Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) Read Online Free Page A

slipped my wrists around his neck, inhaling woody cologne and sharp aniseed liqueur. Mmm. His hair trailed over my forearms, coarse and wonderful, and my gaze dragged itself to his mouth and stayed there. I remembered kissing, the visceral taste of a man's mouth, the smooth rub of tongues, the scrape of teeth. Can't imagine it's changed. His ripe lips inched apart, and the sight snatched my breath away. "You live near here?"
    "Yep."
    "Good. You'll take me there, and we'll, umm, pass a bit of time. When we're finished, you'll go live somewhere else and I'll stay there. That okay with you?"
    "Sure."
    I leaned in and slid my lips across his, left to right. Soft, hot, skin catching on supple skin, a dizzying mouthful of alcohol-sweet breath. Longing stabbed down my body, straight from my mouth to my sex, and my skin broke out in needy bumps.
    Oh, yeah. He'd do just fine.
     
    ***
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    Fuck.
    I crack my forehead against the steel and crush the pistol barrel into my temple, itching to pull.
    I can't believe I let him get away because of a woman .
    Some clumsy black-eyed girl in a dog collar, cute ass and sweet breasts, falling over her own stilettos to get away from me. Who I couldn't even shoot, because I kept seeing Katie on the floor drenched in blood and wondering if this girl had someone who'd see her like that, and because her lips were painted blue like a mortuary corpse's and I wanted to kiss them, and because she saw what I am and didn't scream or puke or run away . . . Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
    Fluid squelches under the pistol's metal, dripping down my cheek, and I grind my wobbly teeth together and remind myself there's no point in pulling the trigger. Just another hole in my head, more mess to clean up on the bathroom floor tonight. But my bones judder like I haven't moved or hurt in an age, and damn it if I'm not still quivering and hot from that hard-on.
    Chill, Tam. Go home, shower, jerk off. Got a couple of hours?
    I bang my head again, and sweet pain teases my nerves, tickling like some feral dominatrix's feather, never quite enough. Again, spreading that wet black stain, blood running sour into my mouth. Again. More. Until pain hurts like it used to, until I can feel again. Until I can go back to being alive. God, I fucking hate this.
    "Tam, stop it."
    I hate how Gavain says my name, too, and I grimace at that breathy, spaced-out voice. His long hot fingers slide on my wrist, twisting the weapon from my hand.
    I squeeze, my knuckles popping, but he's stronger than he looks and the sticky metal rips from my palm, taking a layer of skin with it. My nerves spark at last, current zapping down my arm, and it's bliss.
    Not now, Gavain.
    My voice cracks, dry and salty like potato chips in my throat. "Don't."
    But he does. He always does. Soft hands on my shoulders, sliding beneath my hair, the spice of faeblood sluggish in my nostrils. My tongue stings, foul with stupid rage. I want to twist those goddamn gentle hands behind his back and throw him on the floor. I want to bruise that fragile faeborn face, teach him what it is to rely on me.
    I spin around and slam my palms into his chest. "I said, don't touch me."
    Gavain's fairy-light, and he stumbles backwards, but his uncanny balance changes it into a graceful tilt-and-straighten. His lips tremble, velvety like raspberries, and wordlessly he tosses my pistol on the bench, scoops his shirt up from the floor and tugs it over his head. A steel-grey T-shirt, slashed off ragged at the shoulders. It suits him.
    I wipe his red sweat from my wrist, rubbing it so I don't have to look at him. I might be dead and determined but I'm not beyond a twinge of remorse, and besides, he's . . . well, he's him. Dark chocolate hair, always in slutty wet tangles you want to yank around your fists. Haunted ruby eyes that beseech you for a moment of your regard, that exotic fae-slim body just begging to be dragged to its knees and punished. Half human, half