Diana Racine 02 - Goddess of the Moon

maleness? There was no denying his allure. Diana dis liked the effect he had on her.
    He leaned over and extracted two bottles of water from a small fridge next to him and offered her one. When she nodded, he placed it on the desk. She smiled at his continued reluctance to touch her and not ed he kept a barrier between them. He looked relaxed and comfortable in jeans a light blue button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up.
    “You were going to tell me why you didn't think I’d call,” Diana said.
    “Obvious. Lieutenant Lucier, of course. You two are together, aren’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t think he likes me very much.” Slater waited, letting a long moment pass before speaking. He wore the same half-way smile. “You and I have a connection he’s not part of, or didn’t you notice?”
    He drove straight to the point, and the point made Diana even more uneasy. “I wouldn’t put it that way, and I wish you wouldn’t either.”
    “How would you put it? He’s not comfortable in certain areas. Higher planes of thinking, for instance. Your lieutenant may be good at what he does, but I think he’s out of your league.”
    Diana forced a smile. “Why, Edward, you’re an intellectual snob.” He didn’t refute her, and she figured he probably agreed. “We all have different areas of expertise. You must judge yourself above mere humans? Has the mythology of the gods gone to your head?” Diana noticed a crack in his composure. Did she strike a nerve?
    “My pursuits are entirely philosophical.”
    Diana wanted to contradict him , but it would be like fueling a fire that burned out long ago, with no chance of reigniting. Still …
    “You came here because you’re curious about me. You wanted to know what it’s like to go to hell and back.”
    Again, to the point. The man didn’t waffle. “Yes.”
    “Mine is just one experience. Hell is different for everyone.” He didn’t flinch. “Have you been to hell?”
    Dozens of pictures flashed through her mind. Visions she hoped had been filed away forever. Images of carnage she wasn’t supposed to see but sometimes did. Visions her fat her failed to protect from her.
    “Yes, many times through someone else, and one time recently through my own experience. Certainly not as intense as what you’ve been through, nor as constant, but hell nevertheless.”
    “ Yes, that must have been a terrible experience. ”
    Diana thought back to her captor’s Adonis-like face , not unlike the man before her , and picked up on her inadvertent reference to another mythological god. “Yes, I looked in the face of evil, and I’ll never forget it. But sometimes evil is developed through personal history. Others made him the way he was. I doubt he was born that way.”
    “Interesting. What about the other times?”
    “ M y journeys took me into people’s minds. Places I didn’t want to go , but I had no choice .”
    Slater leaned across the desk, closing the space between them. “Could you have stopped if you wanted?”
    His scent, Patchouli, she thought, wafted off the heat of his body, and the room suddenly felt as if all the air had escaped. Rattled, s he leaned back in her chair and squirmed from the situation in which she’d put herself. “No, not once I found a connection to the missing person.”
    “ D id you always locate that person?”
    She shook her head. “No, regrettably.”
    “But most of the time.”
    “I revealed clues that led to their discovery. Is that why you don’t want to touch me?”
    “I’m not lost,” he said. “Not anymore.”
    “But you want me to know about you. Why?”
    Slater’s expression hardened , his mouth rigid, and for the first time he took his eyes off her . “Because I’ve never been able to talk about it. You don’t strike me as judgmental.”
    “Why would anyone judge the course you took?”
    “It’s ugly.” Now Slater tensed, his jaw a series of clenches. He slunk further back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Remember, I was twenty-one, brought up in a rather restrictive atmosphere. I’d discovered women and they me. I have some wear and tear on me now ― life has a way of showing, doesn’t it ? ― but at the time I was considered quite good looking. I ha d no trouble attracting women.”
    Slater paused. There was nothing innocent about the sensual way he looked at her, whether he meant it or not. Diana felt th e heat rise to her cheeks , the thrumming of her heart. The moisture in h er mouth