The Alpha Men's Secret Club 4: Intrigue: A Shockingly Hot BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance by Dawn Steele Page A

hairs.”
    At this, Shamilar quailed again.
    Rust said, “ You left with Teddy Mitchell after I spurned you for the second time, didn’t you? After I pushed your mouth away from my cock, you left the gardens. And you waited. Perhaps Teddy Mitchell came over to you after our quarrel. Perhaps some security camera caught you leaving with him.”
    He knew that Shamilar did not know the finer details of the case. Those details were only something the police and the CSI knew. Not even the perpetrator would know exactly what he or she left at the scene of the crime, especially when it came down to forensics.
    All the blood had drained out of Shamilar’s face. If looks went, she was already as guilty as hell.
    “If I left with him,” she said carefully, “and that’s a big ‘if’, it doesn’t mean anything.”
    “Not on its own,” he agreed. “But Teddy was killed by a large animal. Perhaps you and he shifted into your animal forms and went on a run in the woods behind his father’s house. Perhaps you even had sex. But something happened. You had an argument. Or you wanted to pay Teddy back for what he did to you in the past.”
    Shamilar laughed softly. “You’re reaching, Rust.”
    “So you killed him . . . and either you still had my pubic hairs in your mouth when you fellated me, or you kept them somehow to be used as premeditated evidence. Because they were found in Teddy’s fatal chest wound and traced back to me. You meant them to be traced back to me.”
    He watched her face carefully.
    She said, “You’re deluded.”
    “I don’t think I am.” His voice dropped a notch. He was sad. Really sad it had come to this. “Hell hath no fury after all, and I believe you are one of those women who will not stand to be embarrassed in such a manner, Shamilar. You hold a high account of yourself and any manner of rejection is seen as humiliation.”
    “You have no proof of anything,” she declared. “You have a wire on you, don’t you, Rust? That’s what you came here for. For entrapment.”
    He did indeed have a wire on him, but it was not something he corroborated with the NYPD. It was something Kate, Derek and he decided upon.
    Shamilar said, “I’m not going to let you entrap me, Rust. I have not said anything that would incriminate me, as you dearly would love me to.” She threw down her napkin. “Consider this meeting over.”
    Her eyes burned, and yet there was something phenomenally sad in them.
    Rust said, “I don’t have to entrap you, Shamilar, although that would be best for my case. I just have to create reasonable doubt.”
    “Goodbye, Rust.” Her veneer was starting to crack, and she turned heel and left quickly.
    His heart writhed within his chest cavity. She loved him, he knew. She had once loved him and she still loved him. And he was certain that she loved him enough to kill him.
    The waiter came back with their appetizers.
    “White asparagus with scallops for you, sir, and a nicoise salad for the lady. I trust she will be coming back, sir.”
    “Don’t count on it,” Rust said as he adjusted the hidden microphone in his lapel.

25
     
    Truth be told, they didn’t have anything on Shamilar except to cast reasonable doubt on the entire case.
    “You did as well as you could,” Derek said.
    “She didn’t admit to anything,” Kate stated. Her mind was still churning with what she had heard over the wire and on replay.
    Rust and Shamilar. Behind the bushes in Aaron Mitchell’s grounds. Seized by lust.
    Shamilar taking his cock in her mouth and fellating him.
    Kate’s cheeks burned.
    What did you expect? That he would forsake sex with all other women for you? And he came clean to you, didn’t he? He didn’t want to hide anything from you.
    But still, it was the elephant in the room at that moment for her. She knew they had bigger things to worry about and contend with, but it niggled at her. She couldn’t get the vivid image of Shamilar on her knees with Rust’s cock in her