Angel Bait (Angel Assassins #1) by Tricia Skinner Read Free Book Online Page B

retreating back and hesitated to follow. He headed to one side of the multi-story warehouse. Not wanting to stay outside alone, she hurried to catch up, tripping over the shoot of weeds growing through the pavement cracks. She tipped her head back and noticed two security cameras. Jarrid waited while someone inside the not-so-deserted structure let them pass.
    “Stay close to me. Don’t speak unless spoken to.”
    She rolled her eyes at his gruff order. Too bad he didn’t have a sense of humor. She liked that in a guy. That and a butt that filled out a pair of jeans. She peeked at his backside. Jarrid’s body was the kind romance novels went on and on about. Mountains of muscle. Valleys of flawless skin. A package worth unwrapping. A butt a girl could grab hold of and chip a nail. Warmth flooded her body and swelled in a damp ache between her legs.
    Come on! Not again!
    She saw his body stiffen in front of her. He craned his head to the side and inhaled. Ionie stopped, mortified.
    Oh, tell me he can’t.
    A deep rumble punched from his throat, and her momentary embarrassment shattered when he glanced at her.
    Look away. Look away. Look away
. Her mutinous body overthrew her common sense. Her gaze shot to Jarrid’s face and all she could do was gasp.
    Pure silver, like moonbeams stolen from the sky, drilled into her. Jarrid’s nostrils flared as if scenting prey. Ionie’s brain dissolved into gelatin under the scrutiny. His gaze held her and a wave of God knows what hit her like a cold caress. A moan slipped through her opened lips. She should be freezing. She should be scared stupid by the invisible force roving over her skin in teasing licks, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do a damned thing.
    “Is there a part of me you’d like to see up close?” Jarrid’s face was miles away from calm. His lips seemed too full, too ready to kiss away the scant oxygen remaining in her lungs. She swallowed the tennis ball of need lodged in her throat and tried to rein in her traitorous libido.
    “Where are we?” she asked, hoping the subject change didn’t come off as forced as it sounded to her.
    Jarrid only watched, his keen eyes seeming to see more than he should. She squirmed in spite of herself. The corner of his mouth quirked up in the facsimile of a smile before the expression disappeared behind a new mask.
    “Follow me, and remember what I told you.”
    The gate opened to admit them and he turned away. Ionie shook her muddled brain clear. She’d never felt so unnerved, or so aroused. She followed him. The second door looked too new to be part of the original structure. It was a deep gray, closer to black, with an indentation the size of Bigfoot’s hand embedded in it. Jarrid placed his right palm onto the spot, and a faint light glowed beneath it.
    Ionie’s curiosity assailed her. “What is that? Does it read handprints? Seems a little too James Bond for a place like this. Does it scan DNA, or is it … ”
    Jarrid removed his hand, threw back his head, and mumbled something to the ceiling. If he prayed for her to shut up, she hoped God laughed at him. “You’ll ask no more questions. You’ll never reveal anything you see or hear tonight in a future article. If you wish to have a future.”
    His rough words sunk in, dousing her arousal in frigid water. She glanced at the large door and schooled her features into a mask of her own.
    “I don’t scare easy. Stop trying to frighten me.”
    “I’m not trying,” he said, leaning forward until his nose was inches from hers. The bastard sniffed her, like a curious canine. “You smell nervous, among other things.”
    Ionie reeled back on her heels. Only pride and hours on her elliptical kept her from passing out from shock. Blood rushed to super-heat her cheeks.
    “Shall we continue inside?” Jarrid pressed his hand into the grooved receptacle and the quiet space filled with the metallic hiss of a latch releasing. He stepped through the door. Ionie exhaled