The Darkest Kiss Read Free Page A

would become if Jack found out. I’d only seen him truly angry a couple of times, and I had no wish to go there more than necessary. An angry Jack was not a pleasant thing to behold, nor be around.
    “Do you know how boring it was, waiting here?” he said, voice warm and rich, and so very sexy. “There wasn’t even decent scenery to admire.”
    A smile tugged at my lips. “Lust after, you mean.”
    Amusement crinkled the corners of his velvet-brown eyes. “Admire, lust. It’s all the same.”
    “Whatever. But I refuse to believe that in a street filled with offices—and therefore tons of secretaries and workers—there wasn’t a single pretty girl who walked by.”
    “Well, maybe one or two. After all, I do have a couple of phone numbers tucked into my pocket that need to be checked out.” He raised a hand and lightly brushed some hair from my cheek. His fingers were warm against my skin and a shudder that was all pleasure ran through me, but I resisted the urge to press into his caress and stepped back instead.
    His lips twitched. “Jack,” he said heavily, “is a pain in the ass.”
    “Oh, he’ll be more than that if we get down and dirty, trust me.” I stepped to one side, waved him on, then added, “So what has Jack told you about this case?”
    “Probably the same as you. We’ve got a dead shifter whose political aspirations have made him too hot for the regular police.” He glanced at me as he opened the building’s glass door and ushered me through. “I’m betting he brought a bit of tail into the office and had a heart attack while showing her the official briefs.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “How old was he?”
    “Forty-five.”
    Not what anyone would call old, especially for a shifter. “Has he got a history of heart problems, then?”
    “No, but he’s got a bit of a reputation as a playboy. And even the fittest playboy can go down if he overexerts himself, and one thing our boy wasn’t was fit.”
    I dug my badge out of my purse and showed it to the cops on duty as we headed toward the elevators. Our footsteps echoed on the marble floors, and the sound seemed to be amplified by the high ceilings. It had to be hell on the ears when there was a full complement of office staff going through here.
    “But if it was just a heart attack, we wouldn’t have been called in.”
    Kade snorted softly and hit the elevator button. “Yeah, we would have. Anytime a politician dies in suspicious circumstances, there’s an investigation. But in this case, they’d want to be doubly sure there was no foul play. Him being the first nonhuman politician and all.”
    “All the while cheering that the political threat he represented has very neatly been taken care of, no doubt.”
    “No doubt. Gerard James wasn’t about making friends, and I really doubt he had many of them, either in the political field or out of it. Not that it mattered—not to those who cared what his party was about.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “Are you a supporter of the Nonhuman Rights League?”
    “Hell, yeah.” The elevator doors slid open. He pressed an arm against the door and ushered me inside. “I liked what they were trying to achieve.”
    “Which was?”
    “Getting us nonhumans into state and parliamentary offices so that we might actually have a voice in the things that are decided for us.”
    “Yeah, like the humans are ever going to want that.” I punched the fifth-floor button, which was the top floor, then glanced at Kade. “So if he didn’t have many friends, why was he so popular with the public?”
    “Because it was all about image, and he was good at that. He might have been an obnoxious bastard behind the scenes, but in the political arena—and on the social circuit—it was all smooth sophistication and friendliness.”
    “So if he was obnoxious and a playboy, why didn’t the human politicians make political hay out of that?”
    “Oh, they tried, but Gerard had a very good publicity machine behind