Forbidden (42 page)

At the very least, he had come to a decision.

He walked into the room without knocking, startling her. She jumped out of her seat, fussing awkwardly to smooth her skirt and the stray wave of hair he’d caught her twisting around her finger. Aha! Finally! The queen of perfect had a foible after all. Or perhaps it was newly formed after what she had gone through. The Bodywalkers assured him that she wouldn’t remember anything … at least not in a way that would make it seem like anything more than a vivid dream. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t affect her on a subconscious level.

“Sergeant Waverly, it’s traditional to knock,” she said with a frown as she walked around her desk to confront
him. She was wearing a pair of stilettos in a hounds-tooth fabric meant to make them look respectable, but honestly that was impossible, because they were doing too fine a job of making already long legs look like walking sin. Hallelujah. And damn.

Jackson sighed.

“I’ve come here to …” He took a breath, and mentally his subconscious stepped back and let Menes come to the forefront. He leaned toward her. “I’m putting you on notice, Marissa.”

Marissa went very still, like the hunted creature she was about to become.

“W-what?” Her shock almost made him feel a little better about it.

“I think you can sense what I mean,” he prompted, coming close enough to drop his voice and whisper his next words against her hair. “I think you have sensed more than that all along.”

She swallowed, reaching nervously to tuck the loose coil of hair she’d been toying with behind her ear.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Then I suppose I’m going to have to enlighten you,” he said, smiling when she couldn’t control the shiver that skipped through her entire body. “I’ve come to realize that there is no one on this planet, in this time, more intriguing than you are. You are a puzzle, and a pretty one at that. I think perhaps it would be a terrible shame if I were to let you slip away from me.”

“Th-that would be highly inappropriate, since you are my—”

“I’ll quit the force, then. There. The professional relationship is severed.”

“What?” she gasped, a look of shock on her face. “You can’t possibly be serious!”

Menes smiled for her, the slow smile that had captured the heart of his queen over and over again, one century after another.

“Gorgeous Marissa, I have never been more serious in my life.”