Hidden Crimes by Emma Holly Page B

quite straight-faced.
    She blushed, delighting the most masculine
part of him. “Yes,” she said dryly. “I noticed that.”
    She pulled one foot up onto her chair,
hugging her shin with both arms. Her foot was bare, her shin clad
in worn blue jeans. Something about the pose, or maybe the curry
orange polish on her toenails, gave Nate an instant erection.
    “Why are you here?” Evina asked, seeming
unaware of this. “I expected you to call.”
    “Ah.” With one finger, Nate scratched his
cheek in embarrassment. “It appears my alpha doesn’t find your
vision of what happened in that secret operating room as compelling
as I do.”
    “He can’t be planning to ignore it.”
    Nate shrugged uncomfortably. “He doesn’t
think what you saw is evidence of a crime.”
    “Well, fuck,” Evina said, the word too hard
for her lush soft mouth. “ You’re not going to ignore it,
surely.”
    “No. I convinced him to give me a detective
and a couple uniforms. They’ll canvas the area around the factory.
Hopefully, someone will have seen something.”
    “And the child’s description?”
    “I’m afraid I came up empty-handed at Missing
Persons. No one’s reported a shifter child that age disappearing in
the last eighteen months. They’ll check farther back, but I’m not
holding my breath.”
    “Those psychic impressions I read were
fresh,” Evina said firmly. “Not more than a few months old.”
    She jumped up and began to prowl the width of
her office behind her desk. She reminded him of her tigress, the
sight of which had enchanted him last night. She was more than
wild; she was shifter sex on two legs. Muscles moved in her body
that had him imagining her in bed. His hard-on shifted from
uncomfortable to raging. He ordered himself not to tug his trousers
and draw her eyes to it.
    When she stopped and faced him dead on,
excitement slapped through his blood. She’d come around the desk
and was only feet from him.
    “We’ll go to the media,” she said. “My
mother’s dating a news producer at WQSN. Non-wolves don’t always
report trouble to the cops. A direct appeal for information could
generate some leads.”
    Nate considered. WQSN was Resurrection’s
third largest TV network. Their all-shifter soap operas were very
popular.
    “A sketch of the boy you saw would help,” he
said, shoving aside his awareness of how ticked his alpha was going
to be if they did this behind his back. “I know an artist who could
work with you on one.”
    “Good.” Evina smiled ferally at him.
    She stood in front of him, her bare feet
planted, her fists pushing at her waist. The teeth her smile bared
seemed especially white and sharp. To him, she was a miniature
Valkyrie.
    A tiger queen , he corrected. One any
male would be privileged to surrender to.
    “I want to fuck you so bad I hurt,” he
blurted.
    She jerked, startled by his bluntness—as he
was himself. Nate usually played his seduction cards more smoothly.
A second later, her lovely bosom went up and down. Nate realized
the tips of her breasts were sharp. That spurred a surge of heat he
didn’t know how to squelch. Luckily, he didn’t have to.
    Evina reached down, grabbing him by the
skinny tie he wore with his black silk shirt. “Come with me,” she
said huskily.
    His hormones went haywire. Skin humming with
arousal, he fought not to stumble as she tugged him onto his feet.
Stronger than her size would suggest, she pulled him to her desk
and around it. In his current panting state, he was almost willing to cast caution to the winds and let her take him on top of
it, in clear view of her oversized pride members. His pretty hide
was grateful when a panel in her rear wall swung open. The hidden
door revealed a small private compartment.
    “Welcome to my kitty hidey hole,” she
purred.
    He caught a glimpse of tufted saffron-colored
leather, which padded both walls and floor. The floor was no more
than three foot square, not big enough to lie down unless you