Kinked by Thea Harrison Read Free Book Online Page A

“Dragos called me to talk over ideas when he put the baby down. His ideas involved more broken bones and bloodshed. At least this way, the conflict is going to get resolved one way or another—you will both work it out, or you’ll be out. We can’t have the sentinels at war with each other, Aryal.”
    She blew out a gusty sigh. He echoed her thoughts from earlier almost perfectly. “No,” she said. “I know.”
    Finally his cool demeanor warmed. He sat forward and crossed his arms on the table.
I’m glad you told me,
he said telepathically.
Did Dragos just get finished with you
?
    She dragged her hands through her hair.
Yeah.
    Graydon smiled at her.
And you came straightaway to find me.
    She lifted a shoulder and nodded.
    He put a massive hand on her forearm and squeezed gently. He told her,
You’ve got to come to peace somehow with the fact that no matter how much you hate each other, you’re both sentinels and you have to work together. You have to, Aryal. Nobody wants to lose you.
    She muttered,
That’s good to know.
    They just need the vendetta to stop. Make peace with your dead-end investigation.
Graydon leaned forward farther to deepen eye contact with her. His eyes were a darker gray than hers, the color of aged pewter, and the expression in his gaze was hard, the set of his mouth ruthless.
Either that or confirm his guilt. I know what Dragos told you. He said to work it out somehow, and he genuinely doesn’t care how. He’s got enough on his plate trying to figure out how to be a new father. I’m the one who’s telling you—you have one more month. Bring home hard evidence and we’ll use it together as nails in Quentin’s coffin. But one way or another, you need to finish this.
    I know,
she said.
I will.
    After that, the rest of her day was almost anticlimactic. The next stop on her agenda was to see a healer who eased the pain in her chest and reduced the stiffness and swelling in her face. Then she went to her office to delegate cases, blast through the most urgent of her emails, and make a half-assed attempt at organizing her desk in case someone needed to find something while she was gone.
    As soon as she had accomplished all of that, she went back to her apartment, showered and washed her hair and packed (a fifteen-minute task, as she shoved weapons, credit cards, a few changes of clothes and travel toiletries, several candy bars and her e-reader into a backpack).
    Then she ate a sandwich and fell into bed to sleep away the afternoon. She was not about to head out on some kind of assignment to unknown places with Caeravorn when she was exhausted. While she was not averse to taking risks, that just seemed like the height of stupidity.
    At 4:55 P.M. , dressed in lace-up boots, jeans, a black turtleneck and a leather jacket, and carrying her backpack on one shoulder, she walked into Dragos’s offices, which were thrumming with activity. Cuelebre Enterprises never closed at five. She waved at Kristoff, Dragos’s senior assistant, who waved back from his cubicle.
    Dragos’s door was shut. There was no sign of Caeravorn. She waited, not very well, tapping one foot. It was probably too much to hope that Caeravorn had seen the error of his ways and quit.
    Unbidden, her mind flashed back to their fight from that morning. His body had been heavy and hard as he pinned her to the floor, his muscles like iron. He was strikingly good-looking even when his lips were pulled back in a snarl.
    And when their hips had come into alignment, she had felt his cock stiffen. That beautiful penis of his, unmistakably hard and lying flush against her. She knew just what it looked like.
    Her breath shortened, and hunger flashed through her body.
    “You just say good-bye to your boyfriend?” Caeravorn said from behind her. His tone was as insolent as ever. “You should have probably taken a little more time with that. I don’t sense that you got any real … fulfillment.”
    He could smell her arousal. Her mind