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Alex was definitely no longer trying to sleep. And probably shouldn’t be enjoying the shoulders and the angry competence and the undeniable presence, at least not quite so much. It was an annoyed kind of enjoyment, because the sexy werewolf FBI agent had shoved his door open and was yelling at him, but his day had inarguably become a lot more interesting.
He sat up more. And folded the blanket over his lap. “Nothing, because I’ve been in the hospital. Busy, you know, getting my appendix out. I canceled as the convention Guest of Honor yesterday. What happened?”
This earned him a noise in response. It was almost a growl. Alex’s spine did a little shiver, thrilled by danger or want or both.
The werewolf FBI agent retorted, “If you were ill, why do you feel guilty?” and began glaring around Alex’s hospital room, presumably looking for clues, or simply very irritated with nondescript chairs and beeping monitors.
Alex crossed his arms. “Because I had to leave them without a Guest of Honor, last-minute, and I feel terrible about that? Also, I think interrogating a suspect using meta-human senses, without disclosing your meta status beforehand, is illegal under the Extra-Sensory Perceptions Enforcement Act of 1988, thanks.”
The werewolf—Agent Forrest—stopped in the act of glowering at the underside of Alex’s bed to turn the glower on Alex himself. His eyes smoldered, which was not a phrase Alex would normally have written into action-packed thriller crime novels. But they did. “How did you know—”
“About the Enforcement Act? Public knowledge.” He threw the werewolf a smile just to be annoying right back: every drop of golden youthful brazen charm he could muster. “Plus, mystery writer. How did I know you’re a werewolf? Apart from the whole announcing you could smell me line, you mean?”
Agent Forrest had enough self-awareness to look mildly embarrassed about that. “If you haven’t done anything wrong—”
“I don’t have anything to worry about?”
“You canceled your appearance less than twenty-four hours before the entire convention apparently ceased to exist, and attendees lost their entire—”
“What division do you actually work for? How to make friends and cross-examine people just out of surgery?”
Agent Forrest paused again. His nostrils flared. “You do smell…”
“I told you, they took my appendix out. You want to see the incision, too?”
“No. I…” Those intense inkwell eyes hesitated, skimming Alex’s face. “You almost died, didn’t you?”
“Yes, because, according to my agent, I’m an idiot who ignores massive painful warning signs and then gets on a plane to Seattle. Does that exonerate me from whatever nefarious plot you think I’ve come up with?”
Agent Forrest stared at him for another second or two. Then muttered, “Maybe,” and turned about and stomped out of Alex’s hospital room. And slammed the door behind him. Hard.
“Okay,” Alex said to the suddenly much less occupied space. “Okay.” And then he looked around for his bag, and a notebook, and his phone.
He had an idea or two. He had the contact information for the convention’s organizer, or the woman who’d claimed to be, who’d invited bestselling author Alex Lyster to speak; he also knew some of the volunteers, who’d helped out with previous convention years. He was thinking about the brand-new organizing committee, and the new tech team they’d brought in. About people no one had known, not even by reputation.
He also wanted to make some notes. He did not normally write much paranormal crime, but he’d done one or two; sometimes that was what a story wanted to be. A new hero, maybe. Tall and dark and grumpy. Dangerous, but sensitive. With broad shoulders and extremely intense eyes.
About an hour later, Agent Forrest reappeared. Once again, he did not knock, though he’d lost his suit jacket someplace and rolled up both sleeves, white fabric against tanned skin, delicious. He opened the door and said, “I talked to your surgeon.”
Alex surfaced from scribbling notes about a werewolf private investigator firm. “I’m glad for you. Did you get his number? Are you going on a date?”
Pink flickered behind dark stubble—artistic stubble, too, which Alex considered unfair—and faded. “I do have his number. All his numbers. Work. Personal cellphone. Home. In case you need them.”
“Why would I need his home phone—”
“If you’re in pain. If your stitches open. If you require more attention. If he’s an idiot and left a scalpel inside you—”
“A scalpel?”
Agent Forrest crossed his arms. Muscles rippled. “It happens.”
“Um. Okay.”
“I could tell you the statistics about—”
“Please don’t.”
“I also ought,” Agent Forrest said, with the caution of a man unused to the words, “to apologize? For earlier.”
