Smoldering Nights Read Online Free

this? How long had it been since I had a lover? Months, almost bordering on a year.
    I’d never wanted anyone with this sort of urgency.
    It felt so good to feel like a woman again. He brought out sensations that made me so aware than I was female, flesh and blood. I felt animalistic, primal urges wanting to get out.
    “Please—now,” I said. “I don’t care if it’s too soon. Or if it’s wrong. I want you. And I can’t wait any longer.”
    “Me neither, chérie.”
    A tremendous bang rocked the club and bright flashing colors filled the room. At first, I thought it was my body reacting to Michel’s touch. But then I saw the wall closest to the desk blown away, leaving nothing but dark night in its wake and debris floating around the room.
    Michel jumped up and ran toward what was once a wall with a window.
    Startled from my haze of lust, I quickly recovered. I remembered I was a firefighter and snapped into action.
    “Michel, back up. It’s not safe.”
    He stayed where he was and I ran over, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him back. I saw two men dressed in black standing in the alley below.
    “I’ve been looking for you, Michel,” the larger one said, pronouncing the French name as perfectly as Michel had . “And now I’ve found you. Come out and play.”
    Michel bared teeth and snarled an animalistic growl. Only those weren’t teeth, I saw. They were definitely fangs.
    Fangs! What the hell was that all about? What the heck kind of person had fangs?
    “You want to do it like this , Ricard,” he said, motioning to the debris falling out the window.
    I didn’t have time to comprehend what I just saw.
    Michel turned toward me. “Nike, get away from here. Go find someplace safe.”
    “What about you?” I asked, and then looked down at those imposing figures below. “Come with me. Let’s get out of here.”
    “I can’t, chérie. Unfinished business.”
    In a movement almost too quick for me to register, Michel ran forward and jumped right through the hole and into the night.
    I screamed and ran to the window, ignoring my own warning. He descended the two stories to the concrete below, and then landed unharmed on the balls of his feet, just like a cat.
    The larger guy hissed and went after Michel.
    That’s when I was hit by a cloud of smoke from below. Holding my breath, I ran back into the room. A fire had started below where there were hundreds of people jammed into the club.
    I grabbed a Rock Hard Climbing T-shirt from a chair and covered my nose and mouth with it as I ran out into the stairwell. Seeing the stairs were clear, I ran down them as fast as I could in my stiletto heels, wishing I wore something faster and more functional.
    I pushed open the black door back into the club and walked into pandemonium.

Chapter Three
     
    Michel
    They were here. They found me.
    I couldn’t believe the drastic changes in the past few minutes. In one moment, I was kissing the woman I’d wanted for months. The next, my former comrade blew up both my fantasy and my club. Now I was on the cold streets of a New England night rather than in the arms of a sultry woman.
    “I told you I would one day come,” Ricard said. “You owe me for what you’ve taken from me.”
    We circled each other, ready and waiting for the other to pounce.
    “You still blame me for her death?” I asked. “I’ve explained many times before.”
    “It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t bring her back!”
    “I lost someone too. How many more lives must we lose?”
    Worried about Nike, I glanced over to the blown-out wall, which was a mistake. It was enough to set Ricard off.
    “There’s someone in there you care about. I can feel it.” He took a sniff of the air around me. “I can smell her on you. Perhaps if I go in there and take her life it will make me feel better about my Marie?”
    A fury arose in me I hadn’t felt since my days as a soldier on the battlefield. I howled as I leaped onto Ricard, ready to tear