Vowed in Shadows Read Online Free Page B

said.”
    â€œI haven’t paid yet.”
    â€œYou will.”
    â€œIs that a threat?” Those cold blue eyes glinted at her with a touch of purple.
    She hesitated, remembering her dream of glowing eyes and Amber’s strange observation. A wayward stage light? Did it matter when he was waiting for her answer? Every possible reply seemed like empty banter.
    So she kissed him.
    She pressed her mouth to his and sucked his lower lip between her teeth. She nibbled, gently at first, then meaner, while her fingers cradled his head.
    Or held him fast, depending on the perspective. She felt him straining, with nowhere to go except to sink against the chair. Why he didn’t just throw her off, she didn’t know. She was strong from years of pole work, but she didn’t kid herself that she could truly restrain him. Her feelings should be hurt that he was so obviously not enjoying his enjoyment. But she felt too good with the hot bulk of him between her legs, the fine silk of his hair tickling her fingers.
    The AC chill prickled over her spine. “I’m cold,” she whispered against his mouth. “Hold me.”
    â€œIt’s the demon,” he murmured. “Don’t let it take you.”
    â€œYou can take me. If you want.” Was that her voice—so needy?
    â€œNot my demon. Yours.”
    She hardly cared to make sense of his rambling. Something about demons, but she’d heard that nonsense before from the religious wack jobs who occasionally picketed outside the club when they weren’t contemplating their navels or the end of the world, whichever came first. He’d already promised not to try to save her.
    His body, hard against hers, was made for sin. His big shoulders supported the weight of her elbows as she cradled his head. She tasted the sugar from the drink on his tongue. Between her knees, his lean hips jerked once, and she laughed into his mouth.
    â€œTell me you didn’t just come,” she said.
    â€œYou need to come with me.”
    â€œI will.” She couldn’t silence the moan. “I will.”
    â€œNo, come with me after.”
    After what? she meant to ask aloud, but her body was shuddering over him, caught in the grip of something more unnerving than the hook he’d braced below her breast, holding her upright as her vision grayed.
    â€œLook at me,” he demanded. “Don’t let it take you.”
    But she wanted to. It felt so easy, a blissful slide into nothingness that even a burning match pressed to her flesh wouldn’t illuminate.
    â€œNim?” His hand cupped her cheek, not the bullyboy grip he’d used earlier, but tenderly. That hurt worse than the cold sinking through her bare skin. “Nim, look at me.” His voice thickened.
    She blinked into his violet eyes. “Did you spike the drink?”
    â€œNo. You are feeling the last stages of your demonic possession.”
    â€œOh, God,” she groaned. Not in a good way.
    â€œNo,” he repeated patiently. “Demon. It is rising in you. Like the bane demon is within me.”
    Something was rising in him, all right, right under her hand. An aroused crazy man with a hook had her in his clutches—in his clutch, she supposed—and she was losing consciousness, probably drugged, never mind what he said, because, really, even a crazy man wouldn’t admit he’d poisoned his evening’s entertainment. Bane, he’d said. Men had always been the bane of her existence. Her thoughts did the cornered-rat thing, constricted by the darkness closing in around her.
    â€œThis will be hard for you to believe.” The crazy man’s voice, low and urgent in her ear, cut a path through the threatening oblivion, like a tantalizing way out. “That dream you had the other night?”
    How had he known about that? Obviously, he’d been lurking around the club for the past week. Had he followed her home that night? Had he