Hunger for You (Shadow Shifters: Damaged Hearts) Read Online Free Page B

I thought of all the reasons why I shouldn’t be here, why I should have simply gone back to my apartment and continued to stay far away from this bar and this female. I don’t do connections—that was the first reason as clearly stated by the pattern of my life. I had gone from an orphan to the adopted son of Gil and Marta Sanchez, traveling the world with them and their two sons and daughter, to finally wandering around the human world on my own. Alone, which is how I always figured I’d end up.
    Second, she was a human and I was a Shadow Shifter. No bigger taboo existed, at least not in the shifter world—the world in which I lived with one foot in and the other out, thanks to my mixed heritage. My mother had been a ShadowShifter, while my father—the rotten bastard that had abused and raped my mother—had been a human. That should probably have made me hate the entire species but my mother had told me stories of other humans that lived outside of our village in the Gungi rainforest. They had been generous and compassionate to her, helping to clean her up after my father had brutally attacked her, and bringing her back to the Gungi. There had even been an old shaman that had come to our home to warn my mother about returning to the human village in search of my father. Apparently the old man with all his medicinal remedies and spiritual contacts had foreseen my mother’s fate. She hadn’t listened, led by the love for a man who had no use for her, and died for her efforts.
    Again, I should hate humans, but I don’t. In fact, the human named Zoe was even more intriguing to me. I couldn’t get her out of my mind, not the soft sway of her hair along her shoulders, or the vibrant color of her eyes, or the soft, yet firm tone of her voice. Each time I closed my eyes I could see her, when I tried to drift off into sleep I imagined her, and when I woke up with a hard-on each morning, I wanted her.
    With much futility I slammed my palms against the steering wheel, staring at the front door of the bar. It was closed but the lighted sign in the window right beside it stated the bar was OPEN . In another fifteen minutes that sign would switch to CLOSED and a half hour to forty-five minutes afterward, Zoe would come out. I knew her schedule now, knew the days she worked her seven or eight hours and got off at ten and the days she stayed until close of business. Tonight she was closing so I was waiting. What I was going to say or do when she came out I had no idea.
    The screech of tires on asphalt ripped me from my thoughts and I immediately shifted my attention to the front of the parking lot. A black Hummer came into the lot pumping the piercing lyrics of Maroon 5 into the air and at a speed that just about promised a collision with the front wall of the building. Before I could think better of it I was out of my truck, stopping at the bumper as the other truck also came to a halt. The passenger-side front and back doors opened quickly and out jumped two guys. They laughed, the first guy turning to bump his fist against the other guy’s before both of them headed toward the front door. The driver came out last, switching off the ignition but keeping the music playing loudly.
    It was Dex, I knew it the moment he came around the front of the vehicle and leaned against it. I stood at the front of my vehicle, not leaning, but staring pointedly at him. When I was out here three nights ago with Zoe there had only been floodlights at the back of the building. Tonight, when I pulled up I noticed that new lights had been added to the front aswell. They’d stayed lit for about ten minutes after I’d parked my truck, probably enough time for someone to park their vehicle, get out, and walk into the bar. It was a good safety measure, one that they’d probably needed to have installed a long time ago. I wondered if Zoe had gone into work the day after our encounter and complained that she didn’t feel safe.
    With a frown, I