A faint smile that made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. “Old enough to scare you.”
Yes. She’d been trapped with vampires who had wanted only to hurt her, bore the scars of their abuse even now, but never had she been in the presence of someone who chilled her blood with his mere presence. Yet though he was known to be a powerful son of a bitch, ruthless as a gleaming edge, Dmitri functioned fine in the human world. Which meant he could mask the lethal truth when he wanted to, but this was who he was beneath the civilized black on black of his suit—a man who looked at a severed head the same way he might a bowling ball.
Keeping that knowledge in mind, she put her laptop bag down on the glass of his desk, since there were no chairs on this side, and forced herself to lean closer to the decapitated head. “He’s been in water?” The skin was soaked and pulpy, gone a wrinkled white—an obscene reminder of happy hours spent in the bath.
“Hudson.”
“He needs to be looked at by a proper forensic team,” she muttered, trying to see the full lines of the tattoo. “I need access to lab equipment so I can—”
Gloved hands in her vision, shoving the head back into the garbage bag. “Follow me, little rabbit.”
Heat burned her gut, seared her veins to fill her face, but she grabbed her laptop and did as ordered. His back was solid and strong in front of her, his hair gleaming a rich, evocative black under the lights. When she didn’t step up beside him, he shot her an amused look over his shoulder—except the laughter didn’t reach those watchful eyes that whispered of ages long gone. “Ah, an old-fashioned woman.”
“What?” It was taking all of her concentration to breathe, her body close to adrenaline overload.
“You obviously believe in walking three steps behind a man.”
It was beyond tempting to reach for a blade. Or maybe her gun.
Smiling, as if he’d read her thoughts, he strode to an elevator different from the one she’d ridden up in and, ripping off one of the gloves, placed his palm on the scanner. The pad glowed green for a second before the doors opened and he waved her in. She refused to enter. Maybe he was so old that she didn’t have a hope in hell of ever defeating him should he come after her—but logic had no chance against the primal animal within, the one who knew the monsters could hurt you easier if you couldn’t see them coming.
“And here I was being courteous,” he drawled, stepping inside the steel cage and waiting for her to enter before pressing something on the electronic pad to one side.
The elevator dropped at a speed that had her stomach jumping into her mouth, but that didn’t scare her. It was the creature in the elevator with her who did that. “Stop it,” she said when he continued to stare at her with those eyes of darkest brown. Yes, she’d been fascinated by him once, but that had been from a distance.
Up close, she was very aware it wasn’t safe to be alone with him. He was, she thought, capable of amusing himself by tearing her to shreds with nothing but the exquisite silk of his voice . . . before he really began to hurt her.
“The boyfriend,” he murmured, eyes dipping to her neck again, “obviously didn’t take the care with you he should have.”
Hysterical laughter threatened to bubble out of her, but she brazened it out. He had to have tasted her fear, but she’d give him nothing else. “Never left marks of your own, Dmitri?”
He leaned against the wall. “Any marks I leave are very much on purpose.” Sensual tone, provocative words, but there was something hard in his gaze as he continued to stare at the ravaged flesh of her neck.
The scar wasn’t that bad—just looked like a vampire had gotten a little carried away while feeding. That had been at the end. At the start, they’d tried to keep her as undamaged as possible so she could continue to provide them with pleasure. Those ones, the “civilized” vamps who had been almost delicate about feeding while she was na**d and blindfolded, their hands stroking over her br**sts, between her thighs, had been the most horrifying. And they were still out there.
A wash of cooler air, the doors opening.
Having never taken her eyes off Dmitri, even as her memories threatened to suck her under, she stepped out beside him. Her attention was caught by the glass walls on either side, beyond which lay offices, computers . . . and state-of-the-art labs. “I’ve never heard of all this being down here.”
Dmitri pushed through into a lab. “New addition. Don’t talk about it or I’ll have to pay you a visit one quiet midnight while you’re tucked up nice and tight in your bed.”
Every muscle in her body went tight at that almost lazy comment. “I don’t make it a habit to gossip.”
“Here.” He deposited the rubbish bag and its contents on a steel table. The horrific nature of his task should have eroded the allure of sex he wore like second skin—if you liked your sex kissed by blood and pain. It didn’t. He remained sophisticated and sexy and very much a creature she did not want in her bedroom any time of day or night.
His lips, the lower one just full enough to tempt a woman with fantasies of sin, curved as if he’d read her thoughts. “Do you need help to peel off the skin?”
3
“No.” Her reaction upstairs had been incited by shock at his callousness—she didn’t have a problem working with the grisly find on her own. “I’ll take the best photographs I can, given the condition of the victim, and I’ll mostly work off them. But I want to use the microscope on the tattoo itself, too, make sure I don’t miss any fine details.”