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“This always part of the makeup removal process?” I teased, reaching out and giving him a rogue stroke that made him jerk back.
“Yes. It’s clinically necessary to receive a facial after taking off your makeup. Every single time.” Elijah gave me a sarcastic smirk. “There’s a study on it, somewhere.”
“Mhmm,” I said, standing up but leaving my shorts on the ground. I wrapped my arms around Elijah and kissed him, my body spent, and yet I felt zero exhaustion. If Elijah hadn’t stepped back and pulled up his briefs, I might have gone in for a round two, when round one had barely even finished. That’s how intense my desire for Elijah was, made only stronger after that display of dominance. “Well, when you find that National Enquirer article, send it my way.”
Elijah laughed and slapped my chest, his hand lingering for a moment, eyes on mine. He was such an enigma. A grumpy and sometimes prickly little exterior that held a vibrant and shining interior, with the ability to dress up and present an entirely new persona, someone able to command an entire room with a hip sway and a wink.
I wanted to know all the facets of him and more. The ones he didn’t show, the ones he didn’t even know he had.
“Thank you,” he said after a quiet moment. “For letting me stay here tonight. For everything. Working on the case and being so warm and welcoming and hot and beautiful and kind and— Yeah, you get the point.”
I kissed his forehead. “I thought you were describing yourself for a second.” He smiled and looked like he was about to argue, but I cut him off. “You don’t have to thank me. For anything. That implies I’m doing something that I don’t want to do or that I’m going out of my way to do. None of that applies, not with anything you might need from me.”
His mouth slanted and eyes narrowed. “Or maybe I just feel grateful and want to express that.”
I shrugged, kissing him again. “Fair enough.” I spoke with a smile against his lips. “You’re welcome, then.”
He kissed me back, smiling too. This moment hit like lightning and made a mark across my heart, leaving an impression that I knew would last longer than I could even imagine.
When the embrace ended, Elijah gave a stretch, his pink briefs still slightly wet. His yawn gave away the exhaustion that still hadn’t crept up on me. I put a hand on his hip and motioned toward the door. “Come on, go lie down. It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah, I’m really starting to feel it.” He tried to stifle another yawn but wasn’t very successful. I led him out of the bathroom and down the hall to my bedroom. I grabbed an extra pillow from the closet and dropped it in a fresh pillowcase, fluffing it up and placing it next to mine. My bedroom wasn’t anything overly special, but I kept pride in how clean and relaxing it always was. I wanted my bedroom to feel like a sanctuary, and as I glanced around at the light blue and white rug that felt like a cloud, the tall bird-of-paradise plant leaning toward an arching window, thick taupe curtains drawn shut, the bed made with plush white linens, I felt like I’d accomplished it.
Elijah climbed into bed, setting up his phone to charge on the nightstand. He glanced at me. “Wait, you’re not getting in?”
“No,” I said, pulling on a pair of boxers and a crisp T-shirt with Sailor Moon waving her wand on the back. “I’ve got some work to do.”
“On my case? You don’t hav—”
“I want to.” I shot him a wink. “You can thank me tomorrow. Good night, and if you need anything, I’ll be right outside.”
His smile wasn’t a big one, but it was a meaningful one. He didn’t dole them out very often, but the look he was giving me really told me how much he appreciated all of this.
I left him in my room, shutting the door and heading into my living room, where I grabbed my laptop and got to work. Anya was on the West Coast, so I didn’t feel bad FaceTiming her for some help. She was Stonewall Investigations’ go-to computer, eh, “expert” and could find her way around a firewall like she was competing for gold in the hacking Olympics. I wanted to see if she could figure out who was behind the first messages Elijah got through social media from that DollWorshipper account. And now there was the situation with this music CD that had been left on Elijah’s doorstep. I wondered if she had a way of figuring out where or who created it, which could end up being a huge break in the case.
And after my call with Anya was done, I stayed glued to my laptop, deciding to scrub through the internet for any suspicious signs, starting with Elijah’s social media presence. I went through the comments left on his photos, the likes he received, the reshares he got. I noticed that one guy, Walter Hooper, popping up quite a bit, so I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out his deal. His internet presence was pretty clean, though, with nothing major showing up on my radar.
