Caress of Flame by Sherri L. King Read Free Book Online Page B

hand tightened and his flesh grew alarmingly hot. “I will not let you do it. If need be, I will carry you out of that club every night as I did last night. I care not that your people will see me for what I am—an Incinerator, a Shikar—I care only that you stop this line of work.”
    Isis tried to pull her hand back but he wouldn’t let go and only held it tighter, his skin nearly singeing hers it had grown so hot. “You can’t stop me,” she heard herself say and immediately she knew it was the wrong thing to say to him.
    “You give me little choice,” he said tightly. “You know I could keep you here, against your will, forever if I so choose to.”
    “You wouldn’t,” she said with a show of confidence she did not feel.
    “I won’t let you keep doing this.”
    “You have no choice in the matter,” she told him plainly. “Now,” she said more gently, “take me home.”
    Flare stood swiftly and jerked her to her feet. She fell, off balance, against him. One of his hands held her arm with easy strength and the other tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck. Isis saw what he meant to do and there was no fight in her. She wanted it as much as he did. Maybe even more.
    The heat of his lips on hers was intense. She gasped, opening her mouth and accepting his tongue. He kissed her forcefully, bending her to his will with nothing but the strength of their combined passion. Heat wafted off him in waves and she instinctively knew this was no simple kiss of seduction, but a forceful reminder of who had the upper hand in this bizarre situation she found herself in.
    His kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun and she nearly fell against him as she fought to keep kissing him. They broke apart, both breathless and shaken. “I’ll take you home,” he said and reached for her once again.
    3 Chapter Five
     
    The world fell away, the great stone chamber disappearing, and she felt that strange sensation of flying at high speed, almost as if she were caught in the path of a hurricane.
    Seconds passed—years could have passed and she wouldn’t be the wiser—as she clung to him with her eyes shut tight. Then she felt the ground beneath her feet once more and when she opened her eyes she saw that she was at The Pink Pit, beside her car, in the dead of night.
    “Neat trick. But I don’t have my keys.”
    Flare disappeared. Isis, startled, looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
    The man had simply vanished before her eyes. A second later he reappeared and handed over her purse. She took it, not even wanting to know how he’d gotten the thing, and automatically dug for her car keys.
    “Okay,” she said slowly, dragging the word out. Isis shook her head as if to clear it.
    “Get in,” she said finally, unlocking the car’s doors with a press of a button on her key.
    “Will you try to dance tonight?” he asked.
    Isis heard the key word in his question. “Try”. He still meant to stop her from doing her job. She admired his tenacity. She shook her head again. “I’m not scheduled for tonight,” she told him simply as she cranked the car and pulled away from the nearly empty parking lot.
    “God, I wonder what time it is,” she mused aloud. The night was deep and dark, well underway, but how far?
    “It’s five and a half hours until sunup,” Flare told her promptly.
    “How do you know that?” She glanced at him for a second then resumed looking at the road before her.
    “I can feel the sun.”
    “Right now? In the dead of night?” Isis asked, incredulous. This magic man was so full of surprises that she wasn’t sure her heart could take much more.
    “Shikars cannot stand the sun. Well, most cannot,” Flare quickly rectified. “Its rays are too strong and it burns our skin.”
    “So you won’t be watching me by day, only by night?” she exclaimed, nonplussed.
    “You won’t need protection by day,” he told her gently. “The Daemons can only come out by night. You need not fear