To Hiss or to Kiss Read Online Free Page A

house now in view, and focus on the basement I know is there behind the painted casement windows.
    After a few deep breaths, I open my mind and reach out. “Hello. Can you hear me? I’m here.” At first all is quiet, although I can feel five dogs. Four of them are hostile and suspicious to the touch of my mind, but the fifth dog responds.
    “You’re back. Thank you.”
    A small sigh escapes me and I feel myself relaxing a bit now that we’ve connected. “You’re safe with me.” I’ve found this type of reassurance works well when I work with a scared animal at the shelter.
    “I know.” The voice sounds sure of me and less tentative than the cry for help yesterday. Even stronger than her initial welcome tonight. I smile, feeling her walls come down.
    “Good. Can you tell me about the area where you are?” She sends me flashes of a dark room that smells of mustiness, filth, and dog waste. The image is dim, and I realize there is never much light in the room. As soon as I think that, the images the dog sends alter. The lights slip on and two shadowy men who reek of stale cigarette smoke are pounding around, yanking two dogs out of locked cages. The dogs are scarred yet well muscled. They protest the treatment, except for the dog I’m talking to. She cowers and whimpers, but still the men grab her roughly, the chains around her neck clanking.
    I shake my head in disgust, disturbed.
    “I’m sorry.” She stops the flood of images abruptly.
    I take a deep breath to calm the anger I feel rising in my gut. I don’t want to scare this dog or antagonize the ones who still don’t trust me. “It’s OK. But I just need to know where you are and how I can get in. I’m going to come closer to the house now.”
    I start to stand, and suddenly arms come around me from behind, one wrapped around my torso, grazing my breasts, and the other warm hand over my mouth. His hands are slightly calloused, and the soft hair on his arms tickles against my skin. He smells musky, with a hint of jasmine and the cool scent of dewy night, but not smoky like the men the dog showed me. Amid the rising panic, I feel a bit of hope that this isn’t one of the asshole dogfighters.
    “I’m not going to hurt you.” His whisper tickles my ear, his breath warm against my neck.
    The voice sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. I shiver.
    “You aren’t safe here. There are cameras around the house.”
    My mind whirls, trying to figure out what to do. My body is still frozen with panic.
    His hold tightens. “I am going to back us out of here, and then we can talk.” He starts to pull me farther into the shadows behind the barn, and something clicks in my brain. I go limp to make it harder for him to carry me. The man doesn’t even lose a beat taking on more weight. He chuckles softly.
    That just makes me mad and I start thrashing my newly unencumbered legs, trying my best to get his shin or twist my foot up higher to his groin, but he quickly grabs my legs with one arm, negating my struggle. He’s now got me almost sideways across his body to keep one hand over my mouth and the other clamped around my thighs like a vise, but I keep writhing—or at least trying to writhe. I kick back from my knees, but my heels just connect with air. Too bad I’m not insanely flexible. To my still-panicking mind, it just seems silly to stop at this point, though.
    “I’m trying to help you. If you insist on this thrashing, I will be forced to immobilize you further so the noise doesn’t alert anyone.”
    I wonder how he would do that and imagine this man’s bulk holding me down on the ground. It’s not a wholly unwelcome thought, which is all kinds of fucked up. My hormones seriously need a good talking-to. I redouble my writhing, part of me wanting to know if and how he’ll carry out his threat. The rational part of me rolls her eyes.
    I wiggle my upper leg free enough that I get a pretty good whap against the outside of his hip, and I hear a soft