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“I have no idea who did anything. Right now, I’m just trying to get some answers.”
He crossed his arms, too. I couldn’t help but notice the way his biceps pushed against the sleeves of his black shirt. His right arm had a colorful sleeve of tattoos, a blast of reds and pinks and blues and greens. I glanced quickly at them, spotting a whale and a tree, its roots wrapping around the whale’s tail, but I wasn’t able to pick anything else out without openly staring at him.
Which, I mean, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, all right?
“How long have you known Hazel?”
“Fifteen years. Since we were six years old. We’ve been through plenty of shit together. I’d never do anything to hurt her.”
Those piercing blue eyes pinned me to the spot. As much as I wanted to close the door on this man, I knew that even if my muscles were working properly, I still wouldn’t have closed the door.
“So you didn’t steal anything from her?”
“Steal? Are you joking? Of course not.” And then realization hit me like a two-ton hammer. This was about Hazel’s underwear going missing, straight out of her bedroom. When she told me this, we both instantly began to suspect Jesse may have been involved, but I didn’t know she’d go out and hire the sexiest private detective in all of the United States.
Possibly even the entire northern hemisphere.
All right, let’s say the sexiest private detective in the entire world, just to be safe.
I looked over my shoulder, seeing that Jesse was still in his room, but the door remained open. I stepped out into the humid hallway, closing the door behind me.
This did two things: one, it made sure that Jesse couldn’t overhear anything I was about to say, and two, it put me straight into the intoxicating cloud of whatever cologne Rocky was wearing, his scent a mixture of woods and leather and pure, unadulterated, unfiltered, raw sex.
At least I think that’s what sex smells like.
We were too close. I took a step back, feeling myself hit the closed door. It still wasn’t as much space as I would have liked, but it would have to do.
“All right, let’s talk,” I said, looking up into those blue orbs and finding that my knees were beginning to go weak. He clearly suspected me. His thick eyebrows were drawn together, and his lips were tilted into an annoying slant.
An annoyingly sexy slant that I felt myself wanting to kiss right off.
4
Rocky Hudson
I wasn’t so sure about this guy. We stood in the hallway of his apartment building as he gave me a short rundown on his and Hazel’s relationship with their roommate Jesse, who they both suspected. He sounded authentic and wasn’t giving me any signals that set off my internal lie detector. He had great eye contact, confident posture, an even tone.
He also had a bright smile and a couple of freckles that dotted his face like small, starry constellations, matching the light behind his amber-brown eyes. They were magnified underneath the thick lenses of his tortoiseshell glasses, allowing me to see the tiny flecks of gold and yellow inside those mesmerizing eyes.
Not that any of that shit matters.
I caught myself thinking about Sam’s features and quickly shut that down. My focus had to stay on the case, not on my dick twitching in my briefs.
“So do you get it, now? I’m not the one you want to check out.” Sam pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the closed door behind him. “Your guy’s in there.”
And what if he’s out here?
“Is Jesse home?” I asked.
“Yeah. He was probably getting ready to jerk off or something. Want to talk to him?”
I nodded, spotting a couple more freckles on Sam’s neck. He ran a hand through his unruly head of light brown hair, pushing some of the thick strands off his forehead.
“All right,” he said. He turned and opened the door, stepping in and letting out a breath of surprise. I followed him, instantly spotting who’d caught him off guard.
The man who I assumed was Jesse stood in the hall separating the bedrooms. He looked surprised to see us, his owl-like black eyes held wide open, his mouth slightly gaping. “Oh hey,” he said, taking a few steps toward us. “Um, need anything?”
Jesse looked about the same age as Sam but had an entirely different energy about him. His eyes darted all around us but never settled on either. He wore a baggy gray T-shirt and a pair of stained blue sleeping shorts. His head was buzzed down practically to the skin, and when he offered us a weak smile, I could see his teeth were closer to piss yellow than ivory white.
“This is—”
“I’m Detective Hudson with Stonewall Investigations.” I stepped forward and offered a hand.
