calls. Just as the detective stated, there were three unanswered calls from Lieutenant Thomas. “I don’t understand. I didn’t hear it ring.” I glanced across at Blaise.

      His gaze didn’t meet mine.

      Irritation flared, pushing heat into my cheeks. “Perhaps my phone was mysteriously off at that time.”

      “I suggest you talk to the technical personnel and get that fixed. I have to be able to contact you at a moment’s notice. Paranorms can’t be trusted to stay on a set schedule.”

      “You were right when you said paranorms can’t be trusted.” I glared at my partner, the only paranorm in the room.

      Lieutenant Thomas calmed. “You’re assigned to follow Jimmy Raggio tonight. He’s a small-time werewolf druggie. I have it from a good source that he’ll be making a purchase to stock up on drugs to push to the local lupine teens. I want his contact. Teens and drugs are a bad combination to begin with. Werewolf teens and drugs can get downright dangerous.”

      “Got it.” I gathered the street address of one Jimmy Raggio and the keys to one of the unmarked vehicles at our disposal. Without waiting for my partner, I headed for the door.

      Blaise caught up with me as I reached the elevator. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have set your phone to silent, while we were...”

      I jabbed the down arrow. “Damn right you shouldn’t have.”

      “I promise I won’t do it again.” He gave me that dark-eyed, heart-stopping, sad-demon look that always made my knees go weak.

      Not this time.

      The door dinged and slid open. “Damn right you won’t.” I stepped in and hit the button for the garage level and the button to close the elevator door. “You’re not ever going to come into my apartment again.”

      Blaise jumped in before the doors closed. “You don’t mean that.”

      “The hell I don’t.” I faced him, all the anger I’d contained while in the same room with my boss bubbling up. “You have no right to interfere with me or my job, and today you crossed the line.” I turned away. “Don’t show up at my apartment, uninvited.”

      “What if I need to get a hold of you?”

      “You can call my cell phone. I’ll leave it on, unlike you.”

      Blaise stood beside me, his height and broad shoulders filling the tight confines of the elevator car.

      Before he or