I leaned up to kiss his lips, which were very firm. Backing away from him, I turned, headed toward the door and whispered under my breath,
“Maybe once.”
“Hadley,” Chase called out behind. “What was that you said?” When I ignored him, he grabbed my arm. I turned back to him to find his expression serious. “What was that?”
I giggled. “Go, on…Mike’s waiting for you. You don’t want to make him suspicious.” His eyes narrowed, but I continued anyway. “I love you.” I leaned up to kiss his lips, but only firmness met me. No soft kiss in return.
“If I find out you’ve warped my mind…” His voice held a serious threat. “I will punish you for it.”
“Ooo…punish me.” I winked. “I might like that.”
His resolve wavered, the corners of his mouth ever so slightly curved up. “I’m not going to forget this conversation.”
“I wouldn’t think you would.” There was so much to discuss, including how he truly felt about it all, but now just wasn’t the time. And the intense look in his eyes said his thoughts lingered along the same lines that mine were. His mouth parted obviously to say more on the matter. I put my finger over his lips. “Later.”
He closed his mouth, his lips firmed into a tight line, and he sighed. “You’re right.”
He leaned forward and opened the door. “We’ll talk later.”
We would have the talk. The one I had long avoided. I wasn’t quite sure if I’d be able to explain it all to him. Nor was I sure I knew the answers myself. How was this going to work between the three of us? All I did know was that I had just about everything in this moment that I ever wanted.
I had Chase. I had Kellen. What else could a girl want or need?
Chapter Six
With Chase off to filter through the investigation with Mike and Nick, Kellen and I—well Kellen watched while I worked—called the nutty bins in the area. After my tenth call, I knew I was getting nowhere. I slammed down the phone, ran my hands across my face in frustration.
“Got nothing then?” Kellen asked in a bored voice.
I lowered my hands from my face and shook my head. My gaze fell back to the phone book. The yellow pages had eleven phone numbers marked. The last— Aurora Psychiatric Hospital. If this wasn’t the one we needed, it meant we had to do more research into Chad McKinney’s life. Truthfully, with the weight of the missing women, time wasn’t on our side. And I had guilt enough about having the moment with Chase.
Personal time like that wasn’t appropriate now. We needed to find these women before it was too late.
I reached out for the phone again, took it in my hand and dialled the phone number just as Kellen said, “I still find it difficult to believe that you have fallen for a mortal.”
There went my non-personal matters. Kellen wasn’t obligated to this case, and the man I knew wouldn’t wait for the answers he needed. Like Chase would. Instead of prolonging this conversation, I hung up the phone as it rang the first time and settled on answering him quickly so we could move on and I could get back to business. “It shocked me too, but there is something about him—something special.”
Kellen’s brow lifted as his head cocked. “What makes him so special?”
That was the question wasn’t it? What did make Chase so special? Never in my life had I been attached to anyone other than Kellen. As much as I loved Kellen, I loved Chase equally strongly. Only the love for them was different, if that made any sense at all.
“I don’t really know what it is exactly. I was attached to him from the moment I laid eyes on him.”
Kellen grabbed a pen off the table and began to spin it in his fingers. “And you have only been with him?”
He appeared uncomfortable and very unsure of himself. It was an odd state to see him in. The tough, strong vampire seemed a little off his axis. “Not for the first while, of course. I looked elsewhere, but over time I needed no one else.”
Both brows rose now as he dropped the pen and it began to roll off the table before he stopped it. “A mortal kept you satisfied?”
I nodded, smiling at his incredulity. “Quite.” The idea was going to be hard for him to grasp.
Vampires enjoyed being together. The unity of the two same creatures