Free Forever by Jacquelyn Frank Page A

longer. Except, perhaps, in the way furtive parts of her mind began wondering things like … how would his lean, sexy body feel pressed to hers, his hot wet skin slick against her and all that delicious muscle clasped around her … holding her … moving and shifting within her and making exquisite love to her?
    She wanted to laugh at herself for the utter absurdity of it all. How could she possibly be thinking about any of that after what she had just seen him do? After she knew what deadly things he was capable of? She didn’t even know who he was anymore … if she ever had at all. She didn’t even know
what
he was anymore. In the flesh as he was he looked all human … or actually, fairly godlike as he seethed with power and energy.
    He advanced on her and she skittered back, barely keeping herself on her feet as she snagged herself on the bracken and underbrush. Oh Christ. She was out there all alone with him. This was one of those moments when she wanted to curse herself for her foolhardy devotion to doing a thankless job. She had no business being out there, just as he had said. Maybe now she knew why.
    “I-I didn’t see anything,” she stammered out. “I swear … I’ll-I’ll … I won’t say a word. You know, therapeutic confidentiality and all that.” She laughed, the sound weak and tinny.
    “Aw c’mon, Doc. You and I both know that flies out the window if you think I am a danger to myself or others.”
    Damn. Damn, damn,
damn
! He was too smart for her own good, and she had always known that. It was,perhaps, why she had worked so hard to give him a wide berth. Or maybe it had been an instinctive reaction, some sort of flight mechanism that had kicked into effect for her, recognizing an apex predator subconsciously and working hard to keep herself far away from the danger he represented.
    Only that was a bald-faced lie in part. Never, in all the times she had seen him, had she thought of him as being an unmitigated danger. She had come to know this man. He was thoughtful, conscientious, and, she had thought until this moment, he was perhaps the most law-abiding creature on the planet. His seeming devotion to doing the lawful thing, even when that lawful thing was contrary to what was very obviously not the
right
thing, had always struck her. Like setting a man loose he had known in his soul was a pedophile, a predator of small children, because he had no sure proof … or rather not enough to convince the DA to prosecute the case. But what he
had
done was spend his time off doggedly watching the man’s every step until he did have that proof and could see him prosecuted. It was why he ought to have been detective grade by then … only he had held himself back, and s to make me feel …umAPhe had always thought it was because he felt far more valuable as a K-9 officer.
    She didn’t very much trust all the things she had thought at the moment.
    “Well,” she edged out, “subjectively, he was a very
very
bad man. I mean, okay, so it would have been better if he’d had a trial of his peers, b-but clearly …” She trailed off, unable to finish because they both knew she was making it up as she went along and there was no passion of conviction behind her words.
    “There are things in this world, Marissa, that you have no comprehension of,” he said softly … dangerously … ashe stepped toward her persistently, putting her into a steady back-stepping retreat.
    “Clearly,” she said dryly. “It’s not every day a gal watches someone evaporate into thin air.”
    “You know something, that pluck of yours is probably the reason why we’ve had a jones for you for just about as long as we can remember.”
    “W-we?” she hitched out. Like the royal We? Or we as in … dissociative identity disorder we? Great. Not only could he wield deadly power at a whim, he was also mentally unbalanced.
    He hesitated for an instant but then he was stepping forward again, twigs snapping under