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ChapterTen
Bee edged so far away from Adam that her rear end almost slipped off the cushion. She grabbed the sofa arm to steady herself. Her heart was punching against her chest, though she no longer knew if that was because of Adam’s hot kiss or the sudden interruption.
The suddenstrangeinterruption.
He was still staring at the phone, which buzzed and blinked like it was alive.
“I must’ve hit Restart instead of Power Off,” he muttered, grabbing the phone. The nameLauraflashed on the screen, then disappeared as the call went to voicemail. Adam bent his head, his thumbs working the screen.
Bee pressed her hands to her cheeks. He’d turned the phone off. She’d watched him do it. And if he’d hit Restart by mistake, the phone would have restarted right away, likely with an audible notification. Not half an hour later.
Captain Marcus. She had no doubt.
She turned, letting her gaze sweep over the shadowy book stacks and curved mezzanine. Witches on broomsticks dangled from the ceiling, swaying slightly, and the paper-mache ghosts lined up on the lower floor looked spooky in the dim light.
Adam stood, stuffing the phone into the back pocket of his jeans. The movement was unconscious yet edged with masculine grace. A ripple of heat went through Bee—the same as she’d felt when he pressed his mouth against hers.
His mouth.
Against hers.
She shivered. For all her thinking about kissing Adam, she hadn’t expected that it would ever really happen.
And she certainly hadn’t imagined it would feel like that—hot, explosive, sexy…yet somehowright. Her body had leaned so naturally into him, like a leaf in the wind just moving in the direction it was supposed to.
Bee had never experienced a kiss like that in her life, which might have been the reason she was still tingling and couldn’t seem to form a single word, much less a sentence.
He turned to face her. His eyes were dark—with frustration or something else, she couldn’t tell.
“It was a fluke.”
“It was the ghost.”
They both spoke at the same time. Adam narrowed his eyes. Bee straightened her glasses, which were still a little steamy.
“I saw you turn off your phone,” she reminded him.
“I told you, I must have hit Restart.”
“And your phone restarted half an hour later?” She lifted an eyebrow.
Adam frowned and folded his arms across his broad chest. “I can give you a thousand reasons for why my phone turned on by itself. The power button short-circuited. There’s a software glitch or a virus. There’s a battery issue. The CPU is overloaded. There’s a problem with the charging port. The—”
“I get it.” Bee held up a hand. Though she knew Adam would never believe in a supernatural explanation for any odd happening—and truth be told, she admired his conviction and resolve—she couldn’t help being rankled by his matter-of-factness.
Had he forgotten about their kiss already? Wasn’t his blood still warm, his nerves all lit up? Did he not remember snarling at her about seeing other men as if just the idea made him jealous?
Yet he could switch off all the heat simmering between them and start talking about batteries and power buttons as if nothing untoward had happened—either on a paranormal plane or the living, breathing realm right here?
The one in which he’dkissed her?
“I suppose you’re still going to explain away the electric shock and the books falling off the counter too,” she said. “Not to mention the door slamming.”
“Static electricity, instability, and air movement.” He folded his arms, his jaw set.
“And a shockingly bizarre series of coincidences, don’t you think?” She rose, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. “You’d better get your phone’s CPU fixed. I’m going to eat dinner, then I’ll be reviewing documents in the archives. Text me if you need anything. Unless your phone stops working,” she added, unable to prevent the slight snark in her tone.
She pivoted on her heel and crossed the mezzanine toward the stairs.
