Dark Desires After Dusk by Kresley Cole Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t have time to arrange them into threes, but could barely resist the urge. Just don’t look down .
    Yet she had to in order to grab shampoo. Taking a breath, she plucked up a bottle.
    Then she closed her eyes as she lathered her hair, trying to ignore her pointed ears with their sensitive, sharp tips and her longer, stronger… claws.
    After shampooing her hair twice and rinsing conditioner through it, she scrubbed her skin till it burned.
    Cadeon hadn’t wanted her to gaze at her new features, but she had no inclination to. She just wanted out of this nightmare, wanted to get back to her ordered life, her ordered loft, her on-track career—
    Oh, God, Tim!
    Her boyfriend of over two years was even now in California presenting their research at a conference, working for their future. They planned for him to get a job at a local software security firm and continue his research, while she would teach.
    How could she face him like this? How could she explain? Well, I got struck by this bolt of lightning, and, voilà, I was able to kill a dozen demons. Did the lightning hurt? No, it felt great. Like a hug from someone you’d really missed.
    She had to get this condition reversed, would be willing to do just about anything not to be like this any longer.
    Would I trust Cadeon to help me? The comforting presence she’d sensed watching her for so long—
    could it possibly have been him?
    She remembered him from the day she’d won that award for differential equations student of the year.
    He’d stammered and flushed, behaving so differently from tonight, when he’d been confident and strong.
    And cocky . He couldn’t have been more cocky. It was as if he had a separate personality or even a bolder twin.
    Her eyes widened as she recalled him in the truck, touching her…privately. In all the chaos, she remembered that burning hand covering her between her thighs, his rough palm holding her up…his low growl that made her breath hitch.
    When she turned under the water, the spray hit her breasts, and it felt delicious. Tingles of pleasure radiated through her….
    How could she be aroused after what she’d been through tonight? And after what she’d almost been through?
    That man—that fiend—had been about to rape her on a stone altar. They all had. At the memory of all of them leering at her, thinking they would be inside her, she shuddered with disgust, any warmth dissipating.
    Yet they hadn’t hurt her, because she’d protected herself. She’d killed tonight. Viciously.
    And I did it with joy in my heart.
    At that thought, she gave a cry, her eyes flashing open, hands diving down to collect the bottles. The impulse to systematize the random couldn’t be resisted. She bent down, collecting the eleven samples.
    Not a multiple of three, but it would have to do.
    On the edge of the tub, she set out three groups of three with spaces between them, all labels out, of course. She leaned back and eyed the spaces, adjusting them for equidistance. She set the two remaining bottles on the other side of the tub, on their tops. If they were upside down and separated, then they weren’t part of the same set as the others. They wouldn’t have to be included. She’d nullified them.
    She rose, and her eyes immediately began scanning for something else to arrange—
    A hand shot through the water, snatching her arm and yanking her out of the shower. The side of her face collided with a bared, muscular chest. Just as she was about to shriek, Cadeon covered her mouth with a callused palm. “They’re coming…” He
    trailed off, those green eyes dipping to her body as she futilely tried to shield her nudity. Seeming to give himself a shake, he produced a T-shirt. “Here. Arms up!” “Stop looking at me! I need to dry o—”
    “Holly, put your goddamned arms up!” Startled into complying, she did, and he dragged a man’s T-shirt over her wet body. He smoothed the shirt down her, boldly, familiarly.
    “I’m not