Jacob by Jacquelyn Frank Read Free Book Online Page B

the impulse was futile. And if he were going to be completely honest with himself, there had been a moment earlier when even he had felt the powerful draw of a soft, warm body and big, beautiful moon-lavender eyes.
    Jacob swore softly, running his hand through his hair again as he moved to pour himself a drink. It wasn’t mortal alcohol he reached for, however, it was animal milk—at body warmth, preferably, but room temperature sufficed. Goat’s milk, sheep’s milk, and even other more exotic kinds of milk produced for the young of more unusual animals were intoxicating to Demons somewhat like alcohol was to mortals; the average pasteurized homogenized milk in stores was about as potent as a cup of grape juice, where something like giraffe’s milk would be the equivalent of a strong, exotic brandy. The rest were stronger and weaker depending on the animal and where it was raised, much as a particular winemaker or grape grower could produce something indigenous only to its breed of grapes and its region of growth.
    Jacob poured himself a glass of Himalayan goat’s milk and sank down into the depths of an easy chair. He rolled his head around, trying to ease some of the kinks in his neck, mulling over all the same thoughts again, knowing that soon, whether he made sense of things or not, he was going to have to talk to Noah.
    “Hello?”
    Jacob started at the soft, unsure greeting, lurching to his feet and turning sharply to see Isabella rubbing sleep out of her eyes as she walked heavily down from one step to the next.
    Impossible!
    He was not able to cast sleep inducements into a person’s mind like Kane could or force them into sleep by draining them of all their energy as Noah could, but he sure as hell knew how to blend potent enough herbs to do the trick. She should have been out for hours!
    “Oh, hello,” she said, smiling at him sleepily when she spied him gaping at her from below. “Jacob, right?”
    “Right,” he agreed, at a loss to do anything other than respond.
    His eyes raked over her as he tried to puzzle a solution, but he only succeeded in reminding himself what a fabulously luscious figure she had. She’d soiled her clothes at the warehouse, so he had stripped her of her jeans, T-shirt, and socks and had clothed her in one of his own shirts. Somehow, seeing her in it, breathing, awake, and vital, made for an alluring visual stimulus. She carried herself in a kittenish sort of way, slow and vulnerable and irresistibly inviting. Her long, black boa of silken hair dipped both outside of and within the collar spread wide over her small shoulders. The deep vee of the shirt beneath her throat, caused by neglected buttons in his earlier haste, allowed space for one long lock of midnight to snake down her breastbone and into the enticing hollow between her breasts. Hers was a breathtaking shape, boasting ample curves for so slight a frame. Gorgeous, full breasts, a drawn-in waist, the curves at her sides set just deep enough to settle both hands within them, fingers spreading out over soft belly or tempting hips or...
    Jacob felt his blood surging in hot response to his imagination, his body hardening so unexpectedly and so swiftly that it took his breath away. He turned his head away quickly, tearing his eyes off her and muttering a fiery expletive under his breath. His glass slammed down on the table in front of him and he pressed his hands atop the furniture, as if the feel of the wood could somehow ground him. His hearing, always sensitive, picked up the sound of her body and clothing as she completed her descent into the parlor. Even though she was half a room away, he could track her scent. That clean fragrance had altered, heated by sleep and perfumed by the freshly laundered sheets of his guest room. It reminded him of a sultry summer night, filled with flowers still warmed by daylight, clean damp grasses, and the sweet, delicate musk of a being clearly of the opposite sex.
    Fresh, pure, warmly