Blood Shadows Read Free

head with one of his.
    Her eyes flared as she snapped back a breath, their eyes meeting for the first time.
    Hers were captivatingly bright, their milky-coffee colour beautifully offset by her flawless pale skin. Her shoulder-length sandy-brown hair was still damp and tousled from the rain, its unruliness suiting her. From a distance she could be mistaken for unassuming, but up close she was pretty. Her features were delicate, her full lips enticing – lips that under any other circumstance he would already have been tasting. And from the sudden dilation of her pupils, the flush in her cheeks, he wasn’t alone in liking what he saw.
    It was a shame. Another place, another time, she had enough feistiness to keep it interesting until he chose to exhaust her, playfully and cruelly manipulating the resilience indicative of her kind. Because the more self-controlled they were, the more pleasurable it was. And this girl oozed restraint.
    But this was no time to play. This was about preserving her until it was time to drain her body, mind and spirit. This was about toying with her slowly and excruciatingly until she made that fatal choice of letting him in, allowing him access to that otherwise inaccessible soul.
    He raked the tranquilizer gun teasingly down her chest, along the top of her jeans, now sitting loose on her slender hips, over the inviting hint of bare flesh, the subtle curve of her toned stomach. Hitching the waistband down just a little further, his gaze lingered tauntingly on the cream lace band of her underwear before meeting her eyes again. ‘Are you calling my bluff, Caitlin?’
    Her chest heaved beneath her T-shirt, her defiant gaze fixed with steely determination on his. Her curt breaths were enticingly sexy, her pulse racing, her warm body trembling.
    ‘Or maybe you’re just stalling until the real agents show up?’ he added.
    Caitlin’s eyes narrowed in indignation. ‘I’ll repeat: Kane Malloy, I’m detaining you on twenty-one alleged accounts of crimes against members of the third species, including your own, thirty-two against humans, crimes of the third, second and first degree. You will be detained until further notice whereon you will undertake questioning through which a confession is recommended. Should you elect not to confess, your shadow will be read. If you are subsequently found guilty of any charges, your reticence will automatically qualify you for a more severe sentence.’
    The girl was unbelievable. Hauled up against a wall and still reading him his rights. Taming her for the sheer pleasure of it really would have made for an interesting couple of nights.
    ‘You don’t do submissive well, do you, Caitlin?’
    ‘I don’t do submissive at all.’
    He leaned closer, his mouth hovering less than an inch from hers, her erratic breath evocative against his lips. She recoiled tight against the wall, forging whatever distance she could. To taunt her further, he nudged her thighs apart, keeping them that way with one of his. The panic in her eyes was further confirmation of what he’d guessed from her reaction when he’d unclasped her belt: Caitlin was way out of her depth coming after him. And if the stakes hadn’t been so high, he’d already be proving it.
    ‘Tell me you’ve never fantasised about this moment,’ he said, revealing just enough of his incisors to goad her.
    Her pulse raced as she floundered under his scrutiny. ‘I have,’ she said breathily. ‘Only I’d already lodged a stake in your dysfunctional heart. Now are you going to pull that trigger or am I supposed to stand here all night until you work out how to use it?’
    He laughed tersely, but then he saw something in her eyes. There was uneasiness there – an uneasiness that wasn’t attributed to VCU agents used to staring into the eyes of vampires for a living. She clearly knew he wasn’t an ordinary vampire. And if she’d known that beforehand, her actions in pursuing him were far more than just reckless,