Tempting Evil by Keri Arthur Read Free Book Online Page A

apart from the sheer force of pleasure.
    And then he was in me, claiming me for real and in the most basic way possible. I groaned again as he gripped my hips, his fingers bruising as he held me still for too many seconds.
    But oh, it was
so
glorious, just standing there, my body throbbing with need, his body deep inside mine, heavy and hot with the same sort of need. I loved the way he seemed to complete me. It had nothing to do with his size or his shape or anything physical, because I’d certainly been with men who outstripped him in all those areas. This was far more—was almost as if when our flesh was joined, our spirits combined and danced as intimately as our bodies.
    He began to move, not gently, but fiercely, urgently, and I was right there with him, wanting everything he could give me. The deep-down ache blossomed, spreading like wildfire across my skin, becoming a kaleidoscope of sensations that washed through every corner of my mind. I gasped, grabbing the bench for support as his movement grew faster, more urgent. Then everything broke, and I was unraveling, groaning with the intensity of the orgasm. He came with me, but it wasn’t just his juices that flowed into me. So, too, did his mind.
    And he was raiding my thoughts and my memories as fast as any thief fearing discovery.
    Anger unlike anything I’d felt before surged through me, and without even thinking about it, I lowered my shields and let him have it with every ounce of psychic strength I had.
    He made a gargled sound, then the force of my psychic punch wrenched his body from mine and he was flying through the door, out into the living room, where he landed with a thump on his back.
    I re-shielded fast. Pain hit, but it might as well have been a leaf tossed on the wind, my anger was so strong. I grabbed my knickers and marched into the other room.
    “You
bastard
!” I flung the panties at him, though why I had no real idea. It wasn’t like it was a knife or a stake or anything
that
useful.
    Which is probably just as well, because right then, I would have used either one of them.
    He rubbed a hand across his eyes, then slowly raised himself up on his elbows. “How the hell did you do that?”
    “What the fuck does it matter, given what you just did?”
    “If you’d tell me the truth for a change, I wouldn’t have to resort to such measures!”
    His voice was as loud and as angry as mine, but there was a tremor in his tones that suggested I
had
hurt him. Part of me was fiercely glad. Part of me hated it.
    “I have a right to privacy. In my life, and in my thoughts.”
    “This is different.”
    “Why? Because you’re a twelve-hundred-year-old vampire who no longer has to obey the rules?”
    “And yet, for all my age, and for all my psychic skills and knowledge, you just ripped through my shields as if they were paper. And then you sent me flying. You couldn’t have done that a few months ago.”
    A cold hard knot formed deep in the pit of my stomach. He was right. God help me, he was right. Even though Jack
had
been training me in the fine art of breaking through psychic shields over the last few months, I’d never managed to break through all
his
shields, no matter how hard I’d tried. And Quinn was far more powerful than Jack.
    I licked my lips, and pushed the thoughts away. Now was not the time to think about the implications of his statement, or what it might mean to the future I so desperately wanted.
    “Don’t try changing the fucking subject.”
    He sighed, climbed a little unsteadily to his feet, and re-dressed himself. “I admitted to you months ago that I was, in part, using you. You were my quickest way of finding information about my missing friend—information that the Directorate, and my friendship with Director Hunter, wasn’t providing. That hasn’t changed—though the reason certainly has.”
    “So that’s why you’re back now?”
    “Partially. Something changed yesterday afternoon. Something is happening. I