One Hell of a Guy: The Cambion Trilogy, Book 1 Read Online Free

get you a cab,” he said.
    “I can get my own cab,” Lily said, not looking back at him as she practically shoved Miri off her barstool. “I’m fine, really. Just need a little rest.”
    “Come back another night,” he said, stepping closer. “I want to see you again.”
    “Maybe,” Lily said noncommittally as she pushed Miri in front of her, towards the door.
    He reached out and stopped her with a hand on her arm, and with his other hand he grasped her by the chin, tilted her head up so she had no choice but to look directly into those improbably blue eyes. “Tell me you will,” he said.
    She nodded, struck suddenly dumb, and he leaned down as though he were going to kiss her — Lord, how she wanted him to kiss her! — but at the last moment he shifted and brushed his lips along her jawline. Her whole body shuddered and she felt him smile, but it was an odd, grim little smile.
    Then he turned and headed away through the crowd; within moments he was gone.
    ”What the hell was that?” Miri asked, staring at Lily with her mouth open.
    “I have no idea,” Lily said. “Let’s get out of here.”  

Chapter 4

    SEBASTIAN SLAMMED INTO the back office in a fine fury, and dropped into the visitor’s chair on the near side of the big mahogany desk. By all rights he should have been on the other side, but —
    “Vivienne, why are you in my chair?”
    His mother swiveled away from the bank of security camera screens and gazed at him coolly. Her eyes were blue today, he noticed — fitting for someone as blonde as she’d chosen to be. “I’m keeping an eye on the club,” she said. “Which is more than I can say for some people in this room.”
    “My actual eyes were in the club,” he retorted. “It doesn’t get any more eyes-on than that.”
    “The only thing you had your eyes on was that chubby little redhead,” she said, crossing her long legs and leaning back in his chair. “I’m surprised at you, Sebastian. Such a non-starter.”
    He bristled. “I don’t recall asking you to vet my selections.”
    “You haven’t,” she said. “Nor would I want to. How … unseemly. Still, I don’t have to be holding auditions to have an opinion, do I?”
    “As if anyone — or anything — could stop you,” he muttered.
    “I’m just saying, she’s a nothing.” Vivienne lifted her chin and all but sniffed with disdain. “I stepped out into the club proper to get a sense of her, and I swear, it was like looking at a black hole.”
    Was she nuts? The girl had been electric with energy; he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes — or his hands — off her. Not that she’d returned the sentiment, which was starting to make a horrible kind of sense now that he knew his mother had gotten herself involved.
    “What did you do to her?” he demanded, too offended to even try to keep his tone civil.
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “You did something to her.”
    “I did nothing, Sebastian.” She turned her attention back to the screens, clearly bored. “Why would I? She’s virtually null.”
    “She turned me down.”
    Vivienne turned her face back to him slowly, eyes wide. “She did what?”
    “I asked her to dance and she said no.” He felt humiliatingly close to stamping his foot like a child. “What did you do to her?”
    “What did you do to her?” she countered. “Because when I saw her she was dancing with you. I thought you weren’t going to be enthralling anyone anymore. It felt like cheating, and all that?”
    He scowled at her. “I just gave her a little pull. To get her to dance.”
    “So, your moral fiber didn’t even outlast the first time you wanted something,” she observed archly. “It’s good to see there’s something of me in you, after all.”
    To that, he said nothing. What was there to say? He found her abhorrent, and didn’t want to be anything like her — but he had compelled Lily, when she said no.
    Still, it had been such a small thing. Just a little pull,