As his hands wander my body, exploring me like I’m some precious artifact, an internal alarm flares. He continues to coast upward until he has my face between his palms. His fingers tormentingly sink into my hair past the nape of my neck, his hold preventing me from escaping.

Forced to stare into the void of his beautiful eyes, I sense the floor shift beneath my feet, losing gravity. “How am I supposed to visualize the scene when you’re staring at me like…” I stop myself, unwilling to finish that sentence.

He licks his lips, savoring my unease. “If you starve an animal, that animal will make a mess of its meal.”

“I’m not the meal,” I say, my voice edged in anger to control the tremble.

His smile sinks through me. He doesn’t force the subject, and instead says, “This is your crime scene, Halen.”

He spins me around and brings my back to his chest, hands fastened to my hips. “Look around at all this wild debauchery. This is what you need to visualize, to see, to feel .”

His fingers coast across my pelvis, setting off a riot of tremors. “Kallum—”

“Can you still taste the earthy notes of the wine?” he cuts me off, ignoring the plea in my voice. “The tawny mixture, thick and heady with tannins?”

The taste of the cabernet still lingers on my tongue. I swallow and nod against his chest.

“Close your eyes. Hear only the drums. Envision the reeds. The dark trees. The night. How the moonlight spills over the marsh. It’s all a part of his sacrifice.”

“Dance in my suspect’s footsteps,” I say, suspecting this is a very bad idea.

I have nothing to lose.

“Feel the heat of the fire on your skin,” Kallum encourages as he rocks us, our bodies fused together amid the strobing lights and pulsing music. “Smell the charred reeds. Taste the smoke. Let it infuse your body. The only way to connect with him is to give yourself over to the frenzy.”

I know what he’s trying to do, to make me submit to—and yet, being aware of his tactic doesn’t make it any less effective. It’s so tempting just to give in…to let myself fall away.

I clasp his wrists, my heart drumming so hard in my chest I can barely breathe.

Kallum sways us faster as the tempo increases, the music drowning out the frantic thud of my heartbeat. He overpowers me, his hand snaking across my belly, leaving a searing trail beneath my dress in his wake.

I seal my eyes closed, letting the wave crash over me.

“Tell me about the ritual,” I say, succumbing to the feel of his hands manipulating my body.

His forearm tenses around my waist. He sweeps my hair away from my shoulder, resting his mouth near the curved slope of my neck, his breath hot against my skin.

“How deep to you want to go?”

His question infuses my blood with a shot of panic. I’m wilting for him so I can snare him like a spider in a Venus flytrap. Only, my body makes my betrayal all too believable, even to me.

I force my words bold. “Make me feel it.”

His low groan vibrates against my back, sending a shockwave of arousal through my system. “You wouldn’t be fucking with me, Halen?”

Making Kallum question my intensions bolsters my resolve, and I swivel my hips provocatively, rubbing against him until I feel his stomach tense. Raising my arms, I link my wrists around the back of his neck as I grind against him.

“I want to know what you know,” I tell him. “You know more than any search engine or FBI analyst.”

The press of his erection along my backside ignites a flame in my belly, and a sliver of anxiety slices through the carnal heat—but I push back against the uncertainty.

“Be careful what you ask for, little Halen,” he says, his voice thick with restraint.

Then his hands are touching me, testing me. His thumb skims the bottom of my breast, his fingers probe downward, tracing the seam of my panties along my pelvis.

I swallow the fiery ache, keeping my eyes closed against the flashing room. “Tell me everything,” I demand.

“Pay attention.” He clamps his hands to my hips, his fingers drawing the torn hem of my skirt upward. “To become as wild and uninhibited as the Maenads, one must pass an initiation.”

“So the suspect was testing himself—”

Kallum threads his fingers in my hair and tugs, effectively silencing me. “My job is to regale you. Your job is not to think, to only feel and let the answers come.” His mouth brushes over my neck, and my mind empties, unable to grasp my previous thought.

“They were feared yet envied,” he says, swaying our bodies to the rhythm. “They were the raving ones who lived fearless and donned fawn skin and adorned headdresses of bone and ivy.”

The mutilated stag appears in my mind. I imagine the suspect wearing the skin, his body drenched in blood. He’s standing where the fire pit will be; that’s why he set the fire—to offer the blood and wine in sacrifice. None of it was a countermeasure.

“The Freemasons recorded that this aspect of the rites was passed down to the Dionysian mystery school,” Kallum continues. “Initiates wore a purple robe, and were crowned with ivy.”

I try to think past the distracting feel of his hands roving my thighs, rough fingers grazing too dangerously close to the inside seam of my panties. An uneven breath slips past my lips. “I can google that,” I say, making my voice firm. “Tell me what no one else knows.”

His deep laugh thrums through my chest, digging in with an itch I can’t scratch.

The swarm of bodies infest the energy of the room, and my body hums at a high frequency in response. Kallum curls his fingers beneath the shredded fabric of my dress, his thumb ring scraping my skin and eliciting a shiver.

“Possessed by the god’s frenzy, the initiates gave in to their base, carnal desires,” he says, his voice a husky rumble against my ear. “They danced freely, partook in wild orgies, gorged on wine, and entered a state of madness, where they reached an altered, primeval state of being.” His mouth presses behind my ear. “They went mad with pleasure.”

I mindlessly dance against Kallum, lost in a sensory of images as I visualize the offender in the throes of a passionate ritual. It’s evocative…primal. Like a beast, he let himself go feral.

“Once this state was induced, they hunted. Animals…humans… In their frenzy, they tore apart their prey. They invoked and manifested Dionysus in the bestial form. They became the Horned Hunter, and they devoured and fucked like beasts.”

My core clenches, and I involuntary roll my hips, seeking friction. Each pass of Kallum’s hands over my body stimulates every erogenous zone, wreaking havoc on my nerves. I suppress a whimper as he grips my inner thigh.

“Then the initiates entered into the night journey, descending into the depths of the underworld. When they reemerged, when they ascended , they had been gifted the wisdom of the gods. Above man, above even the gods themselves, they possessed the clarity of the universe, empowered to obtain their every desire.”

Immersed in the scene, the hoard of people disappear, and I no longer care about what they see, or any guilt or judgement. I’m all flesh and craving. I’m a lightning rod seeking the flame of his touch, desperate to sate the throbbing ache between my thighs.

“The frenzy is pure seduction,” he whispers near my ear, and I can feel the lure, the corruption, to be drawn into the hedonistic pleasure.

Wrapped in Kallum’s arms with the hypnotic music and raw, depraved hunger, it’s the temptation to forget—to become something or someone other, with no past or history.

Stepping into the offender’s shoes is always a form of escape.

Isn’t that why I lose myself in the job?

To escape…to feel something other…

Yet, there’s a line I can’t cross.

Kallum is too intelligent not to discern this. He knows the precise buttons to push to entice me right over the line.